By John Walker on November 3rd, 2009 at 10:58 am.
My review of Dragon Age in PC Gamer is now online. All 60 million words, but short the very pretty boxouts (and thus vital details about the “taint” – snigger). It looks very splendid in the magazine. (Unfortunately an RPS review will be a while coming as our attempts to get review code were not responded to.) It’s a tremendous game, in many senses of the word. Here’s an excerpt that captures one of my favourite details:
“Whether you play as a human, elf or dwarf, a rogue, warrior or mage, a noble or a commoner, Dragon Age requires smart use of your wits and weapons. Combat is a combination of real-time fighting and turn-based handing out of orders. You have control of all in your current party (which has a maximum of four characters), as well as an elaborate Combat Tactics system that enables you to all but program your team’s AI. But there’s also an entire realm to explore, and a central, overwhelming theme of acculturation within its many towns and races. This is about politics, moral philosophy and love. And about killing dragons with swords.”
Much obliged John, been wanting to read this for a while, had to cancel my 12 year subscription a while back due to money constraints.
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What’s wrong with Eurogamer? They seem to be the most negative review site around. Unfortunately, their criticisms usually have more than a grain of truth in them. Let’s see…
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Although I doubt it’s the case here, I often think when magazines say ‘world first – exclusive review’, what did the magazine do to be guaranteed that world first exclusive review, and surely it owes the developer/publisher a good review, or it’s unlikely the magazine shall ever be privileged with such a gift again?
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No, because lying to your readers has a far greater negative consequence than pissing off a developer.
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Well we already know that deals like this have been done in the past in terms of score. With Metacritic’s (undeserved) importance, some publishers have taken to only issuing early review code to those who guarantee a certain high score. While I’m not going to argue with John over review practices because that would be incredibly stupid of me, it would not surprise me certain fudging, glossing over and lies of ommission are done in these reviews. Outright lies? No.
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John Walker says:
“No, because lying to your readers has a far greater negative consequence than pissing off a developer.”
All the more of a reason for these publications to never do these kind of exclusives. It only ever causes doubt amongst us readers. And we really don’t give a hoot weather this or that publication gets the first review.
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Eurogamer are negative? They gave Fable 2 10/10 – so they aren’t negative, they’re just wrong :p
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Unfortunately, exclusive reviews, or in many cases reviews delivered 30 mins before everyone elses’ mean page views and increased ad revenues, hence the leverage publishers can potentially extert outside of the crude, ‘give it a 9 or we’re pulling our ads’.
Trying to find a detailed review of the 360 version of this game led me to some fairly obscure sites eariler today for example.
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The thing that gets me about the Eurogamer review is that it doesn’t seem consistent. Reading the review it seems that it should get a 7/10, maybe a 6. But it ends up with 8, which just sounds like it was slapped on to appease the Metacritic watching guys at EA. If anything I think that is even more suspect than allegations of how exclusives effect review scores (and anyway I’m pretty sure they don’t. I remember PCG UK got a world exclusive of DoW 2 recently; everyone seems to forget that they gave that a fairly standard 84% or so).
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that eurogamer review sounded like a 5 or less, i was surprised by the 8.
But since half the eurogamer reviews are written by the RPS guys, you can’t really complain one is more negative than the other.
having read all about the negatives in the eurogamer review, now of a quick dinner before reading john’s positives…..
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EG review didn’t seem that negative to me, some things got praised and some other bad things got highlighted, that is pretty common when you review a game that is good but not perfect. Problems which could be dealbreakers for some are highlighted, so that people know what they’re going to find.
I think Alec did something like this in his IGN fallout 3 review (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/10/28/attack-of-the-fallout-3-reviews/)
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It’s interesting to compare it with the eurogamer review. All the facts are the same, the difference is simply how much the world captured the reviewers. EG reviewer thought the world was bland and gerenic, you thought it was “yet set in a highly original world”
The trailers have lead me towards the eurogamer viewpoint… but if it’s as good as you imply it could be, it’d be awesome.
On the other hand: ” It has been over four hundred years since the last Blight, but even those who remember believe there will never be another. One man disagrees. Duncan, head of the Grey Wardens in the nation of Ferelden, sees all the signs of a coming Blight. He is seeking new members to join this most elite band of fighters, ”
That’s a straight rip from The Black Watch in Song of Ice and fire. Pretty much everything that isn’t ripped from that series seems ripped from Wheel of time.
Except of course for the wh40k psykers:
“Those demonstrating magical skills are separated from their families as children and sent to a Mages’ Circle. A mage is vulnerable to possession by demons, or to the allure of deadly Blood Magic. They must live under the control of the soldiers of the Chantry, the presiding human and city-elf religion, serving in the army. ”
Both you and the eurogamer review agree on the difficulty settings at least. ;-)
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Do you honestly think *they* didn’t “rip” that from something else?
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yes. honestly.
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hmm that didn’t occur to me, I love those books but I kind of forgot about the fact no one would listen to them at first..
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There are no stories that someone else hasn’t already told. It’s all in how you tell them.
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All fiction of any kind is an evolution of fiction that has come before it. It is as simple as that. To suggest that anyone is “lifting” or maybe at a stretch, “stealing” ideas and then come to the conclusion that the work is unoriginal is just erroneous. You take the best bits of work you admire, you add to it, you twist it and mould it and present your own spin on it. That is what Bioware seems to have done. I think, from the previews and descriptions I have read of this game, Bioware have spent enough time inventing and dealing out fresh perspectives to their storylines warrant the praise they are receiving. Also, it has to be said, to any layman who doesn’t often read much fantasy fiction, this world may well seem unoriginal. It has elves, dwarves, kings, sorcerers and dragons. On the face of it that seems like any other work of high fantasy. It’s what you do with those elements and how you present them that should be judged.
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Although I like the thought that has went into the combat system and the general intelligence of the game I am finding the story to be exceedingly dull, not sure if I can put up with this for 100 hours.
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I kind of figured that would be the case.
My Western RPG of the decade is still Mask of the Betrayer, on the merits of being an intellectual paragon and an emotional rollercoaster. Mask had me fall in love with the characters and really feel everything that they felt, and both Gann and Okku are two of the most standout characters in the history of gaming for me. If someone asks me to name the best RPG out there, I’d name Mask. I liked Planescape: Torment, but even Planescape’s characters seemed a bit flat by comparison.
I suppose it’s what one’s looking for, but I have this funny condition where I can’t enjoy a World if I can’t enjoy it vicariously through the characters, if I think the characters are flat and/or complete jerks (which is the case with many Bioware games) then I can’t bring myself to give a damn about the World, no matter how detailed it is, it’s going to seem dull to me. I know this is a mileage may vary thing because not everyone cares about characters like I do.
The thing is though, I was actually even mildly depressed when Brink died in Torchlight, because he seemed a really stand-up guy, and these feelings continued with how his ladyfriend spoke of him, in hushed, sad tones. It made me angry at Alric and the evils that dwelled below. So it’s not hard to get me to care about a character, but the only Bioware character I’ve ever given a damn about, ever, was Minsc. Miss you, Minsc.
But Minsc was a moment of genius in Bioware’s writing and something they haven’t come close to replicating. The other characters of Baldur’s Gate (and II) I tried to feel something about, but failed, because they just seemed that dead to me, they were more words on a page, professionally perfect, but totally lacking in emotion. It’s a funny thing to try to describe, but Bioware characters have no soul.
As annoying as Grobnar might have been, I still have fond recollections about the interactions between him and Khelgar…
“[...] many Khelgars high!”
“What did I tell you about not using me as a unit of measurement?!”
“Errrr… many Neeshka’s high!”
…and that’s what makes a game for me, charming characters. I feel their joy, I feel their pain, I laugh with them, I cry with them, and that’s something that Obsidian excelled at, the art of giving a character a soul, and it’s also why I can’t bring myself to be excited about Dragon Age. I know it’s going to have this amazingly detailed World, no end of lore, beautifully crafted locations, and I’m going to be bored by it.
But yeah, I’m more excited about Alpha Protocol than this, because though Alpha Protocol is modern day, it’s Obsidian, and I have expectations of Obsidian, huge ones, because with each Obsidian game, I expect to exercise my emotional palette.
That Dragon Age has scored more highly than Neverwinter Nights 2, and more importantly, Mask of the Betrayer, tells me that people are more into getting a professionally crafted RPG with no bugs than they are with getting a game that has characters with soul. And that’s a shame, it really is.
I wonder if I’ll get used as a punching bag by Mr. “U NOT TLDR ENUF, U GOT BIG TINKY WURDS DAT HERT HED, I SMASH11″ again? We’ll see!
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Wulf:
Ah, you’re making me nostalgic for Mask of the Betrayer. What an excellent game, I love how in your playthrough Okku was a valued companion and in my playthrough (possible spoiler warning) I devoured his soul and made an undead monstrosity using his hide. Such excellent writing and choices.
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As good as Mask of the Betrayer was I was let down at the end by some serious railroading.
**spoilers**
Throughout the whole game you travel with this character who intends to tear down the wall, and you can try and help her. But then Kelemvor shows up and you’re only dialogue option was to say ” It’s okay, I won’t do it now” and then you get berated by your companion for turning your back on her. I don’t believe for one second that your character should have been able to bring down the wall (it’s you against a god; you’re boned) but they should have at least let you try and fail with a suitable ending; be a martyr for the cause or something. But to just be railroaded into changing your mind really soured me on the whole experience.
**spoilers**
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Schadenfreude -
The writers had intended that you could tear down the wall, but the Wizards of the Coast said no, it was too big a change to the “canon” to have in an official product.
I think Bioware have stated that these sorts of restrictions to content and allowed topics was the reason they moved away from D&D licensing to doing their own worlds. Probably the same for Obsidian.
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Mask of the Betrayer was horrible. You build up this whole thing to take on the god of death and free the souls from the wall of the faceless. You beat gods, you have a minor god in your party, and you just ATE the previous god of death. But when the current god of death shows up and you have no choice but to nod meekly and give up your entire quest.
It was a disaster.
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Anthony Damiani -
*MORE SPOILERS*
Minor God – did you refer to Okku? He was sort of a demi-God really, an ascendant spirit, wasn’t he? Also, you don’t get the chance to consume the previous God of death. He is gone, what you meet is a shadow, a memory of him, with just a fraction of its previous power. A real God in the D&D pantheon is of another order of magnitude. So I think it does make logical sense if just “the God says no”.
I agree it did feel like a bit of a cheat, but as I explained above, the choice wasn’t really theirs. Also, taking on the God of death is an even more epic story than MotB.
