Dragon Age: Origins

Maximilian

Don't really think so. I'm glad its challenging.

If you look elsewhere, the game is getting great reviews. PC Gamer UK gave it 94% and called it RPG of the decade for example. Every other review I've seen so far has been 90+

SK1979

Thanks for the re-assurance. Ordered it anyway from Amazon and just confirmation of despatch. Should have it monday / tuesday, cant wait!

I think the fact that the difficulty can be changed on the fly is good, I just hate the idea of playing a game on a real easy setting, feels cheap or something!

anonymous_joe

PC Zone moaned about the difficulty too, saying that on normal, certain parts of the game require you to drop down to easy.

Still gave it in the 90s.

Shall almost certainly purchase this Monday morning.

mewso

Got it today in game. €39.99 for standard, €49.99 for collectors edition. I crumbled and got the collectors edition mainly for the making of/soundtrack not for the free in-game items and extra quest.

SK1979

Anyone got any first impressions yet? No spoilers please!

mewso

Played since post above. Loving it so far. A real time sapper. Better eat some food.

RCNPhotos

Playin a while, meh. Graphics are dier. But I have been reading reports on other boards that its a slow burner and once you're a few hours in it hooks you pretty badly so I'm going to persevere, fingers crossed.

Tragedy

People still quote PC Gamer reviews?

Don't have high hopes for this, just looking for something to kill a weekend

mewso

Tragedy wrote: »

People still quote PC Gamer reviews?

Yeah because lets face it if they were honest they would only give the game 30% in their review but like all magazines they are bought off long before the game comes out.

A magazine review is a guide like anything else. For example if they give a game 5% I suspect even if I am extremely different to the reviewer in my tastes it's still unlikely I would find the game in question to be a classic.

If they give a fantasy rpg 95% then since it's an rpg by a dev with a very consistent record in that area and I love a good rpg then theres a good chance I'll enjoy the game even if the journos are on a paid trip to Barbados to review the game.

Tragedy

mewso wrote: »

Yeah because lets face it if they were honest they would only give the game 30% in their review but like all magazines they are bought off long before the game comes out.

If they were honest, they wouldn't call every hyped game the game of the decade. Which they do. Hence why quoting them lends less than no credibility

A magazine review is a guide like anything else. For example if they give a game 5% I suspect even if I am extremely different to the reviewer in my tastes it's still unlikely I would find the game in question to be a classic.

Different guides have different credibility. For me, RPS = lots of credibility. Same with Tom Chick/QT3/Fidgit. PC Gamer? Zero!

If they give a fantasy rpg 95% then since it's an rpg by a dev with a very consistent record in that area and I love a good rpg then theres a good chance I'll enjoy the game even if the journos are on a paid trip to Barbados to review the game.

Like Mass Effect! A huge snorefest of a game too heavy on exposition with only one interesting area in the whole universe.

mewso

I'm not arguing the credibility of PC Gamer. I guessed it might be a good game and I'm loving so I guessed right, PC Gamer lies regardless, so I'm happy. If you didn't like Mass Effect then fine. I did. It wasn't perfect but it was perfectly enjoyable. If you want to talk about reviews you trust then go ahead. I can't remember the last time PC Gamer called a game the game of the decade but I'm sure you can set me straight.

Sarky

My brother is thoroughly enjoying it, and I trust his opinion on games more than any magazine. He hasn't played an RPG in ages and says it's good to have a proper dark dritty one to sink his teeth into. Lots of political stuff to balance out the combat, lot of blood, swearing, good and evil.

Based on his own experiences I'm going to pick it up.

anonymous_joe

Really enjoying this one.

Downloaded the patch and found that it does make the game more playable. Without the patch the difficulty is, at times, simply impossible to cope with.

nesf

Best RPG I've played on the PC, ever. And I've been playing them since the old AD&D based releases of SSI back in the late 80s/early 90s!

zekiel

RCNPhotos wrote: »

Playin a while, meh. Graphics are dier.

I really cant agree with this, I've only been playing it a few days but from what I have played I think the visuals are excellent from the spell effects to the landscape and surroundings.

The game just takes me back to BG1/BG2 and even reminds me of the fun I had when like previous poster pointed out playing the SSI games, pools of radiance, curse of the azure bonds etc..

That said I do wish they had a co-op mode.

Sarky

nesf wrote: »

Best RPG I've played on the PC, ever. And I've been playing them since the old AD&D based releases of SSI back in the late 80s/early 90s!

You, sir, have sold me on this game. I'll pick it up first chance I get.

Spear

I've been caught out unhappily now by some of the sudden spikes in difficulty. I won't give precise examples to spare people from spoilers, but essentially I'll be cheerfully carving my way through lesser enemies to be suddenly faced by a red nametagged enemy hero who proceeds to rather forcefully sodomize my party.

nesf

Spear wrote: »

I've been caught out unhappily now by some of the sudden spikes in difficulty. I won't give precise examples to spare people from spoilers, but essentially I'll be cheerfully carving my way through lesser enemies to be suddenly faced by a red nametagged enemy hero who proceeds to rather forcefully sodomize my party.

Just take a step back from the fight and think about tactics. Is kiting them an option? (Grab aggro with the tank and run around the room letting ranged dps nuke the target) Can you pull them around a corner so you can get rid of some of the melee dps before the boss mob can get to you. Have you tried getting Force Field for your Mage and casting it on the tank after the tank has aggro?

And so on.

The game is so much fun on Hard btw, I'm looking forward to Nightmare!

