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Post by Knightfall on Feb 19, 2010 21:23:23 GMT 1
This was brought up in that massive Dragon Age: Origins thread, but I thought I'd bring the discussion here. So, basically, Bioware is releasing an expansion for DA:O called "Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening." Yes, you have the say the whole dang name when you refer to it from now on. It's going to be a very long game, apparently. Bioware claims it'll be something like a 30 hour adventure, and will pick up one month after the events of the last game. Here are a few factoids: -You either take the role of your old character through importing, or of a new Orlesian Grey Warden, who will be treated with suspicion, given Ferelden's history with Orlais. -The main mission will revolve around rebuilding the Grey Warden base of operations at Vigil's Keep. -Like Mass Effect 2, only a few characters from the last game will be making an appearance in your party, and new characters will be introduced. -This will take place in a new nation called Amaranthine -Apparently, there will be no romance options here. Makes since, given that they probably want to continue those storylines in DA:2 rather than here. Still, it's gonna be different, that's for sure. -There will be about as many hours of gameplay as there was in the first game. -U.S. retail price is listed as $39.99 Here are a few more links with much more information, should you be interested: Game Info from Dragon Age Wiki:dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Age%3A_Origins_-_Awakening And on Wikipedia:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_age_awakeningInfo on a new explorable Dwarven city:kotaku.com/5473236/dragon-age-brings-us-the-dwarven-fortress-of-kalhirolStuff about the new partymembers:kotaku.com/5469739/blonde-dragon-age-awakening-companions-dont-have-more-funkotaku.com/5462639/dragon-age-origins-awakens-with-anderskotaku.com/5475786/dragon-age-awakenings-latest-character-revealed-shortlyAaaaand the cover art: That is all, citizens. Anyone planning on buying this?
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Post by Hodster on Feb 20, 2010 0:03:34 GMT 1
That is all, citizens. Anyone planning on buying this? Of course
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Post by Mister Buch on Feb 20, 2010 1:19:25 GMT 1
Without a doubt!
But I am suspiscious. Bioware and expansion packs don't seem a good mix.
But hell yes. And I'd love to play as an Orlesian warden.
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Post by Knightfall on Feb 20, 2010 3:09:09 GMT 1
Yeah, this expansion, to me, is two parts awesome, two parts "eh?"
On the one hand, putting out an EXPANSION that rivals the material in the first game that came out only a few MONTHS ago seems suspicious. It takes a couple years for Blizzard to put out an expansion, and Bioware did it in 1/6th of that time (according to math).
This new Bioware business model frightens me, I guess is what I'm saying.
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Post by Hodster on Feb 20, 2010 3:21:32 GMT 1
They've probally been working on it while they finished up the original.
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Post by Mr. Glow on Feb 21, 2010 23:32:20 GMT 1
Yeah, I've heard Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening: Everything but the kitchen sink has been in development for a year already.
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Post by Knightfall on Mar 2, 2010 4:23:40 GMT 1
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Post by Mister Buch on Mar 3, 2010 11:22:11 GMT 1
I waaaaaaaant this game.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Mar 20, 2010 15:45:53 GMT 1
Saw DA: Awakening on the shelves in my local game shop atm. I haven't got it yet.
So any thoughts about it if anyone did managed to buy it?
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Post by Mister Buch on Mar 21, 2010 0:23:47 GMT 1
I downloaded it (at length). As soon as I'm done with my second ME2 game (probably finish tonight!) I'm going to be all over this. It looks great. I love the idea of a 15-20 hour RPG. Honestly, I wish Bioware would make more little ones like this. It's perfect for my new, busier life! I've been planning to read the DA novel and then play through the game again before trying out the expansion. But... I'm never going to hold out that long. I'll be all over 'Awakening' tomorrow. -- There is a fascinating and thorough review on an excellent blog-site I read. buchnknight.blogspot.com/2010/03/dragon-age-origins-awakening-final.html----- EDIT: I forgot to whine about how buggy this game is. It's very buggy.
