Since the release of the infamous Justice League 'Snyder Cut' last month, it's been fun having a think about what games should get a big indulgent revamp, and what those hypothetical revamps would look like. Former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider has been pondering exactly that on Twitter, revealing a load of things he would've liked to change in the most polarising game in the series, Dragon Age 2. Unfortunately, none of his ideas involve fewer spiders.
]]>There's a new Dragon Age on the way, according to the moody teaser shown during December's Game Awards. Forgot where you left off? Best start catching up with Dragon Age: Origins then, with the rather lovely Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack mod. As the title suggests, it's your one-stop shop for polishing up the game and fixing up all the little issues Bioware never had the chance to officially patch. It even reinstates a handful of lost dialogues and events to the game - nothing too dramatic, but a good foundation to start with, though you may want to buff it up with a few more choice mods before starting.
]]>BioWare's decreasingly cryptic hints about a new Dragon Age tonight reached the point of showing a wee "teaser" trailer, though not quite far enough to actually give the fantasy RPG a name. I'll just call it Dragon Age 4 for now. As you might guess if you saw Dragon Age: Inquisition through to the end, a lot revolves around the one-time companion character our former Adam (RPS in peace) described as "like an egg with a face painted on". Hear his sweet voice in the trailer below. The sapient egg's, not Adam's.
]]>Following the pre-pre announcement of news on something new in Dragon Age, BioWare have pre-announced that they'll open up in December. My fingers are crossed for a new game continuing the adventures of the merry gang in Kirkwall from Dragon Age II, though I suppose events Dragon Age: Inquisition would cut that off. And the mysterious project still could just be a dang comic book or something rather than another RPG.
]]>With all the coverage that Anthem is getting, you'd be forgiven for forgetting that BioWare had ever developed anything else. Fortunately, they haven't. In their Summer Update dev-blog post, the studio talk about what they've been up to over the past few months, including promoting Anthem art-books and comics at the San Diego Comic-Con. In amidst all this they did find time to let slip that they've got "some teams hidden away" working on projects that Dragon Age and Mass Effect fans may like.
]]>Hurrah! Mark Darrah has gone so far as to confirm that BioWare is working on a new Dragon Age game. He's the executive producer for both Anthem and Dragon Age, and he's tweeted to say that while Anthem is next in line, "there are people hard at work on both franchises". We've heard roundabout confirmation before but this is solid and direct.
And yet, as the Coen brothers would say, would that it were so simple. According to Kotaku's sources, BioWare only have a small team working on Dragon Age - with the bulk of their staff focused on Anthem. That's not too surprising considering the new Dragon Age game hasn't even been announced, but it does mean it'll be a loooong time before we see Dragon Age 4. As far off as it may be, I'm still gonna stop me using this as an opportunity to tell you about what I want to see from BioWare's next fantasy RPG.
]]>The sign of a truly hardcore world is that it has its own languages. Klingon. Dothraki. Elvish. The term for these is 'Conlangs' - aka 'constructed languages' - and whether you see them as a vital part of world-building or a joke-in-waiting on The Big Bang Theory (they're due a third one one of these days), there's more to them than just slapping together some uncommon syllables and hoping it sounds alien. Well, actually, that's exactly how Klingon started, but never mind. Done right, paying attention to language offers more than just another DVD extra. Or at least, it can do...
]]>Hello there. This week, I'm writing not just as an RPG columnist, but as president of the newly formed League Of Folks Who Don't Really Play MOBAs But Are Bizarrely Hooked On All The Trappings. As far as I can tell, our membership is roughly a billion people and counting. That's what happens when the likes of Blizzard and Riot spend literally tens of dollars creating gorgeous videos to promote their worlds, yes, but it goes somewhat deeper than that. Have you ever watched a new character reveal for a game you know you're never going to play? Then the sickness might have spread.
]]>Spoiler alert, RPGs are kinda ridiculous. Most games are, of course. While the Mythbusters may have shown that carrying Doomguy's loadout into battle isn't as bad as it might sound, there's a reason they've never done a follow-up about doing it after taking a few rockets to the face. Likewise, we can't know the effect of glugging down fifty health potions a day, but it must mean a lot of pauses for the heroic knight to hurriedly get his armour off for a quick pee-break.
Like a lot of things, there's a line here - on one side, things that are interesting to see a game justify, and on the other, things that are probably best handwaved. Where does that line lie?
