Games of 2009: Dragon Age: Origins

By John Walker Published 30 December, 2009

Epic scale.

What I take away from Dragon Age is a sense of having been somewhere. No, more than that. Having lived somewhere. In most well-established gaming worlds I feel as though I've been a visitor. Dragon Age was my home.

This is thanks to the extraordinary depth to which everything reaches. The story you're playing isn't something new to the lands of Ferelden. Every few hundred years there's a Blight, an uprising of the Darkspawn in response to the emergence of a new Archdemon, leading to terrible wars and horrendous death. A band of elite fighters called the Grey Wardens exist to defeat these attacks, and it's to this group that your character is quickly recruited. But it's a group that's diminished, disrespected if not totally forgotten. Because people forget.

But this is only the surface of the history. Everything, everywhere, everyone has an elaborate background you can learn all about, listen to, read into, and absorb. Or ignore it if you wish. Even the two guys running the shop in your base camp have a background to explore, a complex relationship, and past actions that will raise moral questions.

Learning about the history of the Chantry, Ferelden's dominant religion, perhaps demonstrates BioWare's astonishing detail at its finest. Not many games try to invent a new religion. Fewer still create one so rich with problems, so divided - to the point of schism - with such potential for good and for evil. You know, like a real religion. What's even more interesting is deciding whether your character believes in the Chant or not. It's a peculiar decision to make. I decided mine would.

I decided this because he was from a wealthy family of nobility, the sort who would likely be involved in the religion by tradition rather than necessarily belief. I wanted a character who was questioning his faith, challenged by facing the reality of the harm it was doing, but also willing to support where it did good. Which brings me to that moment in the Dwarven city of Orzammar. I feel compelled to warn you of spoilers of one side-quest to follow.

'Games of 2009: Dragon Age: Origins' Screenshot 1

Dwarves don't follow the Chant. Instead their faith is based on the history of their ancestors. It's another complex and involved belief system, quite at odds with the predominant Human religion of the country. And most Dwarves would never have any cause to be concerned by alternative faiths. To even leave Orzammar is to be outcast, never welcome back. But the Dwarves also have a caste system, and with that comes great discomfort for the visiting outsider. Those who are casteless (untouchable) are despised, forced to live in poverty and squalor, turning to crime and prostitution to survive. For nothing other than being born.

So when you meet a guy who wants to set up a Chantry in Orzammar you have an incredibly complicated situation. Brother Burkel is a Dwarf who wants to establish a place of worship in the Orzammar Commons district. He asks for your help with this. In many ways this is a familiar BioWare side-quest formula, a moral quandary with unpredictable consequences.

For some this might be a very simple case for no: The Dwarves have a religion, and to begin touting another is disrespectful and inappropriate. For others it might be far more complicated: Is it appropriate for one person to impose his culture on another? And for others still it's simply yes: Everyone has a right to freedom of religion, and he should be given that freedom and the right to worship.

But it's more complex than that. Because Burkel intends to use his Chantry for two reasons. The first is to care for the casteless, feed and clothe them, help them to escape from criminal gangs and the sex industry. The second is to evangelise his faith amongst the Dwarves. And good grief, both of those are rich with issues.

Dragon Age's most frequent theme is the line between acculturation and enculturation. You are constantly challenged by the cultural nature of the races you meet, and your own, and how they interact. But at this point the game becomes about inculturation. Can you support an individual who wishes to convert a race to his religion?

I decided my character would. Simon, a Human Warrior who had been helping the Chantry with the quests from their Chantry Boards perhaps with naivety, would want to support this man's right to religious expression. John, a Human Writer, would be far more likely to suspect him of being one of those shouting lunatics in the street, and erring on the side of cynicism recommend he not. But I was to feel badly as soon as I saw the first result of this Chantry, once it was established with Simon's support.

A young Dwarf, cast to the gutters for falling pregnant with a casteless man's son, had been abandoned by her family. Living on the street, her life was in danger and no one would support her. But for the Chantry, who gave her a home, food, and love. Surely this was good? (Of course it couldn't be this simple. It's also possible to find her father and convince him to accept her back into his family, with all the accompanying issues that raises.)

