1) The story.
This is Bioware at its best. Drama, action, humor, some tough decisions, a dash of tragedy, lots of blood...on my face! It's all in there.
2) The characters.
Bioware excels at this as well. The humor is there. The emotion is there. I actually feel something for these characters and care what happens to them.
3) The voice acting.
The voice acting is superb. Star Trek alumns Dwight "Barclay" Schultz and Kate "Janeway" Mulgrew are instantly recognizable and really shine here. I swear Schultz must be the hardest working man in VG voice acting today. I hear him pop up all over (Oblivion, The Darkness, Riddick, even ME). Claudia Black, who most will remember as Aeryn Sun from Farscape, also turns in a notable performance as Morrigan. Whoever works casting for Bware definately gets major kudos for this.
4) The sound.
Battle sounds, atmospheric sounds (the larder quest) etc etc all are very well done and really contribute to the experience. The music. Not too over the top, nor is it really outstanding. It just fits.
5) The leveling system (skills and spells).
Nothing stellar here but its fleshed-out enough to make it interesting. (I would've liked to have seen a basic lock-opening spell, though. Very annoying to have to be a rogue to open chests in my own home.)
Things I don't like:
1) The bugs.
Crouching Cutscene, Hidden Helmet. Trivial, sure, but something so glaring can detract from the realism and yank you right of the story. Most of the other bugs (clipping issues, various graphical glitches, AI issues, pathfinding issues, and the already beaten to death Dex/dagger debacle) are minor but still should never had made it past the testers. Just makes the game feel like it lacks polish. Speaking of polish, I'll talk about the graphics last.
2) Targetting or lack thereof.
Not adding a 'target next enemy' key is just plain lazy. In the heat of battle I shouldn't have to pause the game and rotate the camera so a sword icon appears on an enemy that allows me to click to attack it and then unpause. Why was this feature not offered? Many times my allies are grouped so tightly together either the enemy dies before I even have a chance to engage or at least one ally dies while I'm frantically trying. Do the console versions have a 'target next' or 'auto-target' feature?
3) The combat.
I simultaneously love and hate the combat in this game. I think what they were aiming for was a conglomeration of turn-based and real-time ala KOTOR. Now, KOTOR pulled this off because you could pause and queue up to 4 actions and then let it play out. This version just fails IMO. I can pause and then...queue 1 action...? Wha? How did this happen? Some of the most exciting battles are completely overshadowed by this awful implementation. The battles are exciting though. Some of the finishing moves and animations are very well done. I especially like the Legolas-style dagger flourish moves.
4) The combat tactics system.
We can argue about this all day, but the fact is it's broken. At the very least it's buggy. I've lost track of how many times I've put allies on 'passive' or 'defensive' only to watch them charge into combat and get slaughtered or else just stand beside me doing nothing while I'm getting pummeled. It gets very tedious constantly pausing the game and switching characters to focus everyone on my target. I finally got an acceptable outcome by switching to aggressive and then putting everyone back on default. They seem to stay close to me and attack what I'm attacking unless a ranged mob intervenes. I'm not touching it again lest they start running around in circles. I don't remember having this problem in ME.
5) The graphics.
I'm on the fence about the graphics. Dated? Yes. Bad? Not by any means. Sure ME which came out 2 years ago looks better than this, but still the character models/skins look great. The armor and weapons look great. (Although I'm not sure what's up with that grinning hellbeast beside me that I named 'Jed'. That thing is just disturbing. Part rhino, part Sherman tank, part pitt bull? Many laughs have been had when he shows up "smiling" at the camera during a cutscene.) Anyway... Backgrounds? Eh. I've seen posts slamming the devs for low quality textures, terrain issues, distance issues yada yada. I'm not really too bothered by this. I cranked up the AF to 8x in the NVIDIA CP and that helped a little. I don't play RPGs for eye candy. It's not Crysis Quest, afterall. I'm not playing this game for the neat water effects. By the same token though I know Bioware is capable of a lot more.
Overall I would have to give the game a 9/10. Despite its flaws it is a solid, fun RPG with great action, characters, and story. Any game that makes me lose track of time by completely immersing me in it bears the mark of a great game in my opinion. Dragon Age does this better than most. This is all opinion. Thanks for reading.
Modifié par Rorshirk, 09 novembre 2009 - 01:15 .
Retour en haut
