Dragon Age: Origins

[Oracle]

I'm loving this game. I've been waiting for a good Baldur's Gate style game, and this is definitely it.

I love how they incorporated the over-head view of Baldur's Gate with the ability to transition into a 3rd person view. It really allows for nice scenery and navigation depending on what type of terrain you are on.

My only beef with the camera is moving up hill. Can't see infront of you no matter what camera angle, unless I'm missing something.

About 25 hours in, characters are around level 12/13. I think I kinda played a bit dumb at the beginning, so I may be a bit slow going vs. others' times in the game. I died a LOT at the beginning, but my group is beefed up enough now that they can take on most fights. The odd random encounter on the map will absolutely blow me out of the water, however.

Anyway, great game, highly recommend it. If there was a thread on this before, sorry, but I couldn't find it on the first 5 pages of threads (Zeus' bitch-fest about MS doesn't count).

[Tessian]

I've been hooked on it for weeks... my char's are level 16 and I'm over 30 hours in. Just have to go to the Elves before finishing the "Collect your allies" part.

[Shrinweck]

I managed to beat it at level 21 after clocking in just over 30 hours but I'd played through a bunch of the game before so getting through the beginning quickly wasn't an issue. Skipped an amazing amount of side quest content which is rare for me. Going back through on a mage and rogue at the moment but Assassin's Creed 2 has been surprisingly amazing and has been grabbing my attention.

[kali o.]

I finished a play through....it's a pretty disappointing game, in my estimation. Bioware was a bit too focused on voice/dialog, and completely ignored actual game CONTENT.

Everything (aside from voice/dialog) was lacking. Story, characters, quests, weapons/armor skins, items, etc...everything felt half assed. Maybe they plan to finish the game in DLC...in which case the console crowd gets screwed. Even the "dialog choices" Bioware usually fleshed out felt shallow...I basically only ever had 3 options:

- Goody two-shoes
- Greedy fuck
- Homocidal maniac

Maybe it's always been that way...maybe I just didn't notice before.

Either way, this game is a 6/10 for me.

[bovine]

I got up to like level 12 or something, but this game just did not put its hooks in me.

I'm going to try to pick it up later when I'm done with demon's souls, assassin's creed 2, a boy and his blob, and NSMBW.

Also, MW2 anyone?

[Shrinweck]

I did find myself not giving a shit about any of the followers except for Alistair. There's very little content involving the followers. Even the quests required to kick start the romances are pretty uninvolved.

I also expected a lot more class specific content. The only specialization that I've seen so far with specific quests are for the assassin and it doesn't take a talented writer to guess what those quests involve. I feel like they neglected a lot of the neat content these games usually include in order to make the game more accessible in your first play through.

I am also completely fucking sick of Bioware forcing me to save the world/universe. There are more stories then saving the entire world and I would far prefer a story where the main character could very possibly be acting in their best interest or some such. Did they fucking focus group children and they don't feel like a game is worth their time if they aren't saving the universe? You would think they would take the cue from, you know, their own goddamned games that are heralded as the best computer RPGs of all time. BG(2) had worldwide ramifications, sure, but it was just as easy for the main character to not give two shits about that and could have just been unraveling the mystery, taking revenge, or just trying to save his own ass.

And their next game Mass Effect 2 absolutely cannot buck those trends after the ground work the first one laid out.

Edit: Still, it's fun and I don't regret the purchase at all. I'd still give it 9/10 but it's starting to get old, Bioware.

Edit2: Also the Deep Roads was some of the best gaming I've ever taken part in, even if it was mostly running around and killing shit. They did the Mines of Moria better than the LOTRO Mines of Moria expansion.

[Tessian]

I'm 38 hours into my first game (in the middle of the elves section) and I still can't put it down. Don't get what you're all bitching about, I find the story incredibly grabbing, the character's banter excellent, and the combat continues to be challenging and engaging.

[Zeus]

Also, MW2 anyone?

When do you prefer to play?

[bovine]

Also, MW2 anyone?

When do you prefer to play?

I am on fairly randomly. I'll set up some forwarding so that if you send me a PM on here, I'll get it on my phone. So if you are playing/about to play MW2, shoot me a PM on here.

[Shrinweck]

The banter is certainly excellent but otherwise they're fairly hollow, boring characters. I'm still not including Alistair. I'm just saying that if you're going to have a game have over sixty hours of content you should devote more of it to character development. There isn't even an hour of content per follower. I feel that it's a pretty big missed opportunity.

And yeah combat is flawless most of the time.

[Shrinweck]

I played through the Awakenings expansion. The preview I read promised 20 hours of game play if you went through the side quests and main quest lines and I barely got above eleven and only left one or two side quests unfinished. It's pretty well done, though, and they added two specializations (accessible at level 20, you get a third specialization points at 22) that are pretty fun but only accessible in the expansion campaign.

You can import your main from the original, continuing somewhat where the game left off, or make a new character that gets level to 18 whose 'origin' is that of an Orlesian.

While I'm pretty unimpressed with the play through time, it has inspired me to start going through the original campaign again.

The new Return to Ostagar DLC is decent, too, and introduces two pretty ridiculously amazing daggers into the game.