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Post by Mister Buch on Apr 4, 2010 3:57:55 GMT 1
After Knight's review, I thought I'd do a quick one of my own, too. I just now finished the game, no-one is up and I wanted to talk about it!
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Being as it is an expansion / extra chapter of the original game, you pretty much know what you're getting. It's exactly like Dragon Age: Origins, only shorter (about 15 hours) and without romance. Like Knight before me I'm not sure it really qualifies as 'expansion'... but its story is unrelated and seperate enough to the main game that I'm happy to buy it seperately so very soon after the game itself.
Like the first Dragon Age, it's classic Bioware fun with all the usual stuff you would expect. Like Dragon Age, it still suffers from sub-par (compared to Mass Effect) voice acting, and very ropey graphics. Bows are still horribly underpowered and mages are still horribly overpowered. Unlike the first game, this is a quick and less-epic adventure - and this feels a little odd, but fun. I think they handled the short length very nicely. It fit well in my schedule!
The plot has you (either your old character, if she survived, or a visiting Orlesian Grey Warden) taking on the role of Commander of the Grey and acting Arl of Amaranthine. There are a few scenes where you're called upon to make Arl-like decisions or act as a military commander - and these are really good fun and a nice addition. You definitely don't feel like the typical Bioware 'wandering warrior saving the world by collecting things' hero. Instead you're a leader, dealing with a rather new threat, in the form of sentient darkspawn, massing and infighting without the aid of any Archdemon. It's a really neat idea, though it seems rushed in the explanation - so at the end I didn't fully understand what the various enemies were trying to accomplish, or what I had achieved by foiling / aiding them.
Although the whole package feels tacked-on and very little is new, that really isn't the case with the writing. Most of the characters here seem like they've been wasted on such a short game - I'd have happily had Justice, The Architect, Valenna and Sigrun appear in a full-length sequel. These were really, really good characters - a hell of a lot better than Samara or Jacob, for example! It's a shame you can't do more with them.
On top of this, the dungeons are good and interesting, the (few...) new enemies are fun and the locations and backgrounds are nice and fresh too. I was expecting all the quests to be rather lacklustre - stuff that was left over from the original - but no! The main and side quests are almost all excellent! Again, they would have been equally at home in a full-length game.
Oghren is still annoying as all hell. I don't like that character at all. In this add-on, he's with you from the start, doing his old drunk-dwarf schtick the whole time. And one of the main villains - who I won't name - but reeeeeeally reminded me of a character from Futurama - looked, acted and behaved ridiculously throughout. I think the plot sufferred because of this character.
My other big criticism is the ending. Maybe it was the decisions I made but... it was bad. There were a couple of decisions which I still don't understand - in both cases I THINK I went with the lesser of two evils, but it was very underwhelming. I was rather hoping to do something spectacularly brave or incredibly evil to cap off my story... no. Some confusing decisions, and I think I picked wrong. And it spoiled my pleasure in the otherwise-simple plot... immediately before the climax. Just like that goddamn stupid Landsmeet.
And whatever choices you make, that ending is insanely sudden! There I am, fighting and wrestling with the plot, when BAM! A ten-second shot of me stylishly killing my foe, and that's it. The 'ending sequence' consisted entirely of many, many blocks of text. And all of these went out of their way to make my various achievements seem pedestrian and really, really downbeat!
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"The people you saved were happy that you saved them, even though a lot of them died anyway. The other people all died, and they were not so happy. But they all thought you 'did the right thing, I guess'.
Jeff, the merchant you helped out ten hours ago and then forgot about, saw his business thrive! After a few months, however, he got TB.
And some of your party members lived reasonably happily, and some of them became depressed for no reason you could have prevented. That's how it goes, I suppose. Life is hard. I hear one of them shot up a school, or something. He's dead, now.
And the cat went missing."
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When did the people at Bioware forget how to write endings?!
Did anyone else play Awakening? What did you think? I'd like to discuss this!
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