Tech and Talk > Gaming > PC gaming GAMES > Dragon Age: Origins

reply to Ash3r

Re: Dragon Age: Origins

reply to Uncle Paul

reply to Ash3r
Well at least you US folks weren't lied to. I have to wait to the 5th, 6th or 7th, not even sure about which, because I am not in NA. That would have been fine, IF they had told me that in the beginning by setting my timer countdown to the correct damned unlock time/date.

*Whhoooshh* - Huge let down after the huge buildup.

EDIT: Ok just found out it's the 7th for me lol. Ah joy.

As quiet as a fish..

reply to TigerLord

reply to Ash3r
For a while the crack was nowhere to be found alone, until gamecopyworld had it.

I ended up using it... really irks me I need to be a pirate to make a product I paid for work.

I was going to say, for future reference - Rapidshare is your friend.

reply to Ash3r
G2play has it for $36.89

reply to Ash3r
OK - mild spoilers below. And I apologize for the lack of screenshots, I'll do my best to keep it short to avoid text overload.

First of all - it's good. Very good. I'm not too far in yet, but word choice, dialog structure, plot development, all the things that routinely stop me from being able to enjoy most storydriven RPGs are not (yet) an issue in Dragon Age. I'm not surprised - Mass Effect was equally well written. I can't express how important it is that game developers use a professional writing staff if they want to create empathetic characters. There are certainly moments that made me cringe, and dialog options I wish I had, but on the whole, very well put together.

My one complaint as far as player-NPC interaction is concerned is one that I lay at the feet of every Western RPG I've ever played - there still isn't enough of a sense that my actions/background/appearance are eliciting an appropriate response from those around me, or those I speak with. In other words, I want the decisions I make to be acknowledged by the game world. When I've fought my way out of a dungeon, or killed a hundred orcs, or spawned an elemental, I want people to act like I've just killed a HUNDRED orcs, or made a soldier out of FIRE. It's still not quite there. An example might be helpful, but to avoid overt spoilers, let's talk Fallout 3 (skip to the next paragraph if you haven't played it and don't want anything given away). So I escape the vault, nuke a town and collect all manner of vicious tools designed to kill all manner of enemies (and anyone else I feel like). I fight a war against an organization using weapons and armor from an age now lost. Then, I pick up a distress call over the radio - my abandoned love interest is in trouble! I gotta get back to the vault and set things right! So, I head back there, triumphant, fully trained, ready for anything... and then an obnoxious security guard with a club tries to stop me. I'm eight and a half feet tall, in full Tesla armor. I have a giant flamethrower. My eyes are literally glowing, and sparks fly off my towering frame. I am become death. And yet - none of my (pitiful) enemies turn into slobbering piles of fear. No one ACTS like I'm the demon the evidence suggests, the monster I've become. So disappointing. They shouldn't even be able to recognize me, much less berate me. And then trying to attack me? These are people who (as far as I can remember) lived their ENTIRE LIVES underground. A giant machine of churning death and flame walks in, and they're not afraid? They're still worried about their own little problems, and vault politics? Throws me right out of the universe the game's trying to create.

Well, that was a rant, apologies. But really, this is part of a much larger complaint I have with how games are designed, and Dragon Age does a better job making me feel important than any game I've played in a long while.

The visuals have a very artistic feel, and I think they're excellent. Some might disagree, I'm not very picky. Things seem to kind of blur in the distance, which might be frustrating to some. The camera is a bit annoying sometimes, but the limitations are appropriate (ie not being able to zoom way out and see everything around you). You can scroll in for a behind the shoulder' look, or out for a more RTS style view. I think I'll get used to it.

Combat's exciting, effects are very nice. The blood is actually very well done - maybe a bit over the top, but it really does look like you're cutting someone with a sword. Pausing in the middle of combat is very cinematic. Magic seems very powerful in the early game, and AOE spells are great. The class archetypes seem to work well - I forgot how fun it is to play an entire party at once, I'm so used to MMOs where all I can do is my own job, and have to trust others to do theirs (especially maddening when I know I could do a better job). It's very rewarding to be able to set up a tank wall, AND direct ranged dps to kill a single target, AND and have a healer keep everyone up. It's more... intellectual. There's more mental activity to be handling, more things to think about. Pausing keeps it reasonable though. It's... REALLY fun.

The 'tactics' system is very robust - you can assign a wide variety of parameters to NPC party members you aren't directly controlling and have them auto-execute attacks. I control everything manually at the moment, so I have these turned off, but I think there's a LOT of potential here. It seems you can be as involved or NOT involved as you like - so far, it seems you could beat the whole game only directly controlling the main character, and letting the computer control all your party-mates (they'll use their abilities at usually appropriate times).

