Dragon Age: Origins [PC/PS3/360]

[Winger]

I'll be getting it for the PS3 because my PC is well below par, and I can't be bothered to splash the cash and upgrade it. Quite when I buy it I can't be sure, mind. I'd have parted with up to £40 for it on Tuesday had it been on shelves at the time. That was just the kind of mood I was in; I wanted a new game, something to take my mind off the everyday troubles that life throws up, but in their moronic delay they may have cost themselves a sale as I instead splashed £55.49 (fast track delivery added) on an imported copy of Demon's Souls. If not for the delay that may well have been up to £40 on a copy of Dragon Age: Origins, with Demon's Souls being put on the back burner. Although to put that on the back burner would've been difficult as I really want that game.

I see if you pre-order Dragon Age: Origins from the likes of Play you recieve two free in-game items. That's quite a good incentive.

 

[I.N Extasy]

I tried to not look at any videos or read any reviews/articles and just get the game blindly during the weekend...but I ended up watching a gameplay video on YouTube. I was quite disappointed with the dialogue system. Having a few choices is always a good thing but not hearing your character talk is annoying. I'd rather a few different voices were available for that. :\

 

[Sweey]

Screenshot comparison (360, PS3 and PC)

http://uk.gamespot.com/features/6239466/index.html?tag=topslot;title;2

 

[Usul]

I'm off to the store right now.

I can't believe you people still play Baldur's Gate. I thought my friend was the only nutter out there that still does.

 

[Dale C.]

Screenshot comparison (360, PS3 and PC)

http://uk.gamespot.com/features/6239466/index.html?tag=topslot;title;2

Noticed that when I clicked on the gamspot review up at the top of the page that you posted. Theres not a lot of difference between the PS3 and the 360 version, but I think the PS3 looks better, better defined. The PC wins obviously, better depth of field, better detail, better lighting etc.


And Usul, of course we still play Baldur's gate, it is the benchmark after all. Or rather was

 

[Sweey]

I've just failed The Attack at Nightfall four times. Its a bloody nightmare (pardon the pun).

I'm going to start it again in a minute after buying about 4000 healing potions.

EDIT: Sake, I've tried The Attack at Nightfall with tons of potions and found it much easier than the last four times, not needing to use anywhere near as many potions.

That's all good except the quest won't end even though I can't find any more undead on the map. I'm going to have to run around the whole location hoping to find one lone zombie that's gotten lost.

 

[Dale C.]

Hows it going with this Don?

Any major bugs to be reported? Any bugs at all?

Hows your character developing? etc

Are there any patches due out at all?

 

[Sweey]

Patch 1.01b came out yesterday. I've already got 1.01 applied and have noticed only two issues:

The first one is in my previous post - The Attack at Nightfall not ending because there's an undead randomly stuck in a corner or a wall or something. It completed fine the second time I did it but its a very tricky quest so I didn't appreciate that.

The other bug is not long after that - when you visit the Blacksmith's daughter (if you chose to kill him earlier on) then she'll say she's leaving, thank you and you'll get 100 experience. Except she doesn't move. You can click on her for hours to max out your levels if you want. Once you leave the screen, she is removed from the game as she should be so perhaps that has been fixed.

No other bugs so far. I've played it for around 19 hours the game tells me and I'm thoroughly enjoying it although some of the battles are astonishing hard even on the Normal difficultly I'm playing at. There are four locations in a forest (I've only found three so far) where revenants with supporting undead attack you and frankly the revenants on their own would be a difficult fight as they've got some good attacks to wipe your hit points out in seconds and a large number of hit points. They also seem to take a liking to my mage for no reason, killing her with ease if they unleash any of their special attacks.

The main problem my party (rogue for dps, warrior tank, dog for dps and mage) are having is when we come across decent level spellcasters as almost all of them seem to use one blast of fire which knocks everyone to the ground followed by multiple electrical attacks (spells like chain lightning), two of which hit before anyone can even get there to stun them.

That's a good thing in a way though, nobody wants an easy game.

 

[Sweey]

Right, I'm hoping to finish this tonight if I race home from work and get Dexter and Curb Your Enthusiasm out of the way.....might even leave Dexter until tomorrow.

I'm not far from entering the final phase of the main mission, just tidying up loose ends before that. I'm not entirely sure how long those loose ends are going to take me but I expect to finish the game tomorrow night by the latest.

I do plan to play the game again with a completely different character - an elf mage for example - though I need to play and finish Mass Effect again before the sequel comes out as I no longer have my save games for that anywhere.

There are blotches on some of the missions - I was asked to support two different kings in the dwarven city of Orzammar but can obviously only side one so why I've completed the whole thing and still have the first part of the mission to side the other king in my list, I don't know. It won't disappear. Another quest about bandits in Denerim won't disappear even though it won't let me complete it and another quest, where I gave a completely valid response to the quest-giver, isn't showing as completed even though it is because it specifically asked me to tell her information x and instead I told her about the concerns her father had about her.

Sake.

 

[Winger]

I've got some gift vouchers to spend! And they may go on DA:Origins! I'm looking at Uncharted II and Modern Warefare II, as well, though. Damn!

 

[Sweey]

I finish tonight. Updates later which will contain spoilers of sorts (situations but no character names) :>

 

[Winger]

Did you manage to finish off DA:Origins, Sweey? I'd be interested in hearing your overall thoughts on the game.

