By John Walker on July 24th, 2009 at 9:00 am.
A wad of Dragon Age: Origins trailers – that’s what you’re in the mood for. You weren’t sure, but now I’ve said it you realise that’s exactly it. How will they taste? Look below. There’s three of them, titled The Dwarf Commoner, The Human Noble and The Tower Of Ishal. I’d like to now say: oh thank goodness.
The Dwarf Commoner:
A good joke! In fact, a great joke, well delivered. With really decent acting. And then just a ton of chunky, well connecting violence.
The Human Noble:
Subtle infidelity, strong acting, entertaining blood splatters, and a sense of drama.
The Tower Of Ishal:
Gorgeous locations, really powerful looking magic, and a great looking boss fight!
Oh thank goodness’s goodness. Finally it’s the Dragon Age trailers I’ve been waiting for. They make the game not only look really entertaining, but also not something designed for horny adolescents. Notice something about all three trailers? Not a hint of screaming thrash metal in the background. In fact, no music at all, instead relying on the sound effects and dialogue. Hurrah, BioWare. HURRAH.
Hurrah!
report
MUCH.
BETTER.
Also, I like this music-less approach…
I might have to try turning off music in-game.
report
I must say, this game still looks horrible.
report
Uhm… no.
So the bloodlusting splatter fans are a more favourable demographic?
report
The kill moves looked cool, everything else I thought was disconnected. Kinda disappointed that the combat seems to be “two sprites hit each other until a kill move triggers” but I guess it’d be silly to expect anything else.
Also as a horny teenager I proffered the other trailer – there’s something about sex violence and rock and roll.
report
Er, preferred.
report
@c-Row
Bloodlusting slatter fans normally go hand in hand with Evil Dead fans, for one.
report
finally some we get some real propper trailers
report
The characters certainly like playing with red paint.
report
John, you might be leaking sarcasm. You should se a doctor before you run dry. ;)
report
Dear God that looks awful :(
report
I swear the game looked better when they first announced it…
report
Strong acting? If you say so.
report
ad_hominem – probably because they announced it about 30 years ago.
report
still lookin’ aweful. removing the music won’t help. I’d rather have turnbased combat like in King’s Bounty than this 80s shit.
but ! we still don’t know the story, but bioware being bioware we sure have played the story in all of the previous games.
spectre == grey wardens
report
Improvement. It looks like I might actually play that game. Mass Effect turned me right off Bioware RPGs but this could be worth a try but might rent it on the 360 or something as I don’t feel like upgrading for this game.
report
Wow! The acting was stiff and stilted; the facial animation, abysmal. What was up with the woman archer when she puts her hands to her face (I think they meant mouth)? Terrrrrible.
How is it that this is the same studio that produced Mass Effect? John Lasseter is right; you can’t have two levels of quality in a studio. It’s a bad business strategy.
report
I’ve suspected since NWN that Bioware are beginning to develop a formula for the narratives of their games – though Mass Effect was great, it didn’t really disprove that… This just looks like the ultimate fruition of that – rehashing the same stale trope structure they’ve been peddling for a decade plus.
report
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say the trailers make the game look really interesting, but at least they don’t make it look utterly rubbish.
Actually, I think they look quite like a “Baldur’s Gate 3-D,” and lead me to expect Dragon Age to be a typical Bioware title with an excellent story and sub-par combat.
report
Well, I like the dwarf voice acting, the boss fight wasn’t so bad either. But other than that, it is still very underwhelming. cant put my finger on it, but there is just something wrong with visuals in this game. I think that generally art direction is just uninspired and boring, Its like they took the worst of realistic medieval style and generic fantasy aesthetic, and mashed it in something that is ridiculous and bland at the same time…
But somehow I suspect that this game will be quite good when you actually play it. Maybe that’s a new marketing tactic they are experimenting with right now: Inverse-Hype: they are making DA look like crap in trailers, so when it is released, it will take players by surprise!
report
No sarcasm. I thought those were strong clips, and the acting was a league better than we’ve seen before.
report
I’m sure it’s a grand game, playing to Bioware’s strengths, but despite their faults, at least the original trailers made sume effort to distinguish themselves from the competion.
The above efforts just play straight down the middle, signaling to the already initiated that everything is alright, remain calm, don’t panic. That’s no way to reach new audiences.
report
Nope. Still awful. And the camera also looks like it’s going to be a bitch.
report
I’m actually reticent to say this, but…that looks abysmal. I wish, wish so very hard, that I could say otherwise, but I can’t. The animation is stilted, as is the acting, and the combat looks desperately unsatisfactory. I could very well be wrong, wrong about it all, and Christ, how I hope I am.
report
Blimey, a dwarf without a Scottish accent! The graphics look pretty good to me, especially the magic effects. From the stuff I’ve seen so far, I’d say the acting seems pretty variable in quality, although nothing jaw-droppingly awful so far. Gimme a good story and lots to explore and I’ll forgive a poor combat system – I did for Mass Effect.
report
… and?
report
OK I see blood, but I’m concerned there aren’t enough titties.
report
I like the fact they use the shields offensively as you would.
