09 Nov 09 Game Review: Dragon Age Origins

So, late last week I purchased (through Steam, FYI) a copy of Dragon Age: Origins. There’s been a lot of hype about this game and the start of the newest Bioware franchise, and having played some of their old games like Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s Gate, I was very excited. Even if you just saw the trailer for the game (Sacred Ashes) you’d be pretty stoked.

Earlier this week, Sol Invictus on Hellforge expanded on his “Bioware RPG Cliche Chart”. A Bioware writer apparently picked apart his spreadsheet, writing about why they have stuck to a certain structure. I had the same feeling that I did in KoToR and Neverwinter Nights–I could already see the clear progression to the end of the game. But at this point, the game’s structure wasn’t what was bothering me. I just wasn’t having fun in the game, for several reasons:

A darkspawn ogre. I'm just not having fun--and there are several reasons why.

• Mages suck. Honestly, the mage character I picked to play is the first to die in all my engagements. There are some defensive spells and better armor you can equip, but picking the defensive spells comes at the cost of picking offensive spells. Why keep your mage alive long enough if she’s still doing a level-1 spirit bolt spell? And frankly, mages are supposed to rock. In this game, my mage feels like a fairly one-dimensional character, not really worth leveling. Sure, some of the higher-level spells may be cool, but why do I have to wait 10 levels to get them?
• Seriously, though, mages suck: As a mage, I want power incarnate. I don’t want debuffs. I don’t want healing spells. I don’t want to shapeshift. I want to be able to create an impenetrable ward around me off starlight, winking arrows out of existence and vaporizing swords and flesh on contact. I want to ignite opponents’ organs on fire, calling the very essence of burning into their bodies. I want to make pacts with demons and channel hellfire in vast swaths. I want to uproot reality, reverse gravity. I want to telekinetically rips my foes apart. When I see this in a game, I will love it, and it will be good.
• Too many options in conversation. Bioware has taken their “be good/be evil” system to a very dizzying conclusion. Not only do you have a huge number of conversation options with characters across the world, you can also maim, kill, and romance the NPC characters in your party. But why gain their approval for what you are doing–why not do this in the real world, with real friends? (Answer: None of your friends is as interesting as an apostate shapeshifter witch?)
• MMOfflineRPG. All this is done without any interaction with real human beings. Being a WoW addict, I just don’t get why this is entertaining after more than a few hours. There’s no one real to talk to!
• ‘Premium content’. After the first quest line you make a camp in the wilderness, where a traveling merchant is standing nearby, ready to sell you goods. And I do mean sell you goods: Bioware has integrated the purchasing of premium content into the game, so if you want more, just roleplay it out in your camp! I was sickened after having paid $50 that there was already premium content out. Insulting.
• Vaunted tactical system is actually a course in programming. The loading screen (which you’ll see a lot of) has a tip that reads: Charging head-on will not always win a fight. Be sure to tactically plan your engagement. But the actual tactics system is so complex that it seems like you are, in fact, programming your companions to respond. I took one look at it and backed away very slowly–I am not about to try to make Bioware’s AI system try to respond as I want it to. I doubt there’s even an option to make an NPC “sacrifice oneself for a powerful blood ritual’.

Fighting off hordes of undead? Beware, for you might just glitch out.

All in all, it’s not a very engaging game. 4 days and I was done, I’m not going to complete the campaign. If anything, it reminded me of Mass Effect, and how I completely dragged that game out because it was so repetitive. It also reminded me of Neverwinter Nights 2, by Obsidian Entertainment, that was complex and beautiful and rich but just didn’t deliver that through the game platform well. The game is quite beautiful, with a good rendering engine, but not a very good interactive engine–it’s unwieldy, clipping is frequent, and character expressions are limited to eyebrows only.

And the world of Dragon Age: Origins is a good world–morally relative, nobles fighting for the top, mages conspiring with demons, elves trying to overcome centuries of slavery and oppression… The storyline is absolutely fascinating but I have no desire to force myself to run my mage character around for hours, hearing more of the story. I’ll just wait until someone posts the Youtube video…

Grade: B-

Tags: Bioware, da:o, dragon age origins, Gaming, steam