Dragon Age

Dragon Age is a good game.

Game may not be the best term, it's really more of an interactive story. The combat doesn't add to the game, it's just kind of annoying. If there was a Dragon Age where I could just make different dialogue options and see what happened, that'd be great. No need for all the MMORPG tactics and shenanigans, just the character and story, which are their best feature anyway. The fact that I played the game on easy, and I still had to use cheap tactics really makes me feel bad for those that used higher difficulty. What's it like having to pause the game every few seconds and manually issue commands to everyone? Doesn't that suck?

By the way, if you're interested in playing, be a mage. Mages are just better than the other roles. If mages could only cast Cone of Cold, they'd still be better than the other classes. Cone of Cold will freeze the last boss of the game, and recharges only a second later than it takes for victims to unfreeze. If you have two mages with CoC, you can lock down any monster in the game.

I'm impressed by the graphics of this game. The characters look good. This might not seem impressive, but it's a huge leap forward over the 200 varieties of ugly in The Elder Scrolls games. Also, characters will move around when they're talking, which helps you believe they're not robots. That is, except when multiple people are doing the same animation at the same time. Then they look like really creepy robots.

Conversations are very well executed. You can't just click on every single option until the problem is solved, and you have to make some tough decisions without feeling like you've been railroaded by the game's conversational options. If you had a voice actor for your own character, most of the conversations would sound like an actual conversation, bonus points for that.

Although I don't enjoy most of the combat, the magic self-interaction is often interesting. If you freeze someone, then hit them with stonefist, or crit on them, they can shatter. That's pretty cool. if you give someone magic vulnerability, then cast drain life, you steal more life. Little details like that are cool. Especially since they update your Codex when you happen upon another combination of abilities.

I'm really looking forward to Dragon Age, Da Legend Continues. I really felt the only thing the game lacked were enough places to buy DLC. Sure, there's a DLC salesman in your camp, and there's a point on your map where you can only buy DLC, and there are items in the game that do nothing unless you buy DLC, but they could do so much more. Why not have DLC for conversational options? DLC for turning characters bi-sexual? DLC reminders every time you go into a loading screen?

PS. Where's the DA fanbase? There isn't a single good guide to the game anywhere! (The gamefaqs guide is the most basic type of acceptable guide. Where's the complete analysis of every option, the text dump, the twinking guide?)