I’m starting to think that Dragon Age might be worth the current trade-in offer here in Sweden(trade in 2 games and buy DA for 15 cents)
Thanks a lot for all the info, Desslock. I hadn’t paid much mind to the dorky ad campaign, but it’s good to know for certain that the tone of the game doesn’t match up to the way their marketing department has presented it. I look forward to reading your review, though I’ll probably wait until I’m a ways into the game before doing so.
I never put spoilers in my reviews, FWIW.
There are definitely some goofy things in Dragon Age that the ad campaign foreshadowed – the game is almost fetishistic with its use of blood splashing all over melee fighters (although it worked for John Boorman in Excalibur), and the animated puppet sex is among the silliest content I’ve seen in a RPG…the European developers do sex in RPGs better, not surprisingly - or at least they have more fun with it.
I always thought CD Projekt had the same problem, and did something like this: “We would put semi-realistic sex encounters in the game, sex-haters be damned, but an animated puppet sex scene would look silly, so we need something pseudo-erotic (like the sex scene) but without an actual sex scene”. Solution: Erotic illustrations.
It was even weirder that they were so defensive about the criticism of it.
Desslock, your posts here are really making me wish I could play this.
I just hope they follow Mass Effect’s lead and show a cutscene later on with the NPC in bed and the PC fully clothed in adventuring gear, standing nearby.
Well, Desslock has done a whole lot to ameliorate my negative reaction to the marketing for this game. Yeah, I figure the sex will make my eyes roll out of my head, and I knew the use of blood was going to end up silly when I saw the screenshots of clouds of blood bursting out of people as if their bodies were carbonated. But if the gameplay is as solid as he’s saying and the companions get interesting dialog then I feel much better about my inevitable purchase.
RepoMan
1729
Carbonated blood??? MMM, SOUNDS TASTY!
Yeah,we don’t do the me too thing much here, but yeah, me too. I was thinking of skipping this until Desslock brought me back in, with the caveat that I need some 360 reviews cause that’s all I have to play it on now.
Game has a timestamp on the saved games.
Played all the Origins, a couple of which with differerent friends, and about 12 hours with alts (primarily one in which I let my wife make all the decisions, but I controlled for the combat, etc.) - the rest was with my main character. I definitely have an OCD style, and can never not complete any quests (although there was one in the Mage tower that I couldn’t figure out so I moved on) – you could do it faster if you skipped through dialogue quickly, or spent no time currying favor, or played the combat on easy, but it’s a big game.
Look what happened, Desslock, you’ve made everyone swing around completely with the hints you’re dropping. I hope the final verdict in your review (and everyone’s experience) goes along with this or there will be a lot of tears!
Yeah, it seems like my 43/100 rating might be a shock.
jking obv
I cannot wait for this game…and Desslock isn’t helping at all. What’s also not helping is the week after the game comes out, I’m off to Copenhagen for work for a week. With the way I am with high quality RPGs (all of my very limited free time gets sucked into playing them when they come out), I’m sure I’ll be dying in Denmark, waiting to get home to play it more…
Even if they bend their knees when they shoot arrows??? ;)
Yeah, it seems like my 43/100 rating might be a shock.
jking obv
Yeah. You gave it a 55/100, didn’t you…
Sarkus
1735
While you all are obviously being sarcastic, I am slightly disappointed that there isn’t a human commoner origin. If you want your PC to be human, the nobility origin is the only option. I’m not sure they can add it in via DLC later, either, given the degree to which the origin reportedly plays a role in the story.
In my case, he’s just vindicating my earlier faith in Bioware when people started pooh-poohing those “new shit” trailers. I admit I wavered a bit, but I never quite broke!
You can also be a mage. Though now I wonder if the lack of a common-human origin is meant to underscore how humans are the top dawgs in DA compared to elves.
Sarkus
1737
Good point, I forgot about the mage option.
The lack of a human commoner origin actually only underscores the fact that they apparently weren’t happy with what they put together (they were trying to avoid the “farmboy hero” cliche) and had to scrap it altogether when they ran out of time. DA was originally supposed to include a human commoner origin.
Stone Prisoner and Shale DLC for eveyone with a new copy is awesome. The other pay-only DLC on launch day is not so awesome.
The ‘origins’ videos that they’ve been releasing have been a lot more promising than the character intro videos, so my hopes are increasing.
On the other hand, it looks like the people in charge of the character videos are now working on ME2, so that sucks.
The Warden’s Keep DLC release on launch is a tad odd and is bound to have a bunch of folks a bit on edge. I preferred the days of expansion packs 6-12 months later than this charging for extra content by bits-and-pieces sooner. DLC ready on day 1 makes it seem like it’s just left out of the game purposefully to allow an extra charge (whether that’s true or not, it’s the way it “feels” to a bunch of people).
I’ll have to see how I feel at launch whether I pick it up. I hate missing out on content that’s available for my first play through, and that’s probably what BioWare’s counting on with this sort of schedule (not to mention all the wacky bonus content scattered among retailers). Grumble.
