Dragon Age impressions

[baronjohn]

What kind of details do you want? I only played to about the part where that 20 minute video play, posted a while back, began.

 

[citizenx]

Actually my whole party was wiped out not long after where you go to a tower or whatever, and I quit in disgust.

I don't want to play this game on any difficulty setting.

Sorry man but I call complete bullshit on your "impressions". I don't trust your weak context any more than I trust glowing reviews that it's "the game of the century". You quit in disgust because your party got wiped out...so you don't want to play? What fuckin ever.

Provide some real info or stfu...because right now you seem like an immature fucktard just trying to be the "first" in line to post and play...and your substance is lame.

 

[Texas Red]

In PS:T every lowlife Hive dweller you meet was a supermodel with unnaturally large boobs. Annah is a collector living in the Hive and how does she look? Exactly.

I wouldn't dismiss a game because it has supermodels as NPCs. It's retarded, I admit. I would go so far as to say it's very retarded. However, it seems to be a norm in games, like the huge shoulder, and I wouldn't expect Bioware to break it with realistic armor and women.

 

[Vault Dweller]

What kind of details do you want?

Anything is better than:

My Dragon Age Impressions:

Graphics: SHIT!
Gameplay: SHIT!
Writing: SHIT!

I only played to about the part where that 20 minute video play, posted a while back, began.

In other words, you haven't seen enough and aren't in any position to judge the game yet, but you wanted to make "I HATE!!!" thread to be like everyone else. I understand.

 

[Trash]

Infanticide is in. I may grow to like this.

 

[Kingston]

Could we get some actual, detailed feedback on the game instead of all you whiners speculating about difficulty and throwing fits over a game nobody is forcing you to play?

I'll get the game when it's out and post my impressions. Also, it looks like I'll be reviewing it for a certain prestigious magazine.

Good, we'll finally get some incline in here. I imagine DU had to perform multiple blowjobs to win you over?

 

[Jaedar]

Played about 3 hours.

So far, standard BioWare stuff.

 

[Lesifoere]

Infanticide is in. I may grow to like this.

Oh?

 

[circ]

What kind of details do you want?

Anything is better than:

My Dragon Age Impressions:

Graphics: SHIT!
Gameplay: SHIT!
Writing: SHIT!

I only played to about the part where that 20 minute video play, posted a while back, began.

In other words, you haven't seen enough and aren't in any position to judge the game yet, but you wanted to make "I HATE!!!" thread to be like everyone else. I understand.

As opposed to

Graphics: GOTY!
Gameplay: GOTY!
Writing: GOTY!

???
I think that review told me plenty about a POS that I'm convinced I'll hate anyway.

 

[Imbecile]

Dont be a twat. Shouting GOTY! is just as bad as shouting SHIT!

And no-ones shouting GOTY!

 

[Excidium]

What about combat? Fun or IE games/Kotor standard RTwP shit?

 

[Sovard]

I will have access to my copy tomorrow, and post impressions from an actual consumer's perspective (as opposed to a 15 year-old pirate living in a third world country typing SHIT SHIT SHIT and wondering if he's cool yet).

 

[made]

...who talks in awkward Shakespearian language.

You mean... just like in Ultima? :shock: OMG DRAGON AGE PAYING HOMAGE TO THE GREATEST RPG SERIES OF ALL TIME!

 

[Grunker]

This thread makes me happy and gives me faith in the human race.

And I'm not even being sarcastic

 

[baronjohn]

...who talks in awkward Shakespearian language.

You mean... just like in Ultima?

No, it's worse. Besides, none of the characters in Ultima looked like Amy Winehouse.

 

[made]

You're probably right

 

[Vault Dweller]

What kind of details do you want?

Anything is better than:

My Dragon Age Impressions:

Graphics: SHIT!
Gameplay: SHIT!
Writing: SHIT!

I only played to about the part where that 20 minute video play, posted a while back, began.