And then comes the end of the game. Once the game is over, and you've watched whatever conclusion your actions may have brought about, it cuts to a sequence of written messages that catch you up to various characters and companions you might have met throughout the game. I'm a sucker for those - those captions at the end of films or programmes. The greatest example of all being at the end of the last episode of Quantum Leap - that line about Sam makes me blub just to describe it. And they work well here.

'Games of 2009: Dragon Age: Origins' Screenshot 2

I wasn't expecting one about Brother Burkel. The quest was so brief, so seemingly inconsequential to the larger story, that I'd forgotten about it, and fully expected the game to as well. But up popped that two-part message.

"Brother Burkel's new Chantry in Orzammar drew a surprising number of converts among the dwarves. They quickly attracted a great deal of anger from more conservative quarters, and before long the Assembly severely restricted the Andrastians' rights.

"Brother Burkel resisted, and was slain while being arrested during a peaceful demonstration in the Commons. The Assembly claimed this was an accident, but news of the resulting riots reached the Chantry on the surface, where the Divine even contemplated a new Exalted March."

An Exalted March is essentially a crusade. A bloody battle fought in the name of the Chant. My small action, and its escalating consequences, might have brought about the beginnings of a religious war.

I want to emphasise again, this was an ignorable side-quest of no significance to Dragon Age's main narrative. It changed the options available when choosing whether to look after the starving girl you meet, but beyond that, you could have walked past it and never known it was there.

This is the sort of depth on display in Dragon Age. This is why it is one of the most extraordinary gaming achievements I've seen. This is why I dismiss suggestions that the game succumbs to cliché. Yes, Elves and Dwarves and Mages and Humans fighting an ancient evil army that will destroy us all is hardly groundbreaking fantasy fiction. Creating a world you can live in, around which this vast war is occurring, is groundbreaking.

Check out the Editor's blog to find out more about our Games of 2009.

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About John Walker

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Comments (58) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • hiddenranbir #1 2 years ago

    Game is okay.

  • Sharzam #2 2 years ago

    Couldnt agree more, the main story is actually the most shallow and dare i say it boring of the game (althourgh boring by the games own standard which still higher than most).

    It is the world that makes it a great game i dont think i am any where nearing completing it despite putting many many hours in already. The one problem i have is that with RPGs iam one of those people that completes all quests in a area before moving on to next area but due to the storys and tangents that dragon age has i cant just forget about area and move on as it all links together back and forth.

    edit: i have the PC version running at full whack, i can understand all the negative comments directed at the game if your playing the console versions there a very different experience.
    Edited by 2 at 30/12/09 @ 01:45

  • Dizzy #3 2 years ago

    Fantasy is cliche by definition. I wonder why everybody always wants FRPGs to break the mold. They can't! Their fanbase requires a serious dose of cliche.

  • coomber #4 2 years ago

    So 6/10 qualifies for one of the Games Of The Year?

    Slow year for games...

  • Whizzo #5 2 years ago

    Brother Burkel is a Human

    As it's panto season : "Oh no he isn't!"

    He's a dwarf who has renounced his own peoples' beliefs and taken on those of humans, rather a risky thing to do when you're underground and surrounded by them.

  • Faldrath #6 2 years ago

    Good article (although I'm pretty sure brother Burkel is actually a dwarf. I don't have the game here to check).

    The thing about DA is that yes, it kinda builds on clichés, but it also turns a lot of them over their heads. Humans, elves, dwarves, mages, demons - all familiar stuff. But the way they're represented in DA is not familiar at all - elves segregated in ghettos, dwarves with a caste system, mages walking a fine line between great power and demonic possession, etc. The game really works in the world-building aspect.

    Also, the setting is just brimming with potential. In Origins we only see a small part of the world - there are a lot of places and stories Bioware can develop, and most of them sound very, very interesting. I for one plan on following this franchise very closely.

