back to article Dragon Age, Inquisition: Our chief weapons are...

Well done Bioware, you've obviously resisted any Borg-like assimilation into EA and have listened closely to the criticisms of Dragon Age II and its claustrophobic narrative. Suddenly, I’m feeling good about starting my epic RPG battle with rebellious mages and old gods. I’m in this game for the long haul. Be warned, any …

  1. Nya
    Thumb Down

    £50!!!!

    They are taking the piddle?! It's a PC not a overpriced console needing to pay to get a title onto them. Not a chance in hell at that price.

    1. Halfmad

      Re: £50!!!!

      You'll get it well under £30 just about anywhere right now, give it a few months and it'll be half that..

  2. armyknife

    Titles are for toffs.

    Yes, fifty quid seems a bit steep.

    1. Downside

      tightwads

      £50 for all that content and game time? All those artistes creating those textures and environments? it costs a fortune to employ hundreds of people for a year or two, you think it should be £10 in a steam sale?

      Anyway, thought most PC players just downloaded the hacked copy?

  3. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

    Wandering around an open world closing rifts?

    Sounds like Elder Scrolls IV to me (That's the one before the one with the dragons...)

  4. Fading

    Still trying to....

    Finish off all the content of DA1 (and awakening) - never seem to have enough time to sit down and play through it all. Might get my grubby mitts on this over Christmas and put some time in. Is DA2 worth paying budget prices for or should I skip it?

    1. --. --- -..

      Re: Still trying to....

      People whine but it's easily worth at least a cut price offer.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Veni, vidi, Origin

    Saw this, looked like it could be fun. Clicked Origin. It downloaded a 77MB update. For a launcher? Clicked Origin again and nothing happens. Which sadly seems normal for a new EA launch, and if they can't patch their launcher properly, I'm not feeling too inclined to drop £50 on a game that depends on it.

    Oh for the good'ol days when we could simply feed floppies/CDs/DVDs into our machines and just play. Or maybe I should just get the console version.

    1. Oninoshiko

      Re: Veni, vidi, Origin

      That kinda confirms my thought.

      "Oh, that looks good, shame I have resolved not to give EA my custom"

      Thanks for the comment (have a thumbs up), It helps my resolve.

    2. --. --- -..

      Re: Veni, vidi, Origin

      £40 at Game.

  6. Kunari

    I hope it's that good, I just bought it today. I loved DAO and DA:II wasn't too bad since I picked it up on a good sale. ;) I hope BioWare spends as much time and effort on the next Mass Effect too... though, it'll never be the same without Shep & crew.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about gameplay?

    Read a lot about impressions but I can't find much about gameplay here. At least the screen shots show that blasted 'weapons wheel' is still there, which would be a no no for me. Its what I disliked in D.A. II because it didn't have any easy quick select options; only the weapons wheel. Very cool indeed while you're under attack and can't prepare with potions being quickly available to you with one press of a button.

    I'm also missing out on customization options. Another big issue with DA2. Because you hardly could.

    And speaking of storyline: DA2 went horribly wrong (IMO) where storyline was concerned by degrading the Marabi warhound as an entity instead of a fully worth player. Simply because it went straight against their own storyline and backgrounds. After all: In 1 we learned that a Marabi would easily fight itself to the death to protect its master. That's the whole vision of he warhound. Yet in 2 you could only summon him with a spell. And no matter how much you (its master) were under attack: when time ran out, *poof*, and it was gone. Uhm, fighting to the death? how?

    The reason I mention this is because the author mentions the criticism regarding DA2, but doesn't bother to explain how and where this game differs.

    Another thing: it looks to me as if this game is full 3rd person. Its been a while since I played DA but I do recall that one of the reasons I initially picked it up (and bought the whole official guide too) was because it wasn't 3rd person. I don't like seeing a bunch of puppets running across your screen and you just have to "imagine" that those can represent you.

    Its what I loved about DA, the original concept: attacking thieves could actually hide behind you, esp. if you didn't have the presence of mind to look around but instead kept focussing on the enemy in front of you. THAT was brilliant gameplay in my opinion. Heck; even better: I could do the same thing myself too!

    3rd person ruins that experience because... Good luck hiding as a thief when there's an "all seeing mastermind" (the player) present.

