WAY OT - Dragon Age Origins?

Submitted by sheepman on

Sorry to waste anyones time. If it were midseason I wouldn't post this. Since I need something to occupy my time (save work on my dissertation) from now until September, I am thinking of making the investment for this game. Posting this question on gaming sites is worthless for many of those guys are WAY too into it, and would not suffer my ignorance for their nerdy world. I wanted to see if any mgobloggers knew anything.

Anyway, have you played this? How is it? How does it compare with Baldurs Gate II (which I LOVE)?

antoo

January 23rd, 2010 at 11:10 PM ^

I put 70-80 hours in. Haven't played Baldurs Gate but I would say DA:O is a mix of Morrowind and FFXII. There are tons of things to do and the story line was alright (very LOTResque). FWIW, I enjoyed playing it.

Hard Gay

January 23rd, 2010 at 11:13 PM ^

in less than two weeks i logged 70 hours in this game and that was splitting time with MW:2. fantastic game, if I had it with me at school I would fail this semester.

Bioware can never disappoint.

RockinLoud

January 23rd, 2010 at 11:27 PM ^

Bioware can never disappoint

I believe this to be true after two days of playing the first Knights of the Old Republic for 10 hrs straight each day because I couldn't stop. God help me if I start playing this game; I guess thats why stick to NCAA football now because I can easily stop after a game or two (my wife would also kill me if I didn't).

HartAttack20

January 23rd, 2010 at 11:28 PM ^

You can probably play this game through 4 times (If you are weird like that) and not get bored. I'd definitely recommend it. I'm actually playing it right now. This game should definitely fill your time untill september. Huge story and you definitely get pretty involved in it. I absolutely play it too much.

._.

January 23rd, 2010 at 11:37 PM ^

Game was amazing. I love RPGs but wasn't used to its playstyle. Once I got that down I could not stop playing it. Storyline is amazing, game is amazing, amazing amazing etc.

Calvin

January 23rd, 2010 at 11:42 PM ^

I was actually very curious about this game as well.

A few questions then I hope you guys can answer. How is the fighting style is it more like Fallout or Final Fantasy XII? Is it regular RPG style or does it have a tactical RPG tilt to it? Also, do you fight with an entire group by yourself or like 3 or 4 guys?

MMBhorn

January 24th, 2010 at 3:38 AM ^

One of the nice things about DA:O is that it gives you a couple of options on how to fight. You can play in a real time, over-the-shoulder environment (ie. World of Warcraft, Fallout 3 or KoTor) or you can play from a top down/isometric viewpoint like (Baldur's Gate or the original Fallout games.) I find that I tend to play with the over the shoulder view when moving around, talking to people, etc. But when combat starts I zoom out to the top-down view. I think it makes combat much more fun.

You can also set the game to auto pause during combat so you can get all your tactics set up just right, or you can wing it and just pause when you need to.

megalomanick

January 23rd, 2010 at 11:43 PM ^

Dragon Age is like a good book. You know that "just one more chapter" thing you get with books? This game has that effect. I often found myself thinking "just one more quest" and I don't typically do that with games. I found it hard to get in to at first because of the fantasy setting, there is a lot of background information to absorb before things start making sense. I'm on my second play through now and it's more enjoyable now that I know the setting better.

The same studio also made Mass Effect, another great game whose sequel comes out on Tuesday.

zlionsfan

January 24th, 2010 at 12:10 AM ^

Baldur's Gate (I have I and II and Icewind Dale) ... what I remember in particular as similarities are that you get easily immersed in some parts of the story (although others sometimes seem a bit odd), and at some point you get comfortable enough with your party and abilities that you can move smoothly through most encounters, but there are those occasional ones that are a pain. in. the. ass. (The one I seem to recall from BG was fairly early on, where you'd go near or in this tavern and someone would ask you your name, and if you gave it, right away a mage would cast something at you and you'd be attacked ... if you didn't disrupt his spell immediately, it was a bad thing for you. It took me a few tries to get through that one.)

I have yet to complete a playthrough (I'm stuck on one encounter right now and have other games to work on), but I can definitely see how it would be easily playable several times through, especially if you collect achievements/trophies.

GoBlue65 does have a good point about Mass Effect 2, though. If you have a PC or 360 and can afford both, I'd recommend that. If you can only get one, start with Dragon Age ... it's cheaper now, and once you've played it through a few times, hopefully some place will have ME2 on sale.

Tyreas

January 24th, 2010 at 12:20 AM ^

Its a very well made game thats for sure but I got bored with it. I got turned off about 20 hours in when I found out there was a bug with daggers or dex...something like that. It made my main character gimp then but I think they have patched it now.

I am sure I will pick it up again sometime since I forked out $70 for the collectors edition. Been spending my time playing all the PS2 RPG's I missed now that I have a soft modded one :-D. Just finished Xenosaga series and now on to Disgaea.

