I found these first impression without spoilers on official forum informative. I was really looked forward to the game due to the tactical camera, but since most negative comments involves the tactical camera I will wait until it gets fixed. I am not paying €50 for playing dragon age in action light mode.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
Meta critic is a poor judge about how good a game is, especially the user score. The user score is manipulated all the time. Scores for games in general is not a good way to judge a game.
I think the review from Escapist is most reliable, the summary at the end is awesome: "Bioware has created a role-playing game which feels like a massive monument to our culture. Inquisition is an absolute blast to experience for one hour or 150."
If you dig through the trash at metacritic, you encounter quite a few constructive posts that complain about terrible writing and completely disjointed story.
And I tend to believe them, as I remember reading an early press review earlier this month mentioning the exact same thing. That the story is kind of dissapointing and very disjointed.
I mean, Dragon Age: Origins wasn't exactly a good game gameplay wise. Very clunky and frustrating controls on PC, but it was the intense and engaging storyline that made more than up for it. It wasn't until I got it on XBOX360 that I actually finished the game, as the controls were so much better on console.
I m waiting about ppl's comments here, especially for multiplayer options. It seems a bit basic when it comes to multiplayer, considering that lacks campaign play, trading, need to have different chars in SP & MP etc.
I would like also to ask if this game is going to be played like D3 (keep advancing your char after max lvl) or is it a game that you play 100-200 hours and quit.
All Time Favorites: EQ1, WoW, EvE, GW1 Playing Now: WoW, ESO, GW2
The controls feel a little awkward for me. It's hard to get them to respond at times to where I want to go, but it's nothing major with setting up tactics instead for my team to attack the target that I want.
That's the main thing for me right now is controls, it's not major but a minor annoyance.
Think it took me half hour to hour to do the Dragon Age Hub and get the story I wanted.
I found these first impression without spoilers on official forum informative. I was really looked forward to the game due to the tactical camera, but since most negative comments involves the tactical camera I will wait until it gets fixed. I am not paying €50 for playing dragon age in action light mode.
Tactical camera works fine. There is a auto-center character bug (should be patched in patch #2) and a farther zoom would make it a bit easier to use but otherwise once you change the Q/E to A/D it works like a charm. I even used it a bit to move my character out of combat (pan the camera to be in 3rd person if you do that, not top down), but I didn't like it in DAO and don't like it here either.
DAI is only proving two things: lots of people can't Learn2Play nor change their keybinds.
So far my friends that are playing are enjoying it very much. I'm holding out due to budgetary reasons, but I don't think the sky is falling. Seems to be a solid title from what I'm hearing.
Metacritic is usually quite reliable on ratings to be honest so I take a more balanced look.
I have seen some reviews saying it is the best thing ever, another by a magazine saying its very mediocre and then ofcourse there are the normal video gamers on metacritic.
Some say its the best thing ever but there are lots of dragon age fanboys out there so I take that with a hint of scepticism and then some (many) say that its a good game in parts but mediocre overall.
From this, I am more likely to believe that its just an above average game but by no means a great game. This is most likely to be truth in my opinion.
I generally don't believe overhyped views because usually its fanboys with another agenda. This is sometimes the case with WoW for example where people actually are not promting it because its good but rather because they have played it for so long and are so invested in it that they don't want server populations declining.
Nonetheless, I think dragon age 3 will be good but as it stands, there are other rpgs Id rather play like wasteland 2, the witcher 3 and the new planescape torment. Perhaps even the new everquest once its made.
I m waiting about ppl's comments here, especially for multiplayer options. It seems a bit basic when it comes to multiplayer, considering that lacks campaign play, trading, need to have different chars in SP & MP etc.
I would like also to ask if this game is going to be played like D3 (keep advancing your char after max lvl) or is it a game that you play 100-200 hours and quit.
Ive heard that the multiplayer is a nice little addition like a mini game in rpgs but its the worst feature of dragon age 3 apparently and pretty mediocre.
Ive written it off for that reason, dragon age will sell itself to me on the quality of its single player game for that reason as long as ea don't release many dlcs for it to rip people off.
