Anyone else playing this game? I got the XBone version. I'm not yet finished with the main quest line or any of the ancillary side quests but I've played a good chunk of the game and am currently clocked in at 200 hours and I don't know if I'm even halfway through yet, so this isn't a complete review as it is a few thoughts about the game as I go on:
The good (so far): this is their largest offering yet; because of the sheer scale of the map it isn't completely load-free. In fact, load times in between areas can run quite long at times- a little annoying, but you can get past it.
Visuals: its a gorgeous game; you can tell they put a lot of time into it so as to maximize its use of the hardware, but there are glaring little issues that can take away from the immersive aspect. A couple of things to note- they must've taken a shortcut or two with the imaging- in certain cut scenes where the illustration was drawn then incorporated into the character model, you can see gaps just like you'd expect in armor but instead of seeing body or skin, you see to the other side of the character model. I only just noticed this the other night- and got really close to that 60" just to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing. Weird- and the characters went from plausibly alive to marionettes just that fast (in my mind's eye). It did take some of the joy out, but not enough to stop playing. The art overall is gorgeous- big, sweeping environments that are varied enough to not get boring- no cookie cutter caves or land spaces; each area has its own unique visual, be it swampy and dark, sun-beaten sands, overgrown forests, high mountain peaks, that sort of thing. The exterior environments are particularly done well, as is most of the interior stuff- no loads going in and out of small establishments, but multi-room buildings like castles and palaces will get you loading in and out of the various areas. No load time ever passed a full minute but when you're waiting to get to the next area, that can seem (and is) a long time.
Story: up to par as far as the writing goes. The dialog can get pretty dry and boring, but the 'unscripted' banter between your AI team members can be pretty funny depending on who you have in the party and what each one's individual leanings are. If one or two party members disagree or don't like a third, you'll get dialog based on that. Some are flirty, some are morose, one is an absolute nut, can hardly understand her with her thick Cockney accent and penchant for spouting utter nonsense, but she's a hell of an archer. I digress; the story seems interesting enough to drive the game forward- as far as video game stories go, its pretty in-depth and can be altered somewhat based on your decisions as The Inquisitor and your party members' reactions/feelings to and about them. I've found it relatively easy to stay on the 'good' side of my favorite characters, opting to keep them appeased that I'm sure will be detrimental to some of my other relationships but hey, that's sort of like life, isn't it? Fans of previous entries will probably be thankful that you are no longer required to read all of the dialog- you do have the option of turning on text if you like and in some cases it'll do it automatically but since all of the dialog has been recorded it actually makes playing more fun (for me anyway, hated all the reading in DA:O so I know I missed some of the story bypassing all that text).
Characters: as stated, they're written pretty well, each has their own pretty deep backstory- none that I could call outright boring or dry; some of them are more interesting than others. You have a number of male and female options for all of the 'good' races (no archdaemons or spirits if you were wanting to do that), including Qunari. I wasn't a fan of the Qunari in DA:II as I found them rigid and uptight- it was a no brainer to go against them for me. They're pretty much the same here, although to be honest I haven't run into many; not a bad thing for me. You also have a couple of voice options for both males and females- pretty generic but fun if you like that sort of thing. I think one's a British accent, the other American, and same for the females. Now, about the voice acting- it is quite well done, but I expected that. A couple of notable names- I'll not tell you the character, but Indira Varma is in the cast and if any of you saw Rome, well, 'nuff said about her (Vorenus' uber hot wife Niobe for those who can't recall or didn't see). The voices are varied as is the dialog- beyond a few repetitive statements (depending on how long you've been running with the same squad loadout, change'm up from time to time, it'll be fun) most of it won't be stuff you've already heard. You have options for speaking to each of your mates- in some cases it causes a cut scene where you get a little more of an insight to that character, as well as how they view you and your choices.