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Eurogamer really didn’t seem to like it, then gave it a heftily positive mark at the end. Odd.
I will stand by Lord Walker and eagerly anticipate this game reaching my grasping, clammy hands.
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Good, hopefully they’ll continue to be negative. I don’t need someone trying to gloss over the issues a game has or pretending things are aye-ok when they aren’t. There’s a worrying internet trend for folks to get irrationally upset when a piece of media is criticised, even when they weren’t the ones who made it. That’s a very dangerous thing. One should not sacrifice credibility and integrity to staunch the tears of a few online bleedingheart morons.
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If they want to be negative, they should stick to it until the end and rate the game as such. A less than glowing review on Eurogamer that ends up with a 8/10 mark is more than strange.
Take the Mafia fiasco for example (which I remember fondly)… now THAT took some balls. 4/10 and a horde of angry internet people shouting and cursing at the reviewer :)
Besides that, Eurogamer seems to have been hit&miss since some of the old crew stopped writing the main articles. I mean, the 6/10 review for Risen is pathetic, really :(
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Scores can go fuck themselves, they are arbitrary and stupid and anyone who pays heed to them needs to seriously reconsider what they base their purchasing decisions on. These same complaints came up after the RPS ‘review’ of Borderlands, in which they hilighted a ton of totally reasonable problems but still came to the conclusion that the game was really good and deserved to be played. Games are often more than the sum of their parts and the important task a reviewer must do, as well as give their own opinion, is outline issues that could cause certain gamers to change their minds based on their personal taste. Glossing over the facts is a bad thing, because one of those facts could be a deal-breaker and leaving it out of the review may result in a bad purchase.
To me, it speaks volumes when a game gets a laundry list of complaints in it’s review and yet the conclusion is still positive. Borderlands encapsulates that perfectly. It’s a shoddy port with a list of problems as long as my arm and Gearbox should be ashamed of themselves for letting them slide through the Q+A. However the game is the most fun I’ve had all year and I’ve already put 20 hours into it since Friday launch. The RPS review in this respect, while negative in many places, was the most valuable for me in terms of accuracy and would have doubtlessly affected my purchase decision had I not already had the 4-pack preordered on Steam.
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@ TB
I bought Borderlands but have barely played it. This is not due to it being poor, quite the opposite really, I enjoy it but I don’t want to get too far into it without my friend, and my friend has realised, since purchasing it, that his machine cannot handle it, due to needing 3.0 shader :(
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I’m glad review scores exist for one reason, divisive games. Games which get 4/10 and 9/10 are some of the most interesting games in the world. I go into them knowing a might not love them but inside is something worth loving.
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The flamewars that ensue are really fun to watch, as well
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The worrying Internet trend is hardly limited to blog posts and games journalism. As soon as people raise any points whatsoever about anything, the great unwashed horde of morons rushes in to tell them that they’re “pussies” and “fags” for daring to have an opinion beyond “OH YES MAKE ME SPEND MORE MONEY ON YOUR ENTIRELY SUPERFLUOUS PRODUCTS MR PUBLISHER MAN”
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Fucking MMO communities are the worst
“”
“gb2wow n00b”
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*”[legitimate complaint]“
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Mihai: don’t get me started on Mafia, that game had one of the best storytelling I have ever seen and only to get grounded as a game from a developer “nobody ever heard about”. Objective reviews my ass.
Are there still any serious gamers who 100% believe in official reviews instead of word of mouth ? The release week of any big game is always a mess, between raging about the scores, complaining about the bugs and dodging the spoilers you would almost forget the game is supposed to be enjoyed (or at least I hope so). PC gamers usually have an edge in this, when the game sucks on consoles, nobody gets their hopes high for PC release.
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The point here, I think, is that John and the rest of the RPS crü pretty much count as word of mouth. John’s not only written a paid-for review that showers glowing praise on Dragon Age, but he’s also been fairly vocal in saying he likes it. If that doesn’t convince you that he wrote what he did because he holds that opinion and not because “the Man” bought his soul for a handful of exclusives, then I’m not sure what will.
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Photo catption:
“ACHOOO!”
CATCH IT
BIN IT
KILL IT
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Nice one!
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As Voice of the Majority mentioned, the contrast between this and the eurogamer review is striking. It’d be really interesting to have some kind of interview / discussion with Oli Welsh (the eurogamer reviewer) to talk about the different reviews. Seems like there would be lots of scope for discussing not only Dragon Age, but also reviewing in general.
For me personally, I find eurogamer to be the only review source I trust. Although I’m now wondering why I base my review trust on the site it comes from, rather than the individual writer. I’ve barely heard of Oli Welsh before, and I know and trust your writing on RPS, and yet because Oli is writing for eurogamer and for PC Gamer, I’m much more inclined to trust him. Very odd.
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I too would find such a discussion interesting. I had two instinctive complaints to make of the Eurogamer review on reading it: firstly, that it appears to assume that the point of the game is the combat, and the dialogue only a faintly tedious introduction to the combat; and secondly, that the lack of “inspiration” or “soul” isn’t a very fair point of criticism. On reflection, I think the first complaint is probably fair as a complaint, though I may have exaggerated the degree to which the reviewer actually uses that assumption; but as for the second complaint, I realise that implicit in John Walker’s review is also quite an emphasis on “inspiration” or “vision”, just in the form of praise for it rather than condemnation. So I can hardly reject the one review on this basis and approve of the other.
Perhaps it just boils down to the fact that one reviewer clearly liked it, and the other clearly did not. And they might as well include that in the review…
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I’d say not feeling any soul from the game is an excellent complaint. Whatsmore, note everyone is going to be moved by the same things. Borderlands feels like a husk to me, and I’m sure there’s some guy out there who doesn’t feel any emotion while playing Team Ico games.
I’d argue that the latter is the soulless one, but I stand by my point.
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“I’m sure there’s some guy out there who doesn’t feel any emotion while playing Team Ico games.”
What if I felt nothing for Ico and Yorda but felt bad for the colossi? Except for the small fast one. The bastard.
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Ooops, shouldn’t really have posted without reading your review. Now that I’ve read both its clear that they are both great reviews, and not just a case of eurogamer being more careful or sceptical. Instead it just seems that all that happened is that the eurogamer reviewer didn’t connect with the soul of the world they’d created, while you loved it. Just another reminder not to only read one review of a game I suppose :)
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@TB I very much doubt the tears of online morons are what causes reviews to be overly positive. Can’t really see it as a credible explanation.
The case is probably that a reviewer liked it to the extent where they no longer think objectively about the games flaws, or, as HexagonalBolts suggested, the review is somehow compromised.
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Wait wait wait, John Walker gives it a great review and one site says something different, and now there’s flying accusations that his journalistic integrity has been breached?
My my, angry internet men indeed.
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No sir. I think our dear Mr Walker sometimes gets carried away, as I suggested.
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Yes, you must remember that all reviews are conducted by adding or deducting points based on an extensive check-list of objective criteria (can double jump, has shotgun, can quicksave, etc…) so when two experienced reviewers produce different results you know there was foul play.
This is why there is redundance of reviewers!
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Liliput: I dare say that arguing Walker’s a rubbish reviewer is actually questioning his credibility.
KG
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dartt – in fairness, double jump IS objectively crucial in all games.
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Furthermore, Dragon Age doesn’t have *any jump whatsoever,* so I’d assume it’d lose double the points.
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Just like Guild Wars. No Jump = -1.
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Furthermore, Dragon Age doesn’t have *any jump whatsoever,* so I’d assume it’d lose double the points.
Just like Guild Wars. No Jump = -1.
Ah so that’s why it got an 8/10 ;)
Anyways in this case I’m gonna be more inclined to go with John’s review because I know he likes his single player games with compelling stories and characters. Dragon Age is meant to a game with an interesting world and characters so if he says its good in that regard I’lll believe him, difficulty spikes be damned.
It also helps that the EG review had this lovely little paragraph in it:
“Meaningful choices are lost in a near-infinite number of meaningless ones, consequences are only vaguely defined before the fact, and the cold machinations of the cast stir admiration for the game’s clever, systematic plotting, but seldom emotion. Uninvolved, you make calls with your head and not your heart, and you never feel like you can escape the gravitational pull of the game’s design the way you can in, for example, Bethesda’s RPGs. “
If he thinks Bethesda’s RPGs got emotional involvement and meaningful choices and consequences right then I know we’re on completely different wavelengths and can safetly say that I won’t have the same opinion of a game as him.
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“consequences are only vaguely defined before the fact,”
The second he said that, I knew we were on different wavelengths altogether.
Sorry man, but choices feel more important when you’re uncertain of the consequences.
See: The Witcher
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I concur. Much as I love Fallout 3, the “Click here for the good choice, or over there for the evil one” all gets a bit predictable. — Although admittedly Mass Effect was a lot worse for doing this.
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Neut -
“If he thinks Bethesda’s RPGs got emotional involvement and meaningful choices and consequences right then I know we’re on completely different wavelengths and can safetly say that I won’t have the same opinion of a game as him.”
Oh, I don’t know, Oblivion had lots of quests where you could say “Yes, I will do this” when offered a quest. Or you could say “No, I don’t want to do this” and then you could walk away and come back later and say “Yes, I will do this”. Lots of choice and consequence! ;-)
Sarcasm aside, that was mainly Oblivion, they got a lot better in Fallout 3. But they are still far behind games such as Mask of the Betrayer, Planescape: Torment or Vampire: Bloodlines though.
And I totally agree with you and Psychopomp – not being told immediately what the consequences of an action, just like in the real world, increases immersion and my interest in the game.
Also, after John’s review I am SO looking forward to this game.
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@Neut
Yes of course, it is great knowing which reviewer to turn to. For single player RPG’s, I take Mr Walker’s word as I see it. Same with Keiron and the quirky, strange indie games he talks about.
I do not know this Oli fellow, and I nice chap he may be! But I have stuck with John for a few years now, and when he gets this exited over a game, I will certainly be checking it out.
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while i agree about liking Not knowing all the consequences before hand, I thought he was using the bethesda rpgs to illustrate a different point… that those games are more like a sandbox, where if you want you can ignore the “game” entirely, and do your own thing. In other words, i felt the quoted text was actually TWO points.
