Aion Stuff

WARNING: This is the pussified version(the original version got rejected because it was too long[game reviews are only allowed maximum 2 pages],contained too much offensive language and side-tracking BS,as it was written with RPG Codexer mode on)so it might not be interesting to read.

From Bioware, the creator of many critical acclaim and commercially successful role-playing games such as the Baldur’s gate series,Neverwinter Nights,SWKOTOR,Jade Empire,Mass effect.Dragon Age : Origins has attracted much attention from both media and gamers since it was announced at E3 2004.The game was said by Bioware to be a return to the classic RPGs genre(BGs,NWN) and marketed itself as a dark fantasy game and a spiritual sequel to the Baldur’s gate series.

Gameplay:

At the start of the game,you’re given 3 races to choose from : Human,Dwarf,Elf.One of the new aspect of the game is depending on your race you can choose your origin which will determine the start of your game and also some small changes in dialogue later after you’ve done the prologue.There’re 6 origins: Human noble,Dwarf commoner,Dwarf Noble,City Elf,Dalish Elf,and if you choose to play as a mage you start out with the mage origin regardless of your race.The game has 3 basic classes to choose: Warrior,Mage,Rogue.Each class itself has several talent trees to to develope your character.For example Warrior has weapon and shield for tanking(for non-mmorpgers,this means taking damage for your party members while they destroy the enemies),two handed for damage dealing,etc….Also each class has 4 specializations that you’ll be able to unlock during the course of your adventure,which’ll give you a small but important talent tree.Character creation is very similar to mass effect.you’ll be able to choose from a number of preset hair styles,facial hair,eye shapes,skin color,tatooes,genders,potraits,voices,your name….etc….While the character creation in Dragon Ages is a slight improvement to Mass effect,it’s still fairly shallow to recently released games like Oblivion,Fallout 3,Champions Online,Aion,etc…There’re also 8 skills : Coeircion,Stealing,Trap-making,Herbalism,Poison-making,Combat Training,Tactics(which set characters behavior in combat,the higher the skill is,the more slots you have)

The combat system has been changed greatly and simplified from the DnD games.Combats is now 100% real time,you’re no longer bounded by the DnD combat rule set and now feel very similar to MMORPGs game,combat skills now use stamina(mana for mages) and have different cooldowns(waiting time till the skills can be used again),and another mechanic taken from MMORPG: the threat mechanic(the enemies will attack the character that has the most threat on them).This might anger the DnD fanatics but personally I found this to be a welcoming change.

Unfortunately at times the game feel too much like a MMORPGs,from the quest marked npcs(which fortunately,can be turned off,because it kills the immersion) to more that half of the side quests are the standard mmorpg quest-style(kill a number of x get a number of y go to and talk to z)which are quite boring.The main quest itself is good and quite epic with some interesting puzzles although the fighting can get quite repeative(Deep roads) and relies too much on scripted events.The C&C(Choices and Consequences) in this game is like other Bioware games,fairly shallow.About 80% of the choices you make are just flavour choices,and most of the times usually end with the same outcome.

Most of the previews said that the game would be quite difficult.But personally,I found the game to be fairly easy even with the enemy level scaling system and on Nightmare(and if you play a Mage,then Nightmare become a bad joke).Most of the fights can be done easily using standard MMORPG tactics.Party members are auto-resurrected after they get killed in the fights,althought they’ll get some debuffs which can be removed with injury kits,just be careful you’ll rarely get killed.Plus potions are so plentiful in this game,and because when you drink one,only that type of potion wil be on a short cooldown of 5 seconds(for example,if you drink a lesser health poultice,only lesser health poultices would be on cooldown,the other health poultices type like "health poultices","greater health poultices" would not be on cooldown) so you can spam potions as much as you lke to your heart’s content.The enemies AI is also like the standard MMORPG mob AI,worse actually,at least some MMORPG mobs know how to run away and alert the others ,the enemies AI in DAO are just so heroic they don’t even care about doing those things even when they’re on their last legs and their friends are in a room just 2 meters away from them.There’re some quite challenging enemies in the game thought for example ogres and bosses but they can’t even be compared to your worst enemy : Your party members AI.The warriors have the tendency to change to the wrong stances,run off to the enemies against your orders,get themselves killed in the progress and if they’re tank you might as well hit the reload key and go get some cold drink to cool down the rage.The mages have the tendency to burn through their mana faster than Daniel Plainviews can drink your milkshakes,but the worst thing is : they’re ok with friendly fire and usually blow up the whole party along with the enemies into oblivion.The tactics system is not very useful because it is extremely unreliable,you should better off turn off the party AI and do everything manually yourself,although the absence of the queue actions feature make it quite annoying.Also the game put your party members together when the dialogues kick in even when they have nothing to say,this sometimes make the situtations harder than they have to be.