Let me know if you have any additional questions, I'll try and do my best.

-P

reply to TigerLord

reply to Ash3r
Oh, does anyone know how many computers you can install and activate it on? I got mine from Direct2Drive and have it on 2 of my computers.
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I know you're talking, but all I hear is Blah Blah Blah...

reply to Ash3r
Great write up Punchline. I have to agree. At this time im going to give the game 9/10.. the only down side is in the cut scenes, the characters are great in detail but the other parts, grass,doors, etc are poor and pix-elated thats the only poor side I can think of right now and thats not a huge deal!

reply to NJChris
A cracked executable is illegal since you are re-writing copyrighted code and is most definitely again the EULA. Not a big deal - but I don't like having to resort to cracked executables.

Punchline's writeup is really accurate and in line with my experiments. I can add my own comments:

Graphics: Running this on very high with 2xAA on 1680x1050. I don't understand why people whine. Ok, it's not Crysis, but it's still very pretty. The game took over 4 years to develop so I understand they're not cutting edge, and it met my expectations. Some textures (especially on the outside) I admit can be very undefined and harsh...in fact graphics are very comparable to Oblivion, which may sound weird since Oblivion is old, but the modding community released countless texture packs... something I hope will happen with DA:O too.

Gore: I love the gore... blood, everywhere. After a fight all your party members are soaked in blood. It's a very mature and realistic game. I had enjoyed The Witcher a lot because it was very mature and adult oriented, and Origins is very similar, although less so. Some finishing moves are also very satisfying

Sound: the music is amazing, to be honest, it reminded me of The Lord of The rings. They opted for an orchestrated soundtrack, with soft operatic vocals when appropriate. The voice actors are phenomenal - no surprise here, it's Bioware. Unlike Aion where most of us just spam the next button until we get the quest, we can sit back, and enjoy the discussion you have. Funnily enough most people have irish/british accents...

Gameplay: I'm thankful AWSD works. I hate clicking to move. I did not play NW2 before but did Diablo/Diablo 2 and it annoyed me greatly. The combat is less fun than what I experienced in The Witcher. In The Witcher you only had to worry about yourself and you did have combat styles and combos, which are absent in DA:O. You can preset tactical orders (example: if Health 25% use Healing Pot (Most Powerful or Least powerful) to automate certain things and be less of a babysitter, but so far, I've not found the deep strategic use that system could provide... and in the toughest fights, you NEED to babysit your party. BG2/NW2 veterans will probably feel right at home, I myself prefer Oblivion/The Witcher combat styles.

Storyline: It's a typical evil vs good storyline, but already at the beginning, you're faced with an emotionally intense and crushing decision to make, that did have an impact on myself. Bioware storylines are renown to suck you in, and this ones does it. It's not anything new, but with the voice acting, dialogs and settings, it's charming and believable.

I'd prefer to hold my ratings, but if a game like Orcarina of Time deserves a 10, I'd probably DA:O 8.5/10 or 9/10. 9.5/10 is a bit high in my opinion.

reply to Punchline
Wow talking about getting into the game lol.

reply to TigerLord

reply to TigerLord
I'm having a great time with this game. What's amazing is that I am all over game stores and review sites every Tuesday to see what's new, and I never even heard about this one. I must have thought it was an MMO anytime I saw the title, as I have zero interest in those types of games.

While I set all texture options to the highest applicable settings, when I ran FRAPS and pushed everything to maximum, I found no noticeable depreciation in performance with my system when adjusting AA from off to 8X. I had the same results when shutting off the Frame Buffer option. Visually the changes were drastic with the Frame Buffer option disabled. However, I really did not notice much of a difference with AA at 2X through 8X, but the jaggies definitely appeared when the AA was set to OFF.

I had a bit of tearing in the middle of my screen without vertical sync enabled, but that is normal for this monitor, a 22" Samsung SyncMaster 226cw LCD. Consequently, I almost always force games to run at 60 FPS to match my monitor's refresh rate. My FPS hovered between 30-55 when moving and zooming with as many AI characters as I could manage to include, and with as many light sources/smoke as I could find, from bonfires and torches to sunlight. I'm rarely under 40 FPS, and as far as I can tell, I have never dipped below 30 FPS. It's almost as if there is something in the programming that limits the frames to no fewer than 30, but I have yet to identify what might be visually compromised to allow for this to occur.

That said, I am extremely satisfied with the game's performance using a GTX 275 with driver version 190.62 and the PhysX acceleration disabled. After nearly 20 hours of playing, the graphics have never even remotely been an issue. I'm at level 9 with my character, so I have already seen a few skirmishes with numerous on-screen enemies to test my system.

