The Age of Dragons indeed
Finished Dragon Age: Origins yesterday. That's a solid two months, playing 2-3 hours a day, not to mention the holiday marathon between Christmas and New Years. Mass Effect took far longer of course (Mar to Nov last year), but that's because I stopped halfway to prepare for my oral defense. Anyway, although I enjoyed Mass Effect, I can honestly say that I enjoyed Dragon Age a whole lot more. In fact, about halfway through the game, I was already planning what race and class to pick, and what I'd do differently the next time round. I'd never had that urge for any other RPG, which I think says a lot for the range of decisions you have to make in the game.
Also, Mass Effect was pretty much a quick-and-dirty action-RPG, but Dragon Age had a whole ton of customization. I spent hours fiddling with character stats, agonizing over skills and talents (I still mix those two categories up, LOL), choosing weapons and armor, crafting potions and poisons. Add to that an inventory system that has improvements over Mass Effect, especially an indicator for inventory limit and a really nice system that allows comparison between a shopkeeper's items and that equipped by *any* of the party members, not just the ones along for the mission. Of course, I've also complained about the inventory limit in Dragon Age. A 120 item limit is *not* enough for all the weapons, armor, potions, crafting materials, bombs, poisons etc etc etc that I insist on carrying LOL. I actually had a few dungeon crawls where I had to run off halfway to find a merchant to sell off stuff.
Another thing that I really liked about Dragon Age were the party members. Many of the characters had interesting personalities and backgrounds, but the thing I really fell for was the party chatter. Yes, the random conversations that party members initiate among themselves during lulls in exploring ... I know, I'm weird.
This little gaming quirk of mine started off with Heavy Gear II, when I was accompanied on missions by a really varied team of special ops Gear pilots. I loved the ever bickering Vesping and Maillaux, psychotic Sobec, eager-beaver Temple and devout Wallis. So much so that I recorded in-game chatter among the squadmates and posted the sound files on my old site, Heavy Gear Confluence. And the best thing was, the chatter would change depending on which squadmates I took, so missions were never dull. I was really happy to discover that Dragon Age handles party members the same way. The witch Morrigan and former Templar Alistair were bickering like crazy at the start of the game, and it was amusing to listen to the assassin Zevran make a pass at almost anyone, even after multiple rejections. Some of his quotes are rather hilarious, so I'll include a link to his conversations with other party members.
Combat-wise, Dragon Age is a lot more tactical than other RPGs I've played. I found myself pausing frequently to position party members and assign spells and special moves. Thankfully, the game also has a tactics option to automate some of the tasks, like taking healing potions after losing a certain percentage of health, or special attacks when surrounded by enemies. And what would Dragon Age be without dragons to fight? All told, I fought countless hatchlings, several small dragons, 6 drakes (and made armor using their scales) and 3 top level dragons. For now, I'll leave you with this pic, which I was quite pleased to capture. It shows the High Dragon frozen with a spell just as she leaps into the air. Beautiful, yes?
Click for larger
Also, Mass Effect was pretty much a quick-and-dirty action-RPG, but Dragon Age had a whole ton of customization. I spent hours fiddling with character stats, agonizing over skills and talents (I still mix those two categories up, LOL), choosing weapons and armor, crafting potions and poisons. Add to that an inventory system that has improvements over Mass Effect, especially an indicator for inventory limit and a really nice system that allows comparison between a shopkeeper's items and that equipped by *any* of the party members, not just the ones along for the mission. Of course, I've also complained about the inventory limit in Dragon Age. A 120 item limit is *not* enough for all the weapons, armor, potions, crafting materials, bombs, poisons etc etc etc that I insist on carrying LOL. I actually had a few dungeon crawls where I had to run off halfway to find a merchant to sell off stuff.
Another thing that I really liked about Dragon Age were the party members. Many of the characters had interesting personalities and backgrounds, but the thing I really fell for was the party chatter. Yes, the random conversations that party members initiate among themselves during lulls in exploring ... I know, I'm weird.
This little gaming quirk of mine started off with Heavy Gear II, when I was accompanied on missions by a really varied team of special ops Gear pilots. I loved the ever bickering Vesping and Maillaux, psychotic Sobec, eager-beaver Temple and devout Wallis. So much so that I recorded in-game chatter among the squadmates and posted the sound files on my old site, Heavy Gear Confluence. And the best thing was, the chatter would change depending on which squadmates I took, so missions were never dull. I was really happy to discover that Dragon Age handles party members the same way. The witch Morrigan and former Templar Alistair were bickering like crazy at the start of the game, and it was amusing to listen to the assassin Zevran make a pass at almost anyone, even after multiple rejections. Some of his quotes are rather hilarious, so I'll include a link to his conversations with other party members.
Combat-wise, Dragon Age is a lot more tactical than other RPGs I've played. I found myself pausing frequently to position party members and assign spells and special moves. Thankfully, the game also has a tactics option to automate some of the tasks, like taking healing potions after losing a certain percentage of health, or special attacks when surrounded by enemies. And what would Dragon Age be without dragons to fight? All told, I fought countless hatchlings, several small dragons, 6 drakes (and made armor using their scales) and 3 top level dragons. For now, I'll leave you with this pic, which I was quite pleased to capture. It shows the High Dragon frozen with a spell just as she leaps into the air. Beautiful, yes?
Click for larger