In a Dragons Age..

So.. I'm going to talk about Dragon Age, and while I'm not entirely sure how to begin, the best I can come up with is to start with the beginning. I picked it up at 10AM from bestbuy(Which opens at 10AM), on November 2nd.

Today is November 16th, and I'm finally getting around to writing something about it.

I picked up the Xbox 360 version(Shame on me) for a rather simple reason: I wanted to get my Christmas shopping done, before Christmas came around. That would not be happening, if I got the DA toolset, which is a download that only works if you have the PC version. The side effect of this, is I get to play the game on the idiot-friendly, pre-built hardware box, with idiot-friendly controllers, and idiotic achievements.

First thing first, I'm impressed with how control is handled on the Xbox. Usually, RPG's are the star shaped peg that are beaten into a round hole with an over abundance of brute force. You can see some of the inventory controls below.


Now the truth is.. More quickslots would be a godsent, but its not realyl feasible to duct tape buttons onto the controller, still it was handled well.

You got 3 programmable letter buttons(X,Y,B) and 1 default action button(A). That sounds bad, until we get more into it. Those 3 buttons wear two hats each, which means they also have alternates functions when you depress a trigger, giving you 6 programmable buttons. But wait, There's more! Those 6 buttons, are tied into the Weapon set your using. So really you have 12 buttons(or if your like me, 10. I mapped X on both weapon set's so that it'd swap weapon sets.)

What that all boils down to is.. For example.
X = Swap weapons
Y = Activated talent 1
B = Activated talent 2
T+X = Activated talent 3
T+Y = Activated talent 4
T+B = Activated talent 5

That's just how I did it though. Now let's elaborate, knockdown in NWN would be an activated talent. Parry/Expertise would be a sustained mode, And passive talents, you can't map to a button anyway.

Assuming you made a Bard/Weaponmaster/Arcane archer for a minute(No, don't ask why), think about how many activated feat's you'd be using. KD, Disarm, Called shot, Ki Strike, bard song, curse song. Except in DA, Bard song is a sustained thing, so you can turn it on and leave it active for the next four days. Doesn't really need to be on the quick buttons 'eh? Likewise, healing is a trigger pull, and thumb rotation away. IT doesn't need to be quick-mapped.

In my example above, that covers most Melee things you'd be using right? Do the same for archer. Rapid shot is sustained, so ignore it. Called shot, fireball arrow, homing arrow, death arrow.. what else? Anyway, point made right? More buttons would be nice, but its enough, it works.

Anyway interface babbling aside, they did a really good job overall, with 2 things I'd have liked to see.

1.) Clicking down on a thumb stick to switch to 1st person view, or zoom in like your bow had a scope. Nothing major, or dire importance there, but damned it'd be nice.
2.) and this is where they screwed the pooch.. In Mass effect you could set your own waypoint on the map to help keep you from running around in circles like an idiot. The age of Dragons despite being made after Mass Effect.. lacks this technology.

Not major, but it'd help at a lot for people on their first run through.

Now then I haven't looked at the toolset, or played with it yet, but I can't help but say they did wonders with the dwarven city. Let's look at some pictures for a bit 'eh?

Human city:

Dwarven City:

Elven area of the Human city:


Human Town:

Dwarven Town:

Elves out in the Bushes:


I won't go on a rant about how different, and correctly all this architecture feels to me, but I will invite, and encourage you to look into it more. I can't find pictures I like for some of the ruins that most impressed me, or the Mountain top temple. But the fact remains, while the area design could be better, the views and locations are for one, enough to make me impressed. NWN2 failed to do that for me.

I could go on more, and I probably will later. But as it stands, I need to get back to stopping the blight.