]]>Not for the first time, I've spent quite a while recently pondering the nature of roles - more specifically, mechanical role versus narrative role. When we think of RPGs, what we're usually thinking of is the latter. You play the role of the Hero, but in a universe that's typically designed to let you define that however you like. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but there's a key difference between that and stepping into the shoes of someone more specific. Geralt in The Witcher 3 for instance is - spoiler alert - a Witcher. Every encounter revolves around that, every system involves it, every decision has, whether it's by your choice or Geralt bringing it up, a mercenary element that reinforces that asking for money in exchange for your services is expected and not, as is often the case, the first step towards douchery and getting the Evil ending.
I've also been playing a lot of Hearthstone. The two things are linked.
]]>Given a choice, I almost always play as a mage. Swords? Pah. Divine magic? Save it for Sunday School. Give me control over the elements, the power to reshape the very building blocks of the universe according to my every whim, and if at all possible, a cool hat. It's an easy fantasy to indulge in almost any RPG out there.
I just wish it was a more satisfying one.
]]>I had to take out a stack of dice when I was playing Dragon Age: Inquisition over the weekend. Not to re-roll the complexities of combat - the numbers thrown around are too big for my collection of bones - but to generate a face for my character. Above you can see my knobbly-nosed dwarf. His name is Pootle and he has a Radioface.
]]>Dragon Age: Inquisition might just be my favourite game released this year. Considering my expectations and relationship with recent BioWare games, that's about as likely as Saturday night's soggy kebab being my favourite meal of the year. I've spent almost sixty hours uncovering as much of Inquisition's enormous open world and intricate story as possible, and as soon as I have a few days free, I'll be spending another sixty or eighty hours seeing it all through new eyes.
]]>We've been speculating about Failbetter Games' collaboration with BioWare since February, so it's a relief to finally discover that it's Dragon Age: The Last Court. It's a text-driven project set just before the events of BioWare's soon-to-be-released Dragon Age: Inquisition.
]]>I hadn't noticed until now, but the vast majority of the footage we've had of Dragon Age: Inquisition hasn't featured combat in the way it will be played. Everyone will use the over-the-shoulder camera for, oh, 24 seconds or so then never again. Far more useful is the free-roaming tactical view that pauses time, giving you a moment for a sip of tea and a good think. Perhaps you'd like to target your fireball over here, sir? Or bash this ingrate's head in with a warhammer, ma'am? Bioware, continuing a trend of blitzing us with trailers at Ubisoft pace, show it off below.
]]>Dragon Age: Inquisition's new trailer makes me think that Bioware's blood and (b)romance fantasy series has noticed the brooding character standing at the other side of the RPG battlefield. The veteran of a thousand deaths stares back, scars criss-crossing every inch of its face, nostrils included, and then rolls backwards out of the door. Dragon Age looks on enviously. It wants to have cool scars a well - it's the scars, right? Chicks love the scars - and it wants people to notice when it rolls into a room. That, presumably, is why the E3 video caused me to react with a raised eyebrow and a murmur of "Soul-y shit".
]]>I remember when Dragon Age trailers were all Marilyn Manson, blood, guts and witchy sex. How things have changed. Or perhaps not. The latest trailer for Dragon Age: Inquisition shows some in-game footage, including a moment of dodge-rolling that made me hanker for Dark Souls II even more than I already am, but it's mostly bombastic music and high-falutin' voiceovers. In fact, watch the Origins trailer and this one back to back, switch out 'Blight' for 'Breach' whenever one or the other occurs, and it doesn't look all that different. Prettier though. And with less blood and sex.
]]>UPDATED: Tactical view filmed off screen at PAX added below.
Nothing of the much-touted tactical view, sadly, but it does look rather slick.
Take a look, below. And then perhaps join the discussion over in John's article from the reveal of the game in London last week.
]]>Dragon Age: Inquisition won't be out until Autumn 2014 at the earliest, but that doesn't mean we can't poke through the nuggets of information emerging from within the extended development cyclone. In the last week, two significant gobbets of information have emerged from Bioware's lair. The first, as alluded to in the headline, is the news that Morrigan won't be a party member, although that's not to say her witchy ways won't have a place in the game. The second piece of news wasn't really news at all to me - Inquisition will contain multiple playable races. I didn't realise that was a thing that might not be happening but confirmation came in a Game Informer interview.