report
I have nothing against breasts, infact I am an advocate for breasts, I think they’re great; I like them, especially if they are attached to a woman; if they are not attached obviously it’s more awkward there are silences, people become uncomfortable they are less likely to stay for coffee. That being said; why are people still designing armour with plungingish necklines? I know the whole ridiculous female armour thing is not new, but NWN 2 did it so much better with armour that looked distinctly like it might do something. I’ve talked this through with the local smithy and we really think this is the way forward, at the very least it looks far less tacky.
report
The only thing that stood out for me was the clangy-squish sound of those getting hit (most prominent in the dwarf video). The audio department got that dead on.
report
@ Stompbox
When you think about it, usually there is a strong correlation between amount of cleavage shown by female characters in a game, and how bad the game really is (i.e. Damnation effect). I’m starting to get worried.
report
Hmm, I guess the string underwear in the “Human Noble” video is not a wink at “horny adolescents” (or adults, for that matter). Also, I’m not quite clear on whether the fully armored warrior cutting to pieces the men who murdered the naked woman seconds earlier, is actually the naked man who was lying next to her moments ago (in which case some gnome must have sold him a “potion of extra turbo fast clothing”) or some other, unrelated guy who just happened to be in the room of the naked couple…
In other words, we’re talking about some poor scene editing or some even poorer design choices in yet another rather dodgy video there. Blood spilled in battle looks horribly fake, like big blobs of red fat, the movements are iffy…With every new video, I’m having more and more trouble remembering why I was so excited about this game a few months ago.
Oh, I do hope I’m entirely wrong on this one…
report
While I like these videos a lot more than the previous trailers, I’m still a bit concerned. The game doesn’t really have anything going for it in a striking visual sense. It’s just generic fantasy, the story could be nice, but I can’t really get exited over the game.
report
@ ZenMetzger
Looking bad and taking players by surprise? Sounds more like Rapist Marketing than Inverse Hype.
report
That’s. More. Like it.
report
If its not got a pseudo-scottish accent, its not a proper dwarf. Thats the law and we all know it.
report
Graphics? Cut scenes? Animations? Music?
Frankly these aren’t what makes or breaks a game like this – its more down to inventory, spells, tactical combat, enemy AI, level design – all things that I haven’t really seen.
When this was first announced they were talking up a party-based tactical pause-and-play isometric viewpoint “spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate”.
On this last point, I think of BG as being full of loose cannon odd-ball group NPCs with various agendas who you somehow implausibly roped into your own story, which you could play as good or evil as you wanted.
This seems to be full of am-dram luvvies and have 6 heavily pre-created player characters ‘backstories’ and a small number of ‘romance options’. I bet it has a fairly scripted ‘save the world’ plot as well and the variation will just chop-and-change bits and pieces.
…it just doesn’t have the same anarchic and light-hearted feeling to it, it seems too contrived, too serious.
I hope I am wrong.
report
ahh, looks like this will be like all of my bioware purchases wait for the price to come down and find it in a bargain bin somewhere.
report
“If its not got a pseudo-scottish accent, its not a proper dwarf. Thats the law and we all know it.”
Dwarves should have North of England accents anyway, not this scottish nonsense.
report
Nope, this still looks decidedly ‘meh’. Combat, aside from the finishing moves, looks like standard ‘flail at enemy’, which if anything is a step back from KOTOR.
report
I think they should have Brooklyn accents.
I just spotted this on the Dragon Age wiki:
“Dog is your faithful companion throughout the game. You will be able to change the name and kaddis of Dog if you so choose. He understands spoken words well enough to parse simple commands and basic intention. Dog is a full party member and levels up. He has warhound-specific abilities that he can learn, and character specific equipment. He also has party banter and interjections, as well as his own triggered events; such as a territory-marking exploration game. The details of this mini-game have not been clarified.” http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dog
Territory-marking mini-game eh? :)
report
When playing Wizardry 8, I had a party where my halfling rogue had a Brooklyn accent, and my Draconian fighter meatshield had this snooty French accent.
Have very fond memories of Delwyn Swiftfoot and Gnassh Goreblade…
report
Dragon Age – still looking shitty.
report
That looks absolutely horrible, really. Yeah sure they took away the thrash metal. But the animation is clunky, the voice acting is rubbish and the combat is just horrible in the way it looks where nothing actually connects. Oh and that blood splatter in the second trailer was rubbish as well.
So my Hype for this game went from quite high to very low because of all the trailers out now. I don’t think I will be buying this.
report
That slashing sound effect got old pretty fast too, although the rest of it didn’t really bother me.
report
Look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMhQxW_WQwA
All combat, REALLY bad animation, no dialog, no NPC interaction. My God, will this game suck.
report
A step in the right direction, but I’m still favouring Alpha Protocol. For a start, the attire of the woman waking up from bed still screams adolescent-imagination-grabbing. Would it have killed them for her to be wearing jammies?
report
They really need to a developer walkthrough type video to showcase the RPG non-new shite elements of the game.
Something like Tim Schoeappher’s walkthrough the first hour of Brutal Legend.
report
@Nick
Real dwarves should speak only NORWEGIAN.
