Bought it for PC. Other than iPhone games, it’s the only thing I have time to play in short bursts. So holidays pending, I expect Dragon Age to keep me occupied until the launch of Mass Effect 2 in late January. Marks the first time I move from one Bioware game straight into another.
Currently I’m a Level 7 elven mage getting ready to move out of Lothering. Took me awhile to master the party mechanics, and rethinking how I used to play the original Mass Effect for the PC by pausing the action briefly to position my party and tell them what abilities I want them to use.
Only in Dragon Age it’s pure micromanagement hell (changing party members for specific needs, equipping each of them with adequate gear and weapons, and making use of their trade skills), but honestly I’m really loving it. You can still switch quickly to any member and do anything live-action style while in combat. However mastering the pause mechanic to set-up targets, cast abilities, position characters, and change tactics ahead of time becomes essential to the survival of your party in much larger group fights and bosses.
It’s not for everyone, which makes me wonder how Bioware adjusted its complexity on a console. Dragon Age practically screams keyboard where the UI on the PC features the standard action bars and much of the control (aka sifting through dialogs or panels and clicking buttons) is simplified using a mouse.
In terms of story, I’m convinced Bioware does it better than no other. I probably would not be playing it still, had it not sucked me in already. Playing on and off, Mass Effect took me about 2 months for a mostly complete experience. On a first play-through I did most of the side stuff and read the quests as I tend to do with any game of this nature, like WoW, etc.
Graphically, it’s running fine on my now 3-year-old Mac Pro with all settings maxed. (2 x 2.66GHz dual-core Intel Xeon, 4GB RAM, 512MB nVidia 8800 GT, now running with Windows 7 on the Boot Camp hard disk) Some may argue it seems a tad dated when compared to other games today. I’d say it’s most definitely a step up from the original Mass Effect on the PC (which was partially due to it being a direct console port). Dragon Age looks much cleaner, runs smoother, has alot more effects. Makes me have high hopes for Mass Effect 2 to beat Dragon Age judging from the videos I’ve seen of it already.
So I’m curious if anyone is playing Dragon Age on Xbox or PS3. (Looking at Johan)
If it wasn’t for Lovisa playing it, I would not be here to post about it, but playing it myself. The game is absolutely amazing. I have a lvl 15 mage and a lvl 10 or so bow specialized rogue so far and well as most class/race combos available out of the origin stories just to see the start lines.
We do play in on the 360 though and they have made a marvelous work of adapting it to consoles. They have 6 quick buttons for a standard character (X, Y and B, with right trigger as modifier for the other 3), a radial menu that automatically pauses the game and grants access to everything else at the left trigger and a condition based tactics system that lets you modify the characters behavior when you are not controlling them actively. This system is really nice with tactics slots opening up as characters level up and lets you tell them what to do if party members/enemies are under attack, low health, mana, are immobilized and so on… creating a challenge in creating an as good system as possible. This allows your combat to be somewhat less pause by pause play as the computer counterpart’s controls would allow to do with greater ease and more action oriented. This doesn’t mean that bigger fights have you juggle between characters and hand out specific commands, but smaller fights are quick and easy.
So far, storywise and so, the game is absolutely top notch. While the world is original, it’s a lot like Middle Earth with a twist, but it’s hard to create a fantasy world without it looking Tolkien inspired… some parts looks like they borrowed digital assets from WETA Digital though. I don’t mind a bit, because the game is awesome enough as it is.
I think I might have lost what I wanted to say there, because Lovisa broke my concentration by discovering some new stuff in the game…. so I’ll leave it at that.
Currently playing through the Ruins to kill the werewolf dude. Only real pet peeves are not enough weapons and gear drops suited for a mage. Had to occasionally buy a piece off a vendor. I also seem to be running across lots of other stuff which I can’t equip on my other party members yet. Leaves me conflicted whether to sell that stuff or keep it until it becomes useful.
Definitely as they say, “a more hardcore RPG”. I’m only playing it on normal and have had to repeat numerous encounters or just avoid other (sometimes optional) battles altogether after many unsuccessful attempts forced me to believe they were not possible at the time. Certainly no tank-and-spank in this game, which I think is a plus actually. Sometimes it’s nice to know there are still games that prove to be really challenging.
I totally put 30 hours into without even realizing it. One of Bioware’s best by far. Currently heading toward Dwarfville to get the last treaty taken care of…
I’ve spent at least 90 hours in the game now I think, beaten it twice, once with a mage and once with a rogue archer. Only have one origin story left to play and then I’ll beat the game once as some sort of warrior too I guess… after that I should have 1100/1100 gamerscore… which would be a first for me
That part is temporarily put on ice though, since I got this deadly urge to play through Mass Effect again first. Can’t wait for Mass Effect 2 after playing Dragon Age, since it’s a much smoother console RPG experience than Mass Effect, so it gives me a good sensation for the sequel.