  • Scimarad #7 2 years ago

    Huh. Usually when referencing a game they slagged off EG is quick to repeat their opinions as solid facts but this time it's as if the 6/10 review never happened. Funny, that.

  • Captain_Jono #8 2 years ago

    I'm not entirely sure that taking the history of the Catholic church and changing some of the terminology counts as inventing a religion. Nevertheless, it does fit the setting very. Apart from that, You're on the money about DAO.
    Edited by 1 at 30/12/09 @ 00:45

  • Whizzo #9 2 years ago

    The PC version, which I'm sure John is referring to, got an 8/10 here but in his own review for PC Gamer he gave it 94%.

  • botherer #10 2 years ago

    coomber and Scimarad - it received 8/10 from EG on PC.

    [link url=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/dragon-age-origins- review
    ]http://ww w.eurogamer.net/articles/dragon...[/link]

    Whizzo - you're right. My stupid mistake. I'll nag Tom to fix it in the morning.
    Edited by 1 at 30/12/09 @ 00:53

  • darkmorgado #11 2 years ago

    The original review was terribly written and is, in my experience, one of the worst I have ever read on this site. The game is a masterpiece, it seems the author of the article agrees. Sadly, the game was overshadowed by the controversy of its DLC plan, which is vastly irritating because it is an AMAZING game. Maybe not if you're an instant-gratification tard that thinks gaming is all about headshots, but still...
    Rock on, you crazy diamond. I want A SEQUEL

  • TravisTouchdown #12 2 years ago

    Dog shit. Orcs and badgers - sling it.

  • TravisTouchdown #13 2 years ago

    Who are the creepy men sneaking on here, marking me down, not leaving a comment and doing one? Own up you swine!

  • Iceman346 #14 2 years ago

    Dragon Age is BioWare at their best, but even so, it still doesn't quite knock players back like Knights of the Old Republic did (and as good as DA is, it ain't no KotOR)

    IMO it's even better than KotOR. In KotOR Bioware didn't have to create it's own world, most of the things were laid out for them, they just had to write a compelling story around things which mostly already existed. And while the world design in Dragon Age is nothing groundbreaking it's different and gritty enough to make it unique.

    The other thing KotOR was good for is establishing the "standard Bioware RPG". You start out somewhere, do some quests, then you have a choice of X places to go and to do even more quests until everything gets tied up by some final quests and the big bad. This is the formula even Dragon Age follows but the game finally does away with a black and white good/evil system which fitted in KotOR but nowhere else.
    And delightfully most of the choices in Dragon Age are pretty grey, sure some are dark grey and some are light grey and of course there are some clearly good or evil paths but more than once I was surprised by the path the game took after I made a seemingly easy choice.

    And while DA lacks the big twist that KotOR has it eclipses it in basically every other way.

    This, in addition with the glorious return to a good combat system with overhead view (yeah, I played the PC version ;)) imo makes DA the best RPG since quite some time and, for me, marks a return to form for Bioware, whose last games weren't as good as they could have been.

  • hiddenranbir #15 2 years ago

    I got negged for saying DA was "okay"?

    Amazing.

    Ah, should I have described DA as that?

    Fantasy doesn't have to be cliche. Check out King Arthur game. No Tolkien trappings there. Any fantasy based on Indian/Chinese mythos gets it out of the Tolkien trap as well.
    Edited by 1 at 30/12/09 @ 01:19

  • trooper6 #16 2 years ago

    I'm glad I read this spoilerific article. Why? Because I never would have found out about that Brother Burkel situation. Why?

    Because rather than being a human who believed in the Chant, I was a Noble Dwarf. One little note in the game mentioned that the Dwarves don't actually show up in the Fade. So...while the Maker and all that might be true for Humans...the Dwarven religion is true for them. So for my noble, there was no way I'd give my influential name to a surface dweller religion that just isn't true for us.