AND WEAR POINTY HATS
report
I think it’s certainly an improvement. Regardless though, I’ll be waiting for John of Walker to play and review it before considering buying.
report
I quite like the fact that it’s all done in engine, so the cut sceney bits are just from a closer perspective. I’m not saying it’s the first time it’s been done, but it’s quite seamless. Certainly interested in this. Besides, like Joh said in the PCG podcast “It’s Bioware for goodness sake!”.
report
The facial animations DID look awful! WTF was up with that? Even the ones in KOTOR looked better, and you had NPCs with tentacles on their faces there!
What struck me most however is that the dwarf seems to have varying degrees of beardliness throughout his trailer. His closeup shows him with a fashionable stubble, but when he’s in that arena-like room he has a full-grown bushy beard. Does it grow as you level up, as was initially promised in WAR? Or is personal grooming now part of the roleplaying possibilities?
report
Are you people really serious? I mean really? Okay so some of the blood effects were a bit over the top but I thought it looked great, the combat looks fantastic, have you been watching different trailers or something?!
report
Wasn’t Dragon Age’s world supposed to be original?
Looks like just another run-of-the-mill fantasy world to me.
Getting less and less excited about this one with every video they release. Their PR department might be doing something wrong.
report
it’s an improvement on what we’ve seen before, but the game still looks like the same engine as KotoR not mass effect, the combat is terribly unconvincing also, luckily i’m only going to be playing it for the story & rpgyness.
report
The OST will include 2 tracks mixed by Marilyn Manson, so you can expect them to pop up in-game at some point.
Probably during the various SEX scenes or when the amount of BLOOD on the screen escalates and MARILYN MANSON Mode kicks in.
report
@kyyninen
Real dwarves should be DRUNK and ON FIRE.
(as taught by Dwarf Fortress).
report
Let me know when it’s $14.99 on Steam.
I predict it will sell a gazillion copies on console and make barely a ripple on the PC. Which will be due to internet piracy, of course. Not that fact that it’s a crap game.
report
But thing that really gets me confused, is that tone of this game is supposedly inspired by books of George R. R. Martin. So far I just don’t see it, which is a shame as I am a big fan of “Song of Ice and Fire”.
report
Different strokes for different folks , i guess
If you look for strong acting, and great cutscenes – skip right toward ME2
…
But if you look for great strategic (semi turn based) combat. Old D&D feel. Dungeon crawling. Plethora of good written quests. And awesome editor for tons of player made content.
Than you know why DAO will be cult classic.
I dont care if facial animations are not the best. Or some cutscene had stiff animation.
I am looking for damn Baldurs Gate succesor… and it was about time for one too!
report
Gah! This really isn’t any better than ‘The new shizzle’ stuff….
Maybe i’m becoming jaded or expecting too much but the whole people walking around like apes really puts me off (see the woman in the first 10 seconds of the 2nd video)….. the voice acting seems really disconnected from the roles (mind you i think this is always going to be an issue both for movies and games), the animations seem pretty poor and the effects are jarring in the game because they look so much better than the actual graphics they’re around.
I’m not normally a graphics whore but when some elements are 2009 level but other elements are 2006/7 the combination just sticks out like fluorescent orange shorts and a dress shirt and blazer combo.
report
To be honest, you might have a point there Lobotomist. Considering how poorly this game presents itself on so many fronts, the development time and effort must have been put somewhere.
This is one thing that makes a bit optimistic. This game lacks so much of the cinematic feel of modern games that it might actually end up being quite fun.
report
Best Dragon age trailers so far. Too bad combat is still rigid auto-combat (with awesome animations, admitted), I’d rather see some circling and moving around not standing still and doing combos, but I guess it’s the rigid RPG mechanics still running in the background and not really taken to the next level :(
Anyway, this game finally starts to look like it’ll be entertaining.
report
@Lobotomist
why can’t this have both?
report
As echoed in other posts, this looks so decidedly generic, despite my natural urge to support a PC only title, short of some stellar 90%+ reviews to convince me otherwise, this almost certainly looks like a pass.
report
Didn’t realise dwarves had American accents.
c-Row: Would you prefer swordfights with not a hint of blood in them? Because sorry to say, that ain’t how it works!
report
The blood effect is ridiculous. No one bleeds blackish-reddish mist. That thing looked like it was from Tekken or something. If you wanna use blood splatter so much, at least make it look good.
report
Hey, the way I see it, the less facial expressions and animations and proper dialogue the trailers show, the greater the length of the game is implied (as in Baldur’s Gate vs Mass Effect).
I’m all up for that if it means we’re getting BG2010. I just hope it’s a vast game that lasts for hours upon hours of play and that there’s dragons to slay (preferably dragons that take you 5 hours to manage to kill, like in BG2).
report
I’m pretty sure that when two heavily armored guys bash each other with swords an axes, there is less blood an squishy sounds up until one of them lands a blow solid enough to penetrate armour, or precise enough to bypass it.
Most games ignore this when designing hit effects, and you have the same sounds and visual effects all the time. There should be a lot of difference between striking at a bare chested orc berserker and a fully armoured knight.