Also, new DLC supposed to hit for Dragon Age in a few weeks, and if it’s anything like Stone Prisoner and Warden’s Keep, it will be well worth it… and I always wanted to go have a peek at Ostagar after the battle.
Ogrimmar was always more like Hicktown or Redneckville to me. Everyone there needs to visit a dentist, except the Blood Elf cousins from the north I suppose.
Anyways about 25 hours played so far. Beat the Ruins and Redcliffe, many other encounters as well. Was pissed whenever I tried to return to the Caravan to get my stuff enchanted since I had Runes. Except Darkspawn had sacked the place. Now onto Denerim I suppose since this quest tells me that’s where I ought to go to save Arl Eamon.
Had to redo an encounter because apparently the game didn’t auto-save, and I forgot to manually save as I often do after just about every major battle. Alot of fun though, really digging the story, I always find the conversations between your party members amusing.
Wow… Dragon Age keeps getting better. Played through all of Denerim after several hours. Took a long time since I tend to take my time and explore everything, also died several times until I got my strategy figured out, bypassing traps in the shady Blood Mage hideout. Did most of the side quests I could do. Went to Haven and massacred most of the village, now into the frozen temple.
I started out my character as the mostly considerate type. I’m always afraid that I have to be nice in order for other NPCs to talk to me, otherwise they might brush you off quickly. But after a while, I started to realize if the NPC comes off as a prick or I sense a hidden agenda, I’ll go with the “Sorry, but I insist” (shoot first, ask questions later) approach.
On Mass Effect 2:
Forgot to mention I preordered the Collector’s Edition for Mass Effect 2 when it was announced. I never preorder anything, but in this case there is an incentive on top of all the cool stuff the CE comes with. (WOOT, comic book!) Also, in another win for the PC over consoles, Mass Effect 2 is $10 cheaper, like Dragon Age and Valve games.
Anyways, as someone who typically prefers the sci-fi genre over fantasy and since I’m a Mass Effect fanboy, I think I will take a 1 or 2 vacation days for Mass Effect 2. Not only because I want to be present to sign for my shipment, but more so that I’ve read both books, played the original game twice though, as well as the Galaxy “mini-saga” on the iPhone (whose main character Jacob will have an appearance in Mass Effect 2).
The second book gives more insight into the mystery of the Collectors, Omega station in the Terminus systems, the Quarians, biotics, Cerberus and the Illusive Man. All of which I’m sure, as well as your outcomes from the first game, will play into Mass Effect 2. The videos so far look stunningly awesome, albeit the standard version box art seems a little hideous. Anyways, I can’t wait. It’s quite possibly the first game in a very long time I have some hype for. And with good reason to feel it couldn’t possibly be disappointing no matter if reviews were to later say it was shit. It’s just not going to be.
I’m gonna buy the Mac Version, although it looks a little more RPGey than I’d like. I was hoping it was first person as Fallout 3 easily is my favorite game of the past few years but I’ll deal
Well, now there’s a [URL=http://www.transgaming.com/news/?id=131]Mac Version coming….[/URL]... next week!
This means I’ll have to buy it all again I guess
In a word: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU….
I wish there was a way I could copy the files from the PC disc and just pay to have a Mac executable to launch the game with. I swear I’d move my save files over to the Mac side in a heartbeat. As I said before, whether it be PC or now Mac, I have to recommend Dragon Age on a computer. I had a go of it briefly on a friend’s PS3, but it still feels more suited to a keyboard and mouse. Reviews say the graphics are much nicer too, although I didn’t really notice. For me personally, it’s all about the full resizable action bar for each party member’s spells, potions, and abilities as well as the vital quicksave key that are my saving grace. I screw up a lot.
FInally beat Dragon Age for the first time tonight after 2 months. Wow, what an awesome game I must say. Only had time to play maybe 1-2 nights a week for a bit, but I can say I’ve enjoyed the journey, the story (er, my story) and the characters. Deep Roads sucked though. Damn, that took a long time with many, many deaths. I don’t want to go into detail because some may still be playing through it yet, but I had no idea how incredibly complex it was until my friend picked it up for the Xbox and started playing it. His story is entirely different compared to mine, save for the overall Grey Wardens “flighting the Blight” theme of the game.
Johan, since you had the Xbox version, my friend was wondering if or how he can upload screenshots the game automatically takes to his online profile. I guess from what I understand he sees the game capture screenshots, but he hasn’t figured out how to upload them? I’m not really sure what he is talking about as I would’ve guessed this would be the same across all platforms, but I don’t know much about the console version. On the PC, it took screenshots at certain points but you can also manually take them with the ‘Print Screen’ key. Then on the main menu there is a “Player Profile” option to enable DLC, view screenshots, achievements, etc. and upload as long as you’re logged in with your EA account. Is this the same also for the console?
I actually have no idea… since my brief contact with the EA social site contains characters that wasn’t synced in two months of gaming and not much else.