In other words, you haven't seen enough and aren't in any position to judge the game yet, but you wanted to make "I HATE!!!" thread to be like everyone else. I understand.

As opposed to

Graphics: GOTY!
Gameplay: GOTY!
Writing: GOTY!

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant.

I think that review told me plenty about a POS that I'm convinced I'll hate anyway.

*rolls eyes

 

[J1M]

"When two opposing or complementary spells collide, the effects can be unusual and potent. There are
10 possible spell combinations in the game. Only a few of these are hinted at ahead of time—for the
most part, you must find them for yourself. Once you have discovered a spell combination, a description
of how to replicate the effect appears in your codex."

If I remember right the only cool combination mentioned was Sleep amplifies the damage of the Nightmare spell.

I assume the rest are Water -> Electricity, Ice -> Shatter type combos.

Also, would be nice to see someone who has started the game as a Mage give their impressions. Most Bioware games heavily favor being the front line guy yourself and taking a social skill. If you started as a mage did you spend a lot of time healing? Did you constantly end up at the front of the party in combat encounters because of conversations, etc?

 

[Trash]

Combat on hard has become quite a bit more difficult since the origin story. It's quite tactical and indeed does remind me of the old IE games. Don't worry though, it's still the same old RTWP stuff so you lot can moan all you want. All the previous bitching about there only being a few shoddy animations for combat have (predictably) turned out to be bull though. It looks very fluid and combat abilities and spells really do convey a sense of power. I'm happy to say that my characters dialogue options since the origin story have improved as well. Still nothing stellar but at least he doesn't sound like a spoiled child anymore. What is nice is that Bioware do at least try to make an effort at an interesting storyline. I'm not happy with everything, but the origin alone had a fun twist that was done rather well. Best thing I can say is that I'm defenitely having fun so far.

EDIT: The whole gore thing is a bit schizo so far. On one hand your party is absolutely covered in gore and I had one cutscene where a guy died who seemed to bleed a few litres but on the other hand combat isn't that gorey at all. My pc only decapitated one guy in a spectacular bloody way during a fight in the last four hours. I expect things to go ridiculous as I gain levels and abilities but so far it's been pretty regular. The gore on the clothes and during cutscenes is completely over the top though. Mature my ass. Oh, and speaking of ass, I got my first gay come on within the first few minutes of playing. Still can't seem to fuck the dog though. Sorry Jasede.

 

[SCO]

You're probably right

 

[AlaCarcuss]

What kind of details do you want?

Anything is better than:

My Dragon Age Impressions:

Graphics: SHIT!
Gameplay: SHIT!
Writing: SHIT!

I only played to about the part where that 20 minute video play, posted a while back, began.

In other words, you haven't seen enough and aren't in any position to judge the game yet, but you wanted to make "I HATE!!!" thread to be like everyone else. I understand.

Exactly.

In it's own way, the codex is just as bad as the review sites and the fucktards that inhabit their forums, gushing over every new AAA game - only in reverse.

So keen to wield the hate stick, often without even playing the games in question (or not enough anyway). I'm pretty sure the reviewers at least spent a substantial amount of time with the game, before their gushing began - more than you can say about the wankers around here.

It's sad really - a pack of basement dwellers trying to earn points off each other - who's go the biggest stick?

 

[circ]

Hey Trash, is the combat animation as bad as in the previews? Aka just dudes slashing, no thrusting or anything else.

 

[circ]

Exactly.

In it's own way, the codex is just as bad as the review sites and the fucktards that inhabit their forums, gushing over every new AAA game - only in reverse.

So keen to wield the hate stick, often without even playing the games in question (or not enough anyway). I'm pretty sure the reviewers at least spent a substantial amount of time with the game, before their gushing began - more than you can say about the wankers around here.

It's sad really - a pack of basement dwellers trying to earn points off each other - who's go the biggest stick?

Bleh. You people are never happy. If you don't play enough of the game the Volourn camp will say 'YOU DIDNT PLAY ENOUGH TO GET A GOOD IMPRESSION!'
If you play it too much the Volourn camp will say 'WHY DID YOU FINISH IT SO MANY TIMES IF YOU HATE IT LOL!'

