circ
Arcane
I'm not reviewing everything at once as I gotta go buy shit from a store right now.
Starting off, installing takes a while, but whatever. My comp is shit, so I start off with low settings, but it looks so fucking bad I switch to medium. Seems to be well optimized as it runs just fine. Loading times are pretty hefty however.
I tried out the char gen before the game was released but not much, now that I have, it's pretty damn basic, on par with the one in Mass Effect. No particularly innovative hair styles or facial archetypes, but whatever. I settle on a blondie female human warrior noble (because I can't do a convincing Red Sonja) and pick some two handed weapon skills.
There are a bunch of cutscenes which I skip through. Story is supposed to suck and I'm a modern reviewer. My dad(?) who appears to be the king talks with some bearded guy who is apparently this Duncan asshole. Well, my dad starts off calling me pup. I wish there was an option to chop his head off, that's insulting. I insult the new guest as best I can and dad is pissed. He wants me to go fetch my bro, so off we go. Somewhere along the way some redhead guy joins me.
Impressions so far. Music is some kind of lowkey Enya rip-off that doesn't make any impression at all. Graphics are surprsingly cartoony, and barely better than NWN 1. Colors are horrendous, and I have to wonder how the artists put this stuff together without getting a migraine. Char animations are bad and puppet-like and lip syncing is badly off.
On the way to my bro I run into some nobles, one of which seems to be my mom. Hi mom. Dialogue options so far don't seem to do much difference really, sometimes people don't even react to the completely indifferent or douchebag choices. Anyhow, I piss off my mom, some old hag and a possible suiter. Mom seems to want me to go fetch my dog, as if I wasn't some princess and as if I should give a fuck about a dog. Where are my servants? Noble my ass. Voice acting is better than I thought actually, I'm not terribly put off by the ameringlish either. Just that the voices don't fit the characters at all. Oh well.
First railroading ensues, so I go off to the kitchen for my dog. COMBAT.
Ok, this is the supposed saving grace of DA: O. So does it change my quick impressions at all? Not really. Apparently mid-sized rats bleed a shitload, and somehow even though most of the blood ends up on the ground, I get a showered in blood. My redhead, and most likely gay companion says something about something insignificant as if he didn't just shower in blood. Cute. Ok so how's the combat? I can't really tell. I clicked (right clicked weird) on a rat and apparently killed it and got some XP. I stand there doing shit until a rat hits me, after which I auto attack it. I can't really tell what my groupmate is doing as the view is kind of screwed up. But no matter, I killed six or so rats with no probs. Oh also before combat the tutorial wanted me to strip into my underwear. Nice touch, and perhaps a preview of things to come? So far everyone's been pretty damn ugly and I haven't wanted to fuck anyone. Maybe mom.
So yeah, so far, worse than mediocre and gaiz, this is difficult combat/excellent dialogue/whatever? Really? No. I'll continue playing after I get done shopping.
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So far I've managed to piss off some that praised DA: O earlier, so I must be doing something right. And no Volourn, I don't expect to get a concise impression from the first fight as to how the combat is, but eh, animations, POV, char presence on the battlefield am disappoint so far. Sorry. Ok 50 mins to get to the store. Later!
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Let's continue shall we. To whomever asked what I bought, I got toilet paper (was on sale), a big bottle of coke, some exotic fruits, smokes. On the way back some kids had spilled copious amounts of low grade beer on the subway floor. I don't mind. I do mind when it's low grade though. Kids, if you're going to be manly or whatever and drink at 14 or 15 or however old you are, drink something with some bite in it, even if it's beer. The point is to get drunk, not pee a lot.
I'll start off with some nitpicks and miscellanea. On the way I thought about how bad the graphics in DA actually are, and I came to the conclusion that they're somewhere between NWN 1 and Jade Empire. That's right, JE, not ME. They are that bad. Graphics at low in ME look better than graphics on high in DA. So.. what's the new shit part about? This certainly doesn't sound or look like something made in 2009. Ah well.