I came close to buying it on Wednesday. I was actually in the queue to buy it from Argos (as I have gift vouchers for there) but, it turned out they hadn't received their shipment, yet. That's twice now, where I've had cash in hand ready to part ways with those crisp £20 notes for DA:Origins only to encounter a road block. I've since read a few reviews based on the console version and they have left me pondering the purchase. It has been reported that there is no top down camera angle (to forsee the entire group, enemies, surroundings, etc) nor the ability to queue commands. Instead the gameplay has been tweaking to a more real-time action base, as opposed to a more tactical pause and micromanagement style, with preset scripts (or something in that vein) that can be assigned to characters, ie; attack nearest enemy, attack enemy targeted by party leader, etc. It is also reported that the difficulty has been watered down for the consoles, no doubt to accomodate the camera angle, real-time action based combat, and lack of queue commands feature.

I was looking forward to picking up the PS3 version as my PC is not particularly powerful, nor in particularly good health (at least I don't presume it to be). But now I'm not so sure about going for that PS3 version. I may do so, anyway, for convenience. I see a lot of happy gamers chuffed with the console version. But also a good few recommending the PC option, hands down.

 

[Sweey]

The consoles have had some alterations due to certain limitations or whatever.

I did finish it and was unhappy that in the post-game area I couldn't communicate with my trusty mabari war hound. He was very powerful by the end, as was my main character - both because they were DPS characters. Knockdown gets used a lot in this game by enemies so only once the NPC warrior had Shield Wall (and Shield Mastery?) to prevent knockdowns did someone stay on their feet around high level creatures.

It was a good game, plenty of tough encounters and would be worth playing again with a different character.

I'd call it a very strong game and worthy of around 9/10 although one thing I didn't like is the fact that the story with a certain someone HAS to go a certain way - it doesn't matter if you get on with them well or not, there's no way out of something that happens.

 

[Usul]

I started playing this last night. It's got sweet graphics on it, but i realized that i can't be bothered to immerse myself in yet another fantasy world with it's own history and whatnot. I'll keep slashing through it just to see what the bigger monsters look like, how strong you become, new weapons, etc.

I've only just gone back to the cave with the magic user to look for my daft hunter friend, and though you can tell it's probably the finest RPG BioWare have ever made, it's missing something. Substance?

Trust EA to take the soul out of anything. (Ok, they made MOH, but meh.)

Perhaps if this had been set in the Forgotten Realms, it might have been epic indeed.

 

[Sweey]

Its probably the fact it is set in a high fantasy world as opposed to a D&D world. That changes the feel of it dramatically for me but it was still a very good game. The expansion is due out next month.

 

[Usul]

Okay, i take it back. It's a proper RPG, albeit too linear.

I just don't know how to judge this game, though. I guess the fact that i've been playing non-stop since my first post in here, would answer that question, but it's missing that something we mentioned earlier. Naturally, being the efficient bastard that i am with games, i had to go through the entire codex entries, so in the end i had to do what i was reluctant to at first; immerse myself in their frigging world, and that is what i don't like about it.

But the thing is that it's such a well made RPG in every other aspect - apart from the small number of classes and races from which you can choose - that i honestly don't give a shit about the setting itself.

And the music...oh the music...

Video game scores are so underrated these days.

 

[Sweey]

I've just finished the expansion, Awakening. I liked it - can't believe I've seen people criticising its length because it isn't as long as the full game....which they fail to realise it isn't supposed to be.

Pretty happy with my ending story too. Annoyed my dog didn't make an appearance in the expansion at all though.

As sad as it is...

Spoiler

I do hope my character eventually found Morrigan

 

[Usul]

I finished it, a hundred and thirty something hours later.

Spoiler

We were so strong towards the end, that we killed the Archdemon with relative ease. He was a tough son of a darkspawn whore though. It was an epic finale nonetheless. I was actually surprised how powerful my elf had become in the end. I was killing regular darkspawn with one shot of my mighty bow. The ugly bastards were falling like flies. :smug:

I had also enlisted the aid of every possible ally, including the Legion of the Dead, who were actually on the roof top with us fighting the fiend, which made it a lot easier.

This game is a classic and must be played by any RPG fans out there. Definitely worth the money. Strangely enough, it seems i only completed 42% of the game. I don't get that.

I feel like playing as a gay dwarven noble, but i don't know if i can take another two weeks of this. I think i'll just get the expansion and play that.

Spoiler

I must admit i was very surprised when i found out that the elven assassin was gay and wanted to get with me. :laugh:

The Mabari was not worth taking a spot in the party btw. Unless you had to use him in the beginning, for lack of better allies, or planned to create an evil mage and needed quiet cannon fodder.

There came a point where having Alistair and Wynne in the party was essential for success. I also liked Sten because he was a beast.

I also realized towards the end that they just used a refined version of the Kotor engine, which is typically cheap of EA. Still, very good game.

 

[Sweey]

I agree about Alastair and Wynne, Usul. I used Alastair as a tank, Wynne as a healer and Morrigan as a booty call in the main game but I was playing as a dual weapon rogue. Much like you, I was killing darkspawn with one hit toward the end. I found the mabari very useful for DPS damage but there was no space in my party so ultimately he was the killing machine of my second "party" during the finalish stages when you're defending an area.

I'm considering playing the whole thing (including expansion) as an elf mage - don't think I could handle playing as a dwarf - but since the 1.03 patch which is a necessity to play Awakening, the game kept randomly crashing. Less so when I used windowed mode rather than full screen but still enough to royally piss me off at times. For example, it crashed midway through my final boss fight in Awakening which is tricky at first so I had to get through the tricky stage all over again.

 

[Usul]

Make an Arcane Warrior. Start as a mage, obviously, and then go to the Brecilian Forest to acquire the sword and learn the ways from the spirit in the philactery. You'll then be able to wear full plate, use a sword and still be able to launch fireballs and fry people with lightning bolts.

I just got the expansion. Looks good so far. My elf is a God. :smug:

The bitch is that i imported my character and the old saves were deleted...They should have warned me about that. Now i can't go back and take all the best items from my party members. :faceplm:

At least i still got all my gold. 330 Sovereigns. :happy: