Dragon Age: Origins: Impressions: Blogpost
Dragon Age: Origins is a game that I'd initially only heard of because Penny Arcade was doing comics for them. Penny Arcade has a good track record of pimping shit that I like, so I checked out the Wikipedia entry, and that didnt explain much. From what I gather its a role-playing game where you can make your own character from a select few options: three races and three classes. Laaame. Since I havent actually played the game, I'll just stick to the point of this post, and thats my impressions from checking out screens and watching vids.
Judging by the screens the game has some really great graphics going on. Kind of like if World of WarCraft upgraded its graphics engine to something remotely current. Even the faces dont seem nearly as offensive as what I'm used to seeing out of RPGs where you get to generate your own character. Kind of refreshing to see models that havent quite tumbled into the uncanny valley.
However this says nothing about actual gameplay, which is of far more import. So, onto trailers!
First off, the Denerim trailer doesnt do much for me. It shows off more graphics and combat stuff, which looks impressive enough but doesnt explain much about Denerim except that I guess they are fighting against...something. I'm not sure what, though someone mentioned the blight.
I then watched the violence trailer, which showcased some very cinematic mass battles and thats not an indicator of what you're actually going to get out of the game. No, it looked par for the course of what I expect out of role-playing games, which was still pretty neat. On one hand, I wanted to get excited about it, but...I find that game trailers tend to overhype the game and in the end I dont want to get disappointed by getting my hopes up. I think I've just gotten jaded on a lot of the trite, cliche role-playing games that seem to get pushed out all the time, which offer almost nothing but still run sixty fucking dollars.
That being said, these are just first impressions based entirely off of a handful of screenshots and a couple trailers. At this point the game looks like many RPGs I've seen, just with better graphics. Ehhhh... Its a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, which was great back in the day...but they also did Neverwinter Nights, which I couldnt stand. So...whether I'm going to like it is anyone's guess, but we'll see come launch time.
Judging by the screens the game has some really great graphics going on. Kind of like if World of WarCraft upgraded its graphics engine to something remotely current. Even the faces dont seem nearly as offensive as what I'm used to seeing out of RPGs where you get to generate your own character. Kind of refreshing to see models that havent quite tumbled into the uncanny valley.
However this says nothing about actual gameplay, which is of far more import. So, onto trailers!
First off, the Denerim trailer doesnt do much for me. It shows off more graphics and combat stuff, which looks impressive enough but doesnt explain much about Denerim except that I guess they are fighting against...something. I'm not sure what, though someone mentioned the blight.
I then watched the violence trailer, which showcased some very cinematic mass battles and thats not an indicator of what you're actually going to get out of the game. No, it looked par for the course of what I expect out of role-playing games, which was still pretty neat. On one hand, I wanted to get excited about it, but...I find that game trailers tend to overhype the game and in the end I dont want to get disappointed by getting my hopes up. I think I've just gotten jaded on a lot of the trite, cliche role-playing games that seem to get pushed out all the time, which offer almost nothing but still run sixty fucking dollars.
That being said, these are just first impressions based entirely off of a handful of screenshots and a couple trailers. At this point the game looks like many RPGs I've seen, just with better graphics. Ehhhh... Its a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, which was great back in the day...but they also did Neverwinter Nights, which I couldnt stand. So...whether I'm going to like it is anyone's guess, but we'll see come launch time.
"The idea is that it is a sandbox style (a la Fallout 3) which has such an expansive story and design team that it is fully customizable without losing the story if you don't want to make choices that connect directly to the main plot. You also start the game in diffferent areas depending on race, class, and if I am correct, social class. If you enjoy Fallout 3 or Oblivion style games, and would love to see them prettier and with a stronger main quest line, that's what Dragon Age is meant to be."
ReplyDelete"A table top version is also supposed to be released soon."
Thats no good...I wasnt really happy with either Fallout 3 OR Oblivion. :-( However, a lot of other people were so thats good for them!
ReplyDelete"That's too bad, I loved Fallout 3, though jury's still out with me on Oblivion. What in particular did you not like about Fallout 3? I mean, Dragon Age is supposed to have greatly improved the style of game. Obviously if the problem is core gameplay style, not much can be done, but if you have a proble mwith the way the customization, setting, or story was executed, then there may be redemption for you."
ReplyDeleteI'm not a fan of games that are very open with vaguely defined goals. One problem with Fallout 3 was that I wasnt sure exactly where I was supposed to go, and ended up getting killed several times before I found the right spot.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I ran out of bullets early on despite buying every bullet I could find from every vendor I could find (including the wandering merchants).
I also didnt like the fact that Dogmeat died very often, forcing me to reload if I wanted to keep him around. I would have to tell him to stop, go kill lots of shit, and then go get him. It would have been a lot better to have some kind of revive option (maybe it was there, but no one I talked to about this made mention of it).
Its not that I think they are universally bad games, but not the style I enjoy since I dont have a lot of free time and expansive games like that seem to take a very long time to play. I prefer something more straightforward, which is why I play lots of D&D in my spare time. :-)