Malf on 9/11/2009 at 00:14

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Fixed that for ya.

Ostriig on 9/11/2009 at 02:14

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Hell yeah, baby, but I gotta be fair and note that (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1307) Shamus Young beat BioWare to that punchline.

nicked on 9/11/2009 at 08:02

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Well I've been playing this all weekend and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I'm probably having more fun than I did with Bioware's Infinity engine games. I'll attempt to justify that blasphemy...

The graphics seem to be getting moaned about quite a bit. Sure, they're not Crysis level or anything, but what they do seem to be is the next step up from Neverwinter Nights level. And in that respect they succeed admirably. In particular, the facial shapes and customisation are a lot more consistent and less creepy than Fallout 3.

The layout of the game world seems to be quite NWN-like, in that you have multiple main quest locations accessible in any order before you can continue. That's fine by me, and helps make the game feel a lot less linear, despite not being an open world or anything. I can't say how well this'd hold up on a second playthrough yet.

The Origins stories are a fantastic idea. They are short introductory sections, and will almost certainly help relieve "Irenicus' dungeon syndrome" on multiple playthroughs. I see these as more of a development from Baldur's Gate 2's Stronghold quests than anything else - little character-dependent scene-setting that grounds you in the world and your character, even if it doesn't affect the rest of the game too much.

The story (so far anyway) is fairly standard fantasy fare, and how much enjoyment you get out of it will largely depend on how willing you are to suspend your sense of deja vu and just go with it. It's cliched and definitely covering old ground, but it is doing so with a fantastic level of polish.

Where the story does shine however is in the world-creation. I don't know how much of the Codex the nay-sayers have actually read, but I've been devouring every scrap of extraneous background info I find, and I must say that the world of Ferelden comes across as just as much of a well-thought-out, real place as the Forgotten Realms ever did. Sure, on the surface, it's your generic fantasy realm, but the tiny intricacies of culture and religion, magic and politics have all been thought out to a vast degree, making the world seem a lot deeper than the generic landscapes would suggest.

It's also borrowed a lot from the Lord of the Rings films in terms of the cinematic sequences and art design. There are some cutscenes that are virtually lifted straight from LotR's more epic battle sequences. Heck, even the enemy Darkspawn are basically just Lord of the Rings orcs, with Peter Jackson's take on them as brutal freak warriors, as opposed to the cheesy Warhammer-style orcs that seem to have been the industry standard for a long time. Whether it feels "inspired by" or "ripped off" will really depend on how cynical you want to be.

The biggest draw for me though is in the interface and combat design. This is a party-based RPG that has had nearly a decade to become utterly refined. This is Baldur's Gate 2 with all the annoyances tweaked, changed or just removed. Anyone suggesting it's somehow dumbed down is clearly looking at Baldur's Gate through rosy-tinted spectacles.

Take a rundown of a large fight from Baldur's Gate 2:

* Pause the game; survey how many enemies there are and what they appear to be capable of.
* Select each party member in turn and search through their skills and abilities, or inventory, for a relevant action to take.
* Unpause and watch the action unfold.
* Repause every now and then for a new spell/health potion etc.
* If it's a tricky fight, maybe observe a character or two die (heaven forbid the main character die, as they can't be resurrected)
* Eventually win the fight.
* Spend half an hour sifting through the corpses, looking for gold and useful equipment amongst the piles of arrows and long swords, and gems worth 2 gold each. Spend ages micro-managing your inventory so that the heaviest stuff is carried by the stronger characters.
* Cast Raise Dead on anyone who died (unless you're pretty late in the game, this will give them 1 hit point back. Gee, thanks.)
* Get the dead party members to go and pick up the 50 or so items they were lugging around that they dropped when dying, then re-equip all their armour etc.
* Rest for as many hours as it takes to heal everyone, praying that you don't get assaulted by monsters in your sleep.
* Continue down the corridor.

Urgh, doesn't sound so fun now. What Dragon Age does is takes all that and says about everything "Is this fun?" and if it isn't, changes it for the better. Crucially though, if it is fun, it's left unchanged.

* Pausing the game and issuing tactical commands is all in there with the huge amount of depth of strategy you would expect.
* You don't die in combat any more, unless all your party members die. Instead you are knocked out of the fight, and only recover once all the enemies are dead. This retains the challenge of keeping your party alive, while eliminating the irritations of spending ages resurrecting people and collecting their armour afterwards. And your main character is not treated any differently, meaning you never get the horrible flow-breaking "The main character has died. Restart?" dialogue.
* Looting is incredibly streamlined. If a corpse has loot, it'll glitter (you can turn the visual effect for this off if you prefer). You click it. If it only contains money, this is automatically picked up. If not, you can choose what you want to grab. The inventory is a group-inventory, meaning there is no irritating micro-management and passing of items back and forth. There's also a useful Diablo-style popup comparing your inventory to your currently equipped weapons and armour.
* Outside of combat, your health regenerates quickly. Is this realistic? No. Is it any less realistic than a bunch of adventurers setting up camp every 50 feet through a dungeon so that their wounds will heal overnight? Not really. Is it less tedious? Definitely.

This whole thought process of eliminating the tedium and streamlining the experience, while retaining the level of challenge and tactics, really elevates the whole game.

On the whole, the game is a fantastic achievement. It's got a huge amount of depth and minimum frustration. If you can shelve your cynical side and stop worrying about the cliches and archetypal characters, you will have a great time. If you've already decided that you're gonna hate it because it's generic and dull, you'll probably still find yourself pleasantly surprised by the completely-not-dumbed-down combat.

Right, I'll see you all in a few months time, when I've finished the game! By then, there'll probably be some decent user-made levels coming out...

Judith on 9/11/2009 at 09:03

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The whole story is predictable but it's the dialogues, small rants and irony that makes it great. Either F3 or ME seem to be on a level below that. It's bad that having so much effort put into voiceovers we have our own character silent. On the other hand, the random monologues, talk and mockery between party members is something absolutely awesome. I've been playing for 25-28 hours and there was no repetition of those, not even once. I'm not sure there's a game that can compare to that.

Judith on 9/11/2009 at 10:00

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Gameplay isn't just combat, although there's a lot of it. But, show me another modern game where you can settle an agreement with a demon to slay his target, go to his target, make an agreement with him to kill the demon, betray the man and kill him, and finally, betray the demon and kill him as well :ebil: Just this makes this game so bloody awesome :cheeky: Btw. You can turn that ridiculous blood spatter in the game menu, I did.