Dragon Age: Origins (PS3) thoughts...
By adziboy 1 Comments
Being pretty much a online gamer with the rare infuse of campaigns, with titles such as Modern Warfare 2 and FIFA10 being my most played recently, I had a tough choice when it came down to some new games. It's not that there weren't much to choose from, but oh no, quite the contrary. I'm slightly disapointed I did not choose Assassins Creed 2 but there you go - everyone makes mistakes!
Instead, I chose Demon's Souls and Dragon Age: Origins; both for PS3. I was going to give my thoughts on Demon's Souls as it's much a love/hate game and many people still haven't decided if they are brave enough to venture into DS, but I felt I just haven't had a massive amount of time with the game and it would be unfair to give it some thoughts now when I would be writing again in a few weeks, more thoroughly, about it.
So I stuck with Dragon Age: Origins for a bit longer after playing a solid amount of hours on a Human Noble Warrior, which seemed to be the most generic, cliche and most chosen class ever... but that's what I chose.
The game does a great job of describing the current events and affairs although past activities and affairs are only brushed over and when they turn up in conversation a few hours later when talking to someone you're trying to sleep with, you're stuck with a few options to why your mother died or even to where you came from. Apart from that, the atmosphere, though lacking in life, manages to convey your particular origin very well with the usual large stone walls and cloth emblems hanging from every wall. People may not be very active but the conversations make up for it, with great voice acting most of the time and never an abundance of come backs and replys to answer with.
And that's probably what truly makes the story so deep - the conversations. Each scene has practically no motion apart from a few hand gestures and/or head movements, but the captivating story draws you in with characters of all personality offering assistance or seeking it, and it's your job to take sides and choose the best option. Side characters can join in, either agreeing or disagreeing in comedy commentary not normally directed at anyone and this adds yet another element of depth before you ever considered what's going to happen. Disapointing though is the lack of outcomes to different scenarios; playing through some parts felt way too similar even though I chose completely random options. It's deep and dark enough though to keep it interesting for at least the first half of the game but after that, I can't really say.
Combat cannot be described more easily than if you just said MMO. You have an auto-attack and then a hotbar, or in the case of consoles, a quick select and a radial menu. Although timewise it's worse, the radial menu pauses so you will never feel at a disadvantage because you can do the same things, just slightly slower. Combat is well balanced and manages to use common specs such as Tank, DPS and Healer/support very well, balancing out their support spells and damage spells in very appropriate skill trees and specialisations. The gameplay looks very clunky off-screen, but when playing it feels very smooth when you slaughter a few massive enemies when you know that tactics and a few well timed health potions did the trick and any other way may not of been so successful. The sheer depth of specs, trees, levels, skill levels, damage modifiers, weapons and armour and much more make combat just that little bit more deeper and you may spend so long on a few battles that pacing isn't too much of a problem because conversations and combat compliment each other well.
That's about all I can say about Dragon Age: Origins so far. I am currently playing 3 different characters: Human Noble Warrior, Elven Magi Mage and Dwarven Noble Warrior, with the Dwarven Noble being the best origin story, as well as the best DPS - though struggles against larger enemies thanks to lack of healer.