Dragon Age - Reviews at Now Gamer - PC and Xbox 360

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SasqWatch
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Now Gamer has two reviews out for Dragon Age Origin, one for the PC Version, and one for the Xbox 360 version. Here's some info from the PC review about how the difficulty requires you to pause the game in combat:
It's with toe-curling pleasure that we found it necessary to resort to the intricate stop-motion combat tactics so reminiscent of BioWare days of yore, pausing the action to select targets, choose activated abilities, spells or items while barely letting the fight run a few seconds onward before tapping the space bar again. In fact, it's almost mandatory to work your way through a battle in this way despite the inclusion of post-battle regenerative health and auto-resurrection, which simply takes the pain out of the fight.
According to the Xbox 360 review the character interaction will affect the whole game:
We can offer no finer credit to the team behind Dragon Age: Origins than to say that our usual moral stance – that of playing the entire game through the eyes of a childish, belligerent prick – stumbled at the starting blocks. Such was the gravitas of guilt we felt in putting these characters through the mill just for the shit of it. Because while calling your best friend’s new love a fat cow right in front of her was initially pretty funny, it soon became clear that the ramifications of such actions were going to affect the entire course of the game.
Spotted at: http://daforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=701369&forum=135
More information.
 
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So, they said the same thing? :p I think one of your Control-C's did not register. ;) Also… I want this Xbox 350! :p

Sorry for being a jerk. :)

By the way, I have a feeling the the setting is gonna get a huge slamming here for being unoriginal. The reviews say as much and it happened before with Mass Effect. It depends on what you want out of a video game, though, and I stopped expecting art, necessarily. However, I can think of at least a few here that won't be pleased.
 
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So, they said the same thing? :p I think one of your Control-C's did not register. ;) Also… I want this Xbox 350! :p

Sorry for being a jerk. :)

Thank you, Thaurin.

You're not being a jerk, just helpfull :)

It's fixed now - thanks again :)
 
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My favorite lines from that review were:
It's worth noting too that the puppet AI system of NeverWinter Nights has evolved into an AI tactics system, whereby party members can be given responses to specific situations. Carefully planned, these can save seconds – and an awful lot can happen in a single second of battle in Dragon Age.

I'm all about using my skills, so this was quite encouraging. I can set up the rest of the party's AI and then focus on my characters. Even with the AI improvements, the space bar is going to be our friend.
 
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Thank you, Thaurin.

You're not being a jerk, just helpfull :)

It's fixed now - thanks again :)

In that case, the Xbox 360 review link also points to page 2. ;)

Read them both. There's a lot of missing detail, but they do praise the story and the effect of your choices a lot. There's not much in the way of differences between both versions, but they did mention having to pause a lot in the PC version. I wonder it that gameplay style is the same on Xbox 360. I hope so, but that's not really console's style.

I'm driving myself crazy over the choice of platform. :p I'd need a new PC as fast as possible, but I wanted to upgrade, anyway.
 
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Again, thanks, Taurin :)

It's fixed now.

----

As for the reviews, I like that the PC review mentions that you'll have to pause a lot in order to win the battles, as well as the Xbox 360 review mentions that your choices will come back to haunt your later, at least when you talk to your team mates.

As for the gameplay difference in the PC version and the Xbox 360 version, it should only be that you won't be able to zoom out all the way in the 360 version as you'd be able to in the PC version. You should be able to pause the game, at will, at any time, in the 360 menu. Pausing the game in the 360 menu brings up a radial menu, just like in Mass Effect.
 
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Again, thanks, Taurin :)
As for the reviews, I like that the PC review mentions that you'll have to pause a lot in order to win the battles, as well as the Xbox 360 review mentions that your choices will come back to haunt your later, at least when you talk to your team mates.

That does sound interesting doesn't it. From the videos I've seen, you have to pause if you want to win some of those battles. That is a big plus, imo. Some of those battles looked absolutely intense. I think anyone trying to take those on willy nilly will get their butt handed to them quick.

At least that's what I hope for anyways. All this speculation is killing me. I'm ready to sink my teeth into this sucker.

