Forenote: Don't complain about the lack of pictures. I find that large pictures in text distract the eye from the actual text which makes reading harder, thus I do not add pictures - To Everyone Who Has Ever Complained At Me For Not Using Pictures.
Dragon Age: Origins was a game I bought on Steam that I was looking at because I wanted another RPG to play. I didn't go in with any expectations, other than it being a Bioware RPG, I was expecting it to live up the standards of any of their games.
Well, it does. Dragon Age: Origins is one of the few games that so soon after completing it, I'll pick it back up again and start a new game. This hasn't happened for a long time, and the last time it did was with a groovy little game called Freelancer. What Dragon Age: Origins does well is tell a story. What it doesn't do well is have a long story, so after 60 hours for my first playthrough, I wanted more.
So I'm playing it again...
Regardless, Dragon Age: Origins is on both the XBox 360 and Computer, and even if you don't have a massively awesome Graphics Card (I have an 8500 Radeon 512MB, although I do have a good processor...), I can still run the game on medium without problems. The main comparison between the two is the interaction between objects and items and combat.
On the computer you might find yourself pausing every five seconds, or even more frequently, to babysit your entire party through WoW-esque combat, even on Normal Difficulty. On the 360 I found that I didn't often have to use my abilities, even on the first Boss I walked over it without much trouble, although it is harder to select individual enemies, so you might find specific targetting a bit harder. Interacting is much simpler on the 360 as well, as everything lights up if you can loot it. The 360 has to load data a bit more often, but in general the load times are more standardised than on the PC, which can take between 10 seconds to a minute depending on how long you've been playing.
The WoW-esque combat features two kinds of action; a slap action, and an improve your slap action in some way. If you're using a two handed weapon then you can make yourself deal much heavier hits at the cost of hit accuracy with an ability called Heavy Blows, or when surrounded you can use a Sweep ability that deals your normal weapon damage to all your opponents and then sends them all flying (unless they pass their saving throw). With a bow you can activate a rapid fire ability to shoot arrow quicker, but with a reduced accuracy, or you can spend more time to fire but increase your accuracy.
The combat talent trees are very simple. Most of them consist of three general areas, and each area has four abilities, each one just as useful as the last. My current character, a Rogue, is using bows and has unlocked a talent called Arrow of Slaying. It has the ability to do a critical hit for over 3 times my normal critical hit damage, doing up to 280 damage sometimes. It's a supposed finisher, but when I use it at such it tends to miss. Regardless, it has the ability to instant kill an enemy Mage. I've got some other arrow abilities, such as Pinning Shot and Shattering Shot that pin an enemy in place for a short time or knock them backwards to the ground, both of which are pretty useful abilities to help with crowd control.
Mages are slightly different. For each one of their talent trees of Spells, they have four areas. For Primal Spells, they have Ice, Lightning, Fire and Earth spells. Ice, I find, are the most useful because they can freeze, but there's spells like Fireball and Stonefist in there that are useful as well, as Stonefist has a chance to shatter any frozen enemy and Fireball is... well it's a Fireball. If you're playing a Primal Mage, I'd highly suggest getting Cone of Cold as quickly as possible as you blast a number of enemies in front of you with your Cone, then blat one of them with Stonefist, then use something like Lightning, which sends an arc of lightning into the same area of effect as your Cone.
Some people will tell you that the other areas a Mage can specialise in are much better, such as Entropy, but it really, I find, depends on your playing style. Sure Mass Paralysis is useful, but it's really just stopping the enemy from hitting you for X amount of time while your party batters them down a bit more before you cast the next crowd stopping spell like Cone of Cold, Sleep or Mindblast. Bosses also tend to be immune or highly resistant to crowd controlling spells, so this tactic isn't especially useful against them.
But as far as combat goes, just make sure you're wearing the best trousers you can, make sure your party's wearing the best trousers they can, and sell everything you don't think you'll need. You don't really need the money, as by the end of my first playthrough I still had about 50 Gold, but the things that are most useful are Health Potions, Lyrium Potions and Injury Kits. If they're available, I buy them, because when my characters are under half health I pop a health potion, and if they're running out of mana I pop a lyrium potion, and should any of your characters get knocked unconscious in a fight, I use an injury kit to remove the injury from them.
