Hands On With Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Dragon Age: Origins was such a huge hit with the game industry and especially here on GayGamer, so I of course jumped at the chance to head out to EA's Redwood Shores studios to see a special preview of the new expansion, Dragon Age: Awakening.
Dragon Age: Awakening is more of what you loved about the original Dragon Age with scads of new additions: new weapons (including epics), items, skills, enemies and much more. Of course there is an all new storyline as well as a cast of new characters. For those of you that have come to love the original cast, they will be making cameos and there will be one returning character although the developers wouldn't let on who it might be. There needs to be some surprises I suppose!
The story picks up where the original game ended. The Blight has been wiped out and the Grey Wardens left with seriously depleted ranks. Despite everyone's best efforts however, the Darkspawn have returned. But these are new Darkspawn, much deadlier and this time they are sentient. It's up to you and your comrades to reform the Grey Wardens and defeat this deadly foe.
How the portions of the story play out is largely up to you. You can continue the story with your original Dragon Age character or create a new one. Playing as your original character will effect the game in different ways depending on the decisions you made in the first. It will guide which characters make cameos and several other major plot points. All this taken from your saved game, of course. You can also choose to play as a new character which will put you in the role of a Grey Warden from another country who is brought in to try and rebuild the Grey Wardens to their former glory.
Make the jump to read more plus check out some new screenshots!
The same writing team that was behind the original title is working on this one as well and while there promises to be much "sexual tension" between characters, this particular game will be free of romance options. According to online producer Fernando Melo, the DA:A team decided romance between characters was something they didn't feel necessary this time around. While I enjoyed the romance options of the first game, I agree that every game does not have to include it. After all, this is a game about defeating the evil horde, not seeing how much elven bootie you can score, although it is a happy bonus. (These are my words of course)
For an expansion, Dragon Age: Awakening is huge in scope and although Melo couldn't give me a solid number of hours it would take to finish. However he did say it was about the length of an average full game. There will be new locations to explore and the loads of side quests we've come to enjoy from the first game. If you loved Dragon Age: Origins and are anxious to play more, this new title will more than fit the bill.
My actual hands on time with the game was brief and hindered a bit by the fact that it was demoed on the PC. As you well know, I am a rotten keyboard and mouse gamer and am much more at home with a controller in my hand. But despite some small bumps, I was able to have some battles and play into the saved game they had ready for me. Not a whole lot to report as far as gameplay goes, it was really more of the same except for some new and interesting spells for my magic user. But this isn't a bad thing. Why fix what's not broken? I did like the small bit of the plot I experienced, but I don't want to give away to much of what I saw. Suffice it to say this is going to be a great follow up to the original.
You won't have to wait long to play as Dragon Age: Awakening is set to release on Xbox 360, PC and PS3 on March 16th in North America and March 18th in Europe. It will retail on disc for $39.99 or can be downloaded directly for the same price.
Fruit Brute
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 18 February 2010
· Comments (7)
Other stuff like this: dragon age, dragon age: origins - awakening, ea, pc, ps3, xbox 360
Any word on if you're able to continue the story [depending on the way you ended Dragon Age].
uh...Spoiler Alert.
No kidding. I've edited the comment. :|
the lack of romance is a big disappointment for me! Unless maybe the game is too short for a full on romance. Maybe some of the characters you have sexual tension with will get full romances in the sequel? I'd hate for my companions to be more secondary to a generic save the world plot.
I DEMAND MOAR ZEVRAN!
I will wait to pick this one up until I hear others' reactions to the game's length. I can't see spending that much for a 10-12 hour game.
I'll buy it eventually, no matter what. I'll probably wait awhile for a price decrease though.
The Few Things That Get me Is The Lack of Romance, and The Way U can't have a random coversation with people when/wherever Yu Like!