If they do, I will avoid it because I don't want to get into another dlc rip off fest like the mass effect games or EA's fps.
If you dig through the trash at metacritic, you encounter quite a few constructive posts that complain about terrible writing and completely disjointed story.
And I tend to believe them, as I remember reading an early press review earlier this month mentioning the exact same thing. That the story is kind of dissapointing and very disjointed.
None of the press reviews I have seen said the writing was terrible and the story completely disjointed. Of the 27 critic reviews listed by metacritic only two gave a score below 80, one was in German so I can't say what they disliked about the game, and the other one was among the worst reviews I have ever read.
It got two scores of 100 by fairly well known critic sites and 12 reviews gave a score of 90 or more. It seems more like the game is getting praise heaped on it than getting flamed.
Even at Erik Kain at Forbes who can be pretty picky ends part 2 of his review with:
"This is easily one of the best games I've played all year-and I've played a lot of games. It's one of the most epic immersive roleplaying games I've played in ages, and its technical/graphical achievements and massive scope only add to that....I'll be playing this long after the credits roll, long into next year and beyond."
I'm absolutely liking the game, but I can certainly agree.....the pc controls are clunky and just kind of a mess(or I would be loving the game). I can swear I seen a video where they were talking about this game being built for PC's , and this is not a port. I'm half temped to try my controller, but I much prefer mouse/keyboard in this type of game. Tactical view is horrible, which made the first boss extremely difficult for me trying to "look up", and then when you can't see your mouse pointer....just frustrating. Looting is even a chore, sometimes positioning yourself just to loot is difficult being you don't run over to the loot like the previous DA's
I really hope they intend to push out a patch for the PC...........very quickly
Easily a 7/10, only that bad because of the PC controls and Tactical view. A little patch would make it a 9/10 for me or better, yes that's how poorly I feel the controls are.
If you dig through the trash at metacritic, you encounter quite a few constructive posts that complain about terrible writing and completely disjointed story.
And I tend to believe them, as I remember reading an early press review earlier this month mentioning the exact same thing. That the story is kind of dissapointing and very disjointed.
None of the press reviews I have seen said the writing was terrible and the story completely disjointed. Of the 27 critic reviews listed by metacritic only two gave a score below 80, one was in German so I can't say what they disliked about the game, and the other one was among the worst reviews I have ever read.
It got two scores of 100 by fairly well known critic sites and 12 reviews gave a score of 90 or more. It seems more like the game is getting praise heaped on it than getting flamed.
Even at Erik Kain at Forbes who can be pretty picky ends part 2 of his review with:
"This is easily one of the best games I've played all year-and I've played a lot of games. It's one of the most epic immersive roleplaying games I've played in ages, and its technical/graphical achievements and massive scope only add to that....I'll be playing this long after the credits roll, long into next year and beyond."
Since you have read no press reviews saying how bad dragon age 3 is, go look at the review for dragon age inquisition from gaming age by Mike Palermo.
if I could find this bad press review for dragon age inquisition with almost no effort, you must be able to unless you aren't trying.
I would link it here but for some reason, this site wont let me copy and paste.
But anyway the point is, there are bad press reviews for dragon age 3 and bad player reviews. I foyu don't believe me google that press article and go to metacritic and see for yourself.
I can only assume you say there are no bad reviews because you are a fanboy which is why I said Imhesitant to listen to the opinions of fanboys because they usually have some higher agenda like support for a company as opposed to a game.
My best advice is not to rely on metacritic or even gaming sites for reviews... find a particular reviewer who has agreed with your assessment on past games. They may be on a gaming site, who knows. But the important part is that they are in agreement with your ideas on past games. If so, you might have similar tastes, meaning you'll probably find their reviews much more useful than a metacritic score.
My assessment:
Does the game have issues? Yes. Does that make it a bad game? Not necessarily. It depends on what can "Make or Break" a game for you.
People have differing opinions, ESPECIALLY when it comes to their RPGs. Personally, I think the PC controls are great. Then again, the game controls A LOT like an MMO... but seeing as I'm an MMO guy, it kind of makes sense that I would like it.