On the PC I found myself pausing to babysit my party every five seconds of combat in even the most basic of fights to make sure no one was going to fall over unconscious, as the game had a really evil streak to want to kill you as much as it could, but not so much on the 360, and for a while I was scrounging health potions and lyrium potions and trying to horde them before my next fight, where I'd go through the inevitable series of moves Mighty Sweep, Sunder Arms, Sunder Armour, Mighty Blow, Sunder Arms, whack everything until dead with my main character, the same style with my other fighter who was using two handed weapons, letting my rogue do whatever the hell she liked as I had her to open boxes for health potions, and my mage to use Cone of Cold and Mindblast whenever the enemies were moving, and Blizzard and Tempest to kill any archers that were trying to shoot me.
As with almost any Bioware RPG I've played since Baldur's Gate II, there's romances. The odd thing is, regardless of whatever character you play two of the romances can be done regardless, which is kind of puzzling, and after all the hype about the second of arse in Mass Effect, Bioware did one better in Dragon Age; you see everything going on. You don't see anything, but you see everything going on. I don't know what it is about the romances, but in any game I've played I've just not cared for them, regardless of how much I like the characters.
I suppose I'd better talk about the characters, then? Each character is unique, really. There's a Bard from France (Read: Some other country called Orlais in this world), a Dwarf with a penchance for alcohol who gets angry thinking about his wife, a stern, silent warrior who disapproves of just about everything you do unless you're mean to him, a dog, a witch who can turn into a Spider... and later on a bear and a swarm of angry bees should you want to continue with such silliness, an old woman who serves as adviser and healer, an assassin who hits on anything and everything, and if you have the Stone Prisoner DLC, a very catty talking statue, as well as an overly sarcastic ex-Mage Hunter and a stern, fierce warrior. With some characters there's a certain condition or quest you need to complete to gain them, others you get regardless, although I'm pretty sure you're able to tell 'em to sod off if you want.
Each character will have various conversation pieces with each other, and most have unique discussions with you depending on what you've done. I rid a Daemon out of someone, and to do that a woman sacrificed herself so I could do it, then one of my characters came along and jumped down my throat about it until I somehow managed to turn the conversation around to convince him that it was his past that was the problem and thus didn't loose out on my rep grind with him. There were other times when this character would initiate dialogue because he had important things to tell me.
The plot twists in Dragon Age are really nicely done. There are some characters who turned out to be completely different to who I expected them to be, and others just plain jumped out and said "Boo". In total, I think there were about four plot twists that surprised me and kept me engaged in the story as a Dwarf Noble, although there are some characters who you just know will turn on you given the opportunity, and others that will stab you in the back.
Finally, Dragon Age: Origins is supposed to be the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate II, although this isn't really true. Dragon Age: Origins is a bit too new and fast paced compared to Baldur's Gate, although it is definitely a good game, and currently my favourite, Dragon Age: Origins just needs... more to it, I think. Sure, you were given a semi-linear plot with various linear paths to explore in the map, but you had one country when there are at least three more that are mentioned within the game that I just wish I could have explored, although I suppose that's coming in a sequal. Dragon Age: Origins had the potential to be Baldur's Gate's successor, but I don't think it quite reached the margin that Baldur's Gate had.
Dragon Age: Origins isn't as good as Bioware's best, such as Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic in my opinion, but it's certainly with the rest of their RPGs such as Icewind Dale and Mass Effect, but really, if you've played two or three, or more of Bioware's RPGs, then you've played Dragon Age: Origins. The story will surprise you the first time, but you aren't especially missing anything overly important. There's one plot twist that I think will make me think "Wow" to myself again perhaps two or three times, but don't expect too much from it.
Certainly play Dragon Age: Origins if you like RPGs, and if you like Bioware then I'd say give it a go. It's certainly a good stepping stone into much better RPGs such as Baldur's Gate, and it is currently my favourite game if only because I can play it for roughly 100 hours and still want to play more of it, and as to what platform to play it on, then I'll just tell you to get it on whichever platform you play on more. It's a good game whether it's on the 360 or PC, or indeed the PS3 which I've yet to try out, and there's no real advantage to any of the platforms in my opinion.