To those who think I am being unbiased because of preconceived notions about DA; this is not the case. I set aside any previous critique hoping to have some fun with the combat or whatever else the good parts were, but I was disappointed.
Anyhow, the story continues. I find my bro, and apparently his wife and we talk about pointless stuff, or well, he's supposed to go off to fight the Darkspawn or something. The wife says something about something and at one point I say I like gangbangs, with 3 men. This is apparently medieval small talk. There's also something about wenches. Well, ladeda, I'm done apparently and get to go to sleep. Some horrendous screaming later I awake and wouldn't you know it, people attack in the night. Cliche, but let's roll with it! Mom comes along and the dog, whom I named Assraper is with me also. Oh and, I'm not sure what kinds of dogs the BioWare guys have, or whatever, because this is the most fucked up dog I've ever seen.
Anyway, more combat YAAAAAAAARGH. I thought killing a few rats would not give a good view of the combat, but actually it does. This is WoW ladies and gents. I'm not sure how this is considered exciting. I click on an enemy, maybe press a hotkey so that the mob slides... unrealistically and dummy-like to the floor, and proceed to kill him dead. At one point I find a two handed sword, and it appears in DA, swords are fucking HUGE LOL! A longsword is the size of a normal two handed sword, with a dildo for a handle, and a two handed sword is like a... telephone pole. It handles about the same too. Anyway, for largely hack and slash combat despite what some might say, it looks pretty awful. It's slow and lazy, as if the characters were all held back with chains or ropes. And I appear to be just swinging my dick in the wind and completely forgetting to even try to block most of the time. Sure I'm wielding a big sword, but I'm wearing leather armor, surely I could swing a sword faster and more expertly than this. It's as if I'm drunk, which I don't think I am. And this is where this review ends. I might return to DA, but I think I'd rather play something engaging frankly, or watch porn.
Also, more on the blood. It's as if my opponents and I have unlimited reservoirs of blood or something. Huge dusty pools spill forth when you slash an enemy, and it's the same animation constantly. Gets pretty tiring to watch.
---------
This is the return, to the DA. Ok I tried a rogue, because people said it sucks, and as these same people have said how awesome DA is, wrongly, I figured hey, maybe they're wrong about rogue too. I played to the same point, aka, clearing the castle of Howe's guys, and then continued a little further.
Anyway, rogue isn't THAT bad. It's not THAT great either. You get to pick locks and pick pockets. I didn't test out stealing, but lock picking is pretty sad. There's not even an animation for picking, you just click the door, it says unlocked or something, you get some XP and the door swings open as normal. I kind of miss those stupid lockpick minigames now. But other than the extra XP, which can mount up to quite a bit, the stuff I found in chests is completely useless, even for extra cash early. Unless you like getting a bunch of reagents for traps and other such things.
Lots of killing follows. It's all still very WoW-like.
Then, Duncan makes a repeat appearance, and suddenly I'm drafted. People were miffed about the drafting, since the big D said he wouldn't try that shit, but I wasn't bothered. The shit hit the fan, and this is your way out, I don't see a problem with Duncan becoming your evil mentor. Also, Duncan's demeanor and Obi Wan voice is impressive. But that's all, everyone else seems botoxed or something, as there's BARELY any emotion visible in a single persons face.
More killing maybe? I forget, off we go to fight the Blight or something. Another area shows up, and some more railroad questing, and none of the areas so far are very inspiringly designed. I feel like I'm playing a modified Fable with groupmates and extremely downgraded graphics. I dispose of a bunch of Huloks? I forget and loot loot loot. Corpses transforming into skeletons is pretty silly also. I meet Morrigan, I think, some witch, and her mom. We talk and head back, and apparently along the way I found some flower some dog guy was looking for. My groupmates along the way seemed competent enough, but I didn't hear much banter, and other than the cliche fun loving rogue, they weren't interesting either. Though it saddens me that I won't get to get into Morrigans pants, or thinly veiled something or other, I don't think I missed much because it all looked so very bad. That's right, I said screw you Duncan, well I didn't really say it. It was more like screw you boring DA: O, and proceeded to uninstall.