]]>The EA press conference at E3 has confirmed the release of Dragon Age 3, aka Dragon Age: Inquisition, in 2014. The game will apparently take place in "a vast open world", while familiar characters Morrigan and Varric have been glimpsed in the trailer shown to press, which you can now see below.
]]>All this talk of sexism isn't going away, nor should it. The gaming industry's sick, and the symptoms are plain as day. Mystifyingly often, however, the immediate reaction to even the faintest hint of that suggestion is "No, nuh-uh! You just want to censor expression! Give me one good reason we actually need to change."* Well, if you really want to move beyond "Because jeez, it's basic human decency to treat someone else the way you'd like to be treated," Dragon Age III lead writer David Gaider's got a laundry list of practical reasons for you. 14 years at one of the most influential studios out there, after all, will do that to you. Especially when it's one that's certainly not innocent of mistakes and missteps of its own. Prior to Gaider's GDC talk on the very same subject, I caught up with him to discuss why sexism (and any sort of "-ism," really) is bad for everyone: you, me, the industry, and of course, women or anyone else directly affected.
]]>BioWare have just officially announced Dragon Age 3. It has, of course, already been discussed in public as long ago as April, making an official announcement a touch silly. But it does at least have a name now. Dragon Age III: Inquisition, and it will be made in the Frostbite 2 engine. Which if you were of a curt enough mind, you might describe as the first full Dragon Age sequel.
]]>Somehow, I doubt Dragon Age 3 is going to reuse levels at every all-too-familiar turn. And while BioWare still isn't mentioning the next swords 'n' sorcery sequel by name because ours is a silly, silly industry, it's now launching an official monthly "series of questions and discussions around Dragon Age" with the goal of getting a feel for what fans want. Do not, however, expect your fanfic simply titled "Anders: Lion Rider" to ride a red carpet right into series canon. "We’re not making promises," emphasizes BioWare. "We’re talking about ideas."
]]>Rumours are flying that Dragon Age 3 might be something more like the sequel to Dragon Age we've been hoping for. After Dragon Age 2 came out feeling more like a side-project, BioWare have dropped some hefty hints that they're looking to redress much of that in an unannounced third game for the series. At a PAX East panel, as spotted by Eurogamer and recorded by Gamespot, Dragon Age developers discussed what a hypothetical game might contain, were it to exist, which it currently doesn't, but obviously does. It's to be a far more varied game, with new locales, and decisions that carry over from previous games.
]]>I think I've just won the most literal title of the day award, and it's my first post of the morning. Hear that, rest of RPS? You might try to defeat me, but I will bland you out the park. I hope I don't get stuck in a rut. Can someone out there recommend a newly written guide to some sort of writing? What? Bioware's Senior Writer David Gaider has just written a blogpost on how to write fanfiction? What I do is essentially fanfiction to the whole of PC gaming. That'll do!
]]>Activate the rumour siren! Bee-WOOP! Etc. Kotaku have posted saying that an "insider" has revealed a multiplayer Dragon Age game in the pipeline. Here's the vague heart of the rumour: "The insider wasn't sure if Dragon Age multiplayer was going to be part of a full, stand-alone title (ala Dragon Age 3) or available separately as a downloadable game. It is apparently being developed on DICE's Frostbite 2 game engine (used for Battlefield 3), and even early-on the game apparently looks stunning." Apparently! Apparently dragons will be playable, too. Take that, other dragon-based gameplay experiences! It does make a lot of sense, though - a dragon's tail whipping through a destructible building as you mill about with chums trying to kill it with hammers. We'll find out of if this is a true thing soon enough.
]]>I haven't watched this first episode of the Felicia Day-starring Dragon Age live action web series Redemption yet and thus would be A NASTY STINKY LIAR if I passed any comment on it at this stage, but I have embedded it below. Let's watch it together!
]]>Here's the trailer for that live-action Dragon Age TV series, starring that woman people on Twitter all have a crush on, and it's... Well.. It's. Well. Well, it makes Dragon Age II seem an awful lot more palatable all of a sudden. Bless everyone involved, but the budget's just not there, is it?