Not really a top priority in a RPG but would be nice to see this kind of stuff in a game one day.
report
@Lobotomist:
I’m with ya 100% mate. People bitching about the black-red-ish bloodsplatters and bad cutscenes are probably the same ones that threw a hissy fit when Diablo 3 wasn’t dark enough for their likeing or something.
report
It’s better to be pessimistic so you don’t get disappointed.
report
“A good joke! In fact, a great joke, well delivered. With really decent acting. And then just a ton of chunky, well connecting violence.”
are we watching the same footage?
the acting if awful, trees have phoned in better performances. and the connecting violence? the day I see animation where the strike connects instead of flailing through the model is the day I will agree, over the top sound fx wont fix shit animation. and the joke? its like games are ten years behind action films in the dialogue stakes.
report
@Dracko: fantasy dwarves don’t actually exist, they don’t have a real accent. Just because the tradition has been to make all dwarves Scottish doesn’t mean it’s the “truth.” Who gives a shit what their accent is.
report
I liked those trailers a lot more than previous efforts – I’d like them to show some real gameplay again though, with the HUD on screen and showing how someone would actually tackle a combat situation and how the game would actually look to someone playing it. The lightsabre animations on KOTOR fell apart if you were trying to view them from a few centimetres away, but came together if you were playing at a sensible zoom level. I thought in the third trailer though that the combat looked sufficiently chunky for an RPG though. I won’t say anything about the acting, though, as there honestly wasn’t that much of it in a connected manner to really make any sort of judgement. I’ll be unlikely to be buying this the moment it comes out, but only because I’m not in a medieval fantasy swords and magic RPG mood right now.
report
@ Real Horrorshow
Dwarfs are serious business man, we didn’t develop a unified image of a fantasy race just so some lame game developer will ignore all that and make a dwarf with lame American accent. I wanted to play a dwarf in DA but now I’m boycotting dwarfs in DA till they give them proper Scottish accents.
report
Let’s start an internet petition!
report
@ZenMetzger
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Anyone who’se played age of chivalry knows how proper combat sounds should sound like: Metal clanging on metal, bones breaking, tissue being severed – and all depending on how well you hit, with what and where etc. I remember some games even dared use the same sounds for a blunt and sharp weapon. Outrageous I say ! ^^
report
That Dwarf sounded like Bill Murray.
Something about the animation and sound just gave me the impression of a monotonous rhythmic chop-squish chop-squish chop-squish. And aside from the flamethrower spell, they didn’t really seem all that “powerful” to me; it really looks like putting an axe through an enemy’s midsection is the way to go, with or without the spellcasters distracting them with pretty lights. And the SW:TOR flamethrower is better looking anyway.
I am not going to declare that the game sucks based on a few trailers, but I refuse to get excited about it yet. Cautiously hopeful, maybe. This will be a game that I wait for reviews to buy, and probably, wait for a discount too.
report
On the other hand, I’m not sure if the overly powerful magic really fits the setting. What is the point of a fireball animation that looks like it could level a house when all it does in-game is moderate damage to everyone in the area.
Personally I like the toned down, but effective looking spell effects. Matter of taste of course, it might just be PWSD (post WAR stress disorder), you couldn’t change stance in that game without a freaking laser light show
report
IMO the powerful magic should be something other than just fireballs with bigger effect and more damage anyway.
report
its funny how the battles look like fake wrestling, swords are obviously not intersecting with the enemy models, they just slash air and the timing for the blood is not quite right either.
and the “finishing move” animations still look like crap, who turns around and thrust a sword backwards in a real fight exposing his back to the enemy ?
also, i been thinking the enemy AI has orders “not” to attack wizards ever since they showed the first gameplay video and they keep confirming it every time i see a new one, monsters never ever go for them, even if they are the closest target they just get ignored
i think the reason nobody likes the graphics is because the character models are in the bad point of the uncanny valley, zombies in L4D look and act more like humans than these guys i really hope they didnt waste money motion capturing those animations
report
I thought the Dwarf Commoner was supposed to be a girl?
report
@catmorbid: I was thinking that during the boss trailer, it just looks so odd to have the heroes standing still in a line in front of the monster, they should get some circle strafing going or some proper fight positioning.
Nothing in those trailers grabbed me, for me it’ll come down to seeing what kinds of systems are running in he gameworld.
report
Is it just me or are those sound effects waaaaay over the top.
SWISH SPLORCH SWIDFBSDFHJUASBVCAH!!!!!
At least they match the ridiculously huge clouds of blood that accompany each attack.
The combat looks choppy (haHA!) and dull and it looks like they’re trying to make up for it with really “visceral” sound and special effects.
report
@ Real Horrorshow:
The American bastardisation of the English language is a wholly modern development and I would be intrigued to know how it came about in a fantasy world riffing on European traditions.
report
I have to go down a checklist here…
1) There’s unnecessary amounts of blood and gore flowing around, this has been a problem for a lot of RPGs lately. It was a problem for Fallout 3 as well, but thank goodness for mods which reduced the gore and made Fallout 3 playable for me. Will there be similar mods for this? I can only hope.
This wouldn’t be so bad alone, but…
2) Past trailers showing ‘in game romances’ desired to allure a horny porn audience of the 15-20 age bracket, with porn-quality writing that made me cringe.
3) I may be wrong about this, correct me if I am; most of the party members seem to be female, and of the recruitable party, I think we’ve only seen caucasians thus far and there’s not been a peek of other ethnicities or minorities on the ‘good guys’ side.
