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.”
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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…..’!!! :)
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.
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.
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.
“…engine is great, but if the brakes don’t work, I need to know that.”
Do you really? Just go with flow, man.
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.
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.
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 : )
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.
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.
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.
…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?
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?
I think it just proves that a lot of people think too much about scores.
I give this post a 6/10.
This post wasn’t even really about the numbers.
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.)
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.
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).
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!”
OF the RPS four, dangit.
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.
You mean practiced (I’m a yank, forgive me the c) in critiquing. Any old chump or troll can criticize a game.
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.
I was unaware that critiquing was simply the act of criticizing :) Just assumed criticizing was a negative thing, but I stand corrected.
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.
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).
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?”
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).
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!
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!
“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.
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
–
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.
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.
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.
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.
It’aint your balls and it’aint your arsehole.
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.
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.
But Bioshock and Oblivion are good, you unscrupulous weasel.
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.
“sinking 50+ hours into a game that you don’t enjoy.”
Who’s talking about doing that? Why would anyone ever do that?
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.
@Urthman
Ah, I see. Yes, I think you’re giving him too much credit as a reviewer. :)
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!
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.
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!
“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?
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!)
Exactly — the whole idea of trying to shoehorn the vast array of game styles into five or six abbreviations is rather silly.
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.
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.
Tim Curry, Claudia Black, Kate Mulgrew and Tim Russ? SOLD.
Tim Curry and Claudia Black are reason enough to buy most anything, actually.
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.
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!.
To me Tim Curry + Games immediately brings Sacrifice to mind. This is a good thing.
And Simon Templeman plays the villian!
Sweet :) Gonna read the review. I’m so excited!
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?
Most people are stupid.
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.
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!).
How are the mod tools? Are the mod tools even out yet?
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!
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.
You can hardly blame people for being sceptical though, given the amount of bullshit that appears to fly around the gaming industry/media
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)
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?
“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.
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.
“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. ;)
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.
If you don’t want your relationships to end in sex, quit picking the “let’s have sex” conversation options! Perv!
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).
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.
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!
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.
John knocked this out of the park.
Nice one John, i much prefer a positive pony to a negative ninny
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
@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.
I just bought this game because of your review. It’s downloading now.
I’ve played 20 minutes of this game and i’m in love. Saying that, i fell in love with Drankensang after 10.
Played about 8 hours now – this is great, I'm loving it.
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.
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.
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.