]]>BioWare have just released a trailer for a fresh chunk of Dragon Age 2 DLC, Mark of the Assassin. I’m not sure how big a chunk is - in fact, all I know about this one is that it involves an “impregnable fortress” that you’ll end up pregnating, “monsters” that you’ll end up killing and an elf voiced by Felicia Day, she of The Guild and Dr Horrible, among other things (presumably) that I don't know about. In fact, that seems to be the main selling point. It’s mentioned well before any details regarding content other than voice recordings. In fact, it’s pretty much the only detail mentioned at all, apart from the fact that this is "story" DLC rather than "item" DLC. Who wants more Dragon Age narrative? Anyone? See what you can glean below.
]]>When Dragon Age II: Legacy comes out on July 26, it will mark the first real chance that developers Bioware have had to respond to the criticism you lot (you know who you are) sent their way after DA2’s initial release. It was a particular problem for the many fans of DA: Origins, who largely felt that the second instalment just didn’t produce the kind of fantasy experience they felt appropriate for a sequel. Maybe you checked the “unchallenging mobs” box before you sent in your DA2 feedback form. Or maybe it was the “samey combat encounters” box. Or maybe “tired dialogue choices”, or “boo! on rails”. In any case, a lot of you checked a lot of boxes. (And the Dragon Age Facebook game probably didn’t help.)
But anyway, good news: Dragon Age Senior Producer Fernando Melo has read all those response cards, and he’s here to tell you -- or anyway, he was at EA recently to tell me -- that he feels your pain.
]]>So, there's going to be a Dragon Age The Third then. Eurogamer reports that BioWare are looking to hire staff to work on the game. While possibly no surprise to anyone, it's still nice to know it exists. They're after environment artists, if that happens to be you. Let's hope they give themselves a little longer to make this one.
]]>Now this is more like it. Dragon Age: Legends, the Facebook game intended to a) promote Dragon Age II and b) suck out your very soul, has been remixed by indie chaps Pixelante, creators of the lovely Pixel Legions. (But not the same lot as Auntie Pixelante aka Anna Anthropy - that would be something). The net result? Dragon Age: Legends becomes a romping good time, a festival of monster-splatting and levelling up rather than a glacially-paced exercise in begging.
]]>We're in for a whole lot more of this kind of thing, I suspect. Assassin's Creed 2 did it, Mortal Kombat's doing it, and now Dragon Age 2 is planning it. As the web becomes ever-more important to marketing games, viral techniques are springing to the fore. And what's more viral than a video you can embed all over the internet?
In this case, it's to be a live-action, six-part online TV show set in Bioware's Dragon Age universe. Both writing and starring in it is actor Felicia Day, a perennial Joss Whedon favourite and creator of WoW player-beloved MMO sitcom The Guild. So it probably won't be a cheap affair, but what kind of tone will it take?
]]>I love golems, best of all the magically animated constructs. They're my friends. It's fortunate for me, then, that Bioware have announced the next bit of DLC for Dragon Age as being Golems of Amgarrak, in which you can head out of Orzammar to hunt for the dark secrets of the big stone dudes, and recover a lost dwarven expedition. It features new creatures and new characters, apparently, and will turn up on August 10th for the sum of $5. I was going to post a trailer, via MMORPG, below, but it doesn't work for some reason. See it here.
]]>Why change a winning formula? That's what I was left wondering after discovering that, on the one hand, Dragon Age sold better than any Bioware game ever as of November, and on the other, that the formula is changing dramatically for Dragon Age 2. It's worth noting that the PC version isn't changing as much as the console versions of the game. We will apparently retain "strategic combat", which is a good news, while console chums will be "playing to their strengths" with more actiony combat mechanics. Conversation will also now be handled via Mass Effect's wheel system. The biggest change, however, is that Dragon Age 2 will be getting its own equivalent of Shepard, with player character options reduced to the male of female versions of "Hawke" (pictured? I think). Bioware confirmed on their forums that you will have to play a human.
The Steam summer sale thingamy is continuing to offer some ludicrously good prices, as it happens. I've just spotted some for which there's only six hours left, which should fill in some vital gaps on your virtual shelf. There's Thief: Deadly Shadows for £2.09, BioShock for £3.49, and Titan Quest Gold for £2.49. There's also Dragon Age, about 80 hours of game, for £11.99.
I can't get over Thief 3 for barely more than £2. This is one of those games that come 2014 we'll be writing ten year retrospectives about. If you never did, you absolutely must right now. Just for the heck of it, I've pasted my review of the game from 2004 for PC Format.