Tragedy

Finding the story meh(well written for an RPG, but there's certainly been better written) and a bit annoyed by how small and linear each seperate zone is.

Enjoyable, but no revelation.

nesf

Tragedy wrote: »

Finding the story meh(well written for an RPG, but there's certainly been better written) and a bit annoyed by how small and linear each seperate zone is.

Enjoyable, but no revelation.

It's no Morrowind in terms of openness of zones but to be honest this doesn't bother me in the slightest. I don't mind some railroading in RPGs, it's necessary to keep things narrowed to keep the main plot moving. That said, some prefer the open-ended type of game so I can definitely see why they'd not find it ground breaking.

Honestly, it's the successor to Baldur's Gate so I wasn't expecting Morrowind so I guess that's why I was so happy with it (I was expecting a fairly linear main quest with little side quests off of that so I wasn't disappointed when it turned out this way). Then, I preferred BG and BG II to Morrowind, but then I'm a bit of a fan of dungeon crawling in pen and paper stuff so unexpected really.

Hody

Morrowind/Oblivion were great in regards of roaming around free, just like Fallout is (same Company). In MW/OBL the mobs were leveling with you, so it good ridiculous when at higher level still bandits or a mud crab were a real thread to you, plus the also leveled the loot tables so that you would bandits in a filthy cave wearing shiny high class armor. It just gave me the creeps and I was experimenting with custom patches to overcome this and decided to call it a day at the end. Plus the voiceover with american voice actors just did not suit a game placed in medieval times...

nesf

Hody wrote: »

Morrowind/Oblivion were great in regards of roaming around free, just like Fallout is (same Company).

Bethesda only made the latest Fallout. In the find tradition of inbreeding in CRPs, the group that made Fallout 1 and 2 published Baldur's Gate I & II!

/random geek trivia

Creature

Hey quick question for those who have finished it. Is there much of an urge to replay? I'm playing at the moment and absolutely loving it but wish I had saved it for now as its kind of a tradition for me to lose myself in a RPG over Christmas.

Also wtf is with Shale?

He's feckin tiny! I expected him to be hulking over the other party members being a Golem and all!

nesf

Creature wrote: »

Hey quick question for those who have finished it. Is there much of an urge to replay? I'm playing at the moment and absolutely loving it but wish I had saved it for now as its kind of a tradition for me to lose myself in a RPG over Christmas.

Am replaying it on Hard atm with a Rogue. Will probably try taking a Mage through Nightmare after this. Did Normal with a Tank first time around.

Raphael

Hody wrote: »

Morrowind/Oblivion were great in regards of roaming around free, just like Fallout is (same Company). In MW/OBL the mobs were leveling with you, so it good ridiculous when at higher level still bandits or a mud crab were a real thread to you, plus the also leveled the loot tables so that you would bandits in a filthy cave wearing shiny high class armor. It just gave me the creeps and I was experimenting with custom patches to overcome this and decided to call it a day at the end. Plus the voiceover with american voice actors just did not suit a game placed in medieval times...

Mobs in MW didn't level with you, that was just Oblivion.

Rev Hellfire

Creature wrote: »

but wish I had saved it for now as its kind of a tradition for me to lose myself in a RPG over Christmas.

I've the box sitting here on my desk, waiting for the ol' Christmas holidays to come around.
Though it is proving difficult to resist the more I hear others going on about it.

Hody

How long did you actually need to finish it. Bioware were telling like 80-100 hours with all sidequests. Some lad in a German board finished it in around 53?!

I am actually finished Mage Origin, Ostagar, Koceri Woods and Tower of Ishal with an Elven Mage, now I am playing Human Noble Origin with a Rogue. I started to this for Mass Effect. Let one char play the chapter and then reply at and usually have one being good and one being evil to see the difference...

nesf

Hody wrote: »

How long did you actually need to finish it. Bioware were telling like 80-100 hours with all sidequests. Some lad in a German board finished it in around 53?!

I finished it in 41 hours on normal. That was with zerging through and ignoring masses of side quests though.

humanji

Hody wrote: »

How long did you actually need to finish it. Bioware were telling like 80-100 hours with all sidequests. Some lad in a German board finished it in around 53?!

I am actually finished Mage Origin, Ostagar, Koceri Woods and Tower of Ishal with an Elven Mage, now I am playing Human Noble Origin with a Rogue. I started to this for Mass Effect. Let one char play the chapter and then reply at and usually have one being good and one being evil to see the difference...

I tried doing that, but actually felt really bad when I was evil to people. It's a sad state of affairs when you can't even pretend to be evil.

Tragedy

nesf wrote: »

Honestly, it's the successor to Baldur's Gate so I wasn't expecting Morrowind so I guess that's why I was so happy with it (I was expecting a fairly linear main quest with little side quests off of that so I wasn't disappointed when it turned out this way). Then, I preferred BG and BG II to Morrowind, but then I'm a bit of a fan of dungeon crawling in pen and paper stuff so unexpected really.

BG1 and BG2, in terms of the main quest, were linear to the hilt. However, how each zone/area was presented(in the first half of the games anyway) were very open.

I mean, you start off BG2 in Athkatla, a huge sprawling city almost any of which you can explore from the start. Very different from Denerim, which is one small market place and a couple of back alleys.

Know what I mean? It's still fun, but I enjoy the other approach more. The city feels more real and vibrant, which helps when getting sucked into an RPG.

And if you compare Redcliffe to ... cant remember the name of the town being assaulted by animals. Anyhoo, both are the same general idea but the town in BG2 has much more to see and do - but probably the same amount of quests.

Has anyone compared it to a patched NWN2 yet?