Now Fallout 3 would’ve verged on unplayable for me, but thanks to the lowered gore (unless one actually has bloody mess) mod and a few others, the actually pretty damned decent writing and voice-acting of Fallout 3 shone through, and for the first time since Morrowind I liked Bethesda.
But it was really the quality of the World that did it, compared to Oblivion which felt like it was writen by a mix of interns and politicians.
But yes, this… this seems like it has the potential to be so much worse than any RPG recently. I’m just getting really bad vibes off it… maybe it’s because of the involvement of the console audience, but the more I see of it, the more I feel I could just as easily be watching Gears of War.
I know writing was never Bioware’s forte, but this goes to new levels of terrible. I didn’t even feel this bad about The Witcher.
Okay, I’m just going to say it outright…
This game seems to be the kind of game that’s made for the dumb, gore-obsessed kids of right-wing extremists.
I’m sorry, I had to say it.
The Witcher could have fallen prey to this, but some genuinely interesting plots and writing saved it from that. It came close though, I admit, and I realise taht the more I played it. But it was missing that last vital element of dumbing it down to the story equivalent of primary colours, and it was constantly grey line as to whether you were helping the ‘good guys’ or the ‘bad guys’, or whether Geralt was good/bad himself, it threw such basic morality out of the window. That saved it.
But from all I’ve seen of Dragon Age, it doesn’t possess this magical element. The good guys are the good guys, they get horny and play around with each other when the World goes to hell, sometimes they help and when they do they do so in the most bloody and violent way possible, and despite the wrongness of this… everyone loves them because they’re the good guys.
I see so much wrong with that.
And the new videos haven’t provided me any relief, more they’ve actually confirmed the kind of game it seems to be.
I’m going to go back to playing Fallout 3 whilst waiting for Alpha Protocol.
In the meantime, if any RPG developer is reading this; could we have a game that’s as morally confusing as The Witcher or the first Fallout, that has a good mix of ethnicities and races, playable and not, including some really alien and interesting races, and perhaps a bit of an absurdist World that isn’t typically fantasy, steampunk, or cyberpunk and hasn’t been Conanified for the dumb kids?
Moreover, if there are character relationships, could we have LGBT relationships, where a character can even have a polygamous relationship if that’s their thing, could we have real relationship building mostly via text and the actions the character performs in regards to their life, the World, and the character they’re rying to allure? Could we have a lot of dialogue and very little sex? Could it be more about those in a relationship helping their love survive in a harsh World?
Could we have real bloody philosophical ramifications, and instead of dumbed down idiot morality, could we have a proper system of ethics that tracks whether the player is having the story depict the creation of suffering, or the relief of it? Could we have some plots that would really challenge the player by seemingly, at first at least, giving us no right answer and making us look at things in different ways to find a way out?
Could I have an RPG that doesn’t treat me like I’m the idiot kid of a closed-minded, right-wing extremist who has a very basic outlook on life and the World in general?
Please?
Please?
I suppose that wouldn’t sell, but it’s what I want. And were I in a position to I’d start up a big company and create a beautiful, mainstream quality RPG that adheres to these values.
Sorry, I’ll usher out the melon collies now and let this post draw to a close.
report
I think at this point, people have determined where they stand on the Dragon Age fence, and that last trailer seemed to do irreparable damage to some minds. I for one think that the game has always looked good, and recognized that the last trailer was a poor attempt probably created by a disjointed marketing crew.
The combat looks far more interesting to me than say… any other RPG out there at the moment. It almost seems like because it’s Dragon Age, the expectations have superseded reality. No game on the market has created a perfect combat system, and at least BioWare has made some effort to at least make the combat look a little more fluid. I can’t think of another RPG that has been created that looks better than this in terms of magic looking realistic and acting as it should, combat seeming more fluid and finishing moves fitting into the overall combat mechanic.
In short, it’s hard to fault a game for not having something that no other game has ever had. I’m sure some will throw The Witcher out there as an example… but seriously. Come on.
The acting is by far much better than we’ve seen. A lot more subtle, none of the annoying Shakespearean over dramatized vocals. Just regular people, speaking in their own environment. Much, much better.
It’s hard to make a comment on AI, UI, Cameras, etc. We can speculate all we want on those things, but that truly is only something we’ll know for sure once we test it ourselves.
report
Hell, I don’t even know what the plot is.
report
@ Wulf
Correct me if I am wrong, but we don’t know much about DA plot so far, do we? No point bashing it on that front at this moment. I understand the need for a good rant from time to time, but it is in good taste to have something to base it on :)
By the way, the first Fallout was in no way morally confusing. It was witty, engaging and well written, but morally confusing?
report
looks great. The combat, the style, the acting. Been waiting forever for this. Having skipped mass effect has really left me longing for another bioware epic.
Everyone talking smack. offer up 1 good alternative to this game. thats right, there isnt one. No one does a party based rpg better than bioware.
report
The bow animation feels weird since the bow has no string.
But it looks ok. Especially the magic, makes me want to roll a mage. But good acting? It really seems subpar.
report
Well, it’s hard to praise a game that’s been touted as the spiritual successor of Baldur’s Gate, a game primarily renowned for it’s complex story, when all we’ve seen so far are some poorly choreographed and rather unconvincing battle sequences and one “boss fight” with the same “finishing move” in both its original and recent version. Oh, yes, and some women offering to sleep with us because, being the erotic gurus that we obviously are, we brought them some book, which is the most prized aphrodisiac in fantasy lore.