Maybe i misread it…
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Online denizens these days have a nasty tendency to be hardcore fans, defenders and white-knights of certain products. They want to hear only good things about their chosen media idol. If they don’t get that, they will migrate elsewhere, since there’s plenty of competition to be had. That alone is one reason for appeasement and glossing over certain issues. The opposite is also true and integrity thankfully still matters to some but the ability to critically think about media in general seems to be rapidly eroding amongst the internet population. I am not suggesting that this is the sole reason for unreasonably positive reviews, I am suggesting that along with under-the-table deals with publishers and various other factors, that appeasement for the sake of advertising dollars and traffic may contribute.
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Also, online people tend to thing anything below a 9.0 is a bad score.
I fucking hate the internet sometimes.
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Walker gave the void 7/10 and that review was far more exciting to me.
Pro-tip: Read the words, form an opinion. Or yunno, worry about the numbers, whatever.
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The numbers aren’t as important as the words, but when the words and the numbers don’t match up, I feel it’s the sign of a poor review. If a review is consistantly positive and only mentions a couple of minor niggles, I’d expect a nine. If there was a seven stuck on the end, I’d wonder what flaws there were that the reviewer hadn’t mentioned.
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I’m not sure why review scores haven’t completely died out yet. Kotaku and a few other places do pros and cons, which I am pretty sure works a lot better as a buying guide than an entirely subjective number out of another number.
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Thing is the numbers are important; huge numbers of people base their purchasing decisions on Metacritic. And, whether you like it or not, the number of sales is what gives developers their pay. Sure you can argue in an ideal world that there shouldn’t be these ultimately fairly arbitrary and falsely objective scores at the end of what is essentially an opinion piece, but actually it helps the consumer a hell of a lot more if they can make relatively reasoned buying decisions without having to read tens of thousands of words from different reviews.
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In theory, you’re correct.
In practice, http://g4tv.com/videos/36553/sesslers-soapbox-killzone-mailbag/
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*1:10 in
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“Thing is the numbers are important; huge numbers of people base their purchasing decisions on Metacritic.”
Proof?
I’d go out on a limb and say that a tiny minority of people buying any game, buy it based on the Metacritic aggregate score.
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To be honest, when I first got my DS I popped onto metacritic to make a list of the ‘top’ 20 games, and to check out the overall reaction to ones which I had heard about which appealed. (Particularly ports, where the metacritic score was an excellent way of weeding out the shoddy ports.)
Of course I didn’t leave things here, but it was a good starting point for an unfamiliar system, and pinpointed which games were worth looking into in more detail.
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Yeah, that’s a perfectly legitimate use of Metacritic IMO – I know I did a similar thing when I first got into PC Gaming; while I didn’t buy any games based on their Metacritic score, it did help me decide which ones to look at in more detail.
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You’ve sold me on the game, now to wait for the price to level out.
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Amazon.co.uk are selling it for £25 which is pretty level if you’re paying in euros.
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I didn’t find the Eurogamer review to be all that negative. For just about every slight he had against the game, he had something positive to say. He seemed to love the combat mechanics, but felt that the story, world, and characters were poorly done.
Also, as for the nitpicking over the score, can we phase out score some time soon, please?
Walker’s Review!
I’d have to agree with you, though I’ve not played past an origin story yet. I…acquired a copy early, since I was tired of waiting for my steam pre-order to unlock, and I’m waiting until I can download the stuff that comes with a new copy to continue on. What little I’ve seen hints at a very well done world, and some mediocre writing aside, the major character’s I’ve met so far seem pretty well fleshed out.
My only real niggle so far is how shoddily optimized it seems to be. It’s not normally an issue, the game is playable, but when it cuts away to a cutscene proper OOPS THERE GOES MY FRAMERATE! It makes it really hard to enjoy them, and is really driving me nuts.
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I’d put down differences in the reviews to differences in the reviewers. John seemed enthralled by the vast array of text while Oli found it tedious and unnecessary. John bemoaned the difficulty settings problem greatly, Oli deemed it only worth a paragraph of mention.
Reviews always end up being about personal tastes and I think that’s a good system. By the end of a review I am thinking “Do I agree with this reviewer? Do my own preferences align with theirs? Do I think they’re suffering from attenrtion deficit disorder or pansy spoonfeeding syndrome?”. Of course the reviewer should still strive to be unbiased, they should present features they couldn’t stand but know are good and quirks that while charming would undoubtedly annoy many people.
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Still not convinced, considering Bioware’s track record of mediocrity and further descent in recent years, and the surprisingly counterproductive marketing campaign of DA:O.
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Glad to see this make it online, I’ve been wanting to read definitive RPS wordiness on DA for a while.
I thought the Eurogamer review was a mess. For starters, whenever I read something on EG that makes me think “was this guy even playing the same game?” I glance up at the byline and nine times out of ten it’ll be Oli Welsh’s name up there. Our opinions just don’t mesh, which makes his reviews much less useful than John’s, for example.
What really got me was this “But they’re so laden with interminable exposition and storytelling artifice for its own sake that the game itself – the small matter of levelling and combat – barely gets a look-in.” Even without the inclination to take Oli’s reviews with a pinch of salt, the attitude that levelling and combat are the main components of a role-playing game is enough for me to completely disregard the whole thing.
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You and me both BigJonno. Actually most of their RPG reviews end up at odds with my opinions. Perfect scores for Fable 2, Oblivion and Fallout 3 but underperforming (IMO) reviews for The Witcher, Mass Effect and Risen (Not to mention their classic Planescape review which rather missed the point by complaining you couldn’t die) just don’t tally with my views. Not that that bothers me, they like what they like and for the most part I’ve read enough of their stuff (And for that matter RPS’s) to figure out whether I’d like something after reading their review even they didn’t (A well developed internal review barometer if you will).
One of the reasons I can’t stand Edge. If I don’t know who wrote a review it’s worthless to me.
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Yep, I have the same thing with Edge. I trust certain sources more than others because, after years of reading, I know how their tastes match up to mine. You can’t do that if you don’t know who wrote it!
I’ve never got the 10/10 for Fable 2 either. I’m one of the biggest Fable apologists going and I loved both games, but 10/10? Nah. The only game I’ve played in the last few years that I’d give a 10/10 would be The Witcher and I only played that a couple of weeks ago.
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I started trusting edge when they gave jedi outcast 5/10 and said it was totally average.
Every other publication was giving it 9s or 10s for some strange reason.
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Got a hold of it through some dark and murky channels as I was too impatient to wait for my copy to arrive and Game have already debited my card for it.
Dwarves are bastards.
Complete and total arseholes.
That is all.
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Yes, they are.
I can’t we to see how this all comes to a head later in the game.
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LOL @ The Jerk reference in the review.
Nobody wanted to tell John’s character that his real father was the stableboy.
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Kudos for that line must go to PCG’s prod ed Tony Ellis, who made the observation when I was telling him about that particular facepalm.
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!
Come on Keiron, that wasn’t what I wrote.
I didn’t even bring up Walker.
Though now we’re there… I’ve been reading his reviews for coming on 8 years. I love them, but I have noticed that if he does particularly like a game, the flaws aren’t always dwelled upon. However, I /don’t/ consider this a bad thing for someone reviewing an /art form/ to do.
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Lilliput: You said that the more positive reviews were either because they couldn’t think objectively about the game or they were compromised (i.e. Corrupt). John’s review is positive, therefore one of the two must apply to him. So he’s either incapable of objective thought or a sell-out.
I know you didn’t mean it quite as hard as that, but that’s what you said.
KG
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“Lilliput: You said that the more positive reviews were either because they couldn’t think objectively about the game or they were compromised (i.e. Corrupt). John’s review is positive, therefore one of the two must apply to him. So he’s either incapable of objective thought or a sell-out.”
The former.
It was perfectly clear that Dragon Age would get top scores the moment EA started their marketing, revealing that they had a ridiculous PR budget. Cue unanimous praise by the games “press”.
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DK: I’m not exactly sure how to respond to this level of stupidity.
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What is on DK’s head:
[ ] Fancy hat
[ ] Silly hat
[x] Tinfoil hat
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/thread
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Valve: “Left 4 Dead has the biggest marketing budget we’ve ever had” – cue unanimous praise.
Valve: “Left 4 Dead 2 has an even bigger marketing budget” – cue behind-kissing the press, to the point of making fun of anyone who dares speak against it with strawmen attacks.
et cetera ad infinitum
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I’ve yet to read either John’s review or the EG one (I’ve already got the game pre-loaded from Steam, so there’s little point), however could the difference in opinion not be down to the differing formats? I’d wager that the EG reviewers was playing it on the 360/PS3 with a console-player’s mindset, whilst John was (I hope!) playing it on our humble computer box. And we all know which of these two formats/mindsets a Baldur’s Gate-alike would appeal to more…
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From the first paragraph of the EG review:
“This is a review of the PC version of Dragon Age: Origins. We’ll tackle the console version separately soon.”
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The EG review specifically states both on the main page and in the first line of the review that it is the PC version being reviewed. I think there’s been some consolisation of your observation skills.
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“I think there’s been some consolisation of your observation skills.”
I fear there’s been some consolisation of your reading skills; “I’ve yet to read either John’s review or the EG one”
But I stand corrected.
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On the subject of 360 vs PC, the Destructoid reviewer seems to have mostly been playing the 360 version and says that from what he played of it on PC, that version looks like the superior choice and Bioware shouldn’t have bothered with the console versions.
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at most, i reckon the magazines tell the developer what the review score is likely to be before it gets reviewed and the developer decides whether or not they get an early print based on how much they liked it i sincearly doubt games journalists would care about pissing of a developer who makes shit games.
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If something doesn’t meet expectations it tends to get slated. It doesn’t neccesarily mean its bad. Not that that’s the right way to go about things. Better to judge a game (or anything for that matter) in a vacuum, ignorant of the hype.
I’m pretending to know what I’m talking about.
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Eurogamer gave it 8/10. John gave it about 9. That’s a one point discrepancy. And both scores are good.
What EXACTLY are people complaining about? Rhetorical question.
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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EightPointEight
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Non-rhetorical answer: the Eurogamer review does not read like an 8.
Also, shit. Psychopomp linked to TVtropes. Productivity holocaust inbound.
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Can we ignore the scores and focus on the content? The need for gold stars and housepoints should have died out around primary school.
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Complete and utter bastard. ;) I guess it’s my fault for checking RPS when I’m supposed to be writing about Plutarch’s views of Mark Antony.
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Tvtropes… indeed there goes my next couple of hours.
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I sincerely apologize for that
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The review more or less sold me on the game but I don’t like the layout with all the pictures on one page and the text on the other. I’m not averse to change but that layout is just hard on the eyes
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Bioware’s best I would say.