    Final comment, but this is just me being critical: so we gain influence by capturing forts or keeps. Why does this sound horribly familiar to me? You do the same thing in Assassins Creed, Far Cry 3 & 4, Watch Dogs, and so on. Isn't that approach getting a little old?

    I suppose seeing could be believing, but so far I'm not a believer.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What about gameplay?

      There are plenty of other reviews all over the internet that go in depth with the gameplay mechanics that are present.

      About the weapons wheel; they are playing a console, the weapons wheel has always been there on a console. Furthermore, I know for a fact that the PC version has the classic hotbar that Origins has, and that you can easily access potions from there. I also haven't tried it yet on console, but I believe you can put potions in the weapons wheel on consoles as well. Unsure about that though.

      When talking about DA2, never forget that they were given 18 months to basically make an entirely new storyline and game (not to mention one that used no art assets or anything from it's predecessor) while Origins took nearly 7 years. If they were unablr to do something as minor as making the dogs fight to the death, I'm not going to blame them.

      I can already say that Inquisition is a huge step up from DA2. The storyline itself is immediately engaging, and it is far from the monotonous environments that so many complain about when it comes to 2. Furhermore, they brough back many praised things from Origins, such as tactical view and being able to have characters woth different races.

      As for the view; DA has never been playable in anything other than 3rd person or tactical view. Trust me when I say that you must be confusing that with something else, because even in Origins, you played either behind your character, or in a top-down perspective during battle with.the toggleable tactical view on PC. This view is on every platform in Inquisition, which is nice.

      Having played for at least ten hours, I can say that this is not the case. Influence is like experience points for the Inquidition, and you get it for completing certain side quests, not just for claiming keeps and such. Any sidequest that is notable, such as closing rifts, can give.you Influence as well as Power, which is completely different.

      Influence is gauged in levels, much like your player level, and every time you level it up you can buy an 'Inquisition Perk' that gives you certain things, such as the chance for more herbs gathered from one plant or +50% more.experience from codexes and certain conversation options opened up.

      Power, on the other hand, is gained from almost every quest, and is much like a currency. It allows you to open up new areas in the map and is needed to start certain story quests.

      I hope I was able to clear up any questions you have, and if you like, I can even link you to the reviews and videos that I know that go into more detail on the gameplay.

      Sorry for any spelling mistakes, by the way, as thos entire thing was typed on my phone. I tried to be meticulous, but it may have been messed up.

    2. Cuddles

      Re: What about gameplay?

      By far the most important point about gameplay is that this is a third person action-adventure, it is absolutely not an isometric-style tactical game like Origins. They've almost sort of pretended to give a tactical view, but on the PC at least it's completely broken to the point of being unplayable. The rest of the game is a pretty decent port; some of the interfaces are obviously designed more for a controller than a mouse, but everything works fine. The tactical view, on the other hand, starts off by slapping a giant glowing, and entirely unremovable, crosshair in the middle of your screen to show where your controller is aiming, apparently completely forgetting that a mouse is a thing at all. The view is zoomed in to the top of your character's head and cannot be zoomed out further, meaning you need to use third person mode to actually see anything, the camera controls are virtually non-existent, and you can't give group orders or actually select anything; it's basically just third person mode with a broken camera.

      On the plus side, as a third person game that lets you control and swap between a group, it's great. But if you liked DA:O and want another game like that, you're sadly out of luck. It's more tactical than most - you can still pause to give orders, positioning matters more than ever since not only can thieves still flank and backstab, but shields only protect from the front and are far more effective than before when used properly. The lack of healing allows more party options (no more mandatory Wynne), and also requires deciding when to press on with exploring and when to head back to base (with fast travel, so not too much mindless trudging around) - and enemies respawn, so if you're too low level for an area you can't just grind away and slowly wear your way through.

      There's sadly less customisation. Characters aren't locked into unique equipment only for them (other than Varrick and his crossbow), but almost all weapons and armour are locked to a specific class; no more mages running around with swords in heavy armour. On the other hand, there seems to be no actual difference between light, medium and heavy armour anyway; they all have basically the same armour values and differ only on the bonuses they get. Seems a bit of a wasted opportunity really.