As for the companions and choices, if it is anything like BG2 or hopefully the more recent The Witcher, then forget about it, I'm calling in sick to work for the next week lol. Might get fired, but I could always tell them I have the H1N1 virus :D
 
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let us prepare for a ton of ultrabiased reviews.
like oblivion, it will take ppl 2 years to realise it's not that coolio.
________
Best value vaporizer
 
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Yeah right. I wonder why people bother posting on thread about a game they already know that will be bad (despite the fact they didnt play it yet).
 
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I think he meant that it wont be the next coming of christ, like some reviewers will probably write, not that it will be bad.
 
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It's been a while since I've seen so many people wanting a game to be bad. It seems sort of bizare. It is interesting to observe the working of the mind of people who start with a conclusion, and then interpret the evidence in such a way as to support it. The glowing reviews are just evidence of corrupt media and 'hype'.

As far as I can tell, everyone who has actually played the game and given an opinion has been overwhelmingly positive. One week until I can pick up my pre-ordered CE and decide for myself :)
 
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I'm with you on this, Badesumofu. Next week should be a great deal of fun. However, I AM one of the strange people who enjoyed Oblivion and Fallout 3 out of the box, so be careful of my opinion. As for Bioware, I loved BG2, but Neverwinter Nights was disappointing to me. I hope the character interactions in DA are more meaningful and that the dialogue is better. I also hope that the world draws me in. NWN never really did that -- just boring boring boring.
 
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It's been a while since I've seen so many people wanting a game to be bad. It seems sort of bizare. It is interesting to observe the working of the mind of people who start with a conclusion, and then interpret the evidence in such a way as to support it. The glowing reviews are just evidence of corrupt media and 'hype'.

Actually it is a very natural limitation of the human mind. We all have a tendency to see more of what supports our views than the other way round (exceptions exist of course, but most people do this). I guess, though I have no idea of the scientific basis for this, that this is a part of how our cognition categorizes stuff and of our way to fill in the blanks. When something is unknown, we tend to fill the gaps with stereotypes. The stereotypical commercial (bad) game has fancy graphics, but no real substance. If one wants to find that in Dragon Age it is extremely easy to find: Commercials which use the graphic nature of sex and violence; marketing words such as "dark" and "gritty"; "evil" music and so on.

There are probably loads of other explanations. We are pretty complex creatures after all.
 
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when it comes to the pause/unpause spacebar-punctuated fights, I really do like engaging in them from a tactical level, but I'd really like to see the whole thing play out in real time as well. I wish that they'd implement some kind of "replay" system, an option to view the battle in real time afterward. That would be cool
 
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Actually it is a very natural limitation of the human mind. We all have a tendency to see more of what supports our views than the other way round (exceptions exist of course, but most people do this). I guess, though I have no idea of the scientific basis for this, that this is a part of how our cognition categorizes stuff and of our way to fill in the blanks.

It's called "confirmatory bias." We pay more attention to, and tend to remember, the things that confirm our beliefs (even if they are negative), and we tend to ignore or discount, and then not remember, things that go against our beliefs. It's the mechanism behind any prejudice. Heck, it's the mechanism behind any belief there is. The more firmly we hold it, the less able we are to see the evidence clearly. I'm always suspicious of people who are convinced they are right and see things 100% clearly. Even though I'm that way myself sometimes.
 
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Yeah right. I wonder why people bother posting on thread about a game they already know that will be bad (despite the fact they didnt play it yet).

Aaalright, lets avoid posting anything if we have (god forbid) a negative opinion about a game/book/movie. :D

Lets all just hold hands, dance in circles and toss flowers at the great game that DA will be, while completely disregarding all potential game's flaws.

***

Regarding pausing and selecting abilities… It'z kul and all but dammit, it would be so much cooler if DA talents/spells/attributes had an actual (useful) description instead of; "Fireball: you throw a ball of fire and do some damage." Oook.. "Two weapon handed smash: You hit your foe and do some damage, possibly killing it". Oooukey.. :/

Also, no combat or dialogue log in DA.. Very lame. I'll miss it.
 
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All dialogue is logged in your journal.

Is it? Hmm.. good to know. At least something. Still, I find looking at the combat log much more useful and enjoyable, personally.
 
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