The class balancing in this game is very poor,to say the least.Mages are stupidly overpowered.Warrior is pretty ok if you want to develope them as damage dealer but there’s a problem if you want develope them as tanks : you needs strenght to wear better armor(and the strenght requirement is usually very high),so you either have a tough tank(high consitution) with paper armor or a tank with excellent armor but empty inside.Rogues are practically worthless in this game.they share 2 talent trees with Warriors,deal a bit more damage but far squishier than Warriors,far inferior crowd control abilities and damage dealing capabilities to Mages.They can pick locks on chests for extra stuffs and some non important doors,but then if you put point into lockpicking instead of combat skills,then their damage dealing capabilities will be lowered significantly.You can use them scouting I suppose but then again most enemies are shown on your minimap,you can just bust in to see what kind of enemies there then hit the reload key with the same effectiveness.They also have skills to make your party member deal more damage to the target and stuffs,but then again there’re better substitutions,like a crowd controller or someone who can deal sufficient damage and doesn’t get himself squashed in the first 5 seconds of the fight.

Story and Setting:

Bioware marketed Dragon Age as a "Dark fantasy" game with "Dark mature gritty" atmostphere.But personally after finishing this game I can compare DAO setting to a 6 years kid trying be a matured adult by taking a deep inhale off his daddy’s cheap cigarette and then cough his lungs out.That means : DAO failed miserably to be a "Dark gritty mature" "Dark fantasy" setting.Bioware tried so hard rip off the old DnD and Tolkien,even ripped a bit off The Witcher and then mix them together,and the result is a teenage girl/boy with a set of small ****, 4 centimeters nyerk and one testicle.#@$ and violence don’t automatically make a setting "dark gritty mature".DAO setting feels pretty much like a standard DnD game but Bioware tried to make it "Dark gritty mature" by adding a lot of blood,a bit of gore and some **** into it.The violence in this game is ridiculous: you loot a body,that body would get turned into a pile of bones and blood,melee fighters’d get blood stuck on their whole bodies(although mages for reason don’t),and the blood persist.This can get quite annoying but also can be a source for some quite humourous-looking dialogues(personally,watching my group talking to some civilians after they’ve just taken their bloodbath like nothing happened has never failed to make me chuckle).Fortunately,blood persistence can be turned off in the op menu,but then DAO will lose half of it "dark mature gritty" atmostphere.I’m not going to talk about #@$ here,but I can only warn you : messing around in the brothel can scar you for life.

Story (Spoiler Warning):

As said before,the origin you chose indicate how you start.After a series misfortunes/asskicking,etc w/e all end with you conscripted by Duncan into the Grey Warden to fight the Darkspawns which are threatening Ferelden. Things go smoothly till suddenly everything goes horribly wrong,the battle is lost,the king got killed,because there’s a traitor in their mist.Now the traitor is in charge and you along with other Grey Wardens are wanted for treason and now must go and find help from several places : Arl Eamon,the Dwarves of Orzammar,the Dalish elves,everyone of them has their own troubles and to recruit their help you must solve them.Sound quite exciting for newcomers and so familiar for RPG Veterans isn’t it?(Yes David Gaider’s just copy/pasted everything from his earlier games again).(End spoiler)

Fortunately,DAO make up for it’s predictable and cliche story by giving a very detailed and fairly interesting companion cast.Each companion has his/her own story,their own quest.They talk to each other,react differently on different situations,your action can gain/lose you their approval rating and even cause them to leave or rebel against you .There’re 4 romanceable companions in the game : Morrigan for male,Alistair for female,Leliana and Zevra for both genders(yep,I’m not lying).

Graphic and Sound:

Technically,while inferior to Mass Effect,DAO’s graphic for the most part is good and run well even on low system.The game has fairly detailed graphic,very good gfx,althought the excessive bloom can tire your eyes a bit.The animations are excellent(especially in combat)….until dialogues.When in dialogues the characters look like they’re trying to express their emotions through a rubber mask although couple with the persistence blood this can lead to some hilarities(especially with dwarven characters look downright retarded).The lyp-synching is just bad for a 2009 game,beaten even by GTA SA,Doom 3 and Half life 2.Others technical shortcomings include small maps,frequent and long loading times.Artistically,the game looks very generic and uninspiring from the terrain to armor designs but make up for it by interesting monster designs which sadly I am not allowed to post.

Personally,I have mixed feeling about the sound in this game.While the sound effects are good enough to make you feel you’re in the battle yourself,the soundtracks in the game is at best forgettable and at worst,bad.The voice acting while inferior to older bioware games is still surprisingly good and better that most games out there and fit their characters quite well (althought,there’re still some bad voice actings for example Leliana).

The end

Despite in some aspects DAO did not live up to Baldur’s gate series.Dragon Age : Origins is still the best RPG Bioware’s released after Baldur’s Gate 2 TOB and the best RPG released in the last 5 years.This game is a must have a rpg newcomers and worth a look for RPG veterans.Plus with the toolset come with the game,who know what the community will come up with?Maybe some genius will recreate the classic masterpieces like the BGs games?Ah,I can’t wait till then!

Gameplay:7.5
Graphic:7.5
Story:7
Sound:7

Overall:7.25

Could have been better but there’re some expressions I found it to be hard to translate to English.

If you guys want I can translate the original version(the one I wrote with RPG Codexer mode on when I have time