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Does it have John Cleese armed with a blunderbuss in it? If not please reconsider your comment.
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yep the difference in reviews is a generational difference, oli welsh, as far as i can tell, despite being a pc gamer type is from a console gaming generation, also and far more important is on this site you get to find out about john, you find out about his biases & preferences, this knowledge of the reviewer helps him communicate in his reviews oli welsh couldn’t hope for that level of relevance when his only output on eurogamer is once a month or so and about something so specific as trying to justify an arbitrary number at the end.
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I’m jealous of those who already have the game. Hope Amazon doesn’t do anything silly with my order.
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those people would mostly be pirates, yep bioware completely fails to grasp the concept of extra value for people who bought it yet again, e.g. mass effect dlc, i hope they finally figure it out, but i’m not holding my breath.
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TF2 gets pirated.
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mash potato gets stolen.
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Are you being facetious, or did you actually fail to grasp my point?
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Reply to The Sombrero Kid
What? Dragon Age preorders come with a discount and bonus items.
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@Psychopomp i was being facetious, given that i didn’t mention tf2, my comment has just as much relevance as yours.
@Bhazor i agree the announced dlc for dragon age excites me, i haven’t played it yet though, and so can’t comment on that, but the fact that Americans and subsequently all pirates get it over a week before paying customers is a gross oversight, I should clarify that I actually liked the first dlc for mass effect, but I refused to pay £8 for the second pack, given by all accounts it was lower quality & shorter than the free one, although i haven’t played it myself so can’t know for sure.
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Oh yeah, Eurogamer gave Planescape: Torment 8/10 too. So, as good as torment, then, hey Eurogamer?
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Merc: 7 before it was patched.
KG
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You’re focusing on the number.
Stop that.
The number is a guideline, and nothing more. One game that was given and 8, and another game that were given an 8 were given those 8′s for different reasons. The number does not tell you these reasons.
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Who was/is Gestalt by the way? Is he still writing? After his 4/10 Mafia review and his “I don’t like the way you can’t die in Planescape” review I have this morbid fascination to read more of his stuff. Is he still writing for EG with his real name? Has he moved on somewhere else? Did he run off and join the Moonies?
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They gave The Void a 7 as well…..
;-)
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If Walker was bribed, I’d love to know what it costs for “best RPG of the decade”. Thing is while magazines undoubtably offer minimum scores for exclusives deals, if the game turns out bad, they give it that minimum score and no higher. Not “RPG of the decade”.
Interesting about the writing though. Still Walker liked TLJ and so did I, so I’m guessing I’ll like the DA writing.
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@Neut:
“If he thinks Bethesda’s RPGs got emotional involvement and meaningful choices and consequences right then I know we’re on completely different wavelengths and can safetly say that I won’t have the same opinion of a game as him.
That’s not what I got from Oli’s words. I don’t think he was making a positive stance towards Bethesda’s take on emotion or meaningful choices, but rather how, for the most part, Biowarian choice and consequence tradition tends to be more suffocating in size than in scope than those of Fallout 3 or Oblivion. In that regard, I believe he thinks Dragon Age offers so many pointless choices and sprinkles them with a handful of meaningful ones, that it’s hard to give a damn about them the same way you’d focus on Fallout 3′s choice pallette, for instance, which are fewer but perhaps with a more distinct impact.
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Does this feature a morality slider ala every thing else BioWareh has done? I am soo burnt out on games assigning a binary “good” or “bad” weight to each decision, and the gameplay changes that entails.
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Nope. Each companion character has a slider showing how much they like/dislike you but nothing along the lines of “You are 23% bad”.
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I really hated that. “Ooh, I just need to do 10% worth of bad stuff and then I will be officially Evil.” How does that help the player or the game?
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It seems “difficulty” has become a big issue these days.
i havent played DA yet so i cant say anything about it, but in recent game reviews (risen ,void etc) difficulty levels are criticized and scores are lowered…
it’s either the developers are failing hard in game balancing or gamers have grown a sweet tooth for instant gratification.
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I’d say it’s the latter more often than not.
Most of the games that are considered “hard” these days, aren’t actually all that hard. They simply aren’t easy.
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It’s not about the game being “too difficult”. It’s about the game failing to provide what it states it provides. DA:O says that the Easy mode can be played in real-time which it often cannot, and worse there are sections that are stupendously hard even on Easy – that’s a failing in design, not a failing in the competence of the reviewer. (And I stress again, I *wanted* it to be tough, and I didn’t want to play it in real-time – however, when it advertises it can be it must be observed that it could not.) Hopefully this will be patched pretty quickly, although then everyone will compare their experience to my review and think me incapable!
With The Void, I made the point that the game being so incredibly hard would likely appeal to many, but explained why it spoiled my experience.
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Didn’t mean that as a slight against you, John. Your complaint was correct, I was more talking about people who simply complain that a game is hard.
Hell, Gamespot’s review of TF2 knocked it points because “the strategy can be daunting.”
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“that’s a failing in design, not a failing in the competence of the reviewer”
Maybe it’s just a ‘failure in advertising’?
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For those interested in the score and think the reviews TLDR, download the PC Gamer podcast and listen to Walker’s wordythinks about Dragon Age. You can hear in his voice just how much he enjoyed the game, but at the same time, he talks about the things that he didn’t like.
There is no corruption or loss of objectivity. Just a man doing his job and having fun while doing it.
Remember, it’s the review that matters, not the score at the end.
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Gestalt was an entertaining writer, he just hated most games and was very jaded in the end. Also gave Freescape 2 an 8 or something.
The EG RPG reviews just haven’t meshed with my views at all, the Mount and Blade review in particular had me actively fuming at it.
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How’s the setting in this game? Is it like Mass Effect’s “We pretend we’re a totally unique universe but we rip off KoTOR anyway” because I’d be pissed if all this Dark Fantasy crap just turned out just to be a ripoff of the Witcher but with less tits and more blood and an army of evil
orcsdarkspawn and their foul unwashed taints instead of I don’t know? Evil human people and supernatural horrors?I heard you can be a gay guy. That’s sounds like a huge step up from awkwardly done sex with a teenage alien. (Why is sci-fi always about having sex with space elves???)
YOU LITTLE BLUE JEZEBEL! WREX WAS THIS CLOSE TO A PIECE OF ASS AND NOW WREX IS GONNA KILL HIM A HO.
PS: Please stop pumping the water from the ocean. I needed to take a shower but you took all my water so I had to fill a super-soaker with bottles water and shower with that.
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Um, you know there’s a link to a big review describing all this stuff in the post?
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But Liara is 1″0″6!!
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It’s mostly based on Song of Ice and Fire. A gritty and violent fantasy book series that’s VERY loosely based on the War of the Roses (supposedly). Good books.
It also seems to take a huge number of names and elements from the Wheel of Time series… a book series that started strong, and then went nowhere very slowly.
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Hmm… 9 possible party members, and I can only take 3 of them with me…. *sigh*
That’s something which I’ve always hated about party based RPGs; forcing you to take only a limited number of people availible to you without any credible explanation as to why you’re so limited.
And honestly seeing as practically every RPG has a ‘only you and your band of heroes can save the world from great evil’ storyline it makes even less logical sense that your character decided to take only a few people with him/her and left the rest in the tavern to work on their bar tab.
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I would totally cast a 16 year old space jezebelf.
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I don’t trust the score. Not that I “question the creditability of our reviewer gent” but that I question the allegiances of most all reviewers, with a few exceptions (a short list that is frankly severely out of date, pardon me I used to be in the swing of things.). In so far as to say “who is this review intended to convince,” I don’t think it’s aimed at myself. I’m compelled to agree with the line of thought that says there should definitely be two scores – one for the mainstream, and one for the niche. To quote a comment from the Risen review on Eurogamer: “I suspect that under such a scheme, Risen’s niche/mainstream score might be more like 9/5 whereas Oblivion’s scores might be the other way around.”
I’m a very partial commentator. I wish for there to be more “Deus Exes” and “System Shock 2s” even though it’ll be to the detriment of the industry’s bottomline. Lock me up. I’ll have to try DragonAge once I settle into my cell.
Hey Kieron, how’s it been?
J
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2 scores would only make the pretentious “niche” gamers all the more unbearable though. We shall not pander to them. Never.
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Hey, that was me! Actually I’ve since retracted that opinion :D
I think that the text of the review is the best place to discuss how different players might view the game (based on age, niche / genre preference, whatever else). Multiple scores tends to make things difficult, so it’s probably best for each site to just provide one score, whether that’s an attempt at objectivity or a predicted sales indicator or whatever that site’s policy requires.
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I agree, because in the end, how would a person be able to determine how a niche gamer would even react to a specific game? My opinion might be that a niche gamer would love Game X, but be completely wrong and full of it. So, in the end, it could only my place to determine how I myself love Game X, and explain why to the best of my ability.
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dragons with swords sound dangerous.
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I’m gonna wait until RPS does a Wot I Think on this to discuss how the tactics system stumbles all over itself, because it seems this comment thread is about reviewing. I don’t find the game too hard ( I *am* playing on Hard) in itself, but I find it misrepresents its tactical aspect with numerous system failings.
Up to level 7 or so where I am the storyline and characters are not engaging me. I don’t know if I’ll finish this, I’ll give it the half a dozen hours or maybe a bit more that John Walker suggested and see. But the combat is trying to do a few different things at the same time and failing at most of them.
For a game where ‘tactics’ are apparently emphasized if you play on anything other than Easy, it should be then that tactics systems should be discussed at a longer length that John Walker did in the above review.
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The tactics system is basically a carbon copy of FFXII’s gambits, so I’m going off my FFXII experience here…
Do not try to rely on them. They are an anti-babysitting device, but if you don’t get your hands dirty you will die. A lot.
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Yes exactly this is why I have the AI turned off, but then *other* problems with tactical combat pop out. This is what I’ll be explaining, when we get to a Wot I Think, and if I’ve played this game long enough to be sure of my position.
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I think a double score would onlu bring twice the trouble. Rabble rousers will always complain whenever they disagree with the score and 2 scores wouldn’t prevent either side from criticizing the other’s score. Plus, if the mainstream review score already ellicits such virtual flogging, how do you suppose the niche would react to a score not to their tastes? And how such a method be understood by the readership, though – trust that it would all be good and suffice? Suspicion that it may be a failsafe option from the reviewer?
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Oh, a review /score discussion, joy, joy!
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People discussing a very important aspect of entertainment journalism on a blog post about some games journalist’s game review published in a games magazine?
