Dragon Age: Origins E3 Preview
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Naturally, Dragon Age: Origins looks impressive with strong lighting and architecture, and there's a slew of talking and plot and exposition, but we're sorry. Sorry because the plight of the Blight and the Shrek-inspired Prince Charming-esque king does not concern us until we're sitting down to spend the next 200 days living it. For demo purposes, we want to know what you've done to make this the latest and greatest. So picture Neverwinter Nights, but a lot prettier. Pause and play has come along as well, allowing you to pause any time and move the 3D camera around to witness spectacular feats, like the blood spurt from a Blight Hurlock (not to be confused with Jeff Hurlock, a one-time videographer buddy of ours).
Combat plays out in real-time between pauses, and we're told the ally AI is competent, though we did see them running straight into some fire that we cast (we have faith the developers will fix this before release). Characters have a utility bar with powers on them, a la World of Warcraft so you can trigger Berserk rages or Shield Bashes. What's really cool about Dragon Age: Origins is its spell combo system which allows you to cast spells on one another. In the example shown to us, a mage casts Grease on the floor, creating a puddle of the flammable substance which we then flame on with a fireball. Earlier, after a trap set off a fire pit in front of us, our mage cast Blizzard and extinguished the flames. This will lead to a lot of experimentation by players, and seems like a really fun new element for a game of this type.
