Dragon Age...that *other* game Bioware is working on...
In various places around Gamespot, including a series of great predictions by nocoolnamejim, I've seen a lot of love for Bioware's upcoming Mass Effect. I'm not surprised - the game looks truly awesome, has a great sci fi setting, an innovative conversaton system, and hey it's being done by freaking BIOWARE! I won't deny that I myself am getting excited about it - it has got me seriously conidering the purchase of an Xbox 360, just so I don't have to wait like I did for KOTOR (and from a guy who has played through maybe nine or ten console games in his life, mostly mooched from friends, that's a pretty big deal).
But there's another game out there that isn't getting as much attention around Gamespot, from what I've seen. And admittedly, It's farther out than Mass Effect (I believe the release date was tentativley the winter 2007 or spring 2008, I think that has been pushed back to later 200
, but it deserves more than four threads in its forum anyway. This game is called Dragon Age, and it is also being developed by freaking BIOWARE! It's first destination, is, however, the PC- one reason why I'm excited about it. The other big reason might be that the words "spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate" have been spoken.
Like Mass Effect, this game will take place in a setting created totally by Bioware, and work has been going into it for several years. Described as a "dark heroic fantasy" (with an emphasis on dark), the game wil feature an innovative origins system, with different game beginnings depending on your characters race and character type. I'm not going to list all the cool info on the game here, but be sure to check out this MASSIVE preview over at 1UP (from Games for Windows Magazine), that really shows how much there is to be excited about. You should also check out the screens they have there, which give a much better idea of the game than the five shotsGamespot has, all of which look much worse than what is shown there ( I think Gamespot's are from an E3 concept demo from way, way back).
If that's still not enough to satisfy your curiousity, this thread over at Bioware gathers together a lot of what has been said by devs over on the boards there (thanks to konrad_arflane for posting it in the Dragon Age forums here).
Hopefully this game'll get a bit more buzz as the year moves on (and hopefully Bioware will release more about it!), but I just wanted to pur some info about it out there.
(@ nocoolnamejim: hope that sort of answered your wuestions about it)
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This is fantastic! Emphasis on Dark? That is perfect for what I'm looking for. I admit, I'm craving a more adult, mature themed sort of rpg than what Japan typically releases these days. (Eternal Sonata and Blue Dragon for two examples both look good, but damn I'm sick of Japanese main characters always being about 15 years old.)
I'm going to start tracking this game right away. A Bioware PC exclusive title? What a fascinating discovery you've given me. (And many thanks for the mention of my blog here.)
It may amaze you to learn, but I missed the Baldur's Gate games completely. My girlfriend assures me that they were spectacular, so maybe this will be a good time for me to get involved in a similar game that will inspire me to go back and play the older ones.
Hopefully Gamespot will start covering it more soon, but regarding the Baldur's Gate games, they definitely were awesome titles, and are well worth checking out. From what I've seen though, it looks like this is going to take a lot of the feel from those games and mix it with some of the stuff they learned (gameplay wise) in KOTOR. And since those are two of my favorite RPG's ever...it's looking good!
And regarding the link to your blog: you're welcome. Your postings are always great, so I figured the more people who read 'em, the better.
Come...don't be afraid. I, too, was once PC exclusive. Now, I happy play games for both. And by the way, is it my imagination or did you raise your rating of Planescape: Torment .2 points today JuJu?
@Arcadius: I haven't read much about the Witcher - I guess I'll have to check it out. And in terms of a PC gamer starting to play consoles, my friend recently got a Wii, meaning I've basically permanently "borrowed" his old gamecube (and some of his games...) so expect me to blog about how (pleasantly) surprised I've been by certain console games soon. I guess this has only increased the likelyhood I'll give into that Mass Effect urge nocoolnamejim was talking about....
And yes, Planescape: Torment is spectacular. It truly deserves the ranking of "masterpiece" that you applied to it. I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on gamecube games. I have a gamecube that I picked up used and I'm sorting through some older games looking for true gems to tide me over until this fall.
And The Witcher will r0x0rz j00 b0x0rz! Assuming it won't suffer from Europeitis. You know, an otherwise excellent game marred by bugs, lack of polish and crappy voice work.
I love it, besides the fact that it can't run on x64 machines I love it, heck it would rival Oblivion if it weren't so buggy, and of course the damned combat system. And AI. And the sound bug. And the Save crash. And the fact that I can't run it on Vista 64. And the fact that it refused to run correctly when I had me olde Athlon 64 FX 55!
And Europe rocks man!