Give me a good reason to finally play Dragon Age : Origins

[DoPo]

I was quite insulted by the game though. I had a character, was playing on normal difficulty for about four hours and just could not get into the tactical pausing thing. Tactical pausing sounds like a swat team calling in backup to bring the picknick basket. So I started over and I can't skip this part of the combat without resorting to easy difficulty. And easy is just... Easy.

Now you can blame me for not being intelligent enough or not determined or not open enough to try and get into the combat system. But I simply don't want complicated combat systems convoluting my game experience. I used to deal with expansive, convoluted systems at work more than enough. I just want to be that guy that most adventurers would call a cliche.

I see. I think in that case, this might indeed be the wrong game. It does rely on tactics and manipulating the combat - status effects and such are quite important, dealing damage is almost secondary to them.

Of course, you could, as I said, tweak your companions to deal with stuff, so you can concentrate on just playing, however, it's not something that just happens and the start of the game is hard because you're limited in abilities.

I'd suggest getting Neverwinter Nights 1 and playing the expansions Shadows of Undrentide and then Hordes of the Underdark (in that order). The main story is not really interesting in NN, but those two expansions are quite good - they are also connected in somewhat loose sense - it's supposed you go from SoU then HotU but only, like, one character shows up and there isn't a continuing story - HotU is just a higher level start, mainly, but it should start at the level SoU leaves you. At any rate, these two are quite good, and HotU in particular gives you a lot of power, since you get into Epic levels there.

 

[dangoball]

Haven't read all the other comments but I feel they are generally positive in nature, so here's one from someone who on all accounts SHOULD love the pixels out of DA:O but doesn't.

The game is fine on the technical side of things. I actually finished Darkspawn Chronicles - very combat oriented DLC - so I found the combat fun, but that's about it. Other than that it's basically Mass Effect (1) in fantasy setting, especially on customisation and micro management. You can set up contingency commands for your fellas and you want to, because otherwise you will have to babysit them through every combat encounter.

Party members are interesting, though unlike in ME they don't dump all of them on you in the first hub which I consider an improvement. One thing - unless you want to be saddled with a preachy religious nut or sexed-up elf you might want to consider playing a rouge (though it was kinda funny when my dwarven noble told the elf to continue complimenting his magnificent beard).

My biggest gripe was most likely with pacing. The game is story focused to similar extend as ME2, not much faffing about a la Mako exploration, though it just failed to hold my interest for long enough. Never finished it. Now that I think about it, the reason might be that I'm over-saturated on fantasy.

Anyway I would recommend giving it a go. City elf and dwarven origin stories are really good (prefer noble, i've got a thing for political backstabbing), human noble and mage I would consider the least interesting. Give it a go, run through Ostragar, maybe one main story line and see if it grabs you. Don't feel bad if it doesn't.

 

[Pr0]

The primary reason to play Origins is to experience a BioWare title when they were literally at their god-tier apex of creating interactive story driven experiences. The studio today is a pale shadow of its original self really.

Graphically it still holds up to current standards but you don't play Origins for the graphics...or even the game play which by modern standards feels a bit clunky....its all about the story. Its well executed, well presented, and invests you in it regardless of how you choose to begin it.

 

[Smooth Operator]

The combat/control system is party based RTS, you do not run around and button spam, you order your party and they do the work to the best of their ability. And if you only direct the main character he is the only one that will be doing smart things, the party needs direction they will not play instead of you. If you intend to skip management they your party will perpetually end up dead.

Pausing is on you, the combat is fairly slow so you can do most things on the fly and then some when paused, but broadly that depends on how much time you need to sort things out.

This is not TES, it isn't even close. You go from mission hub to mission hub and have multiple choices there, otherwise the story is very directed and there is no perpetual world.

PC version didn't get gamepad support, and if you get the console version you simply get stuck with an RTS based game that is awful to control.

 

[ShenCS]

Because apparently you're interested in it enough to make a thread about it.

 

[Mister K]

Is the combat system as unintuitive as they say (hard to master)?
It is by no means hard. It is tedious and boring, but not hard.

Does the constant pausing during combat take away from the flow/momentum of the game?
Not really,but only because the game itself is really slow, if not sluggish.

How well does it work with a 360 controller on my pc?
I do not know how well it works with 360 pad on a PC, but I played on PS3 and it worked rather well. I didn't have as many skill slots as people who use keyboard had, but that was just a minor inconvinience.

If I was way, way, waaaayy into oblivion and skyrim, can I expect a similar level of immersion and 'suck' from this game?
If you are talking about open world and it's views, random dungeons,exploration, etc, then no. It only allows you to visit "areas" such as mage tower, a city, and so on. If you mean something like interesting story and characters (Skyrim and Oblivion had those?)... Well, it's just your basic WRPG. Destroy big bad. Semi-expected plot twist. Party is made out of a funny guy, good girl, *****, big softie, drunk axe-wielding dwarf, feminine male elf, old lady and a dog. Standard, standard, standard, been there, seen this.

Any 'fuck no' features like always-on or needing yet another account from some service or site like Origin or Uplay?
I don't think so, but there was this character who begged you to buy a DLC.

What's the level of character customisation (on a scale of one to skyrim)?
If Skyrim is 10, then I give it 7 or so. There are class limitations, but you can freely customise what gear you and your party wears and what skills you and your party learns.

Does it tend to 'overcustomize' on skills and magic and party members?
I wouldn't say so.

Can I skip micromanagement and just focus on throwing fireballs and punching dragons in the eye?
From what I remember, if you set your party members' AI commands properly, then you'll need to micro-manage everyone only in rarest of times. Although, I played on normal, it may be different on Hard. In any case, watch out for friendly fire and don't throw around random fireballs.


For your overall question: Well, go to Youtube and watch gameplay footage. If it doesn't turn you away, then play it if you like Fantasy WRPG's. But be warned, this is one of the most, without better words, standard WRPG. Even Bladur's gate had some things that varied from standard formula. THis one, however, is full of cliche.