In fact, the whole game plays a lot like an MMO... except single player. Which I'm totally cool with and enjoy quite a bit.
The story is a bit "Eeeh" at first, but it's grown on me.
I've been playing for a week at this point and still enjoy it. That's the best assessment I can give you. Will I still be playing in a month? I don't know... But after a week, I'm still having fun.
i can safely say, that what i thought to be a clunky and frustrating combat system has actually, over the course of a days playing, grown on me, and id even go so far to say thats its actually quite satisfying. I generally just have them all auto fight, and i can can control them individually for quick flashes of tab targetting like fun. Quite nice. I do wish that tactical cam mode could be zoomed much further out so i can assess my situation better but its bothering me less. My only gripe really so far, is that there appears to be no day and night cycle. This, to me, is a major game breaker in an RPG. I dont understand why they made this decision, as it really takes away the belief of the game world, which is paramount to a great RPG. I hope im wrong about this...but, i still think the games good out weighs the bad so far.
I think the controls are a problem mostly for melee characters. While playing my warrior I felt it was clunky, even ESO have better controls. To counter it, I let the AI control my melee and play the archer and mage. Seems a lot less of a problem on those.
Yes, the game sucks. It's a single-player MMO, complete with waiting queues and all! I mean, having to wait real time in-game for something to complete? It sucks even worse than an MMO, because time doesn't count if you're not in-game. Oh, and every action, even looting, takes time. Like, the characters actually bends stuff up. Lots of padding and filling. Even summoning your mount (which is actually not that fast), takes time, and doesn't mount you - it just calls the horse nearby. Just so people say "wow, it's a long game".
The combat is bland and stupid. It's a repetitive 2-skill system like most MMOs. Storyline sucks so far (20 hours in), and the writing is mediocre at best.
There's a LOT of grinding. The whole game is based on grinding. Whether it be Power or Influence or resources, you have to grind. There's plenty of content, that's for sure, but they're all repetitive and boring.
Maybe, as its own game, it could be a decent game, but it's not a Dragon Age game. It's... basically, it's what Sacred 3 was to the Sacred series.
I honestly felt like this is the inbred child of Two Worlds II and Skyrim, but in an MMO context.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway
I got to ask as well have they kept any of the rpg character stats at all or have they stripped all that out and basically made it more of an action game ?
If i were you..i would get a joystick for you PC...when i am playing it on my keybaord its just useless!
I don't see why. I'm playing solely with keyboard and mouse and the only issue I see, which I've solved for myself is that for melee, after making a swing you feel rooted. I've given myself a "beat" before I move and that's lessened the issue. I've read it's a bug but I haven't seen this listed as of yet.
Other than that I've had no problems with either keyboard or mouse.
When I want to jump I jumpl. moving using WASD is easy and responsive.
When I want to go to Tactical I press "T" and I go to Tactical.
I will agree that tactical view should allow a higher bird's eye view though.
My feeling is that people are trying to play this game like Dragon Age Origins and it's not Dragon Age Origins.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
1. PC Controls are pretty poor, they work but aren't really intuitive. If you've played the previous BioWare RPGs or any MMOs, then you will find the controls awkward and will have to adapt to them.
2. The Camera is rubbish. Usually when this comes up in games it is because of bad camera angles, but you have freedom to pan the camera as you need, the trouble is, it doesn't zoom out very far. In third person you're alright, but in tactical you simply can't see enough of the battle, you have to manually pan around the area.
3. Auto Attack doesn't exist. To utilise your basic weapon attack you have to hold down R or Mouse 1, this is annoying when you really need to keep moving the character (WASD) or the camera (mouse).
4. Framerate lock in cutscenes. Cutscenes are locked to 30 FPS, there is a hack to get around this, and BioWare are working on an official fix, but if you normally play above 30 FPS, then it is a bit jarring.
5. Optimization is weak. The game runs okay, new drivers from AMD / nVidia should help, but it isn't the smoothest experience. Pretty similar to how BF4 was at launch.
