Dragon Age: Origins

[BadHairDẵy]

It is VERY large.

It takes up more room than GTA IV, and GTA IV looks a whole load better than Dragon Age. I might not be able to fit it on my hard drive when I get it.

[Afterburner]

Originally Posted by Commissar MercZ

The only thing I'm curious about is why the system requirements lists 20 GB of hard drive space... why does it need that much?

60 hours of game play for the main quest alone. Also there is TONS of dialogue so I imagine the audio files take up a lot of space.

[Junk angel]

You mean all the dialogue is voiced? - Bummer I hoped they went with the only important parts voiced path.

Well I've heard people comparing the atmosphere to planescape, and that was the bloody most awesome rpg game ever released, a bit, so will wait for people to confirm just how good the game is before I'll react/

[MrFancypants]

Originally Posted by Junk angel

You mean all the dialogue is voiced? - Bummer I hoped they went with the only important parts voiced path.

The only thing they didn't voice is the dialogue spoken by the hero, which is a bit odd when all other dialogue is voiced.

Well I've heard people comparing the atmosphere to planescape, and that was the bloody most awesome rpg game ever released, a bit, so will wait for people to confirm just how good the game is before I'll react/

I only played a bit so far and like it a lot, it is better than the NWN games, but whether it is as good as Baldur's Gate or Planescape is difficult to say at this point.

[BlitZ, The 57th]

How diverse are the weapons and armour. As in the variety.

[MrFancypants]

Originally Posted by BlitZ, The 57th

How diverse are the weapons and armour. As in the variety.

Not too diverse it seems, certainly less variety than in NWN with its Dungeons and Dragons ruleset. I'd say the complexity of the whole system is somewhere between NWN and Mass Effect.
So you have the usual concessions to the console crowd, but from its functionality (user interface etc) it feels like a real PC game.

I don't mind the reduced number of weapons though. Planescape Torment is a good example for a game that had a limited and atypical set of weapons but still kicked major butt. And in this game you have the advantage that the weapons and skills you do get are of high quality (there seem to be more models for individual weapons of one class and there are very nice animations for the combat skills).

[crisissuit3]

My brother got the game today with his birthday money.

I guess from your guys opinions I'm sure he will enjoy. I'll try it when He beats it... in a few months.

[nazoa93]

Well I just played for around 10 hours straight yesterday. It is great fun, and despite what the reviews said, the console version is challenging, especially on the bosses, I have to try 10-15 times to get it right.

The weapons and armor are diverse enough that you'll replace them fairly often, at least at the beginning. There's not that many types of weapons and armor, but there are several tiers to each kind, IE, Scale Mail has Grey Iron forms, but also a Dragonbone form, as well as a Red Steel form, all with different stats.

I'm currently letting my Dalish Elf character lie dormant while I play with a Mage. Mages are GREAT fun to play as and the powers they made look plain awesome, especially in the higher levels.

And when they say a 60 hour main quest, they aren't kidding. Every ally you have to gather takes around 5 hours each to get in my experience, but I've only done the Dalish Elves and the Circle Tower, and on different characters. I'll probably go to Denerim and take care of business there next hehehe

[Nemmerle]

Very reminiscent of Baldur's Gate and NWN. Skills are fun, nice to see a break from the D&D formula in regard that it's not ridiculously overcomplicated with a thousand different things that all do the same thing with slightly different fluff. You can see all the cool toys you're going to get to pick up by pursuing a particular skill tree which takes a lot of the guess work out of the business.

Well for people who didn't sit around with the tables and spreadsheets and so on working stuff out.

/guilty (Although I spent more time on Space Empires and the like doing that.)

There was a momentary stutter every few seconds, no framerate issue as such - I think it was just dropping the frame somewhere. Installed the 1.01 patch, which fixed it up - seems to be some issue with widescreens.

So far I've done some reasonably messed up stuff DA Spoilers, be yee fairly warned:

Spoiler:

Became a Bloodmage, killed a couple of hundred creatures. Convinced a woman that she needed to sacrifice her life in order to provide a conduit to the dream world so I could free her son from a Demon controlling him from there. Then had a childhood friend, who I'd earlier exposed to authorities for using 'bad' magic perform a dark ritual, (spine snapping floaty goodness was involved. Think the crush spell from KOTOR2,) and sacrifice her soul/life-energy to enable me to cross between the worlds.

When I actually met the demon however I made a pact; she'd leave the son alone and in return I'd stay my hand. She could come back and take the son over again in a couple of years once I was done with my business and in return I'd get secrets of arcane powah.

Then I had the childhood friend executed by the uncle of the sacrifice's husband on the grounds that the magic he'd used for the ritual was 'evil' and made him 'too dangerous to live'.

And afterwards people thanked me for saving her son and I was hailed as the saviour of their town

The interesting thing is that wasn't a result of me trying to be evil. I help people - in game - as much as I hurt them, most of the time.

I mean I still laughed at the deception, and the exercise of power over others is, I think, pretty much inherently addictive - but there are some pretty decent tradeoffs between pragmatism and idealism going on here. Fights were getting a bit harder, my character was getting ganged up on and running out of mana at inopportune times in longer fights... Mana potions are pretty thin on the ground in this game which makes sense considering the economic model that's meant to back them. It made sense to take the 'evil' option.

When you start trading things off like that I think it's an interesting development in terms of the narrative computer games are capable of.

Really neat to see that they're removed the dichotomous good-bad distinction that games like KOTOR (pretty much inevitably in that one I suppose) had. Not a new development, RPGs didn't used to have it - but now that they've made a point of character interaction it makes actions more meaningful not to have it. Talking of which the party banter is some of the best I've heard.

I've been playing for around nineteen hours since I got it late on Friday. The quest guide thing reckons I'm about twenty percent of the way through. IME those things usually overestimate the amount of content one way or another but it's certainly quite a large game. About level 10 at the moment out of a 25 level cap; that's probably a better yardstick.

Personally I think it's the best Bioware RPG yet, and I'm including BG in that, certainly the one I've had most fun with. Be interesting to see whether ME2 can pull off the same level of awesome when that comes out.

On the bad side - some of the equipment is confusing; the skills could have done with being included in the manual, it's not immediately clear how important some of the stats are; minor gripes though.

[MrFancypants]

Originally Posted by Nemmerle

Talking of which the party banter is some of the best I've heard.

True, it is such fun that I don't really know which party members to take along, too many interesting constellations are possible.

The new gift-system is a little bit strange though, I get the idea of having an easy way to get on the characters' good side (especially since it is difficult to find solutions that work for everyone) but if I give a damaged cake complete with dog-spittle (found the maker-knows where by my wardog) to a woman as present then I wouldn't really expect such a big reputation-bonus. The same goes for underwear acquired under similar circumstances as present for the male fighter.