Combat: ok, here's where it can get a little dicey. There are a number of characters spread out that you can recruit (if they view you highly enough or you appeal to whatever it is that drives them) and the game doesn't really give you any pointers, you can select whoever you want for whatever gig you want (or just to ponce about in whatever area you want) and take on all comers- but if you've not chosen wisely, you may find yourself stuck and having to go back to camp and switch out mates to get the right combination. It does try to add a layer of strategy to the otherwise pretty old and boring hack and slash setup- almost like they just copied the animations from the previous entry and maybe added a little to it. Its pretty generic; even though there can be a good amount of enemies onscreen you have a pretty large number of options available for taking them down, but they all feel pretty much the same. Its very basic looking to my eye, the character animations- the power and particle effects are appropriately flashy but I can't help but notice that the movements of each character are basically identical. They also got lazy with the character models as they're all of a height with the exception of races like dwarves or Qunari who are shorter and taller than humans, respectively. That was one minor beef I had with Mass Effect- although I didn't really notice til someone brought it MY attention, then I couldn't get passed it. One major beef that is new for me for this series is the restrictive class system; and it isn't as restrictive as it seems at first- but it still will restrict you from certain things. For instance, if you choose the Warrior, you'll also have to choose which style- sword and board (or weapon and shield in the game) or two-handed- and that also means no bows, staves, or any sort of spells/magic other than what's driven by the class (you have class boost and team boost options available which can be pretty cool); it also means certain accoutrements will be unavailable to you because of your class. Rogues either dual daggers (high impact, CQB) or bows- they're the best for sniping and keeping foes at a distance; dual daggers go up close and personal and deal high damage, but aren't the strongest so you can't use them to go toe to toe. Mages. I seem to recall player-Mages being totally kick ass in DAII but so far, that doesn't seem to be the case here- in fact, you need a mage almost all the time but I wouldn't let him go w/out at least one Warrior and a Rogue or two for good measure. Rogues are the most useful class that I have found so far- in fact, 100 hours in, I started a new game because playing as the Warrior was cool in that all the heaviest armor and weapons are for your class, but it got old really quick being the tank. Switched to Rogue archer and its more fun. The fight animations can get pretty hectic so that its hard to see who is doing what if you're all at the point of impact. As an archer, you're rewarded for flanking enemies and using the terrain to advantage; you'll get damage bonuses if you're firing down from above or from behind. There's a huge assortment of weapon and armor upgrades and they look good on the respective items and they do have an impact but the combat overall is so blah as to make all of the choices seem superfluous.
So, I'm not anywhere near done yet, not so far as I can tell; at one point I thought I'd beaten the game only to find it was really just the beginning (and I was more than 40 hours in so I thought hey, maybe this is it). This is just my thoughts on the game so far...if I had to describe it in ten words or less, I would say that it is Skyrim-lite. There's parts of it that are harder than I recall in Skyrim; the party vs solo hero thing is something else to consider; I'd rather have my uber Paladin (who carries a super beefed up bow as well as a two handed sword, and super dragonscale armor as well) than a team to take on whatever needs taking on. What else...item collection is simplified- rather than being restricted by how much weight you can carry a la Skyrim, here it is item count- once you reach the max you can't pick up anything else to you alleviate your load. But it doesn't alter your movement speed either, like in Skyrim where you'd be crawling, literally- but you could also overmax your weight if you didn't mind the slow move. in DAI, you have the option of destroying items if there's something you just have to pick up, or selling it all at a merchant stall. Sometimes it can be hard to see what to pickup but you have this little radar thingie that you can set off and if there's anything to pick up in the near vicinity, it'll get outlined, but sometimes you won't see if it there's a lot of brush around, for example.
I know I'm making it out to seem like "working for the weekend", or "playing to get to the end" and in a sense that's how it is for me, but its still a beautiful game with a decent story (so far) - and not to give too much away, but you might see a few familiar faces. If you've played thru the series thus far, its an added bonus. Overall, I'd give it a 7.5/10. YMMV.