6. Connection Issues in multiplayer. Plenty of lag and desync issues in multiplayer, mainly from it being peer to peer rather than server based. This will likely improve as more people get the game and there is a wider pool of players in MP. I expect BioWare will patch improvements over time as well (not soon though).
7. It isn't linear. This might not be an issue for many on first thought, but if you've played any previous BioWare RPG then you're probably used to going to an area and completing it, then moving on to the next (like the previous DA games). In this one though, you have to hop between different areas or you'll quickly find yourself under level for the content and the areas have a large level range to them.
Anything else I think is probably more subjective. The game isn't bad, just perhaps made more for console than PC.
EDIT: Just on a side note, this perhaps is my biggest issue with the game. Your character can jump, which means PAUSE is no longer on Spacebar, but rather Ctrl. So since the days of BG1, I've had it beaten in to me that pause is Spacebar and now in DAI, I frequently end up jumping when I'm trying to pause! Really annoying, but not worth a keybind change yet.
have only played the game a couple hours but so far I like it. My comp is i5 3570, 7870 graphics with 8 gig ram. It did crash once after I only played for 5 min but no crashes since then. I find running the game at 1440 + 900 on high settings seems to run the smoothest, ultra (with the exception of special effects) makes it a bit slow, had the same prob with "shadows of mordor" however I do find the High settings to be just fine. I will try to run it today at 1680+ 1050 today to see if it makes any diff. The controles seem fine (I am playing a mage) so far so good.
Comments
I found these first impression without spoilers on official forum informative. I was really looked forward to the game due to the tactical camera, but since most negative comments involves the tactical camera I will wait until it gets fixed. I am not paying €50 for playing dragon age in action light mode.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
I think the review from Escapist is most reliable, the summary at the end is awesome: "Bioware has created a role-playing game which feels like a massive monument to our culture. Inquisition is an absolute blast to experience for one hour or 150."
What I am worried about is the story.
If you dig through the trash at metacritic, you encounter quite a few constructive posts that complain about terrible writing and completely disjointed story.
And I tend to believe them, as I remember reading an early press review earlier this month mentioning the exact same thing. That the story is kind of dissapointing and very disjointed.
I mean, Dragon Age: Origins wasn't exactly a good game gameplay wise. Very clunky and frustrating controls on PC, but it was the intense and engaging storyline that made more than up for it. It wasn't until I got it on XBOX360 that I actually finished the game, as the controls were so much better on console.
I am really on the fence about this one.
I m waiting about ppl's comments here, especially for multiplayer options. It seems a bit basic when it comes to multiplayer, considering that lacks campaign play, trading, need to have different chars in SP & MP etc.
I would like also to ask if this game is going to be played like D3 (keep advancing your char after max lvl) or is it a game that you play 100-200 hours and quit.
All Time Favorites: EQ1, WoW, EvE, GW1
Playing Now: WoW, ESO, GW2
The controls feel a little awkward for me. It's hard to get them to respond at times to where I want to go, but it's nothing major with setting up tactics instead for my team to attack the target that I want.
That's the main thing for me right now is controls, it's not major but a minor annoyance.
Think it took me half hour to hour to do the Dragon Age Hub and get the story I wanted.
Tactical camera works fine. There is a auto-center character bug (should be patched in patch #2) and a farther zoom would make it a bit easier to use but otherwise once you change the Q/E to A/D it works like a charm. I even used it a bit to move my character out of combat (pan the camera to be in 3rd person if you do that, not top down), but I didn't like it in DAO and don't like it here either.
DAI is only proving two things: lots of people can't Learn2Play nor change their keybinds.
Metacritic is usually quite reliable on ratings to be honest so I take a more balanced look.
I have seen some reviews saying it is the best thing ever, another by a magazine saying its very mediocre and then ofcourse there are the normal video gamers on metacritic.
Some say its the best thing ever but there are lots of dragon age fanboys out there so I take that with a hint of scepticism and then some (many) say that its a good game in parts but mediocre overall.
From this, I am more likely to believe that its just an above average game but by no means a great game. This is most likely to be truth in my opinion.