And so, lets recap:
Graphics are truly bad, all over. There is certainly more detail in the textures than in say Mass Effect, but the colors clash horribly and the design of everything is ghastly. If you want a prettier 'RPG' to play, try The Witcher, or even ME, that sadly aren't The New Shit, but ah well.
Music and sound are ok, well sound anyway. As I said earlier, the music is not very inspiring, it's as if Inon was under some lethargic medication when composing. Some have called it Epic, but I would call it Lazy Epic. Epic writing down random notes when drunk. Sound effects are better, but strangely, with the lackluster graphics and music, they sound off; like a diamond in a pile of shit. VO varies from really bad to very good, but when the characters look and move as badly as they do, and with the lip syncing off, it turns into watching cardboard figures talk. Not a lot of fun.
Story and writing seems surprisingly good. But, there are moments where you just wonder if you're playing a fantasy 'RPG' or if you're replying to some very vulgar and uncouth teens on Twitter. And as I said before, some dialogue replies are as if you hadn't said anything at all and the one you were talking to just misheard you or something.
Gameplay well... This is maybe not what you want to hear fans of DA, but, this feels even less like an RPG than Mass Effect or BW's previous games. I talk a bunch with people, walk around, kill stuff in a WoW manner and get XP and put it into various hackneyed skills, but I'm not getting any kind of RPG feel out of it. Other than that, your character moves fairly fluidly, the menus are good, inventory looks good, but you'll probably want to play this at a fairly high resolution because it can get a little clunky in combat with the not perfectly designed interface.
I revoke my kodex kool kredits as I don't care. This is just an unfun game, and not even an RPG. I talked a lot of shit about it before playing it, but it's even worse up close. The only reason you should play it, but don't take it from me, would be to see the story to its conclusion, as I hear it's very very very very very long. But I stopped caring.
Starting off, installing takes a while, but whatever. My comp is shit, so I start off with low settings, but it looks so fucking bad I switch to medium. Seems to be well optimized as it runs just fine. Loading times are pretty hefty however.
I tried out the char gen before the game was released but not much, now that I have, it's pretty damn basic, on par with the one in Mass Effect. No particularly innovative hair styles or facial archetypes, but whatever. I settle on a blondie female human warrior noble (because I can't do a convincing Red Sonja) and pick some two handed weapon skills.
There are a bunch of cutscenes which I skip through. Story is supposed to suck and I'm a modern reviewer. My dad(?) who appears to be the king talks with some bearded guy who is apparently this Duncan asshole. Well, my dad starts off calling me pup. I wish there was an option to chop his head off, that's insulting. I insult the new guest as best I can and dad is pissed. He wants me to go fetch my bro, so off we go. Somewhere along the way some redhead guy joins me.
Impressions so far. Music is some kind of lowkey Enya rip-off that doesn't make any impression at all. Graphics are surprsingly cartoony, and barely better than NWN 1. Colors are horrendous, and I have to wonder how the artists put this stuff together without getting a migraine. Char animations are bad and puppet-like and lip syncing is badly off.
On the way to my bro I run into some nobles, one of which seems to be my mom. Hi mom. Dialogue options so far don't seem to do much difference really, sometimes people don't even react to the completely indifferent or douchebag choices. Anyhow, I piss off my mom, some old hag and a possible suiter. Mom seems to want me to go fetch my dog, as if I wasn't some princess and as if I should give a fuck about a dog. Where are my servants? Noble my ass. Voice acting is better than I thought actually, I'm not terribly put off by the ameringlish either. Just that the voices don't fit the characters at all. Oh well.
First railroading ensues, so I go off to the kitchen for my dog. COMBAT.