The Witcher, which is also guilty of some incredibly shallow “romantic stories”, stood out for the moral ambiguity that threw in the mix of a fairly generic main plot. I hope DA:O does the same, but for the time being we are left with the thong lady that gets up to see what’s the fuss outside her curtain door and the fully armored knight that pops out of the skimpily dressed and sadly now dead lady’s chamber to slaughter her murderers…
report
Well I loved Mass Effect so I’m totally on the side of Bioware but this just looks bloody awful (no pun intended)
It just looks… dull. Bland acting, bland hack n’ slash. Bleeugh.
report
Somehow this is simply not what I want to see from a Bioware game. Everything is too brown and grey and boring. They used to have great environments in their games.
And the combat looks like it will be more Diablo and less Baldur’s Gate. Which really doesn’t work in a RPG with a story, because it breaks any illusion if you fight against hordes of mindless minions. Also I hope they allow me to turn down the blood and the sound effects in the options. It looks like Kill Bill, only that it’s taking itself seriously.
And please let the romance stuff not be as stupid as it looks. It looks like they are going to achieve something between the recent Leisure Suit Larries and A Dance with Rogues. And unfortunately they seem to lean more towards the recent Leisure Suit Larries… I fear that that flash of naked flesh was the only thing that character was for in the game.
It will probably still be a good game. After all it’s by Bioware. It at least won’t be crap.
report
@ Dracko
Well, usually much blood doesn’t equal much fun. Mass Effect was a great game without gallons of blood dripping down the screen. I like a realistic setting just as much as the next man, but that’s just way over the top.
report
guys, The Witcher was developed by CD Projekt RED STUDIO and published by CD Projekt in Poland and Atari for the rest of the world
the only thing Bioware had to do with it was licensing the NWN Aurora engine
report
I don’t know. Being a huge fan of BG, and having heard repeatadly of this being the “spiritual sucessor” to the franchise, I should be foaming at the mouth.
But I’m just not, it looks far too cheesy Tolkein, and far too black and white. I mean “Darkspawn”.
Also I think it looks horrible, like NWN the locations just look bland.
report
@wulf:
“This game seems to be the kind of game that’s made for the dumb, gore-obsessed kids of right-wing extremists.”
WTF, how the hell did you come to that conclusion based on some trailers? This is the most ridiculous comment I’ve read all day. Have you ever played an oldschool RPG from Obsidian/Bioware in the past?
PS. tl/fwi on the rest of the post.
report
This game could be great or crap. Such is PC gaming in the multiformat age!
report
The first two videos are horrible. Not for public consumation.
The third one is kind of interesting, it show some of the graphic ideas of the game.. lots of blood particles splays in not particular direction for no particular reason (I like gore, on most games, on this one, …I dont know). Theres also some …hum.. killing moves?.
As other people say, the enviroment looks bland. But this could be a good game, who knows? I am looking forward to play it. I like RPG games, you know.
report
Hurrah!
report
Screaming thrash metal?!?! I only remember Marilyn Manson in one of the previous trailers, admittedly I haven’t seen them all. I would love to hear more Warbringer or Skeletonwitch in my video game trailers.
report
First one: The lack of an accent I can forgive, but no beard? What is this shite? Lame joke, not enough dialogue to make a decision on the acting.
Second: Bad, crappy animations, but they don’t bother me that much. Blood looks terrible, and I hope it could be turned off. Voice acting seemed alright.
Third: Magic looks like fun. First time I might be tempted to roll a mage since forever. Cliched aoe attack doing boss.
Overall: Too brown. Too much attention on gore. Plot looks generic and may suck. And unless there is some greatly written and characterized love interests I would be staying the hell away from any of the romantic subplots. Will try it, but am not holding my breath or anything.
report
That’s next-gen?
I dunno, I guess I’m just so over RTwP combat. That looks like a hard-to-control snorefest, like NWN2 where I was fighting the game more often than the baddies.
All I really want is a party-based RPG with the independent spirit of The Witcher, the rich tactical goodness of The Temple of Elemental Evil, the maximum snazzy production values of Valve or Blizzard, and the quirkiness of Zeno Clash. Is that too much to ask?
report
I’m tired of fantasy, I’m tired of orcs, I’m tired of elves, I’m tired of dwarves, gnomes, and hobbits. I’m tired of magic swords with names, old men in dresses carrying canes, busty near-naked slave-girls with no depth for people adolescent in body or mind to cream their pants over. I’m tired of medieval kingdoms, I’m tired of knights, I’m tired of nobles and commoners living in massive walled cities containing exactly twelve people. I’m tired of the lazy approaches to good and evil, I’m tired of the hack authors and their laziness, I’m tired of races who are always evil, ones who are always good, and how it can all be conveniently measured by how pretty they look to us.
I’m tired of how fantasy as a collective genre hasn’t had an original thought since Tolkien pieced together random bits of mythology and old fashioned Victorian class-ism and race-ism into a story and Gary Gygax proceeded to eat it, crap it out and roll around in it with his friends rubbing it on their chests and privates.
report
How do you like THAT mental image?!
report
Did anyone else replace “I’m tired of,” with “I hate,” perchance?
report
PR woes aside (that ultimate collector’s edition with the sausage for example) this still looks good, the actual gameplay trailers from the PC version some time ago did enough for me, these flicks and the Manson-shit were pretty much console-crowd pleasers.
