By Jim Rossignol on September 25th, 2009 at 10:36 am.
Bioware’s fantasy epic is trundling towards us like a siege tower made of conversation trees and noisy metal, and we’re starting to get a few glimpses of the characters in detail. One such glimpse, a video show-casing Zevran The Asssassin, possibly Dragon Age‘s stabbiest character, sits below the click. I’ve also posted a small gallery of the latest screenshots, which you can click upon for embiggenment.
Theres an awful lot of blood sprayed in that video. If Dragon Age is refused classification in Australia I am going to become a Very Angry (Australian) Internet Man.
report
I’m still very much unsure what to make of this. It doesn’t matter what footage they show, I’m always left with a sense that I should wait for reviews. I’m not even sure whats causing it, though the characters faces do seem a tad expressionless which isn’t helping.
report
Don’t wait for reviews. Wait for Wot I Thinks.
As an aside, I’m starting to hear word of mouth on this from a variety of sources. It’s very positive.
KG
report
I had been the same, especially after some of the more… questionable… trailers. However I realised that Bioware fanboy that I am I’d end up buying it eventually, and probably shortly after its release. So I decided to go ahead and pre-order.
I have no self control.
report
I’m inclined to agree; everything I’ve seen seems somewhat discombobulated, like there are several different teams working on the style, and not really communicating. This video is a perfect example: I can’t tell if they were going for documentary-style interviews or grandiose exposition. The last 5 seconds are a great example too, with Marilyn Manson, splashing blood, and then some guy saying “Join Us.”
I have a feeling that the demo is going to be the best way to figure this one out.
report
Completely agree on the marketing being a bit confusing – I expect this will be great in ways the videos fail to show, which I think is fairly typical of Bioware RPGs. Solid combat with streamlined and compelling quests are more or less guaranteed, at least I hope.
report
I agree the trailers for Dragon Age have been quite mixed and confusing.
But I can’t help but imagine a heavily story based RPG is quite hard to market in a format of 1-2 minute trailers. Might just be that the marketing people aren’t really certain of what to do with it so they end up mashing actiony bits together and sticking music over it.
report
Actually thats a point, I haven’t looked at a ‘proper’ review in a while, its only really been the wot I thinks, review scores are for people who can be arsed keeping count, I’ve got more important things to do. ;-)
report
I should probably add that I likely will end up picking this up, its just a matter of when & how much I pay for it. Thing is, I start back in Uni next week and I’m being very wary of buying several new games, so, I’ve got one game on pre-order (OpFor: Dragon Rising) and thats pretty much it. I’ll consider picking up other games on the condition that I feel I can spare time for a new game.
report
I think the confusion between marketing and the game itself, assuming the rumors I’ve heard about the game are true – my sources agree with Kieron’s at least, is probably explained very easily. EA takes the first title released by their newest, bestest acquisition since said studio was acquired, decides to pimp it around to their usual customers, and their marketing crew says “WTF? This isn’t Madden… what does I do? Fuck it, just play some Marylin Manson in the background, show a lot of blood splatter… do we have any more blue alien sex scenes? Aww… ok, well elves are close enough. Roll it!”
report
@Nerd Rage: Really, it boils down to a fairly simple question: is the shit rawk present or represented on the disc in any way, or not?
There’s no reason to think that it is, but BioWare has been very coy on the point, which doesn’t help. Nobody looking for “the spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate” is much interested in “themes that reach out to new demographics.”
report
Actually I have no answer for that, both these guys are into that stuff. It probably wouldn’t occur to them to mention the music one way or the other, and I didn’t think to ask.
report
Good news, not to steal the probable RPS thunder when the other side of the pond wakes up tomorrow, but I’ve found a video that answers the question. Text-only version: even if marketing doesn’t get it, Bioware themselves are still very much on the ball.
http://www.destructoid.com/dragon-age-origins-has-music-this-video-proves-it-150284.phtml#ext
report
If this turns out to be a piece of manure, I’ll be very upset. AND the game should’ve come out half a year ago.
report
I think I may have to play this with the voices turned off.
report
Is it just me for whom the video loaded/buffered/whatever really fast but the thing was still super-laggy?
Also, I’m sort of with Larington on this. I’ve not a clue what to expect from this game.
report
The red haired woman has alarmingly large and immobile lips.
report
I’m not really convinced that this can be as epic as Baldur’s Gate but considering that it’s from Bioware and it shouldn’t be worse than Jade Empire (which I still kind of enjoyed) I think I might get as soon as it is released.
report
I’m not sure if it’s just a running joke now, but does every Dragon Age trailer have to have some sort of ‘teasing’ glimpse of a sex scene? I mean really?
