After four weeks of waiting, my Asian copy of Dragon Age: Origins finally arrived at my doorstep.
First of all, I was very glad to learn it actually works on my PAL Xbox. Secondly, it seems like a pretty good game.
I started off the game as a rogue Dalish elf (after spending ages having fun with the character creator). And just to be authentic, I decided that I would make my character use bows (if I'm playing a LotR ripoff, I might as well play a LotR ripoff).
The first thing I noticed was the rather drab visuals. To some degree I understand making a washed out world in first person shooters, but why in an RPG? An RPG is supposed to make you want to explore its world, and I don't get particularly excited about the prospect of a perpetual overcast.
The origin story I played wasn't really a revelation. It boiled down to "Go into a cave, find a mirror, wake up two days later, find the mirror again, join the Grey Wardens". I was expecting something amazing considering how the origin stories were hyped up, but it was a decent enough introduction. The dialogue is pretty good and the voice acting is alright, though the characters all have that uncanny valley quality to them so common in modern RPGs. I have taken a bit of an interest in actually reading the extensive library catalogue the game seems to collect on every person, place, animal and item, which are all reasonably well written.
The gameplay was exactly what I expected: incomprehensible to me. I've never been a big fan of PC RPGs so I've not had much practice in the ways of stat building. I spent ages in the character creation trying to figure out which statistics went where and what I wanted to do with my character. I've never much liked that you have to choose exactly what you want your character to be before you even get a chance to play the game in this sort of RPG.
Apparently the archer tends to get better as the game goes along. As it stands, I've spent all my battles running away from things. It's just my attempt at trying a character class that involves more than just rushing towards a monster and beating it to death.
I've only played for about an hour and a half, but so far I'm not regretting my purchase. It looks like a fun game, and possibly the most extensively catalogued world I have ever seen outside of Lord of the Rings.
Aigis - Putting the 'ai' back in 'Aigis'.