    Now, I have to say, I am not done with the game...but I am still really mad about being set up and stripped of my title. Yeah, yeah, I know being a Grey Warden is a great honor, blah, blah...but I didn't want to leave Orzamar...and I hate my brother. I seethe.

  • KillerMonkey #17 2 years ago

    We need more women like Morrigan in this world.

  • mikew1985 #18 2 years ago

    eh Killermonkey... most women ARE like Morrigan!

  • ybfelix #19 2 years ago

    When I saw this particularly groan-worthy pun subtitle I thought of Rockpapershotgun, and yes, it's Mr. Walker.

  • 43n1m4 #20 2 years ago

    One of the best game experiences this year imo. Along with the pleasant surprise of Batman: Arkham Asylum, which fortunately turned out to be much more than a beat 'em up game, and Forza Motorsport 3, which turned out to be one of the best driving games ever, Dragon Age was the best pure RPG of 2009. As always, its about immersion, depth and believable characters, of which there are plenty in this game. Dragon Age refines the qualities, we've come to expect from Bioware, and I'm excited to see what the next Mass Effect game comes up with. Because as storytellers, there are few to none developers at the level of Bioware.
    Edited by 1 at 30/12/09 @ 02:58

  • Turambar #21 2 years ago

    When i buy an RPG, I want an RPG. I don't want something that breaks the RPG mould or a "paradigm shift" in RPG gaming. Dragon Age gave me an RPG and I couldn't be happier with it.

  • Ryuken #22 2 years ago

    Great world with brilliant lore, some great party members, a graphical engine which can finally equal the painted sceneries of the Infinity Engine games, good online support, toolset is gonna make a big splash; actual choices, great presentation (music, even visuals, you don't mind some stiff faces with so much more meaningful content than ME can offer), ...

    But... too many of the same, mindless encounters (not enough visible and meaningful ways to bring some variation in the Darkspawn for example), the camera doesn't zoom out enough on PC/needs more tweakable options (like being able to put off automated focusing on the selected member in close view), the camera simply becomes FUBAR in confined spaces, the party members as a whole are nowhere near as charming/interesting as the ones of BGII, there is no multiplayer, only four party members is simply put two steps back and on a whole the spells feel like an enormous step back compared to the rich options of the Forgotten Realms IE games. There is nothing being done with a sleep/rest mechanic even though that would surely balance things out in the "overpowered mage vs underpowered rest of the classes"-problem this game clearly suffers from. And not to forget, the paid DLC is a poor and despising evolution, they better make a decent compilation/addon pack of all those.

    Whatever you say, John, it's an awesome title indeed :) and one of 2009's best but it doesn't even take an expert's view to see in which specific areas it fails in comparison with the holy grail that is Baldur's Gate II (still the most accomplished RPG of the decade) and that's a huge pity. Because Bioware could have done something world shattering with DA, you see they're picking up some of Troika's genius. Just like BG1 was far from perfect I suspect/hope Dragon Age 2 will pick up some of the lessons it still desperately needs to learn.

  • White_Westie #23 2 years ago

    I bought this, put in once and spent an hour with it and then thought it was rubbish....

    A few days later I went back to it, and invested another 5 hours. I have got to say, I am glad I did, this game is fantastic!

    The story is great in my eyes (so far), I like the fact it is "old style D&D", and look forward to playing it for the months to come.... 70+ hours is an incredable amount of game for its money.

    You get from a game (sometimes) what you put in... this is one of those rare occasions where you MUST invest time to get the most of this. Absolutely Brilliant.

    If I had to be Picky, it would be that I cannot Jump/swim, and there are areas where I cannot walk. (such as Cannot jump off a ledge to lower ground, etc)... some areas area I just cannot walk on... I have to take "the path" to get there...!

    That is its only downfall though.... and if you buy it now, you will get it for a bargain price... :-)

  • chukcyQ #24 2 years ago

    Can I get laid in this game?

  • EmiliasHorse #25 2 years ago

    After the panning that EG gave the 360 version I decided to buy the 360 version anyway. They were wrong.

