Dragon Age - Review @ GameVisions
 

A very positive review of Bioware's crpg Dragon Age posted over at GameVisions, giving the game that rare score, 100% :
More information.

It's not the claim that the game is near-perfect that is so ridiculous, but the score. And even that only serves to exposing a ridiculous system, as the whole rationale behind the "100%" shows. I wish reviewers and buyers would rely less on scores and more on what the reviewer writes.

"There's no such thing as complete perfection in a game, so 100% must stand, not for true perfection, but for attaining as close to perfection as any human can make it.

And 99% is thinking, "WTF?"

I've almost finished DA now and the more I've played, the more gripes I have with it.

I give it a resounding……85%.

It's a good game, not even a great game. It's like playing KotOR all over again without any of the franchise attachment. The level & loot scaling is really starting to get to me, it's painfully obvious. I don't think they even tried to hide it.

Go from nobody to sole hero, save the world vs the evil, beware the political intrigue that's going to get in your way and talk to your companions until you've exhausted their dialog every time you're in camp. Don't forget to stop off and do the "morally challenging" sidequest on your way to saving the world!

100% doesn't stand for a perfect game, when do people understand… it's reviewer's tilt.

Good thing there hasn't been anything to patch in it then.. oh wait a minute..

Nope, they could have made this better. Whether it could have been made better with the resources and timeline they had, I'm not sure, but this sound bit doesn't seem to imply any kind of resource bias on the score.

The good things in DA are certainly good enough to be blinding, obviously so much that the inherent flaws might not be apparent on first sight to everyone. Under that light however, such a score seems premature at best, even when considering the disclaimer.

While DA was among the best games I've played while playing, which for most people is probably all that matters, I wouldn't include it in any of my personal top lists for various reasons.

Well I like it enought to agree. It's about as good as an RPG can get.

If you like the Baldur's Gate style game and consider it a favorite, I don't understand why this wouldn't rank up there as well.

If you like a first person style RPG better, then those are style preferences.

That depends completely on your origin. In some you are FAR from "nobody" at the start.

And also you start out relatively competent as compared to many other RPGs where if something sneezes at you you die. Mass Effect was also this way and I like this trend in RPGs.

I had to stop reading halfway through the first paragraph.

Complete garbage. I almost get the impression that he received incentives from Bioware to write that.

I don't have anything against DAO, and I'm playing it through a second time just to feel what life is like as a mage (hint: much, much easier, despite moving up to Hard). So I appreciate some enthusiasm.

But near perfect it isn't. 90% feels about right, 95% is overly gushing, 100% is… well it must be nice to be so easy to please.

The score would make more sense in the ABSENCE of the BG reference. I mean, look at Baldur's Gate I and II, and then just imagine a game just like them in size and depth, only updated and enhanced. Then imagine there's no parts that annoy you at all. That's what a 100% RPG looks like.

But that's not what DAO looks like. It's a good game, but come on.

I don't remember BG II receiving many 100% reviews.

Dragon Age must be ASTONISHINGLY excellent.

No game could ever be really 100%. However, having said that a numerical rating should depend on the criteria for that rating. Here we use a 1-5 scale for our reviews. Giving a game a 5 would NOT mean it was perfect (or why have that number in your scale, especially when we don't use half scores). All a 5 would mean is that the game meets all OUR criteria for that score and being perfect is not one of those criteria!!

Agreed - every added level of granularity suggests a greater amount of supposed objectivity, which is of course an illusion … as though 87% is better than 85%.

As for the review, I call it more 'frothing fanboi' than 'paid off' ;)

A review score is an abstraction designed to give a quick idea of how good a game is. A score of x out of x does not imply that the game is perfect. If you only ever give out a maximum score of x - 1 out of x, on the grounds that no game is perfect, then you're effectively just scoring out of x - 1 instead of x.

I could go into a longer reductio ad absurdum to illustrate why the notion that "a score of 100% means perfection" is false, but it's not worth the bother.

Incidentally, a modern-day Baldur's Gate II with no serious flaws, is exactly how I'd describe DA.

If you decide on a rating scale, you should be able to use it in full. Or do you think no one should get an A in school, because no human is perfect? If you say full points should not be given to anything (or anyone) then you simply install a different actual rating scale, but don't admit to it. It's a real problem though - I work in academia, and in a lot of places rating systems are completely out of whack - usually in the reverse direction, where a B is suddenly already considered a bad grade because 80% gets an A…
But if you have a rating scale from 0 to 100 (wether thats a good idea or not is a different matter), then you should have some rare games that get a 0 and some rare games that get a 100.

