It's About Time :: Dragon Age: Origins

[Stranger of Sorts]

That's totally beside the point.
Being fair to your audience is a good thing regardless of who you are or what you do.

I don't quite follow your logic of how it's unfair, at the beginning of a review you have to draw the reader in and telling him exactly what the tone is for the review usually doesn't help much. You have to drop in hints here and there to keep the reading.

 

[veloper]

How did you happen to decline from:

I guess that makes sense, I'll take it into account if I do something similar again.

to

[quote="Stranger of Sorts" post="326.185708.5667447
I don't quite follow your logic of how it's unfair, at the beginning of a review you have to draw the reader in and telling him exactly what the tone is for the review usually doesn't help much. You have to drop in hints here and there to keep the reading.[/quote]

anyway,

you don't keep the reader by wasting his or her time, dropping hints. Clear and direct works best.

If the reader likes your angle and your points are clear and valid, he'll want to continue reading.
If not, the reader will only stay for the big laughs, if any.

A review can only be effective, when readers can compare their own preferences to that of the reviewer and relate to some degree.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

Overall a good review but your missing some stuff.

Music, graphics, and DLC (at least mention that it exists) go unmentioned in this review. Also, you never mentioned the difficulty levels which I feel were fucked up, just saying.

Your language could be much better as I didn't many if any advanced words used in this review. Or at least, I wasn't engaged enough. This could be due to the tone of the review as it goes from informative to a tad rant-like, only slightly though.

Basically your missing details but have a solid review pretty much regardless.

It's funny how my shittier reviews get more attention.

Your discussion on combat says nothing to the availability of combat tactics, or friendly fire (hard and nightmare modes), or the variety of spell combos that produce tactically interesting effects.

The tactics system and tactics available are really nothing special, I would point you toward Final Fantasy XII which has an almost identical system but the spell combos are a lot more interesting thanks to the huge variety of spells.

Even so, good or bad, it's worth noting if you are trying to do a good review.

Overall yours wasn't bad, just lacking details.

 

[Knight Templar]

The tactics system and tactics available are really nothing special, I would point you toward Final Fantasy XII which has an almost identical system but the spell combos are a lot more interesting thanks to the huge variety of spells.

*Cough* and Priority *Cough*.

Priority might have saved DA:O's system... Wasted potential.

But the tatics in Dragon Age do have priority, if the conditions for both 1 and 3 are met then tatic 1 will occur before tatic 3.
At least thats how I think it works.
*Checks DA wiki*

Yeah tatics higher on the list have priority, so unless I missunderstod you...

A review is not a detective novel.

Good thing this review looks nothing like a novel.

In many fields starting with the conclusion and then follow up with how you came to that conclusion is actually the preferred method.

But not in reviews, at least not in reviews correctly formatted.
This review is not perfect, when Stranger of Sorts can craft a masterwork review then he can start messing with the formula.

In a game review you can do both and starting wih the conclusion is simply more convenient for the reader.

This is allready a short review, its not asking much for people to read it.

If you don't, many readers will scroll to the last paragraph anyway, before deciding if the piece is worth reading.

You mean you want a TL/DR at the top of the review? Pandering to the lazy?
This brings up a good point, why include a forward for the lazy when those people are likely to just jump to the end anyway?

 

[veloper]

In many fields starting with the conclusion and then follow up with how you came to that conclusion is actually the preferred method.

But not in reviews, at least not in reviews correctly formatted.
This review is not perfect, when Stranger of Sorts can craft a masterwork review then he can start messing with the formula.

In a game review you can do both and starting wih the conclusion is simply more convenient for the reader.

This is allready a short review, its not asking much for people to read it.

There's an infinite amount of good stuff to read and the reader only has so much time.

If you don't, many readers will scroll to the last paragraph anyway, before deciding if the piece is worth reading.

You mean you want a TL/DR at the top of the review? Pandering to the lazy?
This brings up a good point, why include a forward for the lazy when those people are likely to just jump to the end anyway?

You can never have too much convenience when it comes so cheap.

The reason why I brought this up is that's a reviewer shouldn't be afraid to give something away at the start. The purpose of a review is to inform the reader. Don't bother with the suspense, it's not a novel.

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

check out this review on dragon age origins: http://social.bioware.com/brc/1691121

Hey, welcome to the site. Just a friendly warning: promoting stuff outside the site for no good reason is against the rules. If you want people here to check out your review, try posting it in its own thread in this User Reviews section. It'll get more attention that way, and you're not intruding on someone elses' review.

OT: Oh, the OP wants nitpicks? I'll read the review and provide some a bit later.

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

Crap. Please ignore, double post.