    Yes the PC version is better if you play that first then go straight into reviewing a console version. Same would apply to most games on PC's provided you use powerful equipment. Thing is, I like the sofa and the dog sat next to me and a cup of tea. I have a PC more than capable of doing DA justice and will buy it and love it all over again but 6/10 ? Wrong.
    Edited by 1 at 30/12/09 @ 09:31

  • lucky_jim #26 2 years ago

    I'm only 6 or 7 hours in (360 version) but I'm really enjoying it. The flaws are pretty obvious, but it's a Bioware RPG and a damn good one at that. I took the plunge because I enjoyed both KOTOR and Jade Empire on the last Xbox so much that I figured "well, I like that type of game, so I'll probably like it more than EG did".

  • Ace_McCloud #27 2 years ago

    @Botherer - He gave it 94%? That should make it a 10 here then right?

    (Working on the assumption that 0-10 = 1, 10-20 = 2, 20-30 = 3, 30-40 = 4, 40-50 = 5, 50-60=6, 60-70 = 7, 70-80 = 8, 80-90 = 9 and 90-100 = 10)

    Could we see it jump two whole points!?;)

  • Windypops #28 2 years ago

    Playing the 360 version and would have to agree with the consensus that 6 out of 10 was wrong. But I can see why it got a kicking. While the game is enormously compelling, it's a dog-shit horrible port of the PC original. It looks like a first-gen Xbox game. It's like the developer knew they'd need to make it multi-format to make a profit, so they lavished all the love on the PC version and fucked over their console customers.

    I've had tremendous fun with this over the festive season. It's reignited my interest in RPGs, and I've gone out and bought Fallout 3 again to give that another go next. Can't help feeling that it's not very kind to relatively lightweight RPG players like myself, though. The battle tactics are a little impenetrable, and now that the going is getting a little tougher, I find myself getting repeatedly battered without much idea why. Have I got the right party mix? Are they using their weapons and armour to their best advantage? And, if I have to sit through that face-off with the possessed kid in Radcliffe Castle one more time, a kitten WILL die. Meanwhile, more advanced players have tweaked and micro-managed every aspect of their party and tactics and are foxtrotting through the whole affair.

    So, great game, but developers need to get out of the PC ghetto mindset and learn that not every one of their customers has played all of their previous RPGs.
    Edited by 1 at 30/12/09 @ 11:31

  • fluff_the_tiger #29 2 years ago

    The review of dragon age on this site was a disaster , please don't let that reviewer ever review an rpg again!

  • AC!D #30 2 years ago

    Played this game on PS3 and loved every minute. Only one thing they need to do is to get a new level designer and make the levels less linear, better looking and please Bioware less identical dungeons. I also have to say that the 6/10 review was terrible along with the 7/10 Ratchet review. Those two are two of the best games ive played this year. Its a pity that some games seem to need to reinvent gaming while others slide past the media and Eurogamer in particular on their name alone.

  • ParanoidZombie #31 2 years ago

    I didn't read the article because I don't wantto read anything that could interfere with MY journey in ferelden - tha's how good dragon age is.

  • hiddenranbir #32 2 years ago

    Best game in the universe ever!

  • thedaveeyres #33 2 years ago

    I give this review 6/10 - it's a masterpiece.

  • KillerMonkey #34 2 years ago

    "eh Killermonkey... most women ARE like Morrigan!"

    I don't see most women doing dark babymaking rituals in bed, but maybe that's just me.

  • muscleblade #35 2 years ago

    "I got negged for saying DA was "okay"?
    Amazing."

    Indeed. Doesnt take much to get tons of negative feedback. I tend to only give feedback at comments that really deserve a feedback being it positive or negative. The system would have worked better if everybody used it that way.