The most interesting part remains the toolset though, Gamespy wrote some nice stuff about it, with feedback from the NWN(2) modders.
report
Reading the comments here confuse me.
I played Baldurs Gate (1 and 2) as a 14 year old. Actually, I played BG2 first and then BG1. Why anyone is trying to argue that it has an incredible story is beyond my comprehension.
In BG2, you are an adolescent, and you and your emo-looking sister(purple hair? cmon…) wander around picking up friends and completing quests while searching for the evil wizard dude who pissed you off in the beginning of the game as well as killing your brother.
Looking back, I forgave its shortcomings because as a teenager( which means I am apparently dumb), that sliver of identification with the character, along with a sense of escapism, was enough.
So to you artsy pants people: I think they will deliver with this an experience that is similar for this generation of adolescents as they did with Baldurs Gate when I was an adolescent. Gore and blood and screen shaking critical hits included.
Think of it as an “entry-level RPG” sacrifice to the teenagers of the world, so that things like the Withcer 2 and other thinky RPGS will get a stronger fanbase.
And that should be all we should expect from them.
report
@ Lobotomist
“if you look for great strategic (semi turn based) combat. Old D&D feel. Dungeon crawling. Plethora of good written quests. And awesome editor for tons of player made content. Than you know why DAO will be cult classic.”
From reading NWN forums it seems that people are going to stick with using NWN2 for a whole range of reasons (co-op, multiplayer, persistent worlds, Forgotten Realms lore, vast amount of assets and scripting available, sheer critical mass of other modders, etc).
If I were Atari and had the crpg AD&D/wotc license, I’d commission CD Projekt to do a NWN3, make it as backwards compatible with NWN1/2 mods as possible and host it all on a portal. After all CD Projekt are hardcore BG and PS:T fans, they run gog.com, they have rapidly built up a lot of respect for their approach to The Witcher, they are hungry and ambitious and based in a region with lower development costs and a ever growing PC-using base.
Atari seem to be really missing a trick with their IP and with a lack of a busy online portal a la Steam – they could easily have one by using NWN, AD&D and that whole community. At the moment Bioware seem to be holding the baby for them but without actually having any rights to the IP iself.
report
@Wulf are you contending that straightfoward good vs evil tales are signs of ‘right-wing extremism’? Sounds like you’re completely lost in leftist moral relativism. Should we lament the ‘right wing extremism’ of the black and white way we talk about Hitler, Pol Pot or Stalin? I think not; sometimes good and evil are easily identifiable and if you think that’s right wing extremism, then I pity you.
Morally grey narratives tend to be more intriguing and engaging than black and white ones and that was one of the big strengths of The Witcher over many other RPGs, I agree with that, but right wing extremist, WTF? Sounds more like projection on your part.
report
“They make the game not only look really entertaining, but also not something designed for horny adolescents”
Sure, instead it’s for bloodthirsty adolescents?
They haven’t shown me anything that makes me think this is going to be a successor to Baldur’s Gate as it was apparently meant to be.
report
After reading the comment, I’m inclined to agree with merc.
“Extremist.”
We should always keep this quote in mind when slinging about political insults, especially when they’re done for no reason at all. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
report
I’m amazed that so many are upset by silly things like the blood effects and facial animations (talky bits don’t look worse than the stiff uncanny valley stuff in ME anyway). People are so picky these days. It’s not a cartoony game like Fallout, Baldur’s Gate or KotOR where your imagination does half the job in bringing it to life and feel visceral.
It is an RPG after all, as long as the RPG and story bits work and the combat is at least functional it should work fine as a game. These last trailers have gone a long way towards restoring my interest in the Dragon Age.
Quoting Owen from above:
Regardless though, I’ll be waiting for John of Walker to play and review it before considering buying.
Second that, if there’s one area where I trust John Walker’s taste it’s in telling me if a story is good nor not :)
report
Erm, those trailers made me want to get the game less, not more, more mass effect pls BiowarEA
report
This article cracked me up. Oh, John Walker, you sly dog, with your *incredibly* subtle sarcasm.
report
Bizarrely, I actually prefer the heavy metal flim flammery of the previous trailers. I thought they were all kinda boring and generic.
report
Mass Effect’s narrative was fantastic. Better than half the big budget films I’ve seen in the past couple of years.
These clips aren’t impressing me.
However, the gameplay looks pretty fun. It’s a shame I won’t be buying it… because? NO MULTIPLAYER EL OH EL.
report
Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Collectors Edition
Are they mocking the COD4 MW 2 NVG edition or is there truth in this vid?
report
I liked the boobies :(
report
I still can’t see how anyone can consider the first 2 trailers anything above ‘awful’, but each to his own I guess.
Third one wasn’t so bad though.
report
It’s going to be hard to go back to the ‘click’n'wait’ style of rpg combat after the immediacy of Mass Effect, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and even Jade Empire.