Regardless, I suppose it’s kind of nice that they’re going away from stereotypical elves to just blend him with stereotypical Spanish. Oh well.
(I am looking forward to this game, really.)
report
Heh. Well, there was a minor furor on The Forum about another romanceable male NPC’s trailer not including a snippet of the sex scene. So, I dunno, equal opportunity ogling and all?
report
Is it just me or does Zevran sound a lot like Inigo Montoya (you killed my father, prepare to die)?
report
I hope the best for Dragon Age and the community around. Let it be so epic like Baldur´s Gate / Neverwinter Nights.
report
@ Fashigady
Maybe is Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya) the voice actor.
report
from the looks and shown bits of story it looks like the least interesting bioware title of ALL TIME. more sucky than JadeWarrior imo. Where is the supposed story I should care for ? (besides war is shit and ppl like to get revenge for loves lost and sex is good for releasing stress before/after battle).
The band of warriors they show which will aid me in my quest looks like the cliche fantasy staple set of predefined characters, the videos featuring battle speeches and repetetive oneliners. Where are the actual gameplay videos that show decisions, variations, inventory, use of spells or skills ? the more they release the more blank this game gets for me. maybe it’s just a collection of cutscenes……I don’t know, they say it’s an MMORPG for single player/offline with +80hours but everything they show feels like it’s “just” an RPG with questionable b-movie pulp appeal (aka big milky breasts and easily seduced women)
report
I pre-ordered the game months ago, I was bought with all that promises of a true Baldurs Gate sequel. The problem is that every following trailer like this one made me think that I made a mistake. Every single one had pretty much mediocre dialogs, voice acting, animations and character design, bad music and not to mention way too much blood. I can hope that my fears are unfounded since few journalists said that trailer dont do justice to the game, but it thats true why is this still the best that they can show?
report
And you forgot something. BG is set in “(A)D&D: Forgotten Realms”. DA got his own dark fantasy (rpg) setting within p&p.
report
The setting is not important, what made BG a good game was a good story and dialogs, fun combat, interesting characters, loads of side quests, humor, banter and great world design. I still hope that DA will feature most of this things, but the problem is that I just dont see them in the trailers.
report
What made BG a good game was the presence of a certain miniature giant space hamster.
report
Go for the eyes, Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
*squeeeek*
report
I’m always surprised when people call AD&D generic. It’s like calling Tolkien generic.
report
Bhazor: No, really, man. It’s not.
KG
report
Maybe it’s just me, but this looks painfully generic. Starting with dragons. Lots and lots of dragons…
This has to be the first time I’m not the least bit excited about a Bioware game.
report
Reminds me of Diego(?) Montoya from Princess Bride… or even the cat in the Shrek films. Is the whole “mature” and “dark, gritty” buzzwords only that, and Dragon Age in fact a longwinded sarcastic view of fantasy products from the past? Between the campy dialogue, the fetishistic use of gore and the token sex-scenes, I’m starting to believe this. An ode to Conan (feat. the Guvernator) perhaps? Mass Effect also had this overtly epic b-movie sillyness with machismo coming out of the ears, that at least made me laugh the whole game through. Perhaps that was the point!
report
Hell, the first Conan movie had massive amounts of artistic merit compared to what we’ve seen of this game so far.
report
I’m a bit confused by the vitriolic comments. Seems a lot of big huge negative extrapolation from small details. From the stuff I’ve picked up (FAQ, dev comments), there’s just sooo much right about the game. (Starting with the “oh thank goodness, we’re not in the Forgotten Realms anymore”.)
It’s possible I’m suffering from fanboy bias, but… at least I’ve done the homework. Which appears to have inoculated me against going into a panic about shock-rock and perceived genericness.
(Then again, they don’t really need to wow me with marketing, so I dunno. Can’t fault your reactions, even if they tend towards binary Teh Suke / Teh r0xx0rz.)
report
It’s hard to go buy dev-released information if you want to see what the game really is like. Well, it depends on the developer, perhaps. But even so, if you need more than marketing-infused news-droplets, game trailers and screenshots are where we have to turn to. Until they give us a demo, of course.