That is entirely not predictable. ;)
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Joyless jobs are often the ones that need to be done the most :P
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Exception:Telemarketing
NEVER
AGAIN
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From a summer job experience a while ago, telemarketing is fine providing you can drink spirits and read mind twisting novels (the Naked Lunch works well) in between calls.
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Am I the only one happy not to be beta-testing a game for a change?
I think the discontent plumbs deeper depths than initially considered. People want to see soul in the things they buy – why do you think a company like Alfa Romeo still exists, considering how fucking awful they were at actually building cars for most of their history? (Although, granted, they are a lot better now)
Same thing goes for games. People absolutely adore STALKER. I did, and still do. But in virgin form, straight-from-the-shop on release day, it was a terrible game. Buggy, inconsistent and pretty much impossible to play through. Yet it did contain that indefinable aspect of real heart and soul, so we perservered and eventually it got sorted out. Vampire Bloodlines is another good example of this, though unfortunately Troika never got the chance to fix it how I’d like.
We want that soul. It makes something that would otherwise be a collection of electronic impulses mean something to us. It’s a powerful desire.
Bioware is unusual in that they make highly polished titles, but are often seen as being all too cold and unfeeling in presentation. That’s a reasonable complaint, but it totally disregards the fact that you’re likely still going to enjoy playing the things, and the first time through at that.
Sometimes I want that German-like efficiency. Sometimes I really want to be impressed with how mechanics and presentation mesh. I can deal with not caring so much about not shagging the other chick that wasn’t blue because it’s still a good game at the end of the day. Judging a title because it’s giving you a BMW when you wanted and Alfa looks all too much like the cake and wanting to eat it too.
/rant
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Ripped from a Song of Ice and Fire? How about every epic fantasy ever written:P
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maybe ;-)
but they did acknowledge that SoIaF was their main influence, and many things sound almost word-for-word the same. I wonder if the Grey Wardens have a big wall?
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RE: the EG review
I am not sure if i like the review. There is a feeling reading it that he didn’t like the game as much as others… but just because he like other types of rpg games and not specially this.
Things like how he mentions exposition and storytelling as “too much” and “interminable” and for its own sake instead of, quoting, “the game itself – the small matter of levelling and combat-”. As if the “true game” has to be or should be combat and levelling, and not storytelling and world building.
Or he also mentions Oblivion, multiple times, and very positively, something out of place in a review of another game, and more when this is another type of rpg. In fact he complains how he doesn’t have ultimate freedom, which is not the point of this type of game. Not every game has to be like Oblivion…
Another one, he complains about the difficulty and combat, saying “be prepared to pause and micro-manage frequently” as it’s something bad. That’s how the combat works here! pausable realtime. It’s realtime, but it’s supposed to work more like a turn based game, where you have to decide and micromanage every action, it’s just you who decide when there is a pause to change the orders and give more actions, instead of being an arbitrary, regular system in a traditional turn based system.
And i am not even a big fan of Baldur’s Gate type of games, but i don’t like when reviewers doesn’t seem to like the style of the game, and he criticizes it because he would like to be more like his other favorite style of games.
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“instead of being an arbitrary, regular system in a traditional turn based system”
Turn-based isn’t arbitrary or at least, not in the context you seem to be coming from. Time units are measured by rules such as initiative or speed, and the pauses in the flow of combat are somewhat orchestrated to focus on those elements.
Pausing in realtime is a lot more abitrary since it depends on when you think it’s ideal to pause.
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Substitute arbitrary with… artificial?
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Perhaps, but no more artificial than any other game rule or mechanism :P
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Turn-based RPG systems are possibly the most artificial game mechanics in existance. They’re simulations of simulations of reality. I’ve always found the belief that RPG=stats/levels/dice/etc somewhat perverse, considering that automating that kind of thing is possibly the simplest and most obvious improvement to role-playing games that computers can bring to the table.
And yes, that pun was intended.
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“Turn-based RPG systems are possibly the most artificial game mechanics in existance. They’re simulations of simulations of reality.”
So are automated reactions that can be given to characters in combat and freezing an entire gameworld to our whim, Bioware’s combat model a prime example. Your point?
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You stated that turn-based systems are no more artificial than any other game mechanic. My point is that they’re more artificial because, especially when talking about RPGs with a pen ‘n’ paper heritage, they’re simulations of simulations of reality. Most games are attempting to simulate reality (or some kind of fantasy world) directly. Compare Madden to Blood Bowl. The former is a simulation of American football. The latter is a simulation of a board game that simulates a fantasy version of American football. I’d say that makes it more artificial.
Of course in the case of Blood Bowl, I’d say that’s the whole point. In fact, I’ve been wanting games to either go one way or the other since I first played Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat on the Playstation as a kid. If you’ve got a tabletop game licence, either make an exact copy of the game rules, turns and all, or dispense with them completely. Don’t half-arse it and make a real-time game that is ostensibly the same genre as the original game, but doesn’t play like it at all.
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Comparing reviews is stupid and futile.
Everyone should find reviewers who has similar gaming tastes to theirs (for me its the fine men at RPS, but I ignore most, not all, of the indie crap) and just stick with them. The world will be a happier place with less angry internet men.
It sounds like John Walker liked reading all of the background flavor, which I love to do in games, and the Eurogamer guy didn’t because apparently he thought it was generic.
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I get the impression from a number of reviews that I’ve read that the difficulty spikes almost break the game, or at least prevent it from being fun later on. Does it sound reasonable to expect that to be corrected in a patch? I’m trying to decide whether to wait a while before picking up Dragon Age.
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Yes, I strongly suspect this will be fixed in a patch. Also, and importantly, while it DOES get too hard, there’s nothing you can’t get past by switching down to Easy/Casual. One particular encounter was super-tough even then, but I got past it. That part definitely wasn’t any fun at all. But it otherwise was.
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this was common in biowares early games and i suspect it might be deliberate, as a lot of people remember the moments they won those fight fondly, i know i do, the end boss in baldurs gate was a total bitch, and the guy you stole your ship off of in kotor was hard as nails too, at least for me.
personally i liked it.
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On Bioware and uneven difficulty:
I do remember being stuck in a room full of mindflayers in one of the BG games, and having to summon about a hundred Drizzts to get me out of there…
… can we summon Drizzt here too? That would be awesome. Bioware should have inserted a Drizzt cheat into all their games, not just Forgotten Realms ones. “Quick Drizzt — kill the Geth!” ^^
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picking this up after work today, cant wait.
I guess i am most excited about everyone talking about the difficulty. I am a firm believer in overcoming the challenge is more fun than being handed a victory. If it takes me 20 reloads to beat a boss, then i think they did something right.
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I do remember BG/BG2 being like that in some places. After you’d played through it about a dozen times there ended up being very few fights that were actually a REAL challenge. There was always some tactic that could cripple a particular group of enemies.
The Beholder dungeon could be tough… until you discovered that all the beholders in the universe do not equal one cloak of mirroring.
Etc.
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aah the good ol’ cloak of mirroring … good times indeed! :)
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@Hug_dealer
I’m of a similar mind. These reviews complaining of savage difficulty spikes only enthuse me for the game. I’m reminded of Kangaxx in BG2. Oh sure you beat some liches to get to him and then you break him down in what seems like another standard liche fight. Then HELLO UNPREVENTABLE BANISHMENT WHICH REMOVES THE TARGET FROM YOUR PARTY. And as if it wasn’t enough he could quickcast it while launching a meteor storm.
And then there was Demogorgon.
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The truth isn’t out until there is a few number of User reviews over the nest couple of months. Remember how Oblivion was loved by the reviews and in the first 2 weeks the gamers too? Then the word started going out about the repetitive caves/forts/ruins due to the cookie-cutter style Bethesda took to save money. then we had the complaints about the ‘conversation wheel’ and then there was the huge complaint about NPC’s levelling with you. Today, with mods, Oblivion is more or less liked, but there is a sizeable minority that hate it because of the above and other things. This ‘levelling out’ of opinion probably took 6 months. For the truth of Dragon Age I also feel we will have to wait a few months.
After all, in one little sentence, in one major sites preview, was a famous ‘truth slipping out amongst a barrage of lies’ – that Dragon Age had a levelling system just like Oblivion! Now, have we read that in any of the reviews? No. Have we got gamers discussing it? No. But it is likely to be a topic that will grow as gamers get to play this game for a while? Yes, I think so.
So despite 8/10 and 9/10 reviews (and I am sure somewhere there will be a 7/10 in a console mag because the game is ‘too hard’…), just like with Oblivion and indeed other RPG’s, the truth about Dragon Age will not be in the reviews we get over the next couple of week, it will be the user reviews that appear over the coming months.
Oh, and one of the most famous, most downloaded mods for Oblivion was Martigen’s Monster Mod – a mod to deal with NPC levelling…….! Maybe that will become the best known mod for Dragon Age, and in a couple years we’ll be saying ‘if it wasn’t for the mods…..’!!! :)
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I’m pretty sure that the levelling in DA:O is clamped within limits. I also think that it may be based on when you first enter a dungeon, the idea being to offer players a way of coming back when they’re tougher… so there seems to be a workaround there.
In general though, I agree that the pointing out of flaws is very important at this stage. Still not sure what the biggest issues might be with this game.
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Yeah; it’s the same levelling system as in Baldur’s Gate 2. There’s limited scaling but once you visit a “dungeon” then it locks itself at that.
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I’ve never understood why reviews are full of positive stuff, or “this feature is great!”
Thanks, I have commercials for that. I want to know what SUCKS about it. Telling me a car has nitrous injection, amazing shocks, and a super-charged engine is great, but if the brakes don’t work, I need to know that.
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“…engine is great, but if the brakes don’t work, I need to know that.”
Do you really? Just go with flow, man.
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Every single Bioware game ever, aside from Jade Empire, has used a scaling system just like Dragon Ages.
People need to get the fucking over that word already.
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I still am of the opinion that the review plus the number are actually very important to keep in mind. It gives you a sense of what is truly important to a reviewer and their overall sense of a game. Every game has good things and bad things, pros and cons, and in the EG review just like Walker’s review, you see these played out in the course of a review. So, we look at a seemingly negative review on EG, and it ends up with an 8/10, something seems off, because we saw mostly negative things without many positives and yet the reviewer still loved the game. Maybe Oli has a tendency to focus on the negatives because he feels that is a fair way to review a game, letting gamers understand what could be potentially a deal breaker. I have actually noticed in some of his other reviews that he generally takes a negative slant in his reviewing, but the numbers don’t always reflect it, maybe he’s the pessimist to Walker’s optimism :) Still, something that I love about Walker and his reviews, is they’re always passionate, and that means more to me than simply crunching the numbers, making a list of pros and cons, etc. In the end, I’ll trust Walker because we more or less have the same ideals in gaming, and if he loved the story and got lost in the world, I most certainly will. And how could someone who loves games so much ever be anything other than legitimate. For some reason we think critics are supposed to hate everything and be miserable, and if they ever love something than they’ve been paid off, or they’re unbiased, but that is the point of critiquing (not criticizing) any art.