  • actionfitz #36 2 years ago

    awesome wee game.
    I cant seem to finish yet though, everytime I do a new section on my dual wielding bezerker/reaver i have to see how it plays on my rogue and my mage etc... hehe.
    still having a blast. ^^

  • Vedfolner #37 2 years ago

    This game died on instant for me when it couldn't resist keeping me constantly aware of the DLC-package released on it's day of release (which I didn't own). Traded it in the following day - shame on you Bioware/EA, whomever was responsible for that filthy policy.

  • Demiath #38 2 years ago

    While I appreciate the work Bioware put into fleshing out the game world, I can't say I ever felt the least bit compelled to read any of the Codex entries. Quantity doesn't equal quality - generic fantasy stuff is still generic fantasy stuff no matter how many lines of text you manage to cram into a single game, or how many times you beat the player over the head with the glaringly obvious fact that DA:o's Elves are the game's equivalent of the Jewish people. I got it the first time, thankyouverymuch, and it wasn't very compelling to begin with...
    Edited by 3 at 30/12/09 @ 15:34

  • Hantheman #39 2 years ago

    Ot ate my social life for 2 weeks. Incredible story depth.

  • orakio #40 2 years ago

    Definitly my game of the year as well. These days I barely finish most games I get, let alone re-play it. .... I'm on my third dragon age playthrough.

  • metalangel #41 2 years ago

    My only gripe so far (halfway through main quest) is some of the dungeon crawls are so long that by the time I finish them I've forgotten why I was there and what part of the story I was at. So far this has been true for both the Arl and Dalish main quests. Oh, and how do you make Morrigan put her hood up? She looks much sexier peering out from under it...

  • anomagnus #42 2 years ago

    60 hrs plus ion the first playthrough. I made choices in the end that gutted me (don't want to spoil it). It felt epic.

    It annoys me thought that this site only gave it 8/10. The entire review felt awful, and didnt read true.

    Sadly though, as much as i loved it, i couldnt help but feel like the game was one long glorious goodbye to a genre of games that included Baldurs Gate, PLanescape and the orginal fallout. There was a feel about it, that reminded me of my first play through of BG2, but i know that we'll not really see that type of numbers fantasy rpg in the future.

  • Mechstra #43 2 years ago

    Captain_Jono:

    "I'm not entirely sure that taking the history of the Catholic church and changing some of the terminology counts as inventing a religion."

    The Chantry is definitely Catholic-influenced but theologically it's significantly different, more akin to Christian Gnosticism along the lines of the Cathars in many ways.

  • immateriaux #44 2 years ago

    Dragon Age was my biggest gaming disappointment of the year, was expecting something more progressive from the hype but the game is very much a retrogressive step. The lack of day/night cycles, the old style click on a place go directly there, no real exploration involved, everybody is standing exactly where they always stand every time you enter a town etc - it's all ten years ago gameplay for me. Thought we'd moved on some?

    The entire immersive element is handled by the cut scenes in the main, rather than through a genuine sense of involvement, of acting out a part. playing a role etc. There is far too much emphasis on watching movies in the game for my liking. Really got bored at times and would end up shouting at the PC "Jesus, just get on with it..." to the amusement of others here.

    Story wise - you know where it is going from the start so found it hard to get too excited by it. It's not a patch on something like the Witcher, where there is some genuine intrigue to be felt at times.

    Combat wise/Strategy, it's just broke. Trying to orchestrate your characters in an intelligent way is almost impossible given how they either clump together without the "hold" option or stand about getting beaten to death with it switched on. That part of the game is just terrible.

    Bit like Lucas at Liverpool, plays a decent enough game but nothing I can get excited about.

  • coomber #45 2 years ago

    Snakehips76 : "I hate openly berating posters on interwebz but here goes"

    I can see why you don't like to do it, when it leaves you looking so stupid.

    Like at least 45 other people it would seem, you have misunderstood my post completely. I am not suggesting Dragon Age does not deserve to be among the contenders for Game Of The Year. I am pointing out the irony that a site that criticised the game as much as Eurogamer did in both of its reviews (even the 8/10 one), could then hail it as one of the year's best.

  • coomber #46 2 years ago

    The important thing is that we can kiss and make up ;-)

    For the record, I think the game looks great, I just haven't had a chance to play it yet.