Personally, I’m still hoping it’s much better than it looks in most of their trailers, but I’m not expecting my hopes to be well-founded.
report
Awesomesauce, no one told me that Shrek’s Puss in Boots joined your team.
report
Hah, damn right.
report
Kinda looked like Oblivion…with swords…
report
No, its not just you… I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s seeking out a six-fingered man, either…
report
(Damnit, that was supposed to be directed at Fashigady.)
report
He looks like Siegfrid from Soul Calbur shortly after starting university (a little older, grungier amour, ill advised celtic face tatoo.)
report
Still looks worse visually, stylistically and just generally, worse than two-year old the Witcher. No thanks.
report
Arg, watching the speech animations is painful. I want an old-days style bioware game in a super high res, improved interface infinity engine with more shininess. Y’know: exquisiteley beautiful hand drawn environments, that sort of thing. And nice portraits that show up on the dialogue screens.
report
yes, exactly. if you called it Baldur’s Gate III, you’d sell a bajillion copies.
report
that just seemed.. .awkward. The character animations are really wooden and the voice acting doesn’t fit well when the faces don’t move.
report
Personally, I’ll give Bioware the benefit of the doubt, at least until I’ve got something more solid to go on.
Like All Bran.
report
The voice acting for the redheaded woman who exposits on the assassin’s background is just awful, which is a shame because the others are all voiced fairly well.
report
I’m slowly coming around to the thought that I might actually quite enjoy this in a b-movie kinda way. If there’s nothing desperately bad about the game mechanics it may well be breezy fun.
report
I can see why they call it the spiritual sucessor to Baldurs Gate… No, wait…
report
If this game was a movie I don’t think I would want to watch it. I’m not sure I want to play it, for that matter.
report
Sod the stupid over sexed and over hammed story trailers.
If Bioware really wants my interest show me a proper unscripted play through a section (the kind they used for Bioshock). I’m fascinated by what I’ve seen of the combat but they keep hiding it behind these badly acting beef puppets. But from what I’ve seen the combat to the BG isometric strategy style but with a more physical feel to spells (extinguishing flames with blasts of water for example). If they’ve got that give us a look and I’ll give you a damn pre-order.
Also there is still no excuse for Marilyn Manson.
report
One thing I’d really like to impress upon people here is that these are almost certainly EA doing the trailers, not Bioware. This is a horrible part of the industry, where people who know dick about ‘x’ are suddenly in charge of explaining it in detail.
report
the first Conan movie had massive amounts of artistic merit
it has shit-tons of artistic merit. it’s the best movie about the germanic warrior christ figure ever made.
report
“it’s the best movie about the germanic warrior christ figure ever made.”
What about Downfall?
Anyway, the Voice Acting so far is my only issue, and it seems weak :(
report
All the marketing for this game that has been annyoing/alarming the Bioware fan base can be explained by the question the marketers very likely asked themselves: “How can we get beer-swilling fratboy Xbox 360 gamers (ie: the Madden ’09 demographic) to get excited about and buy a game featuring elves and wizards?”
Fortunately, the marketers don’t make the game, they just sell it, so I’m not too worried.
Personally, I like the spanish accent. He sounds like Inigo Montoya and Shrek’s Puss in Boots because those are the propbably the only two popular fantasy-themed spanish-accented characters. At least it’s something a bit different in the genre where the elves-are-british and the dwarves-are-scottish seems mandatory.
report
Hah, yes, I was thinking of Inigo Montoya when I was watching this as well. Still, at least it’s not a Fawlty Towers Manuel accent…
report
It’s really ironic that Bioware’s stated reason for abandoning the Forgotten Realms was to make something more mature (ie, darker and grittier) – and now the new Forgotten Realms are far more mature and dark than Dragon Age’s setting.
Bioware should have stayed with DnD.
report
On the other hand:
100% less Elminster .
report
Bioware’s idea of “dark and gritty” seems to me to be “lots of blood and gore”. Bethesda kept saying over and over how Oblivion was going to be dark and gritty and epic, and their reasoning for it being dark was:”It has demonlike creatures invading the world!”
report
this really could go either way, exciting :)
report
If they pull an Assassin’s Creed delay on this, I’ll kill someone. Shoulda been out 6 months ago.
report
The trailers for this really suck. but then i have to say, has bioware ever let us down before? If anyone can pull off a traditional epic rpg, give it to bioware.
Personally I already love the world, im so tired of the cliche high fantasy rpg games. Worlds like the witcher, and this bring so much more to the depth.
report
I’ve pre-ordered and cancelled this twice already. I think I’ve finally made my mind and will go for the cheapest version I can find (previously pre-ordered the crippled UK CE). I really hope this is closer to Baldur’s Gate than Mass Effect – Mass Effect was great back in 2007, I played through it once but it has gotten a lot worse since that. I don’t think it has any replay value although I hear many, many people have played it through multiple times. Jade Empire was pretty much the same, quite fun the first time through but I have zero desire to play it again.
