Dragon Age: Origins Previews
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Right after this, the BioWare rep controlling the demo loaded a later save point after he had rescued the daughter, which caused the blacksmith to get back to work and equip the town with better weapons and armor. You then talk to the town's mayor and elect to wait until nightfall for the big siege. That's when the combat kicked into effect. We've previously talked quite a bit about the combat in Dragon Age, but the tactics menu is something we haven't covered in great detail. Essentially, it's a system that lets you assign a series of responses to specific conditions in battle--a sort of "if X happens, character A performs Y action." A basic example is having your mage automatically cast a healing spell on you when your hit points drop below a certain threshold, but the scenarios allow for a lot more specificity than that. It's a complicated system to be sure and one that BioWare made no bones about describing as something designed for "battle generals" rather than the casual player.Digital City.
Unfortunately, in the segments BioWare demoed behind closed doors for us, all that inventive, involved gameplay is buried under uptight, wooden characterizations of medieval characters that seem to be trying to do Shakespeare in the Park, or at least the dated, stagy delivery of an old fantasy film.Curse.com.
The problem (and it's an industry wide one) is that while movies eventually evolved a more naturalistic acting style during the 1950s (in films such as On the Waterfront), most video games have never been able to make that leap -- instead of Marlon Brando, they're still doing Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn.
One of the more appealing features of the game is the highly advanced combat system that not only allows you to swap different members in and out of your party, but also to set a virtually ENDLESS amount of tactical preferences. For example, if you're exploring with a healer, a mage, a warrior and a rogue, and you want to take charge of the warrior; you can actually set the tactics for the healer and mage to back you up; and give the rogue orders to defend or attack the enemy also. That's the quick version, there's some really in-depth options and a very high level of customization in the combat process. One of the most appealing things in the tactical combat options is setting "if statements" for how your party members should react to certain situations. For example, lets say you want your healer to heal any party member once they hit 30% of their health, just set that rule in the tactics menu and the AI will make it happen. You're able to make tactical decisions in pause mode, which gives you, the player, a great opportunity to really plan out your defenses and attacks without feeling rushed or doomed if you take too long to come up with a suitable plan.
