I just get bored. I was expecting more...

User Rating: 6 | Dragon Age: Origins (Collector's Edition) PC
2nd game I've purchased recently by recommendation of not just the big video game reviewers, but the masses of console and PC gamers. Overwhelming they've said this is an excellent game. I'd have to say I was underwhelmed. After a weird time with the EA download manager telling me I wasn't online, after a few hours of downloading I fired of the game. The registration, one account with EA one with Bioware, seemed unnecessary (especially with cleaner system like Steam DLC), but it was painless. I entered the DLC pack codes and they loaded just fine. I was ready to go.

I had previously known that I wouldn't be able to properly role play with no option to create black people, but I was pissed after the first option I selected, a dwarf commoner, you're put in the role of a castless, who's family origins are unknown. If they had no history, what would be the purpose of them refusing to let me be black? I would have been treated the same and according to what I've been reading, after the origin story, they'd ignore your class anyway. FAIL. Especially since your best friend acts and looks like a light-skinned black guy.

Now that's after all the annoyances were over with.

The Witcher used the same graphics engine, this is what I was acually expecting, but the Witcher's graphics were much better. This isn't what I expecting from a supposedly big budget and much hype EA/Bioware game. The backgrounds so far a bland and undetailed. The development time of the game must have went to writing because it certainly didn't go on graphics or gameplay as this is the same thing we've been playing all along. I thought of Knights of the Old Republic, but I'm aware of Never Winter Nights and that it played this way as well, but I never got a chance to play that. I didn't own a computer back when it came out and didn't have a Mac capable to playing it by the second one. I never minded the combat, but I alway thought it looked bad. I liked the way it worked, but always felt it could have been better. in KOTOR I tolerated it because I enjoyed the freedom of choice not really offered in JRPGs.

I can't put my finger on why I found myself falling asleep on the story both today and yesterday when I purchased it. I find the dialog interesting, but maybe it's too much of the same. They reuse the same angles and perspective from every other Bioware game. I'd think they just cut and pasted like an online comic creator. It's starting to get old. Maybe the story is too similar as well, Grey Wardens/Spectres/Jedi, etc. No option to turn against the Grey Wardens either.

Idk. I just got bored. No flash, no flare, nothing to get excited about. Forget the flash and flare, there is nothing new. It's just another average RPG whose story is supposedly better than most other games. I remember back in the day how it was when I first popped in Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy 3 (US) and was pulled in from the beginning (or even most good books). Now these bullcorn Western RPGs are trying to tell us we need to keep playing or we'll miss the good part. That's just not how it should be. It goes against all common rules of good storytelling which this game is supposedly all about.

Upgrading the battle system to something like the Witcher's would be a good start.

This game will just end up having to wait. I tried picking it up after Mass Effect 2 and just got disappointed and bored. Maybe it will open up later and get better. I can't say because I have to finish ME2 first.