Dragon Age: Origins Previews
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First up is GameSpy:
At worst, the origin stories in Dragon Age are just a shade removed from a character class, affording not much more than a unique intro and a few altered dialog sequences. At best, they'll shape the way NPCs react to you, closing off entire scenarios for characters of certain backgrounds while opening up others. The scenario demonstrated on Friday revolved around a village under siege from undead. The city's "Arl" (which I'm assuming is Dragon Age for "earl") is locked away in his castle, leaving the player character to deal with an interlocutor. Laidlaw mentioned offhand that since the player character was of the "Noble Human Warrior" archetype, he outranks the gentry that inhabit this backwater, which will make the act of saving the town much more expedient than if he was, say, a marginalized elf. Is that evidence that origins count for something, beyond the first few hours?
Then we have GameShark:
Rogue characters, once behind an enemy, will automatically begin backstabbing (even if some of the ones I witnessed could better be referred to as (headstabbing)). This will, obviously, increase damage. Not to be left out, archers can take advantage of terrain, but at the same time have to have a clear line of sight. In the final fighting area of the battle, some archers were sent to the back, to stand atop steps, while they picked enemies off from over barricades. Due to their advantage in height, they could see and shoot the enemies; but the enemies couldn't retaliate. And, with the pincushion effect of arrows, a few mowed-down bad guys make for a really awesome looking pile of dead bodies.
Followed by Ars Technica:
Combat itself was shown to be involved, featuring some fast-paced action that would have been a little confusing if it weren't for the color-differentiation that springs up during battles: allies have a blue ring around them, enemies get a red one. While the traditional combat classes were utilized as would be expected, we were shown how spells and abilities will be able to be combined for devastating effects.
The two examples were an "earthquake" spell, which knocked all the enemies down, combined with an "indominatable" ability, which prevented the character from being knocked down at all; the end result was an area where only one person could stand upright and move freely. Shortly after that, we were shown how the "Cold of Cone" spell could be combined with the "Stone Fist" ability to freeze enemies and then instantly shatter them. Wizards will also have the ability to enchant weapons so they provide extra bonuses in combat.
