The Dragon Age Origins Journal: Day 3

dragon-age1.jpg

I was worried about buying Dragon Age, worried because it was Bioware, the company behind one of my all time favorite games, Mass Effect, and worried because of the slew of positive reviews it was getting from every gamer mag and website on the planet.

Why would that make me scared?

Because somehow, I knew I wouldn’t like it. And I don’t, I really don’t. At least, not yet.

Between Mass Effect 2, and the epic Old Republic MMO Bioware is making, I had to think, “How they hell are they possibly squeezing this game in?” So far, the result is pretty clear to me, they rushed it. And it shows. Most of this first journal will relate to the story and dialogue system, the main tenants of any Bioware game. Gameplay is really just a secondary component, and I’ll talk about that later, but know that more or less the game plays exactly like KOTOR, except they don’t call the dice rolls “dice rolls” anymore.

I’m about twelve hours into the game after a weekend of playing, and my party currently consists of myself (a human warrior named Ethan, a carryover from Mass Effect), my dog (a war hound named Chips, a carryover from Fable 2), my hot naturist mage who isn’t really a fan of wearing shirts, and my gay elf rogue, yes, my gay elf rogue.

dragon-age6.jpg

“Heyyyy guyyyys!”

So far we’ve been gallivanting around the countryside in very linear areas killing Darkspawn and assassins and werewolves. Bioware has always been all about plot, and getting you hooked on the story, and though this universe seems to be less interesting than Mass Effect’s. There are evil creatures who have come from somewhere to kill everyone, you must unite man, dwarf and elf to fight against them (sound familiar?), and there is a human general who has killed the king and framed you for it. It is pretty deep, as each portion of the main quest line could probably be its own movie, and I think I’m only scratching the surface of it, probably because I simply don’t have the patience to listen to ten minute conversations with every NPC on earth or read through 10,000 pages of codex. Seriously, who the hell writes that stuff?

But most of all, I’m not nearly as engrossed in my character, Ethan Cousland, as I was with Ethan Shepard in Mass Effect. Why? Because HE DOESN’T TALK.

Everything else aside, this is my number one complaint about the game, and probably will be until I finish. I would have expected this from Bethesda, whose Oblivion and Fallout characters never had lives of their own, but Bioware? Come on guys. I expected better.

I understand that animating and voicing the other 50% of all conversations would have taken some time, but that’s what I mean when I say this game was rushed. If Bioware had the time, surely they would have done it, but as it stands now, the only thing my character says out loud is “Would you like a ladder so you can get off my back?” every time I press the attack button too much, which after twelve hours has made me thoroughly hate my own creation.

Also Bioware, listen up. There is such a thing as TOO MANY DIALOGUE OPTIONS. The result of this ranges from mere annoyance, to full blow frustration, to possibly being permanently game changing.

It’s annoying when you have six dialogue choices in front of you, and if you’d died before this scene previously, you pick five different ones, and see that all of them produce the EXACT SAME response from the other party and you’re only being given the illusion of a diverse set of choices.

It’s frustrating when you have a two second conversation with the hot mage you’re trying to bang, and when you tell her you think she’s useful and you’d like her to stay in your party, she somehow disapproves -10 heart points. And it’s even more frustrating when you put the time in and pretend to be interested in her ancestors and woodland witch culture and what not for a solid five minutes, only to exit the conversation with her STILL DISAPPROVING. No virtual sex for me I guess. Conversations like this in Mass Effect just seemed natural; here, they feel like a maze full of landmines.

dragon-age5.jpg

It will surely depress most gamers when they find out how hard it is to even get VIRTUALLY laid.

Lastly, the effects of conversation can be completely game changing, which is insanely annoying as if you make the wrong call you’ll have to start another 100 hour game again just to make the right one the next time around. Case in point, I met a blood mage named Jowain (or something like that). He betrayed the king, but then helped us later. After the dust settled he was brought before the king and I was given these options. Should he…

A) Execute him (I had this option when I first met him, and declined because I thought he could be in my party eventually)

B) Turn him over to the mages guild.

C) Set him free and have the mages hunt him.