]]>I came to Mass Effect 2 late, and after a couple of weeks of man-chat and man-shoot, finished it off last night. And so, I wandered off to Youtube to have a look for some of the choices I stepped away from and to relive my sexing of a mental lizard. At which point, I come across the make-up tutorials of UtopianDream (Who's affiliated with the splendidly-named gamer-model agency Charisma +2 ). Her initial Miranda Mass Effect 2 one seems to have been linked quite widely back in February - which I missed - but her later ones for Morrigan Dragon age and (RPS IRRELEVANT!) Bayonetta (er) Bayonetta have been ignored. UNTIL NOW. Do you do requests, UtopianDream? If so, SHODAN. Go on. You know you want to. Her tutorials follow...
]]>...You'll download this Dragon Age texture pack, and it'll just work for you and it'll look super-spanky and that will be that. Me, I've wasted over three hours trying to make this collection of spit'n'polished graphics take with my own DA install, hoping to be saved from the disappointingly muddy visuals of what was otherwise one of the finest games of 2009, but I'm still only getting itermittent, glitching results. Not the fault of the mod at all, I stress - something is just wrong with my install, and I'm avoiding re-downloading 18Gb of RPG to fix it. If the mod's screenshots (poorly represented by the compressed JPGs herein) are anything to go on, though, it's well worth it. But: why do mods like this exist in the first place? Why don't the developers cater for this degree of detail themselves? Well, because it would be insane.
]]>Dragon Age: Awakening is out today in the US, and Friday in the UK, because the European internet is three days slower or something (PLEASE STOP DOING THIS). And it's fantastically good. To find out more you can use either or both eyes to read my review of the 25 hour expansion over on Eurogamer. You may be assured it contains passages that look like this:
]]>It's been a while since we took a look at the videos for Dragon Age: Awakening, and all of a sudden it comes out tomorrow. Tomorrow already! In the US. Sorry about the confusion. Friday in the UK. (Secretly I've finished it, but I can't tell you that, nor anything else. So shhhhhh.) So after we met Anders, Velanna, and some creatures that certainly weren't their children, it's time to meet a lot more of the gang.
]]>Here's a few recent Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening: The Subtitlier trailers to introduce new ingredients for the upcoming expansion. First up is Anders, Pyramid star and husband of Starbu... oh no wait. Anders the apostate mage, who can join your crew, with quite a few nice lines in his video. Then there's Velanna, who apparently makes the trees come alive. Which is cool. It's not explicitly stated that she's a potential party member, but I'm guessing that's the case. And finally there's the Children, which is a strange word since giving it capital C suddenly makes it seem creepy and threatening.
]]>UPDATE: SEE BELOW
I keep having these grand plans for writing about the Dragon Age DLC. Since the game came out I've intended a Wot I Think summing up the content subsequently released for my favourite game of last year. But at every turn I have been thwarted by a confusion of DLC management. An enormous array of bugs and errors are making it near-impossible for some to access their paid for content. And the tale of Return To Ostagar, originally due out on 5th January but still a no-show, is rapidly descending into farce.
]]>I've banged on quite enough about Dragon Age's first expansion, Awakening, due this March, so I'll not witter on more here. Just to say there's a trailer for the new content below, explaining the outline of the plot, and not featuring any silly rawk music. Post-game spoilers below, naturally.
]]>Before I begin, other news: Return To Ostagar, today's DLC release, has been delayed. No word when it will appear. Sadpanda.
Onward. After yesterday's scurrilous rumours of a potential Dragon Age expansion called The Awakening this March, the truth has come out. There's a Dragon Age expansion due this March, but it's called Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening. There's no "The". Take that, Eurogamer.cz, with your so-called "news". It's set after the events of the main game, with you playing a Grey Warden Commander aiming to rebuild the Warden's ranks. One thing. It's going to cost $40.
]]>Dragon Age is getting bigger. A little bit bigger tomorrow, and then perhaps rather significantly bigger in March. If the words spoken by Czech Eurogamer are true, we could be seeing Dragon Age: The Awakening in a couple of months. (Via That VideoGame Blog.) When I spoke to EA bods before the game was released I was told, "We've got at least 30 hours more content ready for the game already," so it's no surprise that the expansion rumoured for March should be about 15 hours long (or, for perspective, twice the length of the average console shooter). Tomorrow, however, definitely brings us the smaller DLC pack, Return To Ostagar.