I generally don't believe overhyped views because usually its fanboys with another agenda. This is sometimes the case with WoW for example where people actually are not promting it because its good but rather because they have played it for so long and are so invested in it that they don't want server populations declining.
Nonetheless, I think dragon age 3 will be good but as it stands, there are other rpgs Id rather play like wasteland 2, the witcher 3 and the new planescape torment. Perhaps even the new everquest once its made.
Ive heard that the multiplayer is a nice little addition like a mini game in rpgs but its the worst feature of dragon age 3 apparently and pretty mediocre.
Ive written it off for that reason, dragon age will sell itself to me on the quality of its single player game for that reason as long as ea don't release many dlcs for it to rip people off.
If they do, I will avoid it because I don't want to get into another dlc rip off fest like the mass effect games or EA's fps.
None of the press reviews I have seen said the writing was terrible and the story completely disjointed. Of the 27 critic reviews listed by metacritic only two gave a score below 80, one was in German so I can't say what they disliked about the game, and the other one was among the worst reviews I have ever read.
It got two scores of 100 by fairly well known critic sites and 12 reviews gave a score of 90 or more. It seems more like the game is getting praise heaped on it than getting flamed.
Even at Erik Kain at Forbes who can be pretty picky ends part 2 of his review with:
"This is easily one of the best games I've played all year-and I've played a lot of games. It's one of the most epic immersive roleplaying games I've played in ages, and its technical/graphical achievements and massive scope only add to that....I'll be playing this long after the credits roll, long into next year and beyond."
not picked it up yet but I will very very surprised if its any good... might just hold off until i can get it really cheap.
I'm absolutely liking the game, but I can certainly agree.....the pc controls are clunky and just kind of a mess(or I would be loving the game). I can swear I seen a video where they were talking about this game being built for PC's , and this is not a port. I'm half temped to try my controller, but I much prefer mouse/keyboard in this type of game. Tactical view is horrible, which made the first boss extremely difficult for me trying to "look up", and then when you can't see your mouse pointer....just frustrating. Looting is even a chore, sometimes positioning yourself just to loot is difficult being you don't run over to the loot like the previous DA's
I really hope they intend to push out a patch for the PC...........very quickly
Easily a 7/10, only that bad because of the PC controls and Tactical view. A little patch would make it a 9/10 for me or better, yes that's how poorly I feel the controls are.
Since you have read no press reviews saying how bad dragon age 3 is, go look at the review for dragon age inquisition from gaming age by Mike Palermo.
if I could find this bad press review for dragon age inquisition with almost no effort, you must be able to unless you aren't trying.
I would link it here but for some reason, this site wont let me copy and paste.
But anyway the point is, there are bad press reviews for dragon age 3 and bad player reviews. I foyu don't believe me google that press article and go to metacritic and see for yourself.
I can only assume you say there are no bad reviews because you are a fanboy which is why I said Imhesitant to listen to the opinions of fanboys because they usually have some higher agenda like support for a company as opposed to a game.
My best advice is not to rely on metacritic or even gaming sites for reviews... find a particular reviewer who has agreed with your assessment on past games. They may be on a gaming site, who knows. But the important part is that they are in agreement with your ideas on past games. If so, you might have similar tastes, meaning you'll probably find their reviews much more useful than a metacritic score.
My assessment:
Does the game have issues? Yes. Does that make it a bad game? Not necessarily. It depends on what can "Make or Break" a game for you.
People have differing opinions, ESPECIALLY when it comes to their RPGs. Personally, I think the PC controls are great. Then again, the game controls A LOT like an MMO... but seeing as I'm an MMO guy, it kind of makes sense that I would like it.
In fact, the whole game plays a lot like an MMO... except single player. Which I'm totally cool with and enjoy quite a bit.
The story is a bit "Eeeh" at first, but it's grown on me.
I've been playing for a week at this point and still enjoy it. That's the best assessment I can give you. Will I still be playing in a month? I don't know... But after a week, I'm still having fun.
