Comments on: Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before

By: Maxwell James

Maxwell James — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:26:40 +0000

A game that was actually inspired by Martin’s books would be delightful to me. Such a game would have:

- A focus on political intrigue, albeit with shifting and/or unclear goals
- Multiple points of view rather than a single party to follow around
- Violence that was intermittent & therefore genuinely shocking, rather than constant
- Magic that was rare, so that it actually felt magical

It would probably be more of a strategy/adventure hybrid, rather than an RPG. Needless to say, Dragon Age sounds like none of these things.

By: Brucey again

Brucey again — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:44:59 +0000

Also, I probably wouldn’t have even bought this game if it wasn’t for that wonderful preview put up with the benny hill music.

By: Brucey again

Brucey again — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:42:03 +0000

I played for 7 hours on normal watching my mans just flailing about and little skull heads taking over their cute little profile faces. switched to easy from then on. Spend much less time shaking my head in embarrassment. But I find that once I’ve excepted that
A. I suck at tactical combat, and
B. This tactical combat system sucks more than I do,
that it’s much easier to enjoy silly flirting characters fondling in camp and that “the blight is coming! YAAAAAAGHHHH!”

The fights are more enjoyable. I mean I know my mans are still somewhat doomed, but I spend less time being concerned about that and more time shooting my zaps and blazes.

By: Jon M

Jon M — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:34:15 +0000

Oh thanks. My inclination had been to hold off on this one anyway, since the hype apparently passed me by, but I was made uneasy by the complete proliferation over on qt3 (and probably elsewhere) of all things DA. Now I shall rest easy…

I’m surprised you fell for the Windows version over the couch version – or is that the other peter’s preference?

By: peterb

peterb — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:24:11 +0000

@Andy P – How DARE you have a different opinion than me!

I feel bad if the message people take from this currently-playing review is “DA:O sucks,” which is not at all what I’m trying to say. I just think they made some poor decisions which end up refocusing player attention from the good parts of their game (the character interaction, the screenwriting, the storytelling) to the bad parts (the overly-fiddly and unsatisfying combat system). A lot of this, I think, is due to the difficulty curve, which turns even minor forays out into the wilderness into something of a slog.

I will note that Bioware has just released a patch which “increases attack, defense and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty, and makes the Easy difficult easier.” So apparently I’m not the only person who thinks the difficulty curve isn’t quite right.

By: Andy P

Andy P — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:08:55 +0000

Well, I’ve played Dragon Age: Origins for 48 of the last 120 hours, and have actually taken tomorrow off work to get in another 14 or so, so… I disagree very, very strongly with your conclusions.

Horses for courses I suppose.