Ok, this is the supposed saving grace of DA: O. So does it change my quick impressions at all? Not really. Apparently mid-sized rats bleed a shitload, and somehow even though most of the blood ends up on the ground, I get a showered in blood. My redhead, and most likely gay companion says something about something insignificant as if he didn't just shower in blood. Cute. Ok so how's the combat? I can't really tell. I clicked (right clicked weird) on a rat and apparently killed it and got some XP. I stand there doing shit until a rat hits me, after which I auto attack it. I can't really tell what my groupmate is doing as the view is kind of screwed up. But no matter, I killed six or so rats with no probs. Oh also before combat the tutorial wanted me to strip into my underwear. Nice touch, and perhaps a preview of things to come? So far everyone's been pretty damn ugly and I haven't wanted to fuck anyone. Maybe mom.
So yeah, so far, worse than mediocre and gaiz, this is difficult combat/excellent dialogue/whatever? Really? No. I'll continue playing after I get done shopping.
--------
So far I've managed to piss off some that praised DA: O earlier, so I must be doing something right. And no Volourn, I don't expect to get a concise impression from the first fight as to how the combat is, but eh, animations, POV, char presence on the battlefield am disappoint so far. Sorry. Ok 50 mins to get to the store. Later!
--------
Let's continue shall we. To whomever asked what I bought, I got toilet paper (was on sale), a big bottle of coke, some exotic fruits, smokes. On the way back some kids had spilled copious amounts of low grade beer on the subway floor. I don't mind. I do mind when it's low grade though. Kids, if you're going to be manly or whatever and drink at 14 or 15 or however old you are, drink something with some bite in it, even if it's beer. The point is to get drunk, not pee a lot.
I'll start off with some nitpicks and miscellanea. On the way I thought about how bad the graphics in DA actually are, and I came to the conclusion that they're somewhere between NWN 1 and Jade Empire. That's right, JE, not ME. They are that bad. Graphics at low in ME look better than graphics on high in DA. So.. what's the new shit part about? This certainly doesn't sound or look like something made in 2009. Ah well.
To those who think I am being unbiased because of preconceived notions about DA; this is not the case. I set aside any previous critique hoping to have some fun with the combat or whatever else the good parts were, but I was disappointed.
Anyhow, the story continues. I find my bro, and apparently his wife and we talk about pointless stuff, or well, he's supposed to go off to fight the Darkspawn or something. The wife says something about something and at one point I say I like gangbangs, with 3 men. This is apparently medieval small talk. There's also something about wenches. Well, ladeda, I'm done apparently and get to go to sleep. Some horrendous screaming later I awake and wouldn't you know it, people attack in the night. Cliche, but let's roll with it! Mom comes along and the dog, whom I named Assraper is with me also. Oh and, I'm not sure what kinds of dogs the BioWare guys have, or whatever, because this is the most fucked up dog I've ever seen.
Anyway, more combat YAAAAAAAARGH. I thought killing a few rats would not give a good view of the combat, but actually it does. This is WoW ladies and gents. I'm not sure how this is considered exciting. I click on an enemy, maybe press a hotkey so that the mob slides... unrealistically and dummy-like to the floor, and proceed to kill him dead. At one point I find a two handed sword, and it appears in DA, swords are fucking HUGE LOL! A longsword is the size of a normal two handed sword, with a dildo for a handle, and a two handed sword is like a... telephone pole. It handles about the same too. Anyway, for largely hack and slash combat despite what some might say, it looks pretty awful. It's slow and lazy, as if the characters were all held back with chains or ropes. And I appear to be just swinging my dick in the wind and completely forgetting to even try to block most of the time. Sure I'm wielding a big sword, but I'm wearing leather armor, surely I could swing a sword faster and more expertly than this. It's as if I'm drunk, which I don't think I am. And this is where this review ends. I might return to DA, but I think I'd rather play something engaging frankly, or watch porn.
Also, more on the blood. It's as if my opponents and I have unlimited reservoirs of blood or something. Huge dusty pools spill forth when you slash an enemy, and it's the same animation constantly. Gets pretty tiring to watch.