  • Widge #47 2 years ago

    The DA:o reviews were done by Oli Welsh. This is John Walker doing a piece on (one of) his games of 2009. I'm sure that within EG, the writers can differ in opinion.

  • Curion #48 2 years ago

    LoL!! that was rather funny, bioware are the kings of melodramatic twaddle! This was my game of the year, pregnant dwarfs and a new religion fuck my apple diet.

  • stryker1121 #49 2 years ago

    The original review was written by a WoW enthusiast....who in a recent article said he's put 1,500-plus hours into that particular timesink. Hey, that's cool, but apparently b/c of his borderline obsessive WoW fandom he had certain expectations for DAO and they weren't met. From my experience w/ the 360 version, the reviewer is off base, particularly in his chippiness over the 360 graphics. Are they great? No...but they're fine, and the story and depth of DAO make up for the graphical shortcomings. I'm not done with DAO yet, and I'll second the guy who said that DAO is no KOTOR, but DAO on consoles is a very solid title nontheless and not nearly the disaster EG made it out to be.

  • des #50 2 years ago

    Overhyped crap.

  • specular #51 2 years ago

    I think the low EG score for DAO on the 360 is ultimately a signal to BioWare. I have no information on the porting procedure but it looks like it was running on full auto. If the DAO graphics engine was made to work with the 360 a little better, particularly the framerate and lighting, it would instantly have been a legendary game. Minor quirk is the exclusion of the tactical view.

    Now do I think the 6 for DAO is justified? No way, especially the way this review was written. I'm loving this game and mostly because of the things mentioned in this article. The number of hours I put in will be steadily growing :)


    edit: woops, DOA is something else.
    Edited by 1 at 31/12/09 @ 13:23

  • fluff_the_tiger #52 2 years ago

    The graphics on the 360 version weren't even that bad!

  • ExplodingClown #53 2 years ago

    Wow, these comments pages really are a fanboy circle jerk eh?

    Dragon Age feels like a game that got greenlit when the LotR movies were sweeping all before them and someone wanted to get a piece of that action - the material's so similar you can bet the Tolkien estate had a few consultations with their lawyers - and as a result it now feels like the last greyhound out of the traps, chasing a soggy bunny everyone's got tired of chewing.

    It feels so stale largely because ironically the Modern Age has left it behind: the virtuous few gathering forces to counter an apocalyptic threat was how the Bush government sold the Afghan and Iraq invasions to a confused and frightened American public after 9/11 (remember the 'Coalition of the Willing'?), but of course those adventures turned into a swamp of blood and the threat turned out to be a bogeyman blown up large to scare people into surrendering their rights for a little imaginary security. So the high concept just doesn't have the pull it likely seemed to at the planning stage. Certainly games don't *have* to be about anything other than sheer whimsy (though I'm sure if you look hard enough you'll find a Marxist deconstruction of Power and Inequality in the Mushroom Kingdom, or anything else you care to name), but popular culture is both the mirror and the shaper of the public psyche: and if you're trying to give something a tone of high seriousness, you've got to infuse it with *meaning* people can relate to, or it collapses into so much po-faced tedium. Unless of course you have characters strong enough to carry the story... and Morrigan aside, DA's cast is pure cardboard (Alistair for example looks more like he got dropped from a boy band than left a militant order, and behaves like it too).