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I think people need to read Oli’s review again. The majority of it is positive. He puts a lot of emphasis on the negative aspects, explaining why the game falls short of a 9 or 10 for him, which can lead to a negative vibe. I disagree with him, obviously, but this just isn’t a case of a kicking with an 8 on the end.
Also, thanks for your kind words : )
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I read it again, and you’re right, there is quite a bit of positive stuff in there. Maybe it’s just in the way it is written, or maybe where I place my importance of things (dialogue, exploration, world, characters) that it seemed negative, since he wasn’t completely thrilled with any of those things on that list. It seemed like he was quite impressed with the functional aspect of the game (barring the difficulty), but wasn’t completely taken with the rest.
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I get the feeling that the reason the EG review and the score don’t seem to match up is that Oli places a lot less importance on the aspects of the game that he feels are poor than many RPG players would. He feels the world lacks soul and vision and shows a clear dislike of the dialogue. He then goes on to talk up the combat and levelling before giving the game a solid eight.
For me, the world and the dialogue ARE the game and I’m sure that a lot of people would agree. A game can be turn-based, RTS, FPS, OMGWTFBBQ, but if it’s got the character depth, story and interaction I’m looking for, then it can be a good RPG in my book.
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Having read both reviews I suspect I’m probably going to side with Oli on this one. DA:O looks like a competent game mechanistically, but it also looks like it’s retreading oh too familiar territory when it comes to storyline & I’m of the feeling it’s time to move on somehow. Out of morbid curiosity I’ve ordered it via Steam, but I’m not quite convinced it’s quite the raised bar of RPGs that John has declared it to be, though the proof will be in the pudding.
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…Oh and another question that deserves debate, I feel. Does the negatives mentioned in the review:
“Were the difficulty levels not so enormously silly, it would require sheer pickiness to find a major fault with this game. Importantly, overly difficult sequences can be powered through on Easy, but this doesn’t excuse it being necessary. Despite the time and investment required to cultivate relationships with party members, these still feel a little clumsy, and despite my best efforts to have a gay relationship with one party member, I found myself surprised and somewhat confused to have inadvertently accepted the advances of another. Oh, and if we’re listing faults, one appalling gaff is the failure to change family members’ skin colour if you roleplay a non-caucasian. My main protagonist, a black man, lived as a sort of reverse ‘The Jerk’, where no one mentioned that his mother, father and brothers were all white. Embarrassing.”
…Warrant just a 0.6 deduction? Would the above negatives in an RPG from a smaller publisher garner a similar deduction? Or is it quite obvious that it would be a minimum 6.0 deduction, rather than a 0.6? What does this say about how major titles are reviewed? Does it mean, on average, that an 8.5 game from a smaller publisher is the equivalent of a 9.2+ if it’s from a major publisher? And what does that mean for a 9.2 game from a small publisher or an 8.5 from a major publisher? For example there are huge debates about Borderlands getting scores in the high 8′s. Is this because subconsciously we now think 8+ is good for a small publisher’s game but bad for a major publisher’s game? I never heard complaints about the scores given to Risen or The Witcher, and they were in the high 8′s too.
So with this bias in review scores and deductions based on size of publisher, will User Reviews become all the more important, as I alluded to in my previous post?
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I would almost argue the opposite way. When you look at a large company, the resources available, and the time spent, the expectations become extremely high while the margin of error becomes increasingly smaller. However, for a game like Torchlight, just to name one, the game is incredibly addictive and fun, but definitely has its faults. If it had been developed by Blizzard would the game be given a 9.5/10 or a 6.5/10? Of course price factors in as well… a game produced by an indie developer, or a new developer, starting at $20 dollars is more easily forgiven its faults than a high production value game produced by an established developer at a $50 dollar price point. I think that it is a reasonable expectation to get what you pay for, but does that make the game better or is it that our expectations are simply lower?
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I think it just proves that a lot of people think too much about scores.
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I give this post a 6/10.
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This post wasn’t even really about the numbers.
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Sometimes I wish the score was given first. It makes it easier to put the body of the review in context. I mean, if the game is 94% good and 6% bad, then when you see bad stuff, you should bear in mind that it only applies to 6% of the overall gaming experience. (Or tell yourself that it’s because the reviewer is clueless, a hater, has no integrity, or, worse, liked Obliviion.)
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What a fine piece of games writing. I haven’t gotten to play the game yet (pre-loading while I’m at work), so I can’t give an opinion on the content as of yet, but that was a really, really wonderfully crafted review.
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But in all honesty (and with all due respect) you’re unlikely to slander your colleague’s work.
As I said on EG, it seems that the written review tries so hard to justify itself vs. other, higher reviews (yours), it comes across as plain negative (to the tune of 7 or under).
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User reviews are bollocks, because most people are idiots and their opinions can’t be trusted. That is why we have journalists, who are trained or at least practised in criticism, and might reasonably be expected to offer a level-headed, objective opinion. And when you find reviewers whose tastes are similar to your own (Alec and John or the RPS four for me), you can rely on those opinions pretty well.
Too many user reviews fall into one these categories: 1) “Oh man I love this it’s the best thing ever. ***** five stars, way up!” or 2) “All my toys, out of the pram. Wah!”
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OF the RPS four, dangit.
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What is an “objective opinion” on a subjective experience such as a game, exactly?
Not that I’m defending user reviews, as I mostly agree with the criticisms you level at them. But I think the advantage of professional reviewers is not that their opinions are more “objective”, but rather that they’re better able to understand why they liked or disliked a game, and better at conveying that information.
The sign of a good reviewer, I think, is that someone with entirely different tastes than them can read one of their reviews and still be able to tell whether or not they’ll like the game.
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You mean practiced (I’m a yank, forgive me the c) in critiquing. Any old chump or troll can criticize a game.
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No, I mean practised in criticism (the activity of judgement or informed interpretation). Also, presumably any chump can critique something too.
An objective opinion of a game would be one that is (let’s all quote the dictionary shall we?) “undistorted by emotion or personal bias” and “based on observable phenomena.” While the majority of game reviews, as they’re written by individuals, will likely contain some personal bias, a good reviewer will be aware of where his bias is affecting his opinion and make that known to his audience.
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I was unaware that critiquing was simply the act of criticizing :) Just assumed criticizing was a negative thing, but I stand corrected.
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I guess another issue with user reviews is that Joe Bloggs isn’t going to be held accountable if he, say, gives a game 10/10 but didn’t play enough to discover some game-breaking failure that makes the whole thing a waste of time. Professional journalists have reputations to uphold.
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I find reading a thread on a decent forum where a bunch of posters I already know are discussing how they feel about a game usually gives me a better feeling for a game than reading ‘professional’ reviews (which are still useful pre-release date and for summarising the game).
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User reviews on sites like metacritic are bollocks because they tend to be plagued with fanboys who just want to justify their own opinion. However, as mentioned user reviews on forums or less mainstream sites are a heck of a lot more reliable.
Games journalists in general don’t really deserve the title journalist. Pretty much all reviews are heavily weighted towards the 7-9 point. They end up pretty useless as a result. You rarely hear anything about game crippling bugs (many of which become well know very rapidly) when they exist. Plus a huge chunk of the industry is so busy trying to keep the developers happy so they get more exclusives. I see a majority of the games review industry as an extension of the games advertising industry. They exist to hype games, not to provide thoughtful feedback on if a game would be worth your $50.
In general there is way too much focus on creating arbitrary numbers for a game and not enough focus on the underlying goal of a review “should you buy this game?”
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Except that an opinion on the quality of a game is intrinsically subjective. An “objective” opinion on the quality of a game would be nothing whatever, just as an “objective” opinion on the taste of broccoli would be nothing, since the taste of broccoli is entirely subjective. If all you’re doing is listing objective qualities of the game or of the broccoli, that’s not an opinion, those are just facts (or falsehoods, as the case may be).
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Also John, I went to WHSmiths especially to buy PCG to read your review yesterday.
If only I’d have known it was going online today!
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The thing is no review is going to encapsulate every single players opinion. I freaking hate call of duty. It got great reviews, even the forum trolls go on and on about it, but I freaking hate it. My friends make me play it at least once a month and I have damn near faked a red ring of death to get out of it. So yes, opinions do vary, allot!
Then you have the “Negative Nancies”. Those so desperate for any form of attention they will decry whatever is the most popular so they can elicit a response from the masses, in turn making them feel like their opinion matters enough for others to care what they think. Call them forum trolls or whatever you like, the cause and effect is the same. I would hate to be a game reviewer in the internet age, Jesus one guy on massively mistyped a word and it resulted in a 32 post response!
What I want from a review is just the nuts and bolts. What works, what doesn’t. The opinion part is helpful as it gives me a overview of what I might find. I loved oblivion even though it WAS super repetitive. Just because some moistened bink lobs a keyboard at you does not give you supreme review powa!
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“The thing is no review is going to encapsulate every single players opinion.”
In more ways than one, it would seem, as this:
“What I want from a review is just the nuts and bolts.”
Is not what I want at all! What I want isn’t a checklist, but an almost entirely /subjective/ discussion of the games feel overall. Games are significantly more than the sum of their parts, much like a record, book or film. I don’t expect a music critic to list the tracks on an album and tell me which ones are worth listening to.
Just as I was trying to make clear earlier though I think that ended with everyone hating me so let’s move on.
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Could anyone who didn’t earlier declare their hatred for Lilliput King please do so here so we could draw a line under the whole sorry affair? :P
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Actually, I am on your side. This is where I am a little conflicted — I like to think that reviews should be objective, but I think that a deeply subjective review could have more value thank a “just the facts, ma’am” review if you know where or why it is subjective.
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i strongly believe, that the main difference between the 2 and the amazing thing about this website is it allows us to get a grasp of the writers personality outside of reviews, that then feeds back into the reviews and helps us interpret their highly subjective opinions about a highly subjective medium.
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All should go buy PC Gamer now. Anyone criticising John’s review without having seen the work he did on the taint simply isn’t getting the full story.