Now, since I really, really want a blood mage in my party, I was torn between B and C. I knew I had a quest at the mage guild later, so I figured that I might see him there where he would be reformed and want to join my party. If I set him free, I thought he would go into hiding or be killed and never been seen again.

Conversely, maybe once I get to the mage guild, I’ll show up and they’ll greet me with, “Hey thanks for sending us that traitor, Jowain, that’s his head on that stake over there.” And what if I set him free, and he immediately wanted to join up with my party rather than go hide?

I understand Bioware’s “consequence” logic here, but I KNOW that I want this guy in my party, THAT’S my choice. But the way to get there should not be this unclear, and I shouldn’t have to wait until my second playthrough to make the decisions I ACTUALLY wanted to make in the first place.

Well, we’re all out of time, and I didn’t even get to talk about gameplay, questing, character building or the graphics (which, dear lord, are some of the worst I’ve seen in years), and I suppose all that will have to wait until next time.

At this point, the game feels more like work than fun. I’m playing because I spent $60 and I must review it, not because I’m having a particularly large amount of fun. I’m hoping that will change, but clearly some mistakes Bioware has made already in the game are going to be irreversible.

dragon-age3.jpg

Archery: not the way to go here.

Similar Posts

18 Comments

  1. Not being properly versed in this genre I probably can’t see what is wrong with the game, but I am enjoying it at the moment. It managed to keep me away from eve for a few hours at least.

  2. Every time I read things on this site I am honestly surprised with how little fact checking goes into your stories. For a place that gets paid, somehow, to do what you do it’s just a bit aggravating. The thing that really stuck in my mind was when you said they “rusheded” the game. Do you realize this game was first shown off in 2004 at E3? Probably before Mass Effect was even in development. If you want to talk about “rushed” go back and look at all the videos they showed off of Mass Effect and how very very little of what was shown was actually available in the final product, and how short it was for an RPG of its scope. The dialog trees in Mass Effect were smaller because there wasn’t as much lore associated with the game, ME2 will probably be even more epic and grandiose but as a comparison of the first one to Dragon Age you can’t say DA was rushed. If anything it’s overcooked, they had too much time to work on it, and since it was supposed to be the spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate (an extremely revered series) they were probably trying to make it too good and ended up overloading it. I’m by no means saying that DA is a flawless game or wonderfully incredible and a game changer, but your journal way of reviewing games is particularly annoying when you’re not even actually playing the game through and then making a decision. Also, not liking something before you play it just because other people like it smacks of ridiculous elitism and fanboy nonsense.

  3. I like it. You can stone me after you read this, but I really like it.
    K, the graphics are not the best, but it’s not all about the graphic.
    I agree, that some dialogues take too long, but this deep story can’t be told otherwise, I guess…
    What I missed was a more complex character creator, Maybe I’m too used to AION ^^°

    Waiting for your next part of the review, I hope it’s getting better :p

  4. @Justin

    That’s even worse then, if they had all this time to spend on it and it FEELS rushed. I haven’t even gotten to the fact that there are just straight up errors in the game, with dead-end quests, missing dialogue lines and graphical glitches. The game feels unfinished.

    More dialogue choices does not equal a better game, as proven by Mass Effect vs this. There’s no point when half the options produce the same reaction from the other party, and there’s not even character alignment in this game, so what you say 90% of the time didn’t matter.

    I didn’t think I was going to not like this game because other people say it’s good. I bought Borderlands because other people said it was good, and it was good. I just never really thought this looked like my cup of tea and was worried that there was too much hype for the game and I knew it would disappoint me. I don’t see how anyone outside of the hardcore RPG player can really enjoy this game. I know I’m in the vast minority by saying that, but so be it. Despite my love for Bioware, I do not like this game or think it’s particularly well made.

  5. @ Paul

    Did you buy the xbox version of the game? I had it on my gamefly game Q. After reading the various reviews on the game, I think I’m going to take a hit and upgrade my graphic card so that I can play the PC version.

    This game is more of a traditional RPG rather than action RPGs like mass effect, fable, or oblivion/fallout. It may not meet your taste in that regard.

    However, do keep up the journals. It’s very interesting to read one’s opinion of a game over a number of days. The other reviews to me are too general.

