Dragon Age Origins (Xbox 360 Version)
Platforms Xbox 360, PS3 and PC
Platforms Xbox 360, PS3 and PC
Created by Bioware
Published by EA
Overview:
The game Dragon Age Origins tells the tale of the fictitious land of Ferrelden which is plagued by creatures called Darkspawn. These creatures where created via man's greed and every few hundred years the Darkspawn come to the surface to try and take over the world in what the topsiders call a "Blight". You take control of a character you create and become a Grey Warden to try and defeat the blight. You have several creation choices to choose from including Human which can become a warrior, a mage or a rogue; an Elf which can become the same and a Dwarf which can become a warrior and rogue. Then those choices are further divided into other choices. Can your character defeat the Blight or is Ferrelden destined to become over ran by Darkspawn?
Gameplay
The gameplay is one of DA: O strong points basically all Bioware RPGs are modeled after the action RPG genre in which you don't take turns doing attacks. You can map your attacks to X (Square for PS3 version I assume) Y (Triangle for PS3 I again assume) and B (O for PS3 I again assume). These are your special abilities and by default you can press the A button to do your basic attack (X button for the PS3 version I would assume). During combat you can hold down the Left Trigger to bring up the radial menu where you can select your inventory, do a quick heal or assign tactics to your party members as well as cast spells or abilities you don't have mapped out. You can have up to four party members at a time and there are several different party members to get including Alistair a templar (warrior), a Morrigan a witch (aka a mage) who specializes in shape shifting, Wynne a healer (again a mage type), Sten a Quannari warrior, a dog which you can name and it acts as a warrior. Finally there are two Rouge bard type classes, a bard and a thief. With day one DLC they had a golem party member. For the most part the AI is pretty competent but other times you have to select them in combat and do heal them or else they'll end up dying. Overall I give the gameplay an 8.5/10
Graphics
This is where the game takes a nose dive the only bad thing about the game is the graphics. They can be distracting but once you get further into the game they grow on you. The reason for the graphics being so bad is the game was started shortly after Bioware's Jade Empire game and it was originally supposed to be a PC game that came out shortly afterwards. By the time it was switched over to a 360 and PS3 game too much work had gone into it to create a new engine. The main complaint is the textures which on the 360 (the worst version for graphics) looked muddled some look like last gen graphics. Cut scenes are well done and show up quite an improvement from in game graphics but overall this is the games downfall. 6.5/10
Sound
Sadly I haven't been able to play the game in a nice surround so-so I don't know how well it does that but the games sound from the TV speakers is great another strong part for the game. Sound also covers the soundtrack which is one of the most amazing scores I've ever heard thankfully the CE comes with a soundtrack so I'll be putting this on the iPod for sure. Excellent stuff here, defiantly a highlight of the game. 9/10
Content
This category I'll talk about the story as well as lasting appeal. The story as paraphrased in the overview is about you trying to stop the Blight from happening. It has a slow start but then again all Bioware RPGs start off slow but once you get into the meat of the game Bioware has crafted yet another masterpiece in RPG gaming one that's sure to please fans of the genre. There's enough side quest and stuff to do to get you to play through a few times and plus the game supports DLC to help keep it fresh. 9.5/10
Overall 8.4
Pros
-Excellent story
-Enough content to keep you busy for awhile (my first play through I had over 30 vested in the game)
-Great controls
Cons
-Graphics could be better (only con I can think of)
The game Dragon Age Origins tells the tale of the fictitious land of Ferrelden which is plagued by creatures called Darkspawn. These creatures where created via man's greed and every few hundred years the Darkspawn come to the surface to try and take over the world in what the topsiders call a "Blight". You take control of a character you create and become a Grey Warden to try and defeat the blight. You have several creation choices to choose from including Human which can become a warrior, a mage or a rogue; an Elf which can become the same and a Dwarf which can become a warrior and rogue. Then those choices are further divided into other choices. Can your character defeat the Blight or is Ferrelden destined to become over ran by Darkspawn?
Gameplay
The gameplay is one of DA: O strong points basically all Bioware RPGs are modeled after the action RPG genre in which you don't take turns doing attacks. You can map your attacks to X (Square for PS3 version I assume) Y (Triangle for PS3 I again assume) and B (O for PS3 I again assume). These are your special abilities and by default you can press the A button to do your basic attack (X button for the PS3 version I would assume). During combat you can hold down the Left Trigger to bring up the radial menu where you can select your inventory, do a quick heal or assign tactics to your party members as well as cast spells or abilities you don't have mapped out. You can have up to four party members at a time and there are several different party members to get including Alistair a templar (warrior), a Morrigan a witch (aka a mage) who specializes in shape shifting, Wynne a healer (again a mage type), Sten a Quannari warrior, a dog which you can name and it acts as a warrior. Finally there are two Rouge bard type classes, a bard and a thief. With day one DLC they had a golem party member. For the most part the AI is pretty competent but other times you have to select them in combat and do heal them or else they'll end up dying. Overall I give the gameplay an 8.5/10
Graphics
This is where the game takes a nose dive the only bad thing about the game is the graphics. They can be distracting but once you get further into the game they grow on you. The reason for the graphics being so bad is the game was started shortly after Bioware's Jade Empire game and it was originally supposed to be a PC game that came out shortly afterwards. By the time it was switched over to a 360 and PS3 game too much work had gone into it to create a new engine. The main complaint is the textures which on the 360 (the worst version for graphics) looked muddled some look like last gen graphics. Cut scenes are well done and show up quite an improvement from in game graphics but overall this is the games downfall. 6.5/10
Sound
Sadly I haven't been able to play the game in a nice surround so-so I don't know how well it does that but the games sound from the TV speakers is great another strong part for the game. Sound also covers the soundtrack which is one of the most amazing scores I've ever heard thankfully the CE comes with a soundtrack so I'll be putting this on the iPod for sure. Excellent stuff here, defiantly a highlight of the game. 9/10
Content
This category I'll talk about the story as well as lasting appeal. The story as paraphrased in the overview is about you trying to stop the Blight from happening. It has a slow start but then again all Bioware RPGs start off slow but once you get into the meat of the game Bioware has crafted yet another masterpiece in RPG gaming one that's sure to please fans of the genre. There's enough side quest and stuff to do to get you to play through a few times and plus the game supports DLC to help keep it fresh. 9.5/10
Overall 8.4
Pros
-Excellent story
-Enough content to keep you busy for awhile (my first play through I had over 30 vested in the game)
-Great controls
Cons
-Graphics could be better (only con I can think of)
No comments:
Post a Comment