The videos have been terrible for the past 6 months but in one clip I caught few seconds of actual gameplay and it looked great-ish. Plus it’s not like there are any real alternatives out there. Divinity 2 maybe.
report
Divinity 2, Venetica, and Risen all both look better to me than anything I’ve actually seen in Dragon Age so far. (Heck, just from the promos, I can’t tell if Dragon Age has combat any deeper than Torchlight, which is a whole lot more fun to look at than these all these characters skidding down the slope of the Uncanny Valley.)
Has anyone actually seen anything from Dragon Age yet that looks fun to you? Or is everyone just salivating based on BioWare’s reputation?
report
I have been craving some old school rpg lately, currently im playing the witcher through. I am going to buy this right off, cant wait :)
report
Lips: the new polygonal, comically exaggerated breasts.
report
I’ve pre-ordered DA, but I’m currently playing through The Witcher EE, and the videos now make me nervous. DA just doesn’t look quite as promising with the story, or the setting. I’m very hopeful that DA will be good, but I do wonder if I will end up using DA as a stop-gap until the release of the Witcher 2.
As for darkness and grittiness, Baldur’s gate had plenty… if anything there has been less and less in each Bioware game since. Ditching the forgotten realms seems more to me like they just didn’t want to deal with the license holders, rather than the setting. If anything, having a fixed setting helped them craft a story around it.
Is there any word about future D&D game releases? Is anyone else interested in the license, or will NWN2 be the last of it’s kind?
report
the whole idea of DA is making NWN3 without having to pay for the d&d rights, so i’d say no, at least for a while
report
Anyone remember how does Baldur’s Gate do trailers? I was too young then. The only videos I could think of consists entirely of combating. BG’s combat looks nice even today though, with all the colourful spells flying(and the fact you don’t spam the same fire/ice ball)
report
I was in my late teens, but still wasn’t really aware of games journalism in any real sense, so I don’t actually know either. Like with most games of the era, I just grabbed things off the shelf that looked interesting. With the D&D license, BG was an easy sell.
report
i remember screenshots of chainlighting being used (didnt look like it did ingame tho)
as for videos i only remember Icewind dale and Torment ones, they were mostly 1 or 2 seconds of spells being cast and monsters being hit mixed with drawings of characters and art concepts with epic music and sometimes a deep voice saying things like “destroy your enemies, make them suffer!” and stuff, i thought they were pretty good at the time
report
Did the game trailer even exist in any real form at that time? It’s rather been a latterday internet phenomenon.
report
I certainly wasn’t aware of it if it did. How viable is a trailer, really, over dial-up at late 90′s download speeds?
report
i give you the Descent 3 trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RUakcYEkew
crush your enemies, set them on fire and watch them … BOOM! … suffer
report
@Vinraith: they used to put them into other games cds (the descent 3 one came with Baldur’s gate irc) or with magazine cds
report
The Planescape and Descent trailers are on my version of baldur’s gate (4 disc box set.). They play when you’ve finished installing, iirc.
report
Yeah there were plenty of trailers but they came on discs, a sort of “coming attractions” just after you installed.
I’m pretty sure the BG2 trailer was on the Icewind Dale CD.
report
@JKjoker
And now that you say that, I remember it. Specifically, Planescape and NWN being advertised on the front of, IIRC, the BG2 installation.
You’ve reminded me that I still have a Descent 3 disc around here somewhere…
report
I remember NWN and Torment videos thanks to chronic BG reinstallations… the Torment one is freakish, If I was younger it would probably give me nightmares. Maybe what I saw about BG is from one of magazine CDRoms.
While Dragon Age trailers really don’t interest me too much, BG1/2 videos caught me instantly even now. I think it’s because the beautiful 2D environment art and the perspective? In DA, viewing from the “ground level”, things looks dull and muddy. (NWN is restricted by technology and things looked… boxy)
report
Why is Haer’dalis screwing Imoen? Get your hands off my sister dirty tiefling!
report
another good old school rpg is Drakensang. you can get it for only $5 at Direct to drive. It is quite good, not quite a incredible, but very very enjoyable.
report
Why would I want this bitter assassin in my party? He already screwed my girl and I know he’s going to backstab me later (as all Bioware characters of this type usually do).
report
(I’m pretty sure the lady in question is, well, “you”. As in, the PC.)
report
I may have missed it, but none of the information they’ve released in recent months has answered the questions I do have about this game: what about those spell effects that are supposed to interact with each other? How deep is that system? Can you put out nonmagical fire, like torches, with water (magical or not)? Will water conduct electricity? Can flames catch on from one object/person to another? If the game actually puts some serious work into that sort of thing, it’ll be worthy in spite of pretty much any amount of cheesiness.