  6. I’m not saying your opinion is wrong or anything but maybe you should let someone who’s actually really into games do the reviewing on this site. Your reviews come off really uninformed about everything. Like justin said this game has been planned for a long long time, if you were really into games and a big enough part of the industry to formally review games you would’ve known that from the get go. Stick to reviewing movies, those reviews are way better.

  7. Paul

    If you don’t listen to the stories, or interact with your party, or read anything in the game then I guess it would seem shallow to you.

    If you do any of the above then you would see that the world is insanely fleshed out and full of interesting things.

    I do wish it was a bit more open on where I could go and what I could try and do. (like Oblivion)

  8. @mitej

    That’s what I used to tell people about Mass Effect, but it’s different here. I do listen to the vast majority of the stories (though I can only handle so many side quests about someone’s niece/son/daughter/wife who is missing), and I just don’t think the overall plot so far is very interesting. In fact, it sounds like a carbon copy of Lord of the Rings at the moment.

    I preferred the character alignment system in Mass Effect to the party favor system here, as I find it immensely frustrating trying to please everyone, and the dialogue choices often don’t lead to logical results.

  9. Seriously, as one of the more objective people out there I must say your review is quite neutral. And you emotional fan boys out there he is right in what he says. BTW, he does not say the game is bad, he just states some obvious flaws. And they are obvious flaws. In addition, the combat system is horrendous because you have values (attack, defense, damage, etc.) but the game does not tell you how they interact and what they mean. What does attack 90 mean? Because my guys miss probably 60% of the time any attack, including ranged. If I knew how the “rolls” are calculated, I could make better decision during leveling. This is worse than powergaming WoW because in WoW you actually KNOW what all the values mean.
    Nonetheless, I do like the game. The dialogues between my party members are funny, the story is decent. Only the choices give me a hard time; who to pick: Morrigan or Leliana. As the reviewer stated, you have no idea how it effects you later and if it “breaks” quests or some other part of the game.

  10. You can press X on any of the the stats and it tells you what they mean. Attack value goes against the opponents defence value to determine whether you hit them or not. A simple read of the manual would tell you that. I also don’t think “I knew I wouldn’t like this game” is a great opener for a neutral review. Yes, this game has it’s flaws (worst textures ever) but it just seems like this review doesn’t really “get it” as arrogant as that sounds. The constant comparison to mass effect is a dead give away.

  11. Being one of the most critical reviewers I’ve ever met I can says this game is great. Very rarely do I say that. This game is deep. Very deep and requires true patience to gain any sort of knowledge about its’ content. I’d like to point out the complaints about the graphics. Clearly these complaints are based on individual system configurations. I, for instance, play the game on my Wide Screen HD monitor with the settings at 1920-1080 and I must say the game looks decent. Needless to say these comments are made ignorantly. Get a real computer and see what I mean. I have played most rpgs made on seven systems and I say this is right up there in quality. Every game in the world has flaws and bugs. Just look past them and enjoy a truely great game.

  12. I know this is an old review, but I just found it and had to comment. I think that one of the things the reviewer hates the most, the fact that the PC isn’t voiced, is one of the things that I like the most about this game. I hate the voiced PC in Mass Effect, et al. After all, it is a role-playing game, and when I play a role-played character, I want to hear *MY* voice as the PC, not some other actor’s. But I’m an actor and do voiceovers, so I enjoy “talking” to the game, using the scripted text.

    So I’m just saying to each is own. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t make it a flaw, per se.

    In other news, I love the plot, story, characters, etc. I play/replay DA far more than I play ME, so it really is just a matter of taste.

    That’s it. 🙂

  13. Um…you’re joking, right? You didn’t put together at some point that if you’re an annoyingly cloying nice guy to Morrigan, the SNARKY EMO ANGST-BOT, she isn’t going to want your sex? Really?

    Admittedly, the console version is unplayable.

    I know this is old…but crikey.

  14. Just a response to your “Between Mass Effect 2, and the epic Old Republic MMO Bioware is making, I had to think, ‘How they hell are they possibly squeezing this game in?'” comment: Dragon Age was developed by Bioware’s Edmonton studio, same as the first Mass Effect, while Mass Effect 2 was developed by their Montreal studio.
    I don’t mean to sound snoody (is that a word?), just thought you should know.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.