]]>I rather painfully hit a wall in Dragon Age a couple of weeks back, finding my enjoyment stymied by the twin tediums of getting killed far too much and getting bored of wandering endless dwarven caverns and elven forests that required an absurd amount of backtracking through narrow, empty corridors. (Really, would it be so wrong to turn on the instant map travel system in major areas once they've been cleared of enemies?) Finding myself with some free time, I headed back in today, only for the former problem to re-rear its annoying head. I knew what was causing it - I didn't have a good healer. As well as that, my main character, a mage, was a mess of mixed abilities, lacking a core function, horribly prone to inflicting friendly fire with his more powerful attacks and running out of mana horrifyingly quickly to boot. He was screw-up, in short - a liability in every fight.
]]>Danger! Danger! This contains a few minor, character-specific spoilers - but nothing to do with DA's main plot.
My first few hours with Bioware's latest had more worried I wasn't going to be entertained. Sure, I was having fun, but my party, the people I was travelling with, were pretty dry. Facetious holy warrior Alistair had a nice line in comic deflections, but arch sorceress Morrigan seemed a textbook line in sneery, sultry know-it-alls (though I'm sure there are many stings to be found in her self-confident tale) and, while the dog was sort of cute, it wasn't exactly chatty. As for wide-eyed, pseudo-French bard Leilana - well, my cat could read those lines better than her. Sigh. Could I really make it through a couple of dozen hours with these ciphers, these stereotypes, these appalling cod-Euro accents? (Though, seriously, I like Alistair a lot). Then I met Shale, the golem - almost immediately the game's bright, dazzling star.
]]>Sorry about the delay on this. The plan was to judge it last night, but there were - er - unavoidable delays. In a pub. Sorry. However, I've judged the competition and selected the winners, turning this into a very Dragon-agey day indeed. Hopefully they'll have their copy of the Dragon's Age Direct2Drive shortly. The standard of entries were high. Many people did copies of famous people. Many people did copies of us. Many people did seemingly completely normal fantasy characters, with bios, which is very sweet. Some people did things which make me genuinely disturbed. Some of them are winners. But which ones? Click, to discover.
]]>We're playing Dragon Age. Except for John, because he's already finished it and reviewed it for PC Gamer. The rest of RPS were a bit later to the party, so to speak. Consequently we're a little... distracted. We offer a few early thoughts below. It's probably fair to say that there will be minor spoilers in this article.
]]>Dragon Age playing masses, the 1.01 patch is out, and it's likely essential. Those who've seen my PC Gamer review, and indeed very many others saying the same, will have noticed complaints that the Easy difficulty level at certain points isn't altogether that easy. And I'll wager many playing on Normal aren't exactly finding it a breeze. The patch notes explain that they've, "made Easy difficulty easier", and crucially, "slightly increased attack, defense, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty." I've yet to check what difference it actually makes, but hopefully this will address my one major complaint with the game. Steam has already auto-patched, so restart if you're playing it over there. (And while I'm here, here's Eurogamer's review of the 360 version - it seems the PC won this one rather well.)
]]>Over the weekend the Dragon Age pre-loading has started, meaning if you pre-order it - er - it'll start downloading. Early. And similar. Anyway, to celebrate this momentous event, Direct2Drive have given us five copies of the Digital Deluxe Edition to give away to you. Our fine readers. So it's compo time! To secure your copy of this much anticipated game, you have to use the recently released character creator to make the most interesting looking character you can. What does "interesting" mean? Well, you read the site. That's your job to work out. Reverse analyse our evil noggins. Anyway - when you've done that, send a link to a grab of your creation, perhaps with a little in-mail elaboration of why you think it's so splendid. Don't actually mail us the screengrab. Mail us a link to the photo. I repeat, mail us a link to the grab of your character. We can't have our compo inbox bunged up with enormous jpg files, you understand. Anyway - get the creator from here and get cracking. The compo will close at 6pm EST GMT on Thursday 5th, so those who don't win still have time to actually pre-order the thing. The usual compo rules apply.
]]>First of all, I'm very sorry for the headline. Moving on. The Dragon Age trailers, they will not stop. The latest is the reveal of the Dwarven potential party member Oghren, a fighter who can join your gang. As you'll see in the trailer below, he's brash, rude, and partial to the odd drink or seven, and at odds with the political state of his home city of Orzammar.
