i saw the end at 25 hours in... it's not rocket science you see most of the map straight away.
Tiny world all condensed into little maps, Bioware really don't do sandboxed RPGS. (Although Mass Effect felt 100% better than this piece of garbage). Dialogue would have been better if they had hired decent writers; Do you hear that? - Mr Tolkein rolling in his grave.
Graphics were laudable, plus the fact you actually get an NPC at your camp beginning you to help them ONLY if you download premium content, with just a few clicks. You're kidding me? no, he's really there.
Then there's the Bugs, no where near as bad as a certain KOTOR or worse Bethedsa's joke of Fallout 3, who for some reason managed to create MORE bugs with each edition they shipped out. (i'm serious go from Xbox, PC to the PS3 version and scratch your freaking head).
Anyway where was i... oh yeah, the bugs, the worst one being the little exploit where you can go to level 20 within the first 30 minutes of the game. Due to the fact the guy gives XP for the blood (3 vials.. with me) but as long as you don't pick up the other thing (spawning the "slut" of the game) you can keep handing in the same vials of blood for the XP. Since XP doesn't change per level (bizare for an RPG) nor do you really feel that much powerful, just get better abilities.
How that got through testing.. i'll never know and that's the rub, the game feels like it was forced out by EA more quickly than sex with jessica alba because you were "tired" and "excited". This was probably to make way for more work on Mass Effect 2 (looks great) and the Star Wars MMO Beta.
Dragons Age has suffered, sure we'll get some DLC content... but it'll still feel like they missed out on so much, they could have optimised the engine, made loading times less... even created better facial animations so they don't all look constapated and walk like we went back in time to the first "ghost recon" on the xbox.
at least the actors are okay, well except the dwarfs.. the dwarfs all sound like fat humans.
it feels unfinished, playing it on normal it'll take you 40 hours... easy will take 10 hours off that. The best NPC characters are the ones who talk a lot.. i like alistair, the french girl and shale (a female dwarf of all things).
but it was traded in, in less than a week because i had mostly done everything and seen almost all the endings, bar one where you let the evil SOB actually LIVE. come on. (you'll KILL a lot of dragons, the developers are in the school, when in doubt make the boss a dragon - you'll kill 3 of the big things in the game; shapeshifter, cult "leader" and the end "demon")
couldn't make it through all the starting origins though except human and mage. Funny how the racism all but disppears when you enter the elven part of the city as a human
it's like the writers got bored half way... and went "meh".
oh and help the girl bartender, and the other chick with cash... you even get lines at the end of what happens to them. Only characters i actually cared about what happens... the rest are a dime a dozen. (alistair forgets all about helping his sister).
Go buy Mass Effect, better game.. half the price
thank god for unchartered 2, better than this pile of ****. Jade Empire was worse though.