See, Aussies agree!! :)

Well, it might be "Baldur's Gate 3", because there's no guarantee that a sequel to BG2 would surpass it (more often than not, sequels are not superior). However, it does not surpass BG1 or 2 in my opinion. If DA:O was a sequel to BG, it would simply end up being the worst in the series. Of course, "worst" doesn't mean a whole lot in this context, as the two BG games are both on my top 5 RPG list. DA:O might become a top 10 given a few DLCs or an add-on.

WTF indeed. I agree with around 85%. A good game but nothing more. And not even in the same league as the Baldur's Gate games. Dragon Age is possibly one of the most over-rated games that I have ever seen in recent past.

The 7 to 10 scale is dead; long live the 99-100 scale. Professional game reviews are a form of incest.

100% is ridiculous and stupid.

Personally, I'd probably rate it at ~90%.

Same here. 90-92% at most.


Wich is more or less the average of the "non-biased" review sites, 94% tops.

Come on, the facial models are all similar, the close-up textures are terrible, the character creation is too simplistic, (i could go on….)

No one can possibly give 100% at this game, not more than 90-95% imho, the game is VERY NICE, but far from perfect, that are numerous things that could be changed to make it better like more model diversity, wayyyyy more loot balance/diversity, less history "cliché", etc.´

90% on my book is a sounding formidable score, over 95% on this game is plain obvious why it was given….

Bioware games in general have been very overrated imo, at least what they've done in the last 6-7 years. I don't think DA is anymore overrated than KotOR.

I think the only proper thing to do at this point, is name my first-born child Dragon Age.

I am curious. What would you guys rate BG 1, BG 2, and DAO as? If different (higher or lower) why? Those are 3 of my favorite RPGs.

Judging by the amount of personal enjoyment gained from the first playthroughs, it´s DAO > BG2 > BG in my case.
I leave it at that since more in-depth comparison would fit into another thread, plus I think that comparing games released so far from each other wouldn´t be entirely fair anyway.

Depending on the benevolence of scale and preferences, this is the range I´d consider adequate for each game:
BG2: 90 - 100
DAO: 85 - 100
BG: 80 - 95

While the review at hand contains some strange wording, generally I don´t see a problem when reviewer gives a game perfect score as long as he finds it all around entertaining and doesn´t find any of its flaws major. There´s nothing stupid about it. Reserving 10/10 only for games which are flawless, now that´s stupid.

Ditto.

That depends, if you rate them by the standards of their respective times: - BG=1998, BG2=2001, DA=2009, I'd say BG 1/2 were significantly better.

Personally I stopped playing half way through, at least temporarily. Its not a bad game by any stretch, its in fact very good but also quite flawed. 85% is fair. I'd rate Drakensang at 86% and I finished that title. Its a "lesser" but similar game that simply got more right with less IMO….

I would definitely rate BG2 as Bioware's best games and one of the greatest all time RPG's as well as one of my personal faves.

I played BG1 after BG2, and can see its' importance, but like it less.

Dragon Age … well, I like it a lot but my review will have to wait just a bit ;)

BG = 92%
BG2 = ? (Never completed it, and never played it beyond ~10 hours or so)
DAO = 90%

I suspect I'd rate BG2 around 85-90 - because it didn't SEEM to be as non-linear as BG. I've tried getting into it at least 5 times now. I intend to try again soonish.

Non-linearity is one of the most important aspects in a CRPG for me. Very few games handle it well, though - and I'd rather have a strong story in a semi-linear CRPG than a poorly handled non-linear game - like Oblivion.

But what I MUST HAVE are interesting character mechanics. I must have a reason to play BEYOND the story, because otherwise I'd rather read a book or watch a movie.

Exploration is also vital, and that's one area where Bioware generally don't shine, but they always take it into account - so there's that.

I would reserve +90% ratings to ground breaking / influential games like let's say Elite , Civ 1 , Daggerfall or Diablo .

DAO is a very good & well done game but it didn't introduced us to something new plus it is very restrictive even for story driven cRPG .

No serious flaws? Do you know you can solo the game naked with an arcane warrior on dificulty "hard", on a game that is based around a NPC party management, do you not consider that a serious flaw? you can do it with a rogue aswell btw.

