Taken from my blog:
It’s like a really awkward date with someone ridiculously attractive and charismatic.
The character creation is astonishingly detailed in some areas, and lacking in others. I can adjust how shiny my lips are, which is awesome, but I can’t move said lips out or in on my face, leaving my character with perpetually outtie lips that make her look strangely apelike. And there are like ten hair meshes, and half of those are bald. I hope this game is easily moddable, because I want more hair and lip meshes. So many more.
And it’s awkward to control sometimes when you’re making your character, like you try to spin your character’s head and it keeps spinning even as you’re making changes. Tsk, tsk. Tacky.
So it has a learning curve. And when I say learning curve I don’t mean about consciously learning its buttons and commands, I mean like…it has a learning curve for its intuitive side, to get the feel of the game. So it’s an awkward date where you’re constantly missing on topic after topic until you start to get the feel of the person. The conversation does start to get smoother, though, and this person really starts to open up, however awkward and odd she is. Because she really is gorgeous and even kinda classy.
But very Hollywood. I’m not used to my games feeling this Hollywood.
12:43 - I’m running everywhere, and there’s no option to walk. You can open doors, but you can’t close them. Where’s the immersion?
13:01 - I’m so divided on this game, but I can’t help but love it, you know?
I absolutely adore the amount of strong women in the game. Little roles, like quartermaster, would be filled by big guys with a cockney accent in most games. Here, the role is taken by a big woman with a cockney accent. Sharp.
There’s a narrowness about the design of the game itself, something in the gameplay, that still smacks of that characteristic Bioware “you’ll play how we want you to” mentality, and I think that kind of mentality comes from making a game for a mass audience. True RPG fans chafe at it, but…if you’re trying to pull every gamer in, you might ignore diehard RPG features. But you know…Skyrim has spoiled me. I miss playing in a truly open world. Like, in this tavern. Its warm ambiance gripped me - the sun slanted low in the sky over a snowy mountain landscape - it was probably early morning. The wind blew through the windows and open door, whipping my cloak in the cold breeze. They did it so well I could feel it. This bard was playing this lovely song and I wanted to sit down on a chair for a minute, relax, and listen to it. But I couldn’t. The most I could do was run up to her, which seemed uncharacteristic in a warm, relaxing place like this tavern. A few guys were sitting at a table, talking quietly over mugs of ale. I wanted to do that, but I couldn’t.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they’d made a flat, bland world. But they made a gorgeous world of breathtaking beauty, a world that you can only enjoy in passing because the tools for immersion simply aren’t there. It’s tragic…and all the more so because I know Bioware/EA’s games are not easily moddable, and I’m unlikely to see features like these being made available with mods.
And yet…I’m still falling absolutely in love with this game. It’s like falling in love with a person that will only let you so far into their lives. It almost hurts.
14:24 - Remember in Oblivion and Skyrim when you'd have the opportunity to try out a lot of different weapons and combat styles during the tutorial? It gave you the opportunity to decide what you liked best. DA:I lacks this. Of course, I know...it's because you pick a set class and you don't really do that in Elder Scrolls. I just ran into a snag when, during the prologue, I wanted to switch over to a bow to see how I liked it, as opposed to the dual-dagger class I'd chosen at creation. The very next fight was a boss fight, and it didn't give me the option to open my inventory and change my weapon?! Ouch. I hope that's fixed in a future patch.
It’s like a really awkward date with someone ridiculously attractive and charismatic.
The character creation is astonishingly detailed in some areas, and lacking in others. I can adjust how shiny my lips are, which is awesome, but I can’t move said lips out or in on my face, leaving my character with perpetually outtie lips that make her look strangely apelike. And there are like ten hair meshes, and half of those are bald. I hope this game is easily moddable, because I want more hair and lip meshes. So many more.
And it’s awkward to control sometimes when you’re making your character, like you try to spin your character’s head and it keeps spinning even as you’re making changes. Tsk, tsk. Tacky.
So it has a learning curve. And when I say learning curve I don’t mean about consciously learning its buttons and commands, I mean like…it has a learning curve for its intuitive side, to get the feel of the game. So it’s an awkward date where you’re constantly missing on topic after topic until you start to get the feel of the person. The conversation does start to get smoother, though, and this person really starts to open up, however awkward and odd she is. Because she really is gorgeous and even kinda classy.
But very Hollywood. I’m not used to my games feeling this Hollywood.
12:43 - I’m running everywhere, and there’s no option to walk. You can open doors, but you can’t close them. Where’s the immersion?
13:01 - I’m so divided on this game, but I can’t help but love it, you know?
I absolutely adore the amount of strong women in the game. Little roles, like quartermaster, would be filled by big guys with a cockney accent in most games. Here, the role is taken by a big woman with a cockney accent. Sharp.
There’s a narrowness about the design of the game itself, something in the gameplay, that still smacks of that characteristic Bioware “you’ll play how we want you to” mentality, and I think that kind of mentality comes from making a game for a mass audience. True RPG fans chafe at it, but…if you’re trying to pull every gamer in, you might ignore diehard RPG features. But you know…Skyrim has spoiled me. I miss playing in a truly open world. Like, in this tavern. Its warm ambiance gripped me - the sun slanted low in the sky over a snowy mountain landscape - it was probably early morning. The wind blew through the windows and open door, whipping my cloak in the cold breeze. They did it so well I could feel it. This bard was playing this lovely song and I wanted to sit down on a chair for a minute, relax, and listen to it. But I couldn’t. The most I could do was run up to her, which seemed uncharacteristic in a warm, relaxing place like this tavern. A few guys were sitting at a table, talking quietly over mugs of ale. I wanted to do that, but I couldn’t.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they’d made a flat, bland world. But they made a gorgeous world of breathtaking beauty, a world that you can only enjoy in passing because the tools for immersion simply aren’t there. It’s tragic…and all the more so because I know Bioware/EA’s games are not easily moddable, and I’m unlikely to see features like these being made available with mods.
And yet…I’m still falling absolutely in love with this game. It’s like falling in love with a person that will only let you so far into their lives. It almost hurts.
14:24 - Remember in Oblivion and Skyrim when you'd have the opportunity to try out a lot of different weapons and combat styles during the tutorial? It gave you the opportunity to decide what you liked best. DA:I lacks this. Of course, I know...it's because you pick a set class and you don't really do that in Elder Scrolls. I just ran into a snag when, during the prologue, I wanted to switch over to a bow to see how I liked it, as opposed to the dual-dagger class I'd chosen at creation. The very next fight was a boss fight, and it didn't give me the option to open my inventory and change my weapon?! Ouch. I hope that's fixed in a future patch.
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