For the record, however, this game is solidly on my ‘buy on day of release’ list. And Bioware, overall, is better at this whole genre than Bethesda.
report
Remember when BioWare made good games? Baudur’s Gate was good. This isn’t good.
report
Wulf: there are plenty of MUSHes that sound right up your alley.
report
The game might end up being good, but that blood spatter is absurd to the point of being distracting.
report
I see what they’re trying to do, but I think the Bioware would be better served by leaving the GUI “On” in these demo videos.
With it off, it just looks like they’re showcasing looks and general “awesomeness” instead of nitty-gritty gameplay, and in the looks department there’s not a lot to showcase. This game’s strengths, if it has any, will be in the nuts and bolts of the combat system and the narrative.
I do agree that the videos were much more promising, in a “this could be cool if what I think could be happening is actually happening but I can’t tell without some GUI and tooltips” sort of way.
report
@Super
It’s a joke, the real special edition just comes with a cloth map, a DVD, and some other crap.
report
Heh yeah that’s what I figured.
It’s getting harder to tell what’s serious and what’s a joke surrounding this game what with the transsexual and bestial brothel sex and such.
report
Well if 80% of the content is not dull and samey filler, then it will surely be better than Mass Effect at least.
report
The RPGs of today really need to look to the Ninja Gaidens and Devil May Crys of this world if they want melee combat to look right. You can’t just have two characters facing each other, playing their animations in turn. You need hitboxes and recoils and stuns and physics in play.
No, I’m not saying that RPGs should turn into action games. I’m saying that the better action games make hitting people look RIGHT, and an RPG developer could pilfer this knowledge and use it effectively, we’d get something much better out of it.
Something that springs to mind is development of character animation. The (sadly Japanese-only) PS2 game based on the famous Berserk manga does this excellently. Near the start of the game, your character swings his (HUGE) sword like it’s a sledgehammer, putting all his weight into it and skidding, tumbling and generally looking not the slightest bit graceful about it. As you level up and put more points into sword skills, he begins to hold onto the sword more confidently. His stance is higher, and his swings and faster and cleaner.
Near the end of the game, he’s a true master of this gigantic sword, and is bringing it round in one-handed arcs – he animates like it’s an extension of his body now, rather than the gigantic lump of steel he was throwing around at the start. If an RPG could do that, and make characters visibly improve their fighting style over the course of the game, that’d be awesome.
Seems exactly the sort of thing that Dragon Age could use.
report
“I am looking for damn Baldurs Gate succesor”
I’m looking for one too – what a shame this looks nothing like one.
It’s utterly juvenile, looks abysmal, and is yet another in a long line of nu-Bioware “we want to make things cinematic!” drivelware. Deep games are not like movies – because they can’t be unless they loose their depth. Deep games are like books.
Baldurs Gate was a book, Dragon Age looks like Uwe Boll doing a fantasy movie.
report
Was the whole post being sarcastic, or did i miss something?
The voice acting was terrible, the joke wasn’t one, the combat looked incredibly dull (hit each other until someone falls over), the locations didn’t look that special, and without music there was NO drama at all.
the magic looked pretty powerful though… so maybe the whole post wasn’t sarcastic…
report
My interest chart shows positive growth.
report
Dominic,
Gothic does that to some extent. But the combat itself is still pretty weak. The moves don’t become particularly flashy, but as you improve your skill the PC can wield his sword better with slightly different moves.
I’d like to see it adopted more too.
Round-based needs to be disguised much more. And I don’t see why it isn’t considering the computer could “roll” several rounds ahead, or even resolve the whole conflict before a single animation is played (but allow the player to interrupt), it would be completely transparent to the player and they could be playing any sort of fight-scene they want, with all sorts of fancy animations.
report
@Dom: Hopefully you’re not suggesting that Medieval Fantasy combat should look like Devil May Cry, but rather that it has the same attention to detail? :P
report
All I’m saying that fighting games actually have mastered the art of making it look like you’ve actually hit someone, even if it doesn’t kill them. There’s power and weight behind every attack, and a lot of RPGs seem to want to do that, but end up falling into the trap of two avatars playing attack animations, maybe synched up now and then, and having one falling over when they run out of HP.
In a Ninja Gaiden game, you know when you’ve been hit. There’s a visceral sense of impact there – you get that familiar noise, you get knocked back, you see a spray of blood that splashes against the floor. You may have only lost a tenth of your health, but it feels like you just got HIT.
report
Man, these dwarves mean freaking business.
report
For a game with such great graphics and acting, those are some awful attack animations (or, rather, animation). Wouldn’t look too bad in Neverwinter Nights or Baldur’s Gate, but here we have highly detailed characters with facial animation, who engage in complex interactions, only to start whaling on each other with the same motion like wind-up toys a minute later. It started getting old by the end of the first trailer! Can’t wait to have to stare at it for an hour straight during a trek through some mine or a sewer level.
report
I do see all these things in the final combat video linked in the article, actually. There’s recoil on getting hit, there’s knockback on strong hits and there’s blood splashes (to the point where some people are complaining about it) There is no silly chained spinning kick attacks and such while the character efortlessly hovers 10 m in the air like in DMC, but hopefully these aren’t part of what supposedly makes the melee combat in these games ‘look right’…
report
Apparently they let the public play the game at the Comic Con. Anyone seen any reports?
report