    (and whoever said it was new and fresh, or somesuch verbiage, to have elves 'n' dwarves as third-class citizens stuck in a nonhuman ghetto obviously never played The Witcher. Which is many times the game DA:o was)

    The fact that Hellforge's Cliche Chart got such a bilious reaction from the BioWare guy speaks volumes, as you only go crazy at someone thumbing their nose at you if a very tender nerve has been hit, otherwise you laugh it off as mere tomfoolery. Characters plagued with adolescent wangst, unadventurous adventuring... I could go on but I bitched long enough in the comments for the original review (which was generous with the score). It's also visually horrible - the characters may be nice, but the colour palette is ghastly esp. in the Mage Tower and Orzammar, the levels are cookie-cutter design (how many goddamn circular towers were in that game?), and the natural environments look like something from Neverwinter Nights. which was fine 5 years ago, but not now. The potentially interesting introduction of The Fade was completely squandered and mostly looked like a bad Rodney Matthews picture. The vast reams of background were unimaginative and tiresome to read, and frankly staying ignorant of them made no difference to one's ability to navigate the game - I didn't need to read about a monster in the bestiary to maybe find its hidden weakness, I just attacked it 'til it died, and dialogue choices were pretty simple Morality 101 where again you didn't need to know any of the contextual material to advance.

    Plus overpriced DLC that should have been in the original release, a poisonously dishonest trend designed to bilk the unwary customer (at least Mass Effect didn't charge for Bring Down The Sky, at least on the PC).

    I sorely regret buying this game, and thank god I found a trainer for it and didn't have to slog through the whole thing the hard way to discover how empty the whole experience was. As John Lydon said, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?".

    *edit for clarification
    Edited by 1 at 01/01/10 @ 18:31

  • BremXJones #54 2 years ago

    At least Dragon Age wasn't sexist though, eh?

    KG

  • ExplodingClown #55 2 years ago

    @KG: I wish it had been. Hell, make it less PC all round. That might have made for some interesting characterisation, possibly adding a vicious edge to the intra-party sniping, which otherwise had the feel of bickering classmates on a school trip. For an apparent quasi-mediaeval world supposedly crackling with racial, religious and cultural tensions, Ferelden felt remarkably bloodless (despite the ludicrous 'spatter' you were drenched in every 30 seconds like a haemophiliac with a nosebleed in hayfever season).

    Morrigan's default outfit did of course tend towards Fantasy Cheesecake with the exposed flesh: though laughably everyone keeps their undies on in the embarrassing sub-Poser-porn 'sex' scenes...

  • immateriaux #56 2 years ago

    It is desperately off kilter that the land is basically drawn as happy happy shiny land whilst the story is supposedly drawing on darkness, intrigue, tension etc. It doesn't fit at all. But then as you say, swanning about in an off the shoulder Gucci outfit doesn't "fit" with going off to battle darkspawn either. It is very much a cartoon world, bemuses me that it sometimes gets credit as being a believable world etc.

  • soviet_ #57 2 years ago

    Played Mass Effect recently to get my save ready for importing so I thought I'd play this over Christmas and New Year. The story is alright, as are the locations/world and the graphics are OK but I think the combat is pretty poor. As mentioned already the party AI is clumsy at best, and turning it off and manually controlling the characters is a chore. For me, this game has nothing on Mass Effect and is going to be long forgotten come Jan 29th

  • Zyrxil #58 2 years ago

    I have quite a lot of problems with lavishing praises on that quest.

    -The so called level of detail on that quest is very much an exception and not the rule. You wouldn't even use up all your fingers counting the number of quests in DA that actually affected other quests, and only one that involved or even pointed to another of the five major locations (Denerim/Redcliffe/Forest/Orzammar/Circle Tower).

    -The so called level of detail is completely illogical and stupid. While you could point out how remarkable it is that such a short throwaway quest affected the ending, it makes more sense to point out how odd it is that such a short throwaway quest affected the ending while plenty of longer quests had no visible impact whatsoever.

    -That the quest is so throwaway is in of itself bad design. You're establishing a -new religion- in the biggest Dwarven City, and the quest takes 10 mins and 2 steps to do. That's like having a random quest guy appear out of nowhere in some marketplace, and, in the most flippant dialogue possible, pay you 50 gold to press one of three buttons on a magic device:
    "Wipe out City of Farawayburg and all inhabitants"
    "Do Nothing"
    "Make Elvishstan the most powerful and prosperous nation for next 500 years"

    You're goddamn right that would have a lot of consequences on the fictional world, but it's insane to handle it like that.