---------
This is the return, to the DA. Ok I tried a rogue, because people said it sucks, and as these same people have said how awesome DA is, wrongly, I figured hey, maybe they're wrong about rogue too. I played to the same point, aka, clearing the castle of Howe's guys, and then continued a little further.
Anyway, rogue isn't THAT bad. It's not THAT great either. You get to pick locks and pick pockets. I didn't test out stealing, but lock picking is pretty sad. There's not even an animation for picking, you just click the door, it says unlocked or something, you get some XP and the door swings open as normal. I kind of miss those stupid lockpick minigames now. But other than the extra XP, which can mount up to quite a bit, the stuff I found in chests is completely useless, even for extra cash early. Unless you like getting a bunch of reagents for traps and other such things.
Lots of killing follows. It's all still very WoW-like.
Then, Duncan makes a repeat appearance, and suddenly I'm drafted. People were miffed about the drafting, since the big D said he wouldn't try that shit, but I wasn't bothered. The shit hit the fan, and this is your way out, I don't see a problem with Duncan becoming your evil mentor. Also, Duncan's demeanor and Obi Wan voice is impressive. But that's all, everyone else seems botoxed or something, as there's BARELY any emotion visible in a single persons face.
More killing maybe? I forget, off we go to fight the Blight or something. Another area shows up, and some more railroad questing, and none of the areas so far are very inspiringly designed. I feel like I'm playing a modified Fable with groupmates and extremely downgraded graphics. I dispose of a bunch of Huloks? I forget and loot loot loot. Corpses transforming into skeletons is pretty silly also. I meet Morrigan, I think, some witch, and her mom. We talk and head back, and apparently along the way I found some flower some dog guy was looking for. My groupmates along the way seemed competent enough, but I didn't hear much banter, and other than the cliche fun loving rogue, they weren't interesting either. Though it saddens me that I won't get to get into Morrigans pants, or thinly veiled something or other, I don't think I missed much because it all looked so very bad. That's right, I said screw you Duncan, well I didn't really say it. It was more like screw you boring DA: O, and proceeded to uninstall.
And so, lets recap:
Graphics are truly bad, all over. There is certainly more detail in the textures than in say Mass Effect, but the colors clash horribly and the design of everything is ghastly. If you want a prettier 'RPG' to play, try The Witcher, or even ME, that sadly aren't The New Shit, but ah well.
Music and sound are ok, well sound anyway. As I said earlier, the music is not very inspiring, it's as if Inon was under some lethargic medication when composing. Some have called it Epic, but I would call it Lazy Epic. Epic writing down random notes when drunk. Sound effects are better, but strangely, with the lackluster graphics and music, they sound off; like a diamond in a pile of shit. VO varies from really bad to very good, but when the characters look and move as badly as they do, and with the lip syncing off, it turns into watching cardboard figures talk. Not a lot of fun.
Story and writing seems surprisingly good. But, there are moments where you just wonder if you're playing a fantasy 'RPG' or if you're replying to some very vulgar and uncouth teens on Twitter. And as I said before, some dialogue replies are as if you hadn't said anything at all and the one you were talking to just misheard you or something.
Gameplay well... This is maybe not what you want to hear fans of DA, but, this feels even less like an RPG than Mass Effect or BW's previous games. I talk a bunch with people, walk around, kill stuff in a WoW manner and get XP and put it into various hackneyed skills, but I'm not getting any kind of RPG feel out of it. Other than that, your character moves fairly fluidly, the menus are good, inventory looks good, but you'll probably want to play this at a fairly high resolution because it can get a little clunky in combat with the not perfectly designed interface.
I revoke my kodex kool kredits as I don't care. This is just an unfun game, and not even an RPG. I talked a lot of shit about it before playing it, but it's even worse up close. The only reason you should play it, but don't take it from me, would be to see the story to its conclusion, as I hear it's very very very very very long. But I stopped caring.