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I must confess, having read the PCG review, i feel like i’m missing out on a very large and funny joke-please tell, what is the amusement with “taint”?
As far as scoring goes, I have a few games in my collection that were given 65% and upwards in their original reviews, and still find them quite enjoyable. The score is a guide for the overall quality of the game, but the content of the review is what matters- I recall reading the review of KoTOR 2 which named quite a few problems with the game, and gave it a slightly lower score than the original, but i feel it’s still a very enjoyable game despite its flaws. Hence the recent Borderlands RPS verdict, where all four members agreed it was worth playing, but made sure that the readership was aware of certain elements that would act as flies in an otherwise tasty soup, if you follow my clumsy metaphor.
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It’aint your balls and it’aint your arsehole.
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I know I ain’t buying this, because I bought oblivion and I bought bioshock, based on all the “A+!!!” and “10/10!!!!” reviews. These reviews are based on hype, and simply aren’t truthful.
So I’ve found the perfect, underground solution… people who go and blow $50 on a game, don’t your realize you can… ahem…
Ahoy matey!!!
Ever heard of torrent???
I’m downloading Dragon Age: Origins for free. There’s 200 seeds up! It will take less than 5 hours to download. Then I’ll be back to give a REAL review of a game that frankly, smells overrated.
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Let me guess: If you like it, you’ll buy it. If you don’t, you’ll delete the pirated version. Right?
Suuuuure.
Thanks. You’re the reason I have to spend an hour researching the DRM on a given title so I can figure out where I can safely buy it from (assuming there’s anywhere I can safely buy it from). If you don’t trust the reviews of a game DON”T BUY THE GAME. Wait for user reviews, wait for later reviews, or wait for word of mouth you trust. Hell, wait for a $5 sale for all I care, just kindly don’t steal the damn thing. All you do is make PC gaming worse for the rest of us.
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But Bioshock and Oblivion are good, you unscrupulous weasel.
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Paying $50 for a game you don’t enjoy seems like peanuts compared to sinking 50+ hours into a game that you don’t enjoy. Surely your time is worth more than $1 / hour?
If you’re not sure you’ll like Dragon Age based on inevitable gush of praise when it first comes out, wait six months for people to have more measured views and give people a chance to put it into perspective compared with other games. It’ll be cheaper, patched, maybe even modded.
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“sinking 50+ hours into a game that you don’t enjoy.”
Who’s talking about doing that? Why would anyone ever do that?
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Spartacus claims he’s going to pirate the game and then play it and come back and review it. So unless his “review” is going to be “I played it for a couple hours, hated it, and quit,” he’s going to have to sink 50 hours into playing it. Compared with that, saving $50 by not paying for it seems kind of trivial.
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@Urthman
Ah, I see. Yes, I think you’re giving him too much credit as a reviewer. :)
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Firstly, agree with every word Warskull said in his post above. I have said the same many times in the last 5-6 years as the gaming media went ‘multi-format’.
Secondly, you’ll note in my posts that I said ‘a couple months for user reviews’. Usually in the first couple of weeks you get the fanboy 10′s and action teenage console gamer’s ‘it’s crap’ 1′s. But wait about a month and people that have really played the game start coming forward with reviews that start out along the lines of: ‘At first i thought I would like this….’, or alternatively ‘I am not usually an RPG fan….’ followed by a review as good as any professional review out there – but more honest. It is also true, from my point of view, that the small gaming sites, that have to go out and by a copy rather than get it free, tend to have much better reviews that tend to be much more honest.
Just check any ‘classic’ game of the last 2-5 years, where all the main sites gave the game 9+ and find a site through GameFAQs or Metacritic that gave it, say, 8.8, and generally, I think you’ll find a better written more honest review that will fit in more with what gamers say about the game.
So I am a fan of the forums, the user reviews and the small game sites, that all come along with their comments around week 2-4, by being patient I think I get a much more rounded view of what sort of game i am going to be spending my hard-earned money on!
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I try to wait out the IGN 7-10 out of 10′s and then read reviews. Or check someones review like Yahtzee. I’d rather see what people who hate stuff think of it – they tend to be funnier, and often more correct.
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Giantbomb’s description of Dragon Age:
Dragon Age: Origins is a multi-platform action-role-playing game from BioWare. It is considered to be a spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate series.
If Dragon Age is an ‘Action-role-playing game, prey tell me what a game has to be for Giantbomb to call a game just a plain simple ‘RPG’!!!
This just shows the confusion out there about what is an RPG with games like Dragon Age and Risen and games like Borderlands and Bioshock are all called RPG’s of some sort or another!
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“RPG” has frequently seemed kind of troubled as a genre name to me. I understand that it is probably harking back to its D&D and tabletop roots, but are there any games in which you’re not playing a role?
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Next you’re going to tell me that “Adventure” games aren’t the only ones that have adventure in them. Or that when you play TF2, you not only SHoot ‘eM Up, you have to use Strategy, in Real Time! (Not to mention the Massive number of people who play that Multiplayer game Online!)
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Exactly — the whole idea of trying to shoehorn the vast array of game styles into five or six abbreviations is rather silly.
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Yes, but identifiable game genre’s do exist. Complaining that the names we have for those genres have more to do with historical accidents than some logical system of taxonomy seems silly. Briefly confusing to a newbie, perhaps, but most people on RPS get useful information when you tell them that Machinarium is an adventure game, Risen is an RPG, Men of War is an RTS, Cities XL is a sim, Borderlands is an FPS with RPG stats and loot, etc.
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True. I suppose what I am against is the ham-fisted attempts at conflating these genre names, or developers trying to call their game something it’s not (e.g. Bioshock is no RPG). In fact, I think it’s all the people trying to claim their games have RPG aspects that prompted my earlier “all games have you playing roles” comment. It’s as if developers think that calling a shooter with (very light) character customization/growth options an RPG instead of a FPS makes the game sound deeper and more grown up.
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Tim Curry, Claudia Black, Kate Mulgrew and Tim Russ? SOLD.
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Tim Curry and Claudia Black are reason enough to buy most anything, actually.
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With the exception of Project Sylpheed, but the fact that game was an unplayable fucking mess wasn’t the fault of Miss Black. She done good.
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Ah Tim Curry, he has featured in some good games in the past. Seeing his name always makes me think of Toonstruck (also featuring Cristopher Lloyd, Dan Castanella and the guy who did the voice of Raphael from the Turtles!). Ah, good times!.
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To me Tim Curry + Games immediately brings Sacrifice to mind. This is a good thing.
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And Simon Templeman plays the villian!
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Sweet :) Gonna read the review. I’m so excited!
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An alternative view of the reviews/scores thing….
1. Metacritic lists DA:O as scoring 91% (universal acclaim)
2. John Walker gives the game a slightly higher score than that (94%). His review contains a lot of praise for the game’s strengths, although it does not shirk from covering its weaknesses.
3. Oli Welsh gives the game a lower score than the metacritic average. His review gives more weight to what are, in his opinion, the negative points.
The only thing I find confusing about all of this is – why would anyone be confused by any of it?
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Most people are stupid.
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I’ve been watching this thread and I think there are some things that should be pointed out (imo):
A. The term “review” might be obsolete. While games have evolved as an art form, we’ve yet to gather what this art form is exactly. How do we define the aesthetically pleasing in games? (not the case to expand on this subject here) Of course reviews will disagree on games. They are not talking about factory parts. There is no clear line about what is good and what is not good in a serious, well-developed game. That is why maybe we should not use “review” anymore to name something that is actually “art critique”.
B. If this is art, then appreciation of art is often influenced by the critic’s let’s say (for lack of a better term) cultural background. That’s why I’m more inclined to trust John on this one. He knows a good story if he sees one, he knows good characters. Also he has a lot of experience in the old school PC as in the new one and I’ve agreed with his findings on games more than once. Oli Welsh, on the other hand, seems more inclined to console games and PC MMO’s, from what I’ve read on EG. A game like this is not his cup of tea. Let us not condemn this man because he has a different taste in videogames.
C.If anyone of you guys think John Walker is a sell-out, then, to put it simply, you should have your head examined. I’m quite cynical by nature, but the things I’ve read on this site and others and the things I’ve heard on the podcasts (RPS and Rumdoings) really make it hard to believe that a man like John could be shamelessly lying. I’m sure that the PC Gamer UK review is his honest opinion. I’ve based my collector’s edition pre-order on that.
D. As a side-point, what the hell is going in the EA marketing department. From the reviews and user opinions I’ve read, what the trailers have shown us until now has nothing to do with this game. Couple this with the idiotic “publicity stunts” that have plagued the promotion of Dante’s Inferno and you get a lot of incompetence from a publishing giant. Odd.
PS: I’m not a relativist. Of course there are shitty games, dumb/dishonest/wrong reviewers etc. These have nothing to do with the case in point.
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Some people here really need to calm down. John Walker is anything but a sellout. Yes, scores tell you very little. And of course reviews are subjective – part of the onus is on the reader to deduce whether you enjoy the same sort of game as the reviewer (NGJ! Huzzah!).
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How are the mod tools? Are the mod tools even out yet?
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Here we go again.
Here I am, on a post about a highly anticipated game being reviewed, and expecting further opinion on the game itself from the comments section. Yet all I see is just another massive argument about:
a.) piracy, b.) DRM, c.) corruption of the games industry, d.) all of the above, e.) none of the above
Please, guys, this stuff is what the forums are for; so can we get back on topic, now? Let’s start over:
I thought choosing a higher difficulty setting would lead to more rewarding tactical play, but then in the end, it’s kind of just like normal, but with twice the potion chugging! Maybe a difficulty setting where everybody was more deadly – instead of just the enemies – would be more interesting.
On difficulty spikes: so I was cleaning out these orcs: the ultimate horror for even seasoned soldiers one moment; then the next, barely surviving an encounter with a bunch of random assholes who came across a crate full of armour and stuff. Maybe they ought to fix that.
I’m playing as a human noble, and up to now (just got out of Lothering, so not far, really), The story and the Characters (except Sten) are about 100% predictable. But as I’ve barely touched most of the content, there must be something more substantial here.
The combat is hard but fair, even though maybe it shouldn’t be – the main character may be an recruit, but Alistair’s got no excuse! And yet I find myself swapping out the guy the moment I found my a real tank. So far? looks to be worth the money, and it only crashed thrice!