report
I’m really not sure what they’re up to here… normally I’d buy a Bioware game in a flash, but a lot of the marketing on this is giving me a deep sense of unease. I certainly hope that they’re gaining a lot of players who might not normally buy this when they seem to be making so many would-be stalwarts uncertain.
report
I can’t see i’m too excited about this one. I admit i never got round to playing Baldur’s Gate so perhaps don’t have the loyalty this seems to impart. I like the koToR games because they were Star Wars but the more fantasy style Neverwinter Nights was merely alright and not a patch on Planescape: Torment.
I have to say I’m more interested in Alpha Protocol as it’s trying something different – I’m not saying the fantasy type setting is rubbish but it just doesn’t interest me quite as much.
report
I’ve got a spotty history with Bioware. Their early stuff was fantastic, with the exception of Planescape. The NWN games were good in multi but not so much SP (outside user made modules, which are brilliant). I didn’t care for KOTOR at all, but it might be a consequence of having lost all interest in Star Wars after the prequels. Jade Empire was decent, but I didn’t finish it because of the combat. Mass Effect was reasonably fun for one play through, but while it tried to be more open than their past games (admirable) it mostly only succeeded in producing a bunch of repetitive grindy side missions.
So I’m alright with Bioware changing their formula a bit, it was never really to my tastes anyway. It’s hard to tell, though, what’s really going on with this game from the press released this far.
report
Er, what was wrong with Planescape? (Oh and it wasn’t made by Bioware, neither was NWN2)
report
It’s hard to keep track of where they and Black Isle parted ways. I do recall NWN2 was developed by Obsidian and published by Atari, but I hadn’t recalled that Planescape didn’t involve Bioware. I wonder if that accounts for anything.
report
Not convinced by the French/Spanish accent at all. I would be sold if he had a moustache but otherwise…
report
Hehehehe…. Bloody Scheletons… hehehehe… this game will fill the screen with _blood_ wen you kill a _scheleton_.. …hehehehehee… EAT THIS CLIFFY!… Gratuitous Bloody Battles
report
“I grew up around…whores”
Why is my rock-solid confidence in Bioware slowly slipping with each one of these videos.
report
I had the same thought, but slightly further along, at the sudden burst of shit rock right when I was starting to consider myself intrigued.
report
glorious isn’t it :D
i believer i have found the
report
report
i dont think bioware minds the DnD licensings rights. Everyone wants to create thier own world, and have control over it. They are limited with what they can do using DnD, so it is better for them and us that they create thier own.
I think it is worth noting that Obsidian is black isle, and that is why bioware and obsidian work together so much.
http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/press_releases/obsidianPartnership/
Here is a very interesting write up on bioware vs obsidian. http://www.hitselfdestruct.com/2008/02/bioware-all-stars.html
Isnt it great when 2 companies actually like each other and work together. Atleast, used to i should say. EA doesnt play nicely with others.
report
Nngggh… Is it just me or is this game getting less and less appealing for every trailer they release? The voice-acting seems a bit off, facial animations arn’t much better. Environments looks a bit… bland?
report
What I find interesting is that so much time is spent on characters, rather than story or gameplay. I have a sinking feeling this game will be similar to Mass Effect, great story-telling and characterization before your character becomes a Warden and linear afterwards. Just like with Mass Effect being just the same, with great story-telling and characterization until you start going on the linear planetary missions. The point in Mass Effect where you go on planetary quest and it all becomes the same sounds very much like Dragon Age, when you become a Warden.
report
actually, all Bioware games for a while have been clones of KOTOR, with the PC being a variation of Jedi
gameplay (3rd person, companions controlled by VERY crappy AI)
story (big bad evil in a can released, wants to destroy the world/universe for no reason, only the Jedi can stop it, and for that you have to gather 4 artifacts/visit 4 areas/worlds)
characters (gritty merc/marine, the innocent girl, etc)
all extremely similar, im still surprised they pulled out a evil in a can with end of the universe prophesy (a traditional medieval rpg trope) in Mass Effect
report
Still think this looks fairly horrible, still will probably get it because I love Bioware.
report
“Bioware’s fantasy epic is trundling towards us like a siege tower made of conversation trees and noisy metal” Truly amazing line.
Really looking forward to this game.
report
You have embiggened blogging with your cromulent post.
report
Look at those sexy graphics we can only find on a PC! So fresh, so life like, so . . . 1998!
report