Dragon Age: Origins - Diaries (Spoilers)

[Crenshinibon]

Preface:

This will be my diary for Dragon Age: Origins. It will hold my opinions on the game as well as my reactions and thoughts in regards to the story. As such, there will be a fair amount of spoilers here. Be careful when reading this as it could potentially reveal parts of the story.

So I got out of Network Administration early and skipped Project Management to go to GameStop and pick the game up.

The case looks even better in person, but maybe that's because I'm excited. I personally thought it was unclear as to where to open it, but yes, you just cut the tape and slide it out of the protective covering, not sideways. Underneath the sword, on both sides of the tin case, we have the mark of the Grey Warden and inside there is the cloth map (whose crudeness and bloodstains make it look very nice). The map smells a lot like Magic: The Gathring Cards.

I like the case, it looks to be well made.

The manual I thought was pretty short and while most of the information is only helpful to players new to the game, I found that it did elaborate on some aspects of the game which I wasn't clear on. Most of us that play Baldur's Gate and understand how flanking works can afford to skip it.
I tried to redeem the codes for the Collector's Edition material, but none of it would work. Apparently a lot of people are having this issue. After a while, it seems that BioWare had fixed the issue (within the hour of me spotting I’d say, although at that point, the game was probably available for six). It seems that the game used a method of copy protection that requires the disc to be in the drive to start playing, however, after the initial launch, you are free to remove it and keep playing. Also, the game works well if you put your machine on “Stand By” and resume it, which is nice for travel.

The Origin:

I started an elven mage with the Mage Origin option, where they tossed me into the fade through a special ritual. This ritual, the harrowing essentially served as an introduction to the game for your character. It was pretty easy and straightforward and showed a little bit of the dialog options, though certain parts, like Sloth’s riddles and Mouse’s dialog’s could have been done a bit better. Despite having the ability to play it close up, I find it more comfortable to play from the isometric view. Probably a bias from playing Baldur’s Gate for a decade, but the game still looks nice. I like being able to move around with the W, A, S and D keys. After the harrowing, I explored the Chantry a bit and it looked pretty nifty that the characters had their own schedules, even partaking in mage battles, but it’s nothing new. Still pleasing though. I really can’t make my mind up about the voice acting. I’m currently thinking that some of it sounds bland and emotionless. The dialog itself, the content, is definitely interesting and drew me in, especially the lore of this world. I noticed that each character makes a special sound when they move, based on their equipment, which I think is neat. For example, while escorting Duncan to his room, you can hear the heavy clanging of his armor. Nice touch.
I noticed that the game started somewhere on mid level graphical settings, so when I turned them up to high, I was pleasantly surprised at how much detail went into the surroundings and the characters’ clothes. I could even see fire reflecting off the silver studs of a mage’s robe. I still can’t my mind up. There’s definitely a hook in the way the game presents itself. It makes me want to keep on playing. As for battles, I think they’re scaling up nicely. It would have been nice however if BioWare actually included the numerical values in their spells. I like knowing how long something lasts or how much damage I’m doing.

Korcari Wilds:

The tactics system is very interesting. I just went through that tutorial and played around with it right before going into the wilds. That particular area was very combat oriented, but proved that you do need tactics, or at the very least micromanagement to handle certain fights. For me, micromanaging the characters made an otherwise hard fight, pretty easy. I finally met Morrigan (scantily clad indeed!) and her mother, who definitely piqued my interest. Then, afterward, came the Joining. It certainly instilled an uncomfortable feeling, having two of my companions die like that. Poor guy. The whole Korcari Wilds are heavily reminded me of The Witcher. Not only because the atmosphere, but because you can also gather herbs and find a few corpses with some informative text (and sometimes items) on them. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more this game resembles The Witcher. The racism issue and the political undertones keep a tie there.

Currently my mage is level five, with Arcane Bolt being the only offensive talent he has. My plan is to create a battle-mage, but while that is some distance away, the allies benefit greatly from the support spells.

To be Continued...