      I haven't played Assassin's Creed or Far Cry, but you do a lot more than just capture forts. Indeed, I've put a good few hours into the game and haven't even found one so far. Power and influence are gained by doing the sort of things you'd pretty much expect - establishing camps and spreading the Inquisition's influence, helping out refugees with food and defence, and so on. It may not be the most original mechanic, but it fits in very well with both story and gameplay - you're not just running random errands for nameless NPCs as in so many RPGs (including DA:O), almost everything you do is something it actually makes sense for your character to be doing.

      Overall, this is basically what Dragon Age 2 should have been. The world is more open and expansive than DA:O, and looks a hell of a lot better even on a fairly old PC (I'm still running a pair of GTX470s and have most settings on high, although I did have to drop the resolution down to 1920x1200). I'm not far into the story so I can't say how good it is throughout, but it's at least somewhat less generic than DA:O's "totally-not-orcs are attacking, sort it out". The templar vs. mage conflict is well fleshed out, with everyone involved having legitimate points and no-one simply being evil for the sake of it; even those who appear so at first tend to get shown from a more sympathetic point of view at some point. From what I've seen so far, the writing is mostly of much better quality than recent Bioware efforts.

      On the Origin (EA, not DA) end of things, you do have to install it and the game runs through it, but after activation you can put it in offline mode and do not need a permanent internet connection to play. Also note that the game comes on 4 DVDs, and takes about half an hour to install from them. It's just like being back in the '90s again! If you have a decent internet connection, it may well be faster to just download it through Origin even if you have the discs.

      If you don't like third person games, you won't like this because that's what it is. But if the idea of a more tactical than usual third person action game appeals, this is certainly one of the best around.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There should be a statue to Gary Gygax somewhere. I mean in real life, not in game. Blizzard and Bioware owe the world a bronze lifesize statue of Gary Gygax.

  9. Greg D

    PC version - awesome

    Just have to chime in here as a lot of people comparing the console version to the PC version.

    I have the PC version, for which I paid £60 (digital deluxe, for the epic mount and starter gear, cos I'm that sad). I do NOT regret it and do not think it's overpriced. The game is beautiful and incredibly detailed, and I personally believe it was priced fairly.

    It does NOT feel like a console port. It feels like Bioware has spent the time to make the PC version feel like a proper native PC version. I haven't even seen this weapons wheel that people are speaking of here (then again I've seen nothing of the console version of the game yet) and it feels JUST like DA:O did when using tactical view and using the power bar.

    For me, this game is brilliant. The effort they have put in, in response to criticisms about DA:O and, in particular, DA2, really gives you the impression they listened closely to the fan feedback and made sure they got it right. It's the perfect balance between DA:O's engaging narrative and excellent gear/loot system and DA2's excellent combat style. They have got this one spot on.

    Conclusion: Well worth the money. Best in the series so far (not even completed it yet at 90+ hours gameplay).

  10. Trigun
    Stop

    Great game, but the combat system...

    I've purchased DA:I and played a bit. I love the world and story line: Both are as engaging (so far) as DA:O. However, the combat system (specifically on the PC) is fairly bad. It has no action queue, you have to spam-click enemies (1 click = 1 attack), and if your enemy moves away slightly then you're left hacking at air. Over all, not designed well for keyboard and mouse controls, but apparently works ok with a controller which makes me suspect that this aspect of the game is a port from a console version of the game.

    Looking around it seems that Bioware are looking at the PC version controls/interface, so I think I'll wait until then before continuing to play as the combat spoils what is otherwise a great game.

    BTW I got mine for roughly £30 (can't justify £50-£60).

    1. Greg D

      Re: Great game, but the combat system...

      Starting to see your point with the tactical view. This was really simple on DAO, but seems to be in console mode on the PC version of DAI.

      I'm constantly struggling to keep a target under fire with the character I'm controlling - often forgetting to hold 'fire' ('R' or left-click) when outside tac view, and then forgetting to set a target in tac mode.

      Hoping they patch that in the next release. The X-hair on the ground is completely pointless, and they need to adjust the control system to match DAO when using tac mode (e.g. you still maintain control of the selected party member when using WADS, instead of it switching to move the camera).

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon