My silence lately is actually because I’m absorbed in Dragon Age: Origins. I haven’t quite finished my first playthrough, but I’m getting pretty close so I figured I might as well put some thoughts out there.
Naturally, when Bioware makes an RPG, expectations run pretty high. With Baldur’s Gate, Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights, and Mass Effect in their pedigree, it’s hard not to get excited about their latest title. Even adjusting for that, though, I do wonder if it’s living up to the hype.
I can’t fault the game visually. Even though I’m no expert on 3D design or animation, the complexity of the environments, huge draw distances, and great character animations have kept me immersed for countless hours. The sound design is likewise atmospheric — I spent an hour going through a haunted house and jumping at every creaking floorboard.
Nonetheless, it’s the worldbuilding, storytelling and dialogue that I place more importance on… and where Dragon Age leaves me feeling flat.
One would think that after years of working on this game, Bioware could have come up with something other than the traditional Humans/Elves/Dwarves trio. The fantasy-consuming public are capable of absorbing a different set of races. Likewise, I’m a little over the cookie-cutter approach that they seem to have taken to designing party members.
Also, despite protestations that this game is “dark fantasy”, I’m not sure that the inclusion of demonic forces, undead, and blood letting to make Wes Craven proud really make it dark. I admit this may just be hypercritical, but I was expecting something a little more… creepy.
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‘Tar Markvar’, a Bioware employee who hangs around RPG.net was involved in Dragon Age. Apparantly, the use of elves, dwarves etc was for marketing reasons, to appeal to a mainstream video game audience. (This also suggests that the reason we don’t have a Jade Empire sequel yet is that the Chinese fantasy setting wasn’t ‘familiar’ enough to a Western audience to gain a great deal of market share. I also know that Planescape: Torment, while quirky and well-written, didn’t do very well, sales-wise.)
However, Mr Markvar also believes that they did a fair bit of work to make the elven and dwarven cultures in DA stand out and make them different from mainstream elves and dwarves (one of his comments is here:http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=11157624&postcount=814)
How did the elves/dwarves etc stand-up culturally and interest-wise compared to their cousins in Oblivion?
(I’d like to offer more than an opinion of an opinion, but I haven’t played DA yet! I plan for it to be my next big game after Fallout 3.)
I find this post more telling.
I guess I can’t fault them for achieving their financially-motivated design goals. He also rightly points out:
If you can’t please everyone, you please yourself, and you please the larger group. It’s sad that some people might miss out on a game they’ll love because they think, “The elves aren’t different enough,” but them’s the breaks.
At the end of the day, I can get my non-elf elves from novels and RPGs. It’s not really a deal breaker. I just think that a lot of hype went into setting DA up as “new” and “cutting edge”, and it’s not really living up to it.
Oh well, I’m enjoying it. But my requirements are probably less than you, as I don’t play many computer games.
Oliver
@Oliver: Don’t get me wrong – I’m having fun with it. It’s just at a “Wheel of Time” level of fun instead of a “Lord of the Rings” level of fun.
(Ok, I know that’s subjective, but Tolkien built a far more imaginative and consistent world)