I don’t often talk about games on this blog, but I’m feeling rather compelled to lately. Over the past week, I’ve been completely engrossed in an RPG called Dragon Age: Origins. My family got a copy of the game for me back during Christmas, but I did not really get into the game until just recently. I’m not sure whether that is because all of the hype around the game was a little too much for me or if it was because the game did not run optimally on my old desktop (it would run, just not at full force), but whatever was stopping me before does not bother me anymore. Killing Time
The gameplay is, simply put, a blast. It plays like some older games like Baldur’s Gate, but with some added nifitiness. You get quests, you run around with a party, you kill stuff, you get rewards… you know, the usual. What sets this game apart is that the story is very, very well thought-out and presented. Sure, the spells and abilities my characters can learn are neat, but that doesn’t match up to the in-depth approach to world building the game developers took. People often talk about world building in relation to novels, but I find it to be just as important in games, and Dragon Age has plenty of it. That is all not to mention how damn great the game looks!
Am I behind the times with this game? Yeah, possibly. My gaming buddies that read this might just look at me with dispair and wonderment at how it is I’ve come to play a game that is *gasp* almost a year old now! It even has mulitple add-on adventures and a full fledged expansion, all of which I plan on working my way through at some point. But I’ve really never been one to jump on games the day they come out. The hassle of finding a copy is usually too much for me to bother, and all the constant chatter about the game tends to make me less interested for some reason. In any case, I’m enjoying the game now and am very much looking forward to all the add-on content and the upcoming sequel!
3 comments:
I also picked up Dragon Age fairly late. My reasoning was rather that a game that needs to make such excessive use of blood and gore cannot be anything else but shite. But I was wrong, the game really rocks. The expansions and DLCs are not always good, some have great story while others basically just deliver imba gear for free, like the Armor of King Cailan in the Ostagar DLC. Leliana's Song is said to be nice, and Warden's Keep adds some nice extra functionality to the game. All for a price, of course.
I'll have to do some research on the DLC then. I snagged Warden's Keep and one other came with the game. I already ran WK, which was fun but seemed a bit short, although it seemed like I can come back later and get more from it?
Leliana's song does look interesting, but the Darkspawn one doesn't draw me in at all. I tend to play morally nuetral, but generally good characters, and can occasionally enjoy playing "evil," but being a Darkspawn just doesn't draw me in at all.
Although, it does annoy the piss out of me that the game has to verify the DLC with the server everytime I try to play the game. It adds another 30 seconds or so to my "desktop to in-game" time. It doesn't annoy me enough to quit playing this character, mind you, but may make me consider how to purchase DLC next time around. Maybe a compilation disc?
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