This game is certainly far from a graphical beast like Crysis. It does look better than Oblivion, and the draw distance is superb, although we do not have a seamless and expansive world to navigate, but rather a collection of map sections to explore. So what we are seeing in the distance is not necessarily an area that we can walk to, or ride to as was with the case of Oblivion. The water is a little better to my eye, and the objects floating atop the water are spectacular. You don't see static objects, they bob and dip with the wave action of the water. It looks very believable.

The game is very fun and challenging. It took me a few battles before I started getting the hang of things. I almost dropped down to EASY after a few frustrating results, but these moments were more about the controls than my strategy or the action I was trying to accomplish. You really do need to MOVE your characters around the "battlefield" to have any kind of success. In other words, every command cannot be an attack, defense, or special ability. I had to move my fighters to block enemies from charging my mages or archers. I had to make use of crippling attacks or stuns and freezes to slow the onslaught. I stopped wasting special warrior attacks that were sure to miss on moving targets. When my archer was in melee range, I made sure they were equipped to deal with the situation, and switched to the better weapon set and skills for such encounters.

My old strategy for these types of RPGs still holds true, for the most part. Gang up on one enemy until they are vanquished, and then move on to the next, always trying to remove the enemy that is causing the most disruption/damage. My battles mostly go like this: shield bash one enemy to the ground, freeze another one, then everyone goes after the next closest enemy while the others are recovering. It's exciting as hell, and I could never put into words how much fun the combat system is or how rewarding a hard-fought win can be.

I really enjoy this game. I've only played as a casteless Dwarf, which I figured would be my least favorite origin. To my surprise, my prejudice has been eroded after walking a while in Dwarfish boots. It's an extremely immersive experience if the player allows it to be. My relationships with my party members are very entertaining. The banter between myself, as a Dwarf, and my Templar friend, the "royal bastard", is quite humorous and engaging.

All in all it's a great game. The story is a bit used, but the game really makes it seem like you have an important impact on how it shapes. It's not for everyone, and it seems that a great deal was compromised to try and make it so, but for the most part the developers came through with a very satisfying, old school RPG, updated for this millennium.

reply to Ash3r
If you can get Shale get him as early as possible... KOTOR fans will see many resemblance with HK-47... Shale's a funny dude, he cracks me up.

Any Stargate fan recognized Claudia Black's voice? She voices for Merrigan... took me only a few minutes to recognize her.

reply to Ash3r
Can anyone tell me what the difference between the deluxe version is and the standard version? How many DVDs or BluRay disks is this game? I read somewhere that there are two disks, one to install the game and nto sure about the other.

The game comes on one standard DVD-ROM, and there is a bonus disc with the Collector's Edition.

You can see what is included with the Collector's Edition at the EA store.

Dragon Age: Origins Collector's Edition

The Digital Deluxe version, which can be obtained through online purchase at places like Direct2Drive or Steam, actually contains more game content, as the Warden's Keep, a $7 add-on, is included with the rest of the Collector's Edition's game content.

Steam's Digital Deluxe version. (age check required to get to link)

Honestly, there is so much to this game, that the extra content is really not that important. Sure, it's well worth the extra money for most of us, but not necessarily critical to everyone. If you have not already been drooling with anticipation for this game, you probably won't care too much for these extras. Besides, with a toolset for mods available (it needs some work), and what appears to be a decent showing with regards to sales, I expect that we will see a ton of new content and resources in the near future. Some of this will probably exceed the original stuff, with the exception of the voice acting.

I'd say get the normal version which includes the Shale DLC and the dragon armor. Then, just pay 7 bucks for wardens keep. You'll still be paying less then the collectors edition - Which is honestly a waste of money at full price. The extra items you get with the CE really aren't worth the extra money. The only thing the CE includes that is worth it is warden's keep - But you can buy that for 7 bucks anyways.

And IMO, Shale (comes for free with both versions anyways) and Warden's Keep are worth the extra money. Both add in a significant amount of gameplay, items, other stuff, and dialog/lore.
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THIS IS SPENCER. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED - I HAVE JOE. RETURNING TO BASE.

reply to Ash3r
This game is amazing. Totally blowing me away. I'm only level 13 so far but I can see myself playing this game over and over again with different characters, making different choices just to see how it changes the plot. I don't know if I've ever had this much fun with a single player RPG. I'm not even sure what to compare this too. Anyway, thanks for bringing this game to my attention. We need to start posting screenshots of our characters. What do you guys think?