It’s not a strategy game but I thought I should weigh in on what’s been consuming the time of me and my friends.<\/p>\n
I sprung for Dragon Age: Origins<\/em> (both versions) and I downloaded the toolset and even bought the Warden’s Keep<\/em> DLC. So I am obviously hooked into yet another Bioware game. Some observations:<\/p>\n 1) The story is pretty familiar with the expected twists and arcs and political double dealing. But the back story of the place of magic in this world…wow. It’s a truly interesting examination of the idea of how a society would have to organize itself if people could channel powers of unfathomable destruction and run the risk of going mad with this power. You need watchdogs with a Terminate order, you need the possibility of lobotomization, you have the likelihood of resistors and liberators. As conventional as Dragon Age<\/em>‘s plot is, they thought magic through. The main story arc and many of the subquests deal explicitly with the problem of magic.<\/p>\n 2) Therefore, it’s a shame about the dwarfs. They are seen as greedy, mountain dwelling isolationists. Unless the big reveal is that dwarfs have politics. Big whoop. At least elves have a history as a slave caste to set them apart from every fantasy world ever. I guess you can’t break too many rules at once.<\/p>\n 3) This is a bloody game. Yes, the boss kills are especially gory, but even the basic combat encounters are splatterhouse stuff. In a run-of-the-mill fight my warrior decapitated a servant. You could see the lifeless, headless body slump to the floor. Then he stabbed her ally and a blood fountain spurt from his abdomen. And do I need to see so much blood on my hero in every conversation? When I’m talking to the duchess of Redcliffe, I should look my best not like a sloppy house painter.<\/p>\n 4) This is a bloody hard game. I have died many times, and part of that is because of the usual RPG power slide. I’m playing a noble dwarven warrior, which made him very powerful to start but by the midpoint he gets manhandled by magic. A big part of one quest sends your hero alone into a mysterious world where he or she will get pummeled over and over. Even in a melee encounter, a single warrior is no match for three or four enemies because of the generous flanking bonuses. Also, Redcliffe can go to hell.<\/p>\n 5) This is a bloody good game. I don’t think it really stands with Baldur’s Gate 2<\/em>, and the toolset will need to lead to a lot of amazing content to compete with Neverwinter Nights<\/em> in my opinion. (Proper documentation and proper early support for dungeon masters and NWN could have been the Best Game That Ever Was.) It is clearly a Bioware game, with lots of long dialog trees, 3\/4 of which will always end in the same way no matter which option you choose. But the combat is very satisfying, especially since the tactics menu lets you set up a wide range of parameters for how your party will fight. You will need to experiment a lot with how it works especially since upgrading the Combat Tactics skill will unlock another planning slot for your character. How many do they need? It really depends on the role you envision for your support team.<\/p>\n