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No. John Walker likes a game, and that means he’s an evil bastard who kills kittens. If you don’t agree you are obviously a soulless whore for corporate Amerika who will buy anything marketed to you, especially Dragon Age. And Left 4 Dead 2. And Daikatana. If you were a real gamer, like the rest of us, you would insist on thinking for yourself and not relying on reviews yet simultaneously spend an unusual amount of time and emotion fussing about review scores. How dare they not instruct us in the opinions we think they should instruct us in? It’s almost as if good reviewers were offering us information and opinion, acting on the seemingly obvious assumption that we would think critically about their reviews and perhaps disagree with them from time to time, and that would be OK… no, too horrible to contemplate.
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You can hardly blame people for being sceptical though, given the amount of bullshit that appears to fly around the gaming industry/media
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Poor Lilliput King, you give Walker a slightly lower review than expected for a bit of irrational exuberance and the fanboys jump all over you :)
What interests me that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere, (granted I can’t say I’ve looked) is the plethora of varying pre-order/store specific/online/collectors edition bonuses, and the fact that it doesn’t really seem to be possible to get everything “worthwhile” in one place. (I count extra quests,characters, and Cloth maps/bonus DVDs as worthwhile, items that give a few stat points or a higher crit chance don’t really change the game significantly enough that I care if I miss out.)
On the one hand I am intrigued by the possibility of moving people towards digital distribution without alienating retailers by offering price parity, but having the online bonuses be more desirable than the retail ones (and hoping they don’t notice, I guess).
On the other hand, unless I’m mistaken about what the Wardens Keep entails, this does seem to be a big smoking gun for the people who were arguing that DLC was going to lead to parts of the game that should’ve been included in the base being kept back and sold for extra. (You can argue the whole “we budgeted x to develop the main game, and y to develop DLC part 1″ thing but unless you care to open your books up, or are at least way more up front about what you’re doing, if DLC part 1 is ready on the day of release, I can’t help but feel it is a grab for cash)
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Is this game open world or linear? It isn't stated anywhere. And no, regular bioware-em-ups like mass effect and such aren't considered open.
Also, can you dual wield?
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“If anyone of you guys think John Walker is a sell-out, then, to put it simply, you should have your head examined.”
“Some people here really need to calm down. John Walker is anything but a sellout.”
I was curious after reading so many comments like this, so I literally read through the entire thread again right now. No-one has suggested this.
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I trust John. I trust everyone at RPS, even, even the fine guys who don’t post as often. But there’s always something about Bioware that I can never relate to. Usually it’s the stories. Not so much because they are cliches – a well worn cliche is certainly preferable to a novelty piece that goes nowhere – but how they can’t escape the ones they’ve created in the past. It’s the same themes of the main character being a special someone, of having a mysterious past, of being the appointed Obi-Wan of a token gameworld, of the NPCs with “my dear diary” attitudes and conversations that feel so stilted and unappropriate, to the point they blatantly come off as walking background fanfiction dispensers waiting for the next trigger… I mean, dude, we’re inside a damp dungeon, I’m bleeding, half my party members are near dead, I’m rumaging through my backpack in order to choose between +X swords, it’s quite likely I’m gonna die in the next moments in some dragon’s jaw, and some elf wants to lose her virginity with me. “Dark fantasy” it may be, but it’s also nonsensical and juvenile. I want to believe these people are actual beings, with strengths and weaknessess, whose personalities are varied, but why am I to care about people who can’t walk two steps without coming down with existential doubts?
I repeat, I trust John but I can’t see myself feeling any different towards Dragon Age if the above still holds true as it did with their past games.
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“I mean, dude, we’re inside a damp dungeon, I’m bleeding, half my party members are near dead, I’m rumaging through my backpack in order to choose between +X swords, it’s quite likely I’m gonna die in the next moments in some dragon’s jaw, and some elf wants to lose her virginity with me. “Dark fantasy” it may be, but it’s also nonsensical and juvenile.”
Bah! That sort of thing happens all the time in life-or-death situations. Go read some Conan if you don’t believe me. ;)
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Ha ha, Conan was the man :P
I’m perfectly fine with the notion of love “blooming on the battlefield”, to quote Otacon, it’s just the pacing and general flimsy nature of the virtual dolls on display. It always feels these relationships can never go beyond “LOVE? YES/NO” prompts.
I’d like to see relationships develop in the same way Chrono Trigger developed cross skills. In the game, whoever travelled with Chrono for a longer time would develop some affinity with him, which resulted in gaining Techs that were unique to those characters. So the mute and the robot have a sort of Colossus/Wolverine throw of sorts, while the geek and spoiled princess would have something entirely different. If this could be applied to personalities – developing a relationship naturally and gradually, rather than an often static selection of choices, some of which may even have no outcome – I’d be a lot more interested.
And that they didn’t always end up in sex. Whatever happened to platonic relationships? Simple attraction? Mutual respect and nothing but? I remember Shar Teel (sp?) in Baldur’s Gate 1 challenging a “male” as she put it, and if the character bested her, she’d join the party out of respect for his prowess. Nothing more, nothing less. Why not try to build from there? In a world that almost didn’t give a damn about Torment, it’s hard suggesting that’s where they should go for inspiration – besides, both female characters in the game had certain “conditions” that didn’t allow to pursue a stronger physical connection – but they were solid, credible and well written. No effing slobers or sluts who need constant approval and compliments.
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If you don’t want your relationships to end in sex, quit picking the “let’s have sex” conversation options! Perv!
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lol :P
But it’s always a binary state. It can only end in failure or orgasm. As if every other relationship was like that (my personal experience excluded, of course).
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Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s impossible to simply be friends with a person. They either want to jump your bones or are pissed at you for rejecting their advances. There’s not a lot of gray area relationships or uncertain relationships or messed up relationships. Why can’t anyone ever reject the hero? Another thing that is strange (noticed this in Mass Effect), is that it seemed like certain quests opened up the dialogue tree, even if you hadn’t ever talked to the person before. So you could literally ignore a person for the entire game, then play catch up right at the end to get the romance. It’s so … tacked on it seems.
I will say this though, so far in Dragon Age, the storyline has me fairly engrossed and the relationships are seeming mostly natural. I’ll wait and hold off on further judgment until I’ve played more than 4 hours of the game :) I actually felt mad about what happened in my Origin though, so that’s a good sign! Well, for the game, not the state of my mind.
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Here’s something I didn’t know until I started looking last night….. Live in North America and the Collector’s Edition of this game is a non-exclusive (ie available in all stores) tin box with a cloth map, making of DVD, art-book and a tips book. In the UK a retail chain called GAME have got the exclusive and will be selling the CE in a plastic box with no cloth map.
Way to go EA. The UK is the second largest PC gaming market and you’ve managed in one fail swoop to alienate it! Rockstar know about it because their are humongous threads on their site. EA know about it because there are large threads on their site too – but I know nothing is going to happen!
For a few years now, as a PC gamer, I have felt like a second class citizen in this multi-format next-gen world. Today, I feel like a THIRD class citizen when it comes to PC gaming!
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nooo, no, I didn't say/mean that, I said 'although I doubt it's so in this case' or something along those lines, I think.
The RPS staff have my utmost respect, they are aware of this and therefore shall honour it with the most scrupulous integrity in all of their reviews, forever.
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John knocked this out of the park.
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Nice one John, i much prefer a positive pony to a negative ninny
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well, personally it fits my role playing perfectly. why wouldnt i tap all those hot fantasy chicks if given the chance.
I spent tons of money on the prostitutes in the witcher for no reason. im just like, oh look another one bow chicka bow wow.
better to have to many options than not enough.
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I am ignoring this entire thread to pop in and say that this is almost certainly one of the top 3 CRPGs of all time, and probably Bioware’s best.
Thank you, goodnight!
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It is interesting that the German review from EG gives the game a straight 10/10, while the English version "only" gave it an 8/10. I'm not sure what to make out of it: on the one side its seems a bit schizophrenic to me and on the other side it seems as if EG gives their reviewers the ability to determine the score entirely by themselves.
But I must say that labeling a game "soulless, without a vision and inspiration" and giving it an 8/10 in the end seems a bit weird to me, no matter what excuse you come up with.
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Why? Fact of the matter is simply because a game is competent doesn’t necessarily make it a great playing experience. Take Batman: Arkham Asylum for example. It’s wonderfully executed and plays well, but although I enjoyed it, it isn’t a ‘must play’ game in my view because the storyline doesn’t shock and surprise, Vs say CoD4:MW, which for a simple FP shooter has parts that are genuinely unexpected and out of left field to it.
If a game is largely flawless, but uninspiring I’d say 8/10 is a pretty fair score tbh.
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Kadayi, I think expectations play a ton into it. I wouldn’t be disappointed if I fired up Tetris, and the story was shallow and unmoving. However, playing a game like Dragon Age, which is completely fueled by whether or not you buy into the story and the world it takes place in, finding the world soulless is a huge deal.
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@Jeremy
Tetris is a puzzle game. DA:O is an RPG. As gaming experiences go there are at opposite ends of the medium. I’m not to sure why the need to state the obvious regarding player expectations tbh. Nor do I disagree that a limp soulless world isn’t an ideal.
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I just bought this game because of your review. It’s downloading now.
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I’ve played 20 minutes of this game and i’m in love. Saying that, i fell in love with Drankensang after 10.
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Played about 8 hours now – this is great, I'm loving it.
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Bah! Amazon have shipped via Royal Mail despite their currently being all-out strike action scheduled for Friday and Monday. This is despite them shipping Win7 via Citylink when it should have slipped in before the strikes anyway (given that they shipped it early.) As a result if I'm lucky I'll get it on Saturday, but more likely I'll be waiting until Tuesday.
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well. so far i find the game absolutely fantastic.
We actually have a death penalty, and its a great one, not to severe, but not to light either.
I am loving getting my ass beat to a pulp over and over on hard.
So far i have enjoyed the story, yes some of it has been done before, but what hasnt really. I really love the dialogue trees, they really put some variation in it depending on your choices or actions.
So far it is more than i had hoped for.
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sweet jezzie chrizzie. Redcliffe has got to be one of the most epic and fun areas i have ever had the joy of adventuring in.
No spoilers, because it is something you just need to experience.
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The internet is a great tool for shopping, especially for strapless prom dress but if you want to get the absolute perfect dress you need to try them on to get an idea of how they look on you. Strapless prom dresses are especially important to try on because you have to ensure that the top isn’t too big so that it falls down or too tight and uncomfortable.
Whether you are modeling Flower girl dresses after the bridal gown, bridesmaid gowns or simply coordinating multiple Flower girl dresses, it is important to keep the dresses age appropriate and consider your overall wedding theme.
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