]]>You can now download the Dragon Age character creator, letting you find out the range of races and looks available for your potential avatar. You can get it in English directly from clicking here, or if you're after another language head to the official Dragon Age site, in the column on the right. There's also a new and rather excellent CGI trailer, which you can see below.
]]>Dragon Age designers talk architecture, history, archaeology in the latest Dragon Age trailer. There's a lot of discussion of level design, world design, and the way that the game was prototyped in the Neverwinter Nights engine. That makes for an interesting "compare and contrast" for tech and design between the two games. This is the kind of trailer we were expecting, I think? That said, it's an odd choice of trailer title with "Making A Living World," because it's definitely not making a living world in the sense we understand it as gamers. I've also posted a bunch of the new (and old) images EA released earlier today, and you can click for big versions.
]]>As Dragon Age edges ever closer more details about the game world are beginning to appear. Now we are given snippets of the city of Denerim, a capital city rife with corruption. Ooh, and you get to hear Tim Curry for a bit.
]]>BioWare has been peculiarly tight-lipped about the voice cast for the soon-to-arrive Dragon Age, until now. A decision which became more than a little silly at E3 when they played a scene with the voice of a famous actor, and then refused to agree that she was in it. As we reported at the time, Kate Mulgrew (famous for being the guinea pig-voiced captain Kathryn Janeway of the USS Voyager) was providing the voice of a witch known as Flemeth. Yesterday BioWare announced that Kate Mulgrew (famous for being the guinea pig-voiced captain Kathryn Janeway of the USS Voyager) is providing the voice of a witch known as Flemeth. However, there's many more famous names announced, and people: one of them's Tim Curry. Footage below.
]]>A wad of Dragon Age: Origins trailers - that's what you're in the mood for. You weren't sure, but now I've said it you realise that's exactly it. How will they taste? Look below. There's three of them, titled The Dwarf Commoner, The Human Noble and The Tower Of Ishal. I'd like to now say: oh thank goodness.
]]>Oh dear, the last Dragon Age Trailer we posted didn't half cause a stink. Outrage at the Marilyn Manson soundtrack and silly sex scenes from one camp, and accusations of prudish snobbery from the other. Why... why can't we all just get along? Sniff. Bioware seem to think similarly, their latest vid-snippet aiming square at a compromise - big, sonorous speeches paired with more heavy rawk. While I don't think for one second that's going to be representative of the game itself, it kind of works in this intro cinematic.
]]>Possibly a bit spoilery this one, and very bloody. I'm not sure quite what to make of it: the bloody, lusty delivery is somewhat at odds with almost every other glimpse of Bioware's forthcoming fantasy RPG that we've so far seen. I can only assume that the Dragon Age soundtrack will be nothing like the one featured here. Anyway, see what you think, and let the inevitable debate not dwell too long on the sex bits.
Oh, Bioware.
]]>Woah, woah, woah. Calm down, Excited Bob: this ain't yer everyday beta. It's a little different, this one - specifically, it's to test the toolset for Bioware's upcoming spiritual sequel to Baldur's gate. The follow-up to the long-lived, enormously successful Neverwinter Nights modding kit, in other words. So it is indeed an early chance to play with the engine, but you'll be making your own adventures rather than carving through Dragon Age's story.
]]>[When I was at NYCC, I found some time to have a quick crack at the games on the floor. Quick. As in, 10-15 minutes tops. I'm writing up some of them, before it all fades, fades away.]
A bit of an odd couple this pair, but - were I forced to conjure a link - I'd pair them as tangential twins of modern development harking back to a previous age of PC Gaming. Dragon Age is Baldur's Gate re-concieved after Bioware's console dalliances with modern technology. Battlefield 1943 is Battlefield 1942, but with a technological reboot and some minor tweaking.
]]>Below the jump is a pleasantly long video showing off Dragon Age's conversations, from the perspective of a few different races, and demonstrating the difference that various origin stories will make. Some of the acting is quite a relief - a good degree better than in other videos we've seen of the game. And extremely British, which I hadn't realised. (And amazingly, actually British actors, rather than embarrassing mockney attempts).