View more silliness at http://www.youtube.com/thehiveleader
If i were you..i would get a joystick for you PC...when i am playing it on my keybaord its just useless!
mmorpg junkie since 1999
Yes, the game sucks. It's a single-player MMO, complete with waiting queues and all! I mean, having to wait real time in-game for something to complete? It sucks even worse than an MMO, because time doesn't count if you're not in-game. Oh, and every action, even looting, takes time. Like, the characters actually bends stuff up. Lots of padding and filling. Even summoning your mount (which is actually not that fast), takes time, and doesn't mount you - it just calls the horse nearby. Just so people say "wow, it's a long game".
The combat is bland and stupid. It's a repetitive 2-skill system like most MMOs. Storyline sucks so far (20 hours in), and the writing is mediocre at best.
There's a LOT of grinding. The whole game is based on grinding. Whether it be Power or Influence or resources, you have to grind. There's plenty of content, that's for sure, but they're all repetitive and boring.
Maybe, as its own game, it could be a decent game, but it's not a Dragon Age game. It's... basically, it's what Sacred 3 was to the Sacred series.
I honestly felt like this is the inbred child of Two Worlds II and Skyrim, but in an MMO context.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway
I got to ask as well have they kept any of the rpg character stats at all or have they stripped all that out and basically made it more of an action game ?
I don't see why. I'm playing solely with keyboard and mouse and the only issue I see, which I've solved for myself is that for melee, after making a swing you feel rooted. I've given myself a "beat" before I move and that's lessened the issue. I've read it's a bug but I haven't seen this listed as of yet.
Other than that I've had no problems with either keyboard or mouse.
When I want to jump I jumpl. moving using WASD is easy and responsive.
When I want to go to Tactical I press "T" and I go to Tactical.
I will agree that tactical view should allow a higher bird's eye view though.
My feeling is that people are trying to play this game like Dragon Age Origins and it's not Dragon Age Origins.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Issues:
1. PC Controls are pretty poor, they work but aren't really intuitive. If you've played the previous BioWare RPGs or any MMOs, then you will find the controls awkward and will have to adapt to them.
2. The Camera is rubbish. Usually when this comes up in games it is because of bad camera angles, but you have freedom to pan the camera as you need, the trouble is, it doesn't zoom out very far. In third person you're alright, but in tactical you simply can't see enough of the battle, you have to manually pan around the area.
3. Auto Attack doesn't exist. To utilise your basic weapon attack you have to hold down R or Mouse 1, this is annoying when you really need to keep moving the character (WASD) or the camera (mouse).
4. Framerate lock in cutscenes. Cutscenes are locked to 30 FPS, there is a hack to get around this, and BioWare are working on an official fix, but if you normally play above 30 FPS, then it is a bit jarring.
5. Optimization is weak. The game runs okay, new drivers from AMD / nVidia should help, but it isn't the smoothest experience. Pretty similar to how BF4 was at launch.
6. Connection Issues in multiplayer. Plenty of lag and desync issues in multiplayer, mainly from it being peer to peer rather than server based. This will likely improve as more people get the game and there is a wider pool of players in MP. I expect BioWare will patch improvements over time as well (not soon though).
7. It isn't linear. This might not be an issue for many on first thought, but if you've played any previous BioWare RPG then you're probably used to going to an area and completing it, then moving on to the next (like the previous DA games). In this one though, you have to hop between different areas or you'll quickly find yourself under level for the content and the areas have a large level range to them.
Anything else I think is probably more subjective. The game isn't bad, just perhaps made more for console than PC.
EDIT: Just on a side note, this perhaps is my biggest issue with the game. Your character can jump, which means PAUSE is no longer on Spacebar, but rather Ctrl. So since the days of BG1, I've had it beaten in to me that pause is Spacebar and now in DAI, I frequently end up jumping when I'm trying to pause! Really annoying, but not worth a keybind change yet.
I'm playing on normal so I have not had to pause and really use strategic battles yet but the controls seem to be the biggest issue.
My biggest concern was the crafting which I thought would mimic DA:O or DAII but it seems much more involved.
Exploring has been fun for me so far and I'm just within 2 hours of game time.
I think it is worth it but DA:O was my favorite single player RPG so I'm definitely a little biased