Dragon Age: Origins was a game I bought on Steam that I was looking at because I wanted another RPG to play. I didn't go in with any expectations, other than it being a Bioware RPG, I was expecting it to live up the standards of any of their games.
Well, it does. Dragon Age: Origins is one of the few games that so soon after completing it, I'll pick it back up again and start a new game. This hasn't happened for a long time, and the last time it did was with a groovy little game called Freelancer. What Dragon Age: Origins does well is tell a story. What it doesn't do well is have a long story, so after 60 hours for my first playthrough, I wanted more.
So I'm playing it again...
Regardless, Dragon Age: Origins is on both the XBox 360 and Computer, and even if you don't have a massively awesome Graphics Card (I have an 8500 Radeon 512MB, although I do have a good processor...), I can still run the game on medium without problems. The main comparison between the two is the interaction between objects and items and combat.
On the computer you might find yourself pausing every five seconds, or even more frequently, to babysit your entire party through WoW-esque combat, even on Normal Difficulty. On the 360 I found that I didn't often have to use my abilities, even on the first Boss I walked over it without much trouble, although it is harder to select individual enemies, so you might find specific targetting a bit harder. Interacting is much simpler on the 360 as well, as everything lights up if you can loot it. The 360 has to load data a bit more often, but in general the load times are more standardised than on the PC, which can take between 10 seconds to a minute depending on how long you've been playing.
The WoW-esque combat features two kinds of action; a slap action, and an improve your slap action in some way. If you're using a two handed weapon then you can make yourself deal much heavier hits at the cost of hit accuracy with an ability called Heavy Blows, or when surrounded you can use a Sweep ability that deals your normal weapon damage to all your opponents and then sends them all flying (unless they pass their saving throw). With a bow you can activate a rapid fire ability to shoot arrow quicker, but with a reduced accuracy, or you can spend more time to fire but increase your accuracy.
The combat talent trees are very simple. Most of them consist of three general areas, and each area has four abilities, each one just as useful as the last. My current character, a Rogue, is using bows and has unlocked a talent called Arrow of Slaying. It has the ability to do a critical hit for over 3 times my normal critical hit damage, doing up to 280 damage sometimes. It's a supposed finisher, but when I use it at such it tends to miss. Regardless, it has the ability to instant kill an enemy Mage. I've got some other arrow abilities, such as Pinning Shot and Shattering Shot that pin an enemy in place for a short time or knock them backwards to the ground, both of which are pretty useful abilities to help with crowd control.
Mages are slightly different. For each one of their talent trees of Spells, they have four areas. For Primal Spells, they have Ice, Lightning, Fire and Earth spells. Ice, I find, are the most useful because they can freeze, but there's spells like Fireball and Stonefist in there that are useful as well, as Stonefist has a chance to shatter any frozen enemy and Fireball is... well it's a Fireball. If you're playing a Primal Mage, I'd highly suggest getting Cone of Cold as quickly as possible as you blast a number of enemies in front of you with your Cone, then blat one of them with Stonefist, then use something like Lightning, which sends an arc of lightning into the same area of effect as your Cone.
Some people will tell you that the other areas a Mage can specialise in are much better, such as Entropy, but it really, I find, depends on your playing style. Sure Mass Paralysis is useful, but it's really just stopping the enemy from hitting you for X amount of time while your party batters them down a bit more before you cast the next crowd stopping spell like Cone of Cold, Sleep or Mindblast. Bosses also tend to be immune or highly resistant to crowd controlling spells, so this tactic isn't especially useful against them.
But as far as combat goes, just make sure you're wearing the best trousers you can, make sure your party's wearing the best trousers they can, and sell everything you don't think you'll need. You don't really need the money, as by the end of my first playthrough I still had about 50 Gold, but the things that are most useful are Health Potions, Lyrium Potions and Injury Kits. If they're available, I buy them, because when my characters are under half health I pop a health potion, and if they're running out of mana I pop a lyrium potion, and should any of your characters get knocked unconscious in a fight, I use an injury kit to remove the injury from them.
