NotkerBiloba

Very entertaining! Some challenging battles, endearing characters -- and some companions and NPCs that made me feel feelings, both good and bad. Not sure if I totally buy the premise, but it's fantasy, I guess. :) Can't wait for the next Kickstarter ...

This game ticks all the boxes for PnP-style fantasy without the preset characters. While I do love a story involving NPCs with rich backgrounds, a la Dragon Age 2, sometimes you just want to toy around with different party configurations and try out the various settings, dialogs, random encounters, etc. I come back to this one time after time.

Thank you, BioWare, for saving me a *massive* amount of time not having to play this title. As of now, the combat system is unplayable. I did enjoy reading the story online, since I can't actually play the game; but, as Dragon Age has always been a tactical squad-based RPG, I have to give it a zero. If it had been marketed as a choose-your-own-adventure movie, I suppose I would have given it a score somewhere in the 7-9 range (can't be a 10 due to choppy graphics), based on voice acting, quests, and overall engagement of the story -- but I didn't make it that far. While the combat system in Origins was awesome at the time, I found that after playing DA2 that I had grown too accustomed to the mechanics of DA2 to ever play Origins again -- cannot stand getting hit from 30 yards away by a 2H warrior who I ran away from when he started his swing 10 seconds ago. But I gave both games a 10: the party members basically did what you told them to do when you told them to do it, and could easily be ordered to move to position X, or two or more members grouped and made to go to position X or attack enemy Y or whatever. Not in DA:I. It's gone. No more tactics = no more Dragon Age. I had been playing a lot of DA2 (and even tried DA:O again) in the run-up to the DA:I release, because I was so jonesing for this style of combat, and I was really looking forward to DA:I so I could finally experience some new character types and new story elements, etc. What the hell happened? Whereas I had spent hundreds of hours on each of the previous titles, having done several play-throughs in each, I have been spared the missing of sleep and other activities that comes with the addictiveness of a new game. I guess I'm happy in a way, but the disappointment is still a little raw, and I'll need a little time for the bitterness and sadness to subside.

Agree wholeheartedly with Tb87670, except I was a little older in 1999 and had played previous Civ titles and whatnot. This game is 16 years old, and miraculously still fresh on my current play-through after not having looked at it in years. I love the sci-fi story in addition to all the usual Civ features. If only something similarly creative could be done in this genre!

I went back and forth a lot on this one, between 9 and 10. Rationale for "10": the developers have made something that captures our imagination; we become enrapt in an environment without having to blow anything up, kill things, solve complex puzzles, etc. There seems to have been a general trend towards less story-driven content and more blowing stuff up, and in my opinion the question has been, can we increase the story, the art, the atmosphere, etc., decrease the explosions, and still entertain people? This title *is* that experiment, having taken the shooting and problem-solving to absolutely zero -- and the response has been surprisingly (to me) positive. Rationale for "9": I was a little confused at the end; I had an expectation that by uncovering clues, I would be able to piece together a story that made sense. And I also read a little bit about this title, both before playing and after completing it, and I thought there would be more of a "ghost story" aspect to it. In the end I decided I was leaning more towards "10", as the rationale for "9" was reasoned away. Specifically, it dawned on me that there is no reason not to consider a game as a work of art; and as I began to consider this work amongst the many other types of works, such as poetry, music, painting, etc., and I realized that in art, there often is no "right answer" as to the meaning of the work. Some art works aren't so much important for their meaning as for their creativity, beauty, and their ability to make us think. The artist may have an idea in mind, a message to convey, but sometimes a work can lead to more questions than answers. It is often up to the beholder to decide what the meaning is, and to fill in the gaps. As for the "ghost story" aspect, once I came to find out (through fora and such) that there were mysterious shadows lurking around, and where they might turn up, I have to admit that I could no longer attempt play-throughs at nighttime with the lights out. That is a powerful statement. I'm not a spiritual person, but for some reason this story, setting, music, etc., had a very real effect on me. I'm not sure if I agree with the designers' approach of not allowing the player to get all the story fragments in one play-through, but it does give us the opportunity to go back through and pick up subtleties that we may have missed the first time through. In short, 9.5; I'll round up.

I'd give this a 9, but there are too many 0's from people who just don't like RPGs, and don't like tactical combat. This is an RPG with tactical combat, and a story. Would you rate a lamp as zero because it's not a blender? That's absurd. If you want to run around and shoot things, play something else. There's nothing wrong with games like that. Yes, you definitely cannot trust the AI to control your companions effectively on higher difficulties. I pause repeatedly during combat to give each minion a command, so that the timing of all spells and other actions is right. The thought of having to aim at things in real time and get good at reacting to on-screen events with well-timed and -placed mouse clicks -- not interested. It may not look as good as Oblivion or whatever (never played), but it's way the hell better than NWN2, the previous title I played. Not every choice affects outcome, but when the game ends, you will get to read what became of the different characters, towns, etc. The characters are rich, though interaction with them through conversation is by no means necessary. I could see where people would give it a point or two lower because the graphics aren't as good as X or the AI isn't as good as Y, but it's very good at what it purports to be, and any reviews you read that rank this game below about 7 are unjustified and misguided.