Sooooo, Dragon Age eh? I'm going to keep this relatively short, since you probably all either preordered/are preloading/preloaded the game or at least know what the deal with this game is.



Basically, you know that it's the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. But, that doesn't really do it justice. Even though the graphics range from "alright" in conversations/cutscenes to "my eyes!" in some environments, the writing is top notch. After only a few hours in the game, you will be totally engrossed in the world of Dragon Age. There is political intrigue, religious people who either want power or just want ease of mind, epic war, Elfs that don't fit the stereotype, and much more.

I don't know how BioWare does it, but the world of Dragon Age feels more like living a fantasy novel than any game from the last couple of years has managed to do. Actually, I don't remember any game doing it since Neverwinter Nights. Don't get me wrong: I loved Mass Effect, but it felt more like you were playing a great scifi movie or series than anything else.

Dragon Age is more akin to the old BG/NWN games than the newer Mass Effect. The conversations are even more like KOTOR II with a large area of gray rather than the standard obvious black/white choices. Will your action lead to eventual good or evil? It's not always that clear. Even though it's easy enough to see what the "good" and "bad" choices are in many conversations, sometimes you will have to make a really big choice where it doesn't really feel like there is a good choice. You may want to try to make a good choice, but you won't know if it will stab you in the back later on, which makes you really think about such choices for more than the 5 second attention span we all have nowadays.



Also gone is the Mass Effect dialogue wheel. I'm not sure if this is a step back or just a good call for the game. One the one hand, the dialogue wheel only had Good/Neutral/Evil choices on the right hand side, which were really transparent, with some extended options on the left hand side. This made it easy to read and go through the conversations in Mass Effect, which helped the flow and the feel of the scifi epicness in my opinion. In Dragon Age, conversations are just a list of options where some will end the conversation and some will open up new paths. They are not hard to identify, but they require you to read and think consciously rather than just automatically pushing towards the top-right or top-left depending on a Good/Evil playthrough in Mass Effect.

Since I played this for a while on the 360 (some 5-6 hours with maybe 10-15% progress), let's talk a bit about the combat. You see, it plays a bit like KOTOR did with its 3rd person camera. However, there appears to be NO pause button for combat. This button was and remains the most important part of BG and NWN, as you can approach a battle tactically and assign attacks, skills and spells with maximum efficiency. You can hold the left trigger to open a radial menu, which does pause the game, but you can't switch between characters while doing this. Luckily, you can change the options to make LT toggle the radial menu instead of having to hold it, which does allow for easier pausing of combat and choosing your approach.



If you choose not to use pausing though, it changes the 360 version of the game to a kind of different game than BG/NWN. If you really want to play it as an action game, you can. But you'll likely have to choose between a few ways to play.

One: you play with just your main character and let your party allies do their thing on their own in real time. The AI for allies can be scripted to a level you may not even care to fiddle with, with basic options like "if HP < 25%, do spell X" or "if Enemy is visible, do action Y" and even more advanced options available if you wish.

Two: you use the bumpers to switch between party members. This leads to some confusion if you don't know which quickslot icons mean what skills or spells. Also, it kinda removes some immersion with your main character, as it just becomes just another party member that way. However, this does give you the opportunity to play around with different classes and builds without having to start over with a new character. But because there is no pause button, you kind of lose sight of the battle by switching between party members which can be deadly.

Three: you micromanage all your party members as if they were your main character. This involves a lot of management and oversight, as there are a lot of skills and spells to choose from between the classes. This does mean you'll have more control over encounters, which pays off of course.

I'd recommend just changing the options so you can easily pause and plan, it's the way the game is supposed to be played. I guess it's nice that console gamers with no patience have the option to go for a more action oriented approach. Then again, there is so much dialogue and story that if you don't have patience, you shouldn't be playing this game. If you play it with a lot of pausing, you'll still need to know what skills/spells everyone has, but after giving the orders you can just go back to your main character and stick with him/her for most of the combat.



And make no mistake: the combat is brutal. Not only is there plenty of blood which can splatters your characters' textures (making it look like it's period armageddon if you decide to play a clothless female) but combat difficulty ramps up pretty steep as you get past the introductory story quests. I am playing on Hard, which means that there is 50% friendly fire damage (the hardest difficulty has 100% friendly fire). I have no idea if this impacts the HP and damage output of mobs, but I get raped pretty often if I just go barging in. It's not unfair though, as you don't have to grind to get past a combat situation. You just have to approach it more intelligently and learn from your mistakes. Just be sure to save a lot if you are in a large open area, even though the game autosaves before some tricky encounters.

So, the combat is good. If you like these kinds of games that is. It's definitely a hardcore western RPG and even though the D&D rules are absent for the most part, they remain present in a kind of casualized manner to make it more approachable to a more mainstream audience. Still, there is a looooot of depth in choosing how to spec your characters which kind of defeats the whole mainstreaming aspect. It works as long as you are willing to get over the initial information overflow, let's just keep it at that.

And while the combat is fun and challenging for the most part, the storytelling is just epic. I still can't explain why it is, but after a few hours many of the arcane names and institutions made perfect sense to me. And from that moment on, the main players in the world of Dragon Age keep coming back in many of the conversation you have with NPCs. Just trust me that it will make perfect sense to you that a peasant would seek refuge from the Darkspawn at the Chantry and adores the Teyrn of Ferelden.



With six different Origin stories (a 2 hour initial storyline), different races, classes, race/class combinations and up to four trees of skills/spells with each 3-4 four-tiered skills/spells to choose from, this game is BIG. One playthrough will probably end up around 30+ hours depending on sidequests and whether you read subtitles and skip dialogue or whether you listen to everything. And then you can play through it 6 times, with choices in morality if you want to call it that.

If you want a giant and rewarding RPG, don't really care for things like Persona, or grew up on the old PC RPGs that lead to Dragon Age, this game is a must have. There is much adventuring to be done, many optional party members to swoon and pet, and conversations about things like "escaping the Circle" "yes it was really hard" that are made hilarious when you are half-naked and two guys speak to you. If you do get it though, I'd recommend the PC version over the console version. Yeah yeah, you don't get any cheevos (nobody cares about trophies). But the PC version allows for a topdown view just like the old games. It's not that the 3rd person camera is horrible, because it works fine. It's just that you didn't want to zoom in all the way in NWN anyway, so why would you choose to do so in this game? If you don't have to PC option though, don't worry: it works fine on consoles as long as you know how to pause combat.

But it sure is one mediocre looking game with some (non game breaking) glitches. It doesn't detract much and since it's a huge game it's understandable. Still: meh graphics. Good thing the voice acting more than makes up for it

Random swine flu from the hat: 95 penises

P.S.: BioWare, what is up with your underwear texture designer. I mean, really? What the fuck. See the gallery for slightly NSFW underwear (the two redheads are different characters). It's ridiculous!