 

[Starwars]

OK, so I've been playing the game a bit. It's not exactly amazing or great, but I don't think I'll regret my pre-order at least.

I chose to play as a female City Elf Rogue. I liked the Origin quite a bit, it served as a great introduction and was pretty nice to play through. Chose to spend points in Coercion as well as the main Combat thing (and some combat abilities). I also started out with a rank in Poison-making, from being a Rogue I believe. Then I chose some ranks in the skill that lets you disarm traps and open locks.

The writing is pretty hammy at times, but I find it fun to follow in a "soap-opera" kind of way so far. At any rate, I've only played through the origin plus the first big plot-point place. There seems to be quite a lot of dialogue in the game. Again, it varies in quality but I haven't felt the need to brutally skip through it yet which tends to happen with Biowares games when I play them. Though so far, Persuasion has definetely not gotten a lot of use. I get the sense that it will be used more soon though as the opening parts are to get the story going I suppose. A few different responses to my character being an elf so far but nothing huge.

The battles... well. I'm playing on Hard, and yeah. Some of the battles can be pretty tough, definetely harder than any Bioware game since BG2. One problem persists though, and that is that there is still quite a lot filler combat between the challenging battles. If you're really not paying attention, then these battles could kill you I suppose, but you should really be OK if you monitor the party just a bit (and apply healing as needed). A lot of the combat feels unnecessary. One particular forest near the start of the game is just really uninteresting to play through due to rather boring encounters (though again, some of them are nice). It feels sort of stuck in the middle of a tactical combat system, and a more fast-paced but visually fun system. I dunno.

And while the difficulty can be quite high at times, the lack of a death system really takes a lot of oomph out of it. There is still the injuries you can sustain (when you get knocked out, that character receives an injury which can affect various stats) but I can't help but thinking how much the excitement level would be raised with a proper death system.

Even so, the combat can be fairly fun in itself. What's also nice is that animations have a really nice kick to them which makes the battles feel a bit more visceral. I also use abilities and spells quite a lot which obviously raises the interactivity.

Loot is bullshit. At least so far, the only things I've gotten from using my open locks skill is (probably) random crappy loot. The inventory works, with a few different tabs to make it a bit easier to get a good look of all your crap. Not a huge fan of the shared list inventory though. At least not when so much of the loot appear to be junk and/or randomized. Guess I should be pickier on what items I take with me.

Graphics are unimpressive technically but menus and stuff like that are well done. Characters can look pretty good. Not a game to buy for eyecandy but who cares? It looks more than good enough.
Had a really hard fucking time getting used to how the camera works for some reason. I really wanted to play in the overhead view but it really sucks for general exploration. So I mostly use the third-person, closer-to-the-ground camera for running around and switch to overhead in battles. Works pretty well after getting used to it.

Music is pretty boring but I'm not a fan of Inon Zur. Sounds are good, especially in battle. Voiceovers are actually pretty good, much better than what I had expected from watching some videoclips before. No character as of yet have annoyed the hell out of me either which is nice. In fact, I like most of them quite a bit more than I expected.

Fairly pleased all in all so far. But yeah, it's definetely LOTR-ish, Biowarish, epic!1!, and all that. It's just done better than Biowares recent works. We'll see how things develop.

EDIT: And yeah, you can turn off the goddamn gore/blood on your character in the Options menu. Thank god for that. If you turn it off, the blood will disappear at the end of combat.

 

[Trash]

Hey Trash, is the combat animation as bad as in the previews? Aka just dudes slashing, no thrusting or anything else.

I just said it isn't. Animation all around is fluid and the characters seem to have a decent variety of standard moves. When they use a spell or combat ability you also get some cool animations and effects.

Oh, and I haven't found a single invisible wall either. Unless you count those deep chasms and high bridges you can't jump off as walls.