So lets see:

- Some Ridiculously low-res textures on close-ups.
- Repetitive character facial models
- ability unbalance (ice cone+petrify combo rings a bell)
- Badly balanced classes (you can solo the entire game naked with a arcane warrior, or an medium equiped duelist rogue)
- Mediocre gear variety (too few epic items to wish for end-game)
- DLC content (so far) extremely low value (i ended them in 40 minutes).



Don't get me wrong, i'm on the 2nd playthrough now, meaning i REALY like the game, but saying it doesnt have any serious flaw is just coming from people who just dont wanna see, blinded by either the excessive hype, or blinded because they WANT it to be perfect. No offense meant to anyone, i just can't believe 100% scores, nor people saying this game doesnt have flaws.


I repeat, how can you say a game doesnt have any serious flaws if its possible to solo ALL the dragons in the game SOLO, NAKED on HARD dificulty ?

Just a guess, but I think it might have something to do with flaws being perceived subjectively. What you consider serious flaws, others might consider trivial or maybe even not flaws at all.

Personally, I think you're vastly exaggerating most of the issues above - and there's certainly no way to solo the entire game with a rogue on hard. The Arcane Warrior thing sounds like a balance oversight - but it also strikes me as a supremely boring and hollow way to experience the game, so I doubt many would enjoy such a thing anyway.

But I agree the game has flaws, but I also realise that such things mean different things to different people.

But 100% is just stupid - because it's logically equivalent to perfection, which I simply don't believe in as an achievable goal.

Just to be technical, you can't solo the entire game as an Arcane Warrior, since that is NOT one of the starting classes!! :)

That would be more pedantic than technical, I'd say ;)

Wow … that is interesting, as I can't think of a SINGLE way that BG1 is better than BG2 …

Do you weigh non-linearity as high as I do?

Also, IS BG2 as non-linear? Because if it becomes non-linear later on, that's one more incentive for me to try again.

I'd probably rate'em along these lines:
DA:O - 88%
BG1 (w/Tales) - 93%
BG2 (w/Throne) - 95%

I suspect DA:O might be at 90% after an add-on or DLCs. I would not give any game beyond 95%, since I always find annoying elements in games.

PS. I did not take TuTu into consideration as that is a player made mod. It would bring BG1 roughly on par with 2 (or just slightly behind).

Edit:
A common misconception. The main quest of BG2 is as linear as BG1. There are various quests where you decide the outcome, but not as part of the main quest. In fact, BG1-2 both have an "Oblivion recipe" - percieved freedom, but very little actual freedom; you only change the order in which you do things, and not actually the outcome of what you do. Big difference.

In short: Both games have certain parts where you are allowed to roam the world. Both games also have parts where you're forced to do the main quest. Both of them have sidequests where you decide the outcome, but none of them allow any real decisions during the main quest.

I can think of a several ways that BG1 was superior, and vice versa of course. Overall, they're pretty much equal to me.

I'd say it's a common misconception that non-linearity has to be about the main quest structure. There's no way a main quest can be truly non-linear, as that just doesn't work. It'd be impractical to develop a quest you can approach in a non-linear path, dealing with every aspect in a flexible timeline structure. Not impossible, perhaps, but a HELL of a lot of work.

BG1 was non-linear exactly like I want it to be, namely that I can do the main quest when I'm good and ready - and there are tons of ways to progress that have little or no relation to the main quest. Non-linear exploration is the main thing that separates BG from what I experienced with BG2.

It requires the game to have minimal level-scaling to really make sense in its implementation, but that's just my opinion.

I think you're referring to C&C as it's commonly known. That isn't non-linearity, that's variation in "quest/dialogue" approaches.

At least, it's not what I'm talking about when talking about linearity/non-linearity.

I'm primarily talking about the path through the game - which can either be linear or non-linear - or anything in between, and it's really as simple as that. Makes a lot of sense, in my opinion, when you think about what these words actually mean.

DA:O - for instance, was kinda in-between, but leaning towards linearity. That's how I see it, anyway. You could approach major quests in the order you wanted, and they did actually make up the larger main quest - but it's so divided as to be almost pointless in what order you do them. Also, level scaling and rigid/no exploration ruined the idea of progressing outside the main quest/story.

So, is BG2 non-linear in this way, or isn't it?