- 1,963
- Hereward
- Herewward
Just a quick one on this title from Bioware, I was looking forward to Dragonage until I saw some shody review scores, in particular IGN's writeup. So I decided against picking it up in favour of Demon Souls.....alas that title is without an EU distributor so is unavailable in the UK.
So I bit the bullet and bought Dragonage yesterday, I started playing around 9pm then when I next looked at the clock it was 4am.........not had a game do that to me in a long while!
Now heres the odd part, graphicaly it's on par if slightly better than the ageing oblivion but the open ended feel of oblivion is far supirior to the hemed in feel of Dragon age. Now I'm using oblivion as a measure as most people have some experience of it, where the two differ is the all important story and imersiveness it thus creates. Dragonage, though using the time honoured knights and dragons formula of fantasy story telling has excelled in this area. The characters have real depth and truely have a place in the story. There are many cinematic set pieces which all aid in draging you in kicking and screaming.
One other thing which really stands out is the interaction between characters, the usual conversation system is there where you select your replie or question from a list, but it's intelligently thought out, which other games of this ilk sometimes struggle with. It's more "adult" is the description which best fits LOL
I've started as an elven mage which has so far thrown the storyline down a particular path, one which has seen my character first of all seperated from society by the templars for being a magic usar and in effect held as a prisoner with fellow mages in a "tower of learning" and secondly has seen my character racialy discriminated against by others as elves are seen as second class citizens and slaves. This throws up some very peculiar situations as I have become a greywarden, not an organisation to be taken lightly as they are all that stands between the races and the dark hoards....dum dum duum! LOL
Just to round this up I tend to play these games as mr nice, be nice and you get the information you want from people plus there perception of you in the game tends to keep you out of trouble.......well after 7 hours of taking racial abuse from game characters I finaly went to the darkside and was given a number of options after being stoped on a bridge and asked to "pay a toll" after killing half of the bandits they surrendered, I then took there ill gotten gains......I then had an option, leave them, make them run away, or kill them.......yep, one elven comment to far and I massacered the lot of them.......I do like it when a game actualy changes your moral stance, anyone mentions my pointy ears and there getting it! LOL
Won't mention anything in the storyline as it would be a spoiler, needless to say though but the storyline is center to the whole game and is crafted beautifuly, in fact Tolkien himself would aprove of this one. To sum it up Dragon age is your standard RPG fare, leveling up, ataining weapons and armour along the way with many battles thrown in to keep you busy. there is a party system which sees you able to control all the members in your part and even change there stats and equipment which is a step beyond oblivions system. but theres nothing that stands out from the crowd as far as these gameplay elements are concerned, but the imersion and pace is epic thanks to the story and character interaction, you do find yourself guenuinly scared when facing the hoard, not because you character might have to start from the last save point but because the imersive conection you feel with all the characters. for this reason alone, if your into RPG's then Dragonage is a game I highly recomend for you.
So I bit the bullet and bought Dragonage yesterday, I started playing around 9pm then when I next looked at the clock it was 4am.........not had a game do that to me in a long while!
Now heres the odd part, graphicaly it's on par if slightly better than the ageing oblivion but the open ended feel of oblivion is far supirior to the hemed in feel of Dragon age. Now I'm using oblivion as a measure as most people have some experience of it, where the two differ is the all important story and imersiveness it thus creates. Dragonage, though using the time honoured knights and dragons formula of fantasy story telling has excelled in this area. The characters have real depth and truely have a place in the story. There are many cinematic set pieces which all aid in draging you in kicking and screaming.
One other thing which really stands out is the interaction between characters, the usual conversation system is there where you select your replie or question from a list, but it's intelligently thought out, which other games of this ilk sometimes struggle with. It's more "adult" is the description which best fits LOL
I've started as an elven mage which has so far thrown the storyline down a particular path, one which has seen my character first of all seperated from society by the templars for being a magic usar and in effect held as a prisoner with fellow mages in a "tower of learning" and secondly has seen my character racialy discriminated against by others as elves are seen as second class citizens and slaves. This throws up some very peculiar situations as I have become a greywarden, not an organisation to be taken lightly as they are all that stands between the races and the dark hoards....dum dum duum! LOL
Just to round this up I tend to play these games as mr nice, be nice and you get the information you want from people plus there perception of you in the game tends to keep you out of trouble.......well after 7 hours of taking racial abuse from game characters I finaly went to the darkside and was given a number of options after being stoped on a bridge and asked to "pay a toll" after killing half of the bandits they surrendered, I then took there ill gotten gains......I then had an option, leave them, make them run away, or kill them.......yep, one elven comment to far and I massacered the lot of them.......I do like it when a game actualy changes your moral stance, anyone mentions my pointy ears and there getting it! LOL
Won't mention anything in the storyline as it would be a spoiler, needless to say though but the storyline is center to the whole game and is crafted beautifuly, in fact Tolkien himself would aprove of this one. To sum it up Dragon age is your standard RPG fare, leveling up, ataining weapons and armour along the way with many battles thrown in to keep you busy. there is a party system which sees you able to control all the members in your part and even change there stats and equipment which is a step beyond oblivions system. but theres nothing that stands out from the crowd as far as these gameplay elements are concerned, but the imersion and pace is epic thanks to the story and character interaction, you do find yourself guenuinly scared when facing the hoard, not because you character might have to start from the last save point but because the imersive conection you feel with all the characters. for this reason alone, if your into RPG's then Dragonage is a game I highly recomend for you.
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). I played games like KOTOR and KOTOR 2 on the console as well and I feel this type of game works really well on a console, given the turn-based nature of the combat.