]]>Handsome-lookin' fantasy RPG Dragon Age doesn't seem to be carrying much of a buzz with it so far, which is kind of odd because the footage I've seen so far has had me quite interested. I wonder if it's the ultra-generic name: people just aren't paying attention. For my part (ie knee-deep in The Witcher) it's looking like a pleasing prospect. It's not Mass Effect, and nor is it Neverwinter Nights, but it is all Bioware RPG. Indeed, the space between in which it's set to land is one that looks pretty enticing to me. Have a see what you think.
Two footages follow...
]]>The two sizable videos that lie beyond the cut contain a wide expanse of Dragon Age information, with tonnes of in-game footage. There's plenty of time spent in the game world, looking at quests, conversations and so on - far more detail of the general RPG stuff than we've seen previously. It's spoilerific, obviously, but the amount of detail covered in the two pieces certainly has me looking forward to this game even more than I had been previously. The GameVideos servers seem to be creaky slow at the moment, so this might take some time to load.
Dragon Age is due in Q1 2009, apparently.
]]>Among the residual Leipzig footage was a few minutes of Dragon Age cutscene, and a it's a pretty good barometer for the kind of acting we can expect from the new Bioware RPG. It's looking like splendid ego-action from men in armour discussing the Fate Of The Kingdom, not unlike the RPS chatroom every morning. Sadly, it does not feature much acting from the Big Blue Toothface Of Doom (pictured) although he does a good growl.
]]>Like the title says. I'm finally playing Mass Effect for the first time at the moment, and oddly it's making me look forward to Dragon Age a lot more. I'm not Mr Orcs & Goblins (RPS has enough of that type already), but the sterility of Mass Effect's future has me aching to get into an olde worlde fantasy setting. What I'm loving about the in-game footage we've seen so far is quite how trad it all appears. Despite being in a far more versatile engine than Bioware's previous D&D games, seeing those little green circles around their feet has made me feel all nostalgic.
]]>At last - no silly cinematic, no unhelpful announcement of name-change - just honest-to-god in-game action from Bioware's next RPG.
It's not Mass Effect with orcs. It's not Oblivion with, er, different orcs. In fact, it's quite possibly exactly what you cRPG-starved masses been praying for (well, I say that, but really I'm braced for the inevitable storm of complaint). And for the non-cRPG-starved masses, it also features a very cool bossfight. Go, get beneath the cut! Quickly!
]]>Dear RPS Readers,
Thanks for the interested comments in response to my first post! They have warmed my heart and girded my loins for the rest of the week. Straight after filing my first report I had to dash (well, walk leisurely) across downtown Los Angeles to get to the EA press conference, held at the Orpheum Theatre – a truly gorgeous restored vaudeville theatre where they shot the theatre scenes for Last Action Hero. Which wasn’t as thrilling as accidentally ending up at Union Station (where they filmed the police station scenes for Blade Runner) yesterday, but interesting none the less. In a round about way that sort of sums up EA’s press conference, too. Not hugely thrilling, but unquestionably interesting.
]]>Whadda ya think - is Bioware's next RPG, reportedly a spiritual Baldur's Gate sequel, looking mightier than it did in the last trailer? Open letter to Bioware though: please, for the love of Tzeentch, hire a different voice actor for whoever Your Majesty is. The guy sounds like an annoyed Blue Peter Presenter.
]]>The Dragon Age site has changed to reveal a link to the already-populated forums, a subscription link for a newsletter, and a link to the apparently-in-engine trailer on GameTrailers. It has also picked up a subtitle, which is odd, because "origins" is usually a title you tag onto something further down the line, when you feel the need to do a prequel, right? Anyway, the not-actually-CGI trailer is after the jump.
]]>We don't know much about Bioware's next RPG, reportedly in development for five years now. But we probably think we know a lot about it as, well, their last three games were a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitle bit similar.
Reassuringly, it's the Edmonton lot closing the circle. They've already shed their Star Wars handcuffs by following up KOTOR with Mass Effect, set in their own Roddenberryesque sci-fi universe, and Dragon Age will see 'em finally step out of Dungeons & Dragons' shadow and into their own medieval fantasy world. And about time too - a developer with that much clout shouldn't have to suckle from another man's elf.
]]>.png?width=1200&height=630&fit=crop&enable=upscale&auto=webp "The Last Of Us Part II ידרוש חשבון PSN כדי לשחק במחשב, מה שהופך אותו לבלתי ניתן לשחק בלמעלה מ")
