This will be full spolierific review of Dragon Age: Awakening, the new expansion pack for Dragon Age: Origins. If you've not played it yet you should probably go and do that first, if you enjoyed the original you should enjoy the expansion. First I'll talk about length. The game felt short, even considering it's only an expansion not a full game. However looking at the clock on my save game shows that I spent just over 16 hours on my first play through, so I guess it's not really that short. It's probably the fact that I did it in three long sessions rather being spread out that gives that feeling and in that time I did get from level 21 up to level 32. Companions are an important part of CRPGs these days. Here we got a handful of new people and one old one. Of all the companions from the original Oghren is the one who gets to return. They say he's a "fan-favorite", but not mine. Oghren does have some funny moments but for the most part he just annoys me. Once I had enough alternatives he rarely made it into my party choice, which for the most part was Anders (Mage), Nathaniel (Rogue), Justice (Warrior) and myself also as a warrior.
I did come to like those guys after playing with them for a while but I do wish there were more appearances of the originals. Obviously Alistair is now king so he gets a quick cameo at the beginning to set you off and I also met Wynne briefly. I would much rather have run into Leliana, Sten, Shale or my dog. Hopefully at least some of those will be in Dragon Age 2. I've seen quite a lot of complaints on forums about bugs. I did notice one or two but nothing that broke the game for me. They mostly seemed to be related to the fact that DLC items for the original are not available in the expansion along with one or two places with poor collision detection around objects. Game play is mostly unchanged. Only major change I can think of is the updated systems for getting to know your companions. You no longer get to go around everybody while you're in camp but are instead driven to talk to members of your party while out and about. This mostly seems to be change for the good, although it does mean you can't easily learn everything about everybody in a single play through. Unlike the original, the expansion is a lot more linear. It's true you can choose the order you do most of the quests but there's lot less mutually exclusive content when one choice cuts you off from the alternative. That's to be expected from a smaller scale expansion I suppose.
The story this time felt a lot less epic and seemed to lack detail at times. Near the end when I had to choose to join with The Architect or kill him I realized that I no idea what his game was and if I should like him or not. It was a really tough choice. I decided to side with him in the end but I'm still not sure if that was the right choice. I'll have to choose to destroy him next time and see what happens. I also got flashbacks to Crossroad Keep (NWN2) when I realized I was going to have to rebuild Vigil Keep, but luckily this wasn't anywhere as complex/tedious and mostly happened as you went along to places you were going for other reasons. It was always going to be hard to top the brilliance of Dragon Age: Origins, the Awakening expansion doesn't do it but that doesn't make it bad. Don't ask me to rate it exactly but it would probably get a top ten spot. Click the screenshots for larger versions or
view my profile here.
This will be full spolierific review of Dragon Age: Awakening, the new expansion pack for Dragon Age: Origins. If you've not played it yet you should probably go and do that first, if you enjoyed the original you should enjoy the expansion. First I'll talk about length. The game felt short, even considering it's only an expansion not a full game. However looking at the clock on my save game shows that I spent just over 16 hours on my first play through, so I guess it's not really that short. It's probably the fact that I did it in three long sessions rather being spread out that gives that feeling and in that time I did get from level 21 up to level 32. Companions are an important part of CRPGs these days. Here we got a handful of new people and one old one. Of all the companions from the original Oghren is the one who gets to return. They say he's a "fan-favorite", but not mine. Oghren does have some funny moments but for the most part he just annoys me. Once I had enough alternatives he rarely made it into my party choice, which for the most part was Anders (Mage), Nathaniel (Rogue), Justice (Warrior) and myself also as a warrior. 
I did come to like those guys after playing with them for a while but I do wish there were more appearances of the originals. Obviously Alistair is now king so he gets a quick cameo at the beginning to set you off and I also met Wynne briefly. I would much rather have run into Leliana, Sten, Shale or my dog. Hopefully at least some of those will be in Dragon Age 2. I've seen quite a lot of complaints on forums about bugs. I did notice one or two but nothing that broke the game for me. They mostly seemed to be related to the fact that DLC items for the original are not available in the expansion along with one or two places with poor collision detection around objects. Game play is mostly unchanged. Only major change I can think of is the updated systems for getting to know your companions. You no longer get to go around everybody while you're in camp but are instead driven to talk to members of your party while out and about. This mostly seems to be change for the good, although it does mean you can't easily learn everything about everybody in a single play through. Unlike the original, the expansion is a lot more linear. It's true you can choose the order you do most of the quests but there's lot less mutually exclusive content when one choice cuts you off from the alternative. That's to be expected from a smaller scale expansion I suppose.
The story this time felt a lot less epic and seemed to lack detail at times. Near the end when I had to choose to join with The Architect or kill him I realized that I no idea what his game was and if I should like him or not. It was a really tough choice. I decided to side with him in the end but I'm still not sure if that was the right choice. I'll have to choose to destroy him next time and see what happens. I also got flashbacks to Crossroad Keep (NWN2) when I realized I was going to have to rebuild Vigil Keep, but luckily this wasn't anywhere as complex/tedious and mostly happened as you went along to places you were going for other reasons. It was always going to be hard to top the brilliance of Dragon Age: Origins, the Awakening expansion doesn't do it but that doesn't make it bad. Don't ask me to rate it exactly but it would probably get a top ten spot. Click the screenshots for larger versions or view my profile here.
What a brilliant review, you have managed to give a feel of the game to someone who knows nothing about it - good writing!
ReplyDeleteThat does seem sad that you can get close to companions in one game and then you can't have them again.