On the PC I found myself pausing to babysit my party every five seconds of combat in even the most basic of fights to make sure no one was going to fall over unconscious, as the game had a really evil streak to want to kill you as much as it could, but not so much on the 360, and for a while I was scrounging health potions and lyrium potions and trying to horde them before my next fight, where I'd go through the inevitable series of moves Mighty Sweep, Sunder Arms, Sunder Armour, Mighty Blow, Sunder Arms, whack everything until dead with my main character, the same style with my other fighter who was using two handed weapons, letting my rogue do whatever the hell she liked as I had her to open boxes for health potions, and my mage to use Cone of Cold and Mindblast whenever the enemies were moving, and Blizzard and Tempest to kill any archers that were trying to shoot me.
As with almost any Bioware RPG I've played since Baldur's Gate II, there's romances. The odd thing is, regardless of whatever character you play two of the romances can be done regardless, which is kind of puzzling, and after all the hype about the second of arse in Mass Effect, Bioware did one better in Dragon Age; you see everything going on. You don't see anything, but you see everything going on. I don't know what it is about the romances, but in any game I've played I've just not cared for them, regardless of how much I like the characters.
I suppose I'd better talk about the characters, then? Each character is unique, really. There's a Bard from France (Read: Some other country called Orlais in this world), a Dwarf with a penchance for alcohol who gets angry thinking about his wife, a stern, silent warrior who disapproves of just about everything you do unless you're mean to him, a dog, a witch who can turn into a Spider... and later on a bear and a swarm of angry bees should you want to continue with such silliness, an old woman who serves as adviser and healer, an assassin who hits on anything and everything, and if you have the Stone Prisoner DLC, a very catty talking statue, as well as an overly sarcastic ex-Mage Hunter and a stern, fierce warrior. With some characters there's a certain condition or quest you need to complete to gain them, others you get regardless, although I'm pretty sure you're able to tell 'em to sod off if you want.
Each character will have various conversation pieces with each other, and most have unique discussions with you depending on what you've done. I rid a Daemon out of someone, and to do that a woman sacrificed herself so I could do it, then one of my characters came along and jumped down my throat about it until I somehow managed to turn the conversation around to convince him that it was his past that was the problem and thus didn't loose out on my rep grind with him. There were other times when this character would initiate dialogue because he had important things to tell me.
The plot twists in Dragon Age are really nicely done. There are some characters who turned out to be completely different to who I expected them to be, and others just plain jumped out and said "Boo". In total, I think there were about four plot twists that surprised me and kept me engaged in the story as a Dwarf Noble, although there are some characters who you just know will turn on you given the opportunity, and others that will stab you in the back.
Finally, Dragon Age: Origins is supposed to be the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate II, although this isn't really true. Dragon Age: Origins is a bit too new and fast paced compared to Baldur's Gate, although it is definitely a good game, and currently my favourite, Dragon Age: Origins just needs... more to it, I think. Sure, you were given a semi-linear plot with various linear paths to explore in the map, but you had one country when there are at least three more that are mentioned within the game that I just wish I could have explored, although I suppose that's coming in a sequal. Dragon Age: Origins had the potential to be Baldur's Gate's successor, but I don't think it quite reached the margin that Baldur's Gate had.
Dragon Age: Origins isn't as good as Bioware's best, such as Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic in my opinion, but it's certainly with the rest of their RPGs such as Icewind Dale and Mass Effect, but really, if you've played two or three, or more of Bioware's RPGs, then you've played Dragon Age: Origins. The story will surprise you the first time, but you aren't especially missing anything overly important. There's one plot twist that I think will make me think "Wow" to myself again perhaps two or three times, but don't expect too much from it.
Certainly play Dragon Age: Origins if you like RPGs, and if you like Bioware then I'd say give it a go. It's certainly a good stepping stone into much better RPGs such as Baldur's Gate, and it is currently my favourite game if only because I can play it for roughly 100 hours and still want to play more of it, and as to what platform to play it on, then I'll just tell you to get it on whichever platform you play on more. It's a good game whether it's on the 360 or PC, or indeed the PS3 which I've yet to try out, and there's no real advantage to any of the platforms in my opinion.