Praetor951

January 24th, 2010 at 12:46 AM ^

started playing it about 3 weeks before finals and put about 30 hours into it. i stopped playing it around finals, and then got a new computer and haven't installed it yet. it was fantastic though, and is worth every penny.

bouje

January 24th, 2010 at 1:11 AM ^

Just have to defeat the archdemon (big badass dragon bad guy). And it is a very good game comparable to most RPGs. All in all I would give it high marks IMO higher than FFXII but not higher than FFX

Tacopants

January 24th, 2010 at 3:12 AM ^

Get it.

Then make sure no matter what to put your points into persuasion. You can pick up characters good at all of the other skills, but it's up to your character to talk (and lie, coerce, convince, and threaten others).

It pays a lot of dividends, you can either escape fights or learn additional info with minimal work involved. It's also has a lot of side benefits...

MMBhorn

January 24th, 2010 at 3:45 AM ^

Great timing! I've been playing for the last 5 hours, and just thought I'd check here before bed.

Take it from me. As someone who has played BG, BGII (Still my favorite game of all time), Neverwinter Nights, KoTOR, KoTOR 2, Jade Empire and Mass Effect, I can confidently say that I LOVE DA:O. It is definitely worth the money/time investment. I'm currently on my second playthrough. My first time I pretty much stuck to the main storyline (which is great) and and I still had less than 50% of game content unlocked. This time I'm going for 100% (or as near to it as I can get.) I don't recall how many hours it was, but it took a bit longer than a week of playing every day to get it wrapped up.

Another thing I enjoyed is that there are a lot of little references to Bioware's previous games, especially BGII. You can see a list here, but there may be spoilers. Fair warning.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Easter_Eggs

BlueRaines

January 24th, 2010 at 10:10 AM ^

As my main character is a warrior. I needed a mage and it sucks not having a rogue to open chests and such. (Zevran sucks at that at first so I never used him). I usually rotate either the dog, alistair or szen (don't remember his name) as the other spot.

antoo

January 25th, 2010 at 4:49 PM ^

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How could you not go after that? Look what she's wearing! Throw in the accent and the bitchy attitude and I was sold. Boner material if I do say so myself.

With that being said, I somehow ended up boning Zevran as well. One minute I'm just talking to him and he's laying on some heavy flirtation and the next minute I'm in bed with the the guy. I felt violated.

sebastokrator

January 24th, 2010 at 10:33 PM ^

You love BG2? Awesome!

Dragon Age is much better than BG2 in terms of mechanics. Combat is much better; it is probably the best of any Bioware release. Gone are the days of battle, cast a bunch of spells, and rest. I just with the game was more upfront about the numbers. Characterization and banter has improved as well.

Baldur's Gate 2 still has two advantages though. Those are its plot and its superior mid to end game. Irenicus is a better villain than anyone or anything in DA, especially the super generic fantasy monsters, darkspawn. Plotwise, sometimes a more personal main quest is greater than this "Oh no, I have to save the world!" storyline though, in all fairness, the BG2 plot balloons outward near the end. Also: Bioware still hasn't learned how to make moral choices difficult. They're all pretty straightforward.

Moral of the story: Buy it. It is pretty great. If you have a choice of system, I'll recommend PC for the tactical camera.

Crime Reporter

January 24th, 2010 at 8:29 AM ^

I considered buying Dragon Age, but I can not run it on my PC, and the Xbox version looked unimpressive. Just wait until Tuesday and get Mass Effect 2. It's going to be good.

Hannibal.

January 24th, 2010 at 11:52 AM ^

The game can't hold a candle to Baldurs Gate II, but it's still pretty good. Combat is really hardcore. It's hard and you have to constantly pause the game to issue orders and stuff. It's also really hard. Enemies scale heavily to your level and that is one of my pet peeves in gaming, which is one reason why I don't think that the game is that great. The level scaling is almost as bad as Oblivion. The dungeons are too big sometimes and they tend to drag on. I had a lot more fun playing Risen and I think it's a much better game (not an apples to apples comparison though).

Calvin

January 24th, 2010 at 12:27 PM ^

While we're talking about rpgs, has anyone run across newer Tactical RPGS, like Fire Emblem? I like RPGS, but I enjoy the tactical variety more and I can't seem to find any newer games.

Tyreas

January 24th, 2010 at 12:36 PM ^

Most tactical games have some silly mechanic that makes the game not fun. The best I have found is Disgaea which is made by NIS(owns the strategy market basically). The stories are outrageous/funny and the tactics are some of the most in depth I have found. Not to mention you can level to 9999 in most of them. The replay value is just insane. The games have less emphasis on graphics and more on gameplay.I think a new one just came out for PS3.

I have tried almost every game from Romance of the Three Kingdoms to Fire Emblem and Disgaea is the one I enjoyed most.