Awakening -- Opinions so far?

[DarkeWolf]

Justice is in the Marsh. Ms. Cranky is in the Woods. And the Dwarf is in the Chasm.

 

Did anybody else think it was really cute, that opening cutscene for Oghren? That Huge grin on his face and the way he waves at you when he sees you? Made me think of a puppy who'd been left at home when the owners went on vacation for a week.

Of the old party, seems like he was the only one who was REALLY glad to see you. I talked to Wynn, and she was like, Oh, good to see you again, gotta run...bye!

And Alistair.... sheesh! Talk about being a stranger! I dunno if any of the others show up or not, but those two... geeze.

 

Hey, did you guys/gals catch the reference from Braveheart? "I thought you'd be ten feet tall with lighning bolts coming from your eyes"?

[chibievil]

for those of you who hate oghren you can say no to him when you meet Alistair/Anora just when he says 'what about me' choose the last line and he will stay with the king/queen but the stupid Mhirai Girl still dies. I thought she would live but nvm

[Ambrya]

 

Ok, since we are nitpicking some of even the small things.... Here's one that chaps me. In the opening cutscene, you're WALKING up to the castle. Ya know, I didnt demand much. I didnt accept the rewards. But hell, I saved all your arses from death by darkspawn. You hail me as a hero and savior. I'm leaving to go take over the Ferelden Wardens. You can't even give me a g**d*mned HORSE!? You make me freaking WALK???

 

 

Well, if it makes you feel any better, even the King shows up on foot.

[Venegal]

Oh Dont even start with Wynne, I dunno why, but when she saw me she started yelling, for a moment I thought I'm Alistair and She's Morrigan, the Archdemon treated me nicer.

 

And man, I wanted to kick Alistair in the face, your the goofs best friend and he's like "Oh there you are, good that you live to deal with this crap because I need to go flirt with Anora, good luck and bye" jerk!

 

Heh, I kinda miss the Dog, NO ONE could beat him in persuading! Gosh, he got me outta prison with almost no fight in Origins, I mean that Fort Drakon place. Hmm, i'm glad I got rid of that brain tumor Leliana, but I still miss Morri's Irony.

 

Yea, but the Lightning Bolt was from the ass in Braveheart, much more original ^^

 

Damn but the place of Mr. or Mrs. Goody is empty in the group, Anders is a wild apostate and Oghren is an Arrogant Ass,Nathaniel's coldblooded killer and I my self always try to be a jackass. So It's more like a group of outlawas or "The Bunch of Grey Dudes" than Commander of the Grey and such crap. Tha's why i'm still pissed Mhairi died, and i'm still confused why she had Aprroval.

 

Hey expect that girl in the Lion and King or whatever tavern in Amaranthine is there any1 else you can bang?

[RHachicho]

To be honest I am not very impressed with this expansion so far true im not even out of the original castle yet. But I have cheated to mess around with the new abilities and frankly the fact that almost none of them have any new animations is lazy as hell. i mean cmon massacre looks like warshout? Not only that but the scenery seemed to break at a moments notice. There where areas in the oc where you could look out of a window and see the mesh waving back at you but in this starter area it seems almost endemic. Couple that with a door that you have to walk through (without it's opening animation) and "puzzles" that give no clue how to solve them. So far I am up to ohgren everything behind him is dead and all he keeps telling me is "kill more darkspawn" either this is a sucky bug or a puzzle that gives you no clue how to solve it.

 

It's really scary actually as I suspect (do not know) that most of the oc was developed before bioware beceme part of EA. Now I see this and I can't help to think about how buggy/rushed the oc's endgame was. And here I was thinking well EA has finally realised that they can't hold the market forever by producing rubbish games. And have finally allowed bioware to actually keep going under their supervision. Now we get this and I dread that biowares talent will be swallowed whole frankly. I will never forgive EA if they ruin bioware .. never.

[Riddleofsteel]

Saddening to hear the negative points. I will probably never play Awakenings as I have never finished Dragon Age properly even once. Hopefully the next "Expansion" draws me into it again.

[heinz0r]

I liked the addon. The overall atmosphere is still the best in any computer game to date. The pace was alot quicker compared to Origins which made the leveling feel nicer as you always have some new toys to mess around with and include into your usual combat routine.

 

The new talents and spells felt very nice if not a bit overpowering compared to vanilla ones. The new rogue talents especially are mad. Unending flurry and heartseeker create such havoc on bosses and elites, rogue is now truly great at taking out dedicated targets. My highest heartseeker crit was a 970 on the big fire golem if I remember that right :D

 

Archer is a beast now with the acuracy mode, which has to be the single best talent inside the whole game. I did not use the other new additions to archer though as I mostly played my rogue since that class requires the most micromanagement to shine. But putting the archer up with scattershot on nearest visible target, arrow of slaying vs nearest visible mage class enemy was usually doing the trick. He would just fire everything he got and deal insane damage compared to what archers did in the original campaign.

 

The additions for the warriors felt good. Cooldown resetters and a few more AE damage talents for the 2h warriors seemed great at start, though I ended up only using the 2h sweep thingie where the guy sweeps at an arc for knockdown and good dmg. The others did not seem that great so I stopped using them.

 

With the faster pace and the lighter storyline, the game felt pretty straightforward. In Origins I sometimes had the feeling of repetition, especially in places like the circle tower and the deep roads, where you had to wade through rooms and rooms of the same enemy packs over and over to reach the next bit. This does not occur here. The fights are happening at a good pace and the variety of opponents is nicely done.

 

Add in the nice endfight and the ending where I was instantly reminded of the movie Troy, and you got a really well done expansion to one of the greatest computer roleplaying games of all time.

[brokenergy]

Saddening to hear the negative points. I will probably never play Awakenings as I have never finished Dragon Age properly even once. Hopefully the next "Expansion" draws me into it again.

 

You shouldn't let negative posts put you down. Buy it and play it and make up your own mind as everyone is different.

[Tikkidew]

Yea everyone is different. I thought it was an awesome expansion. There is always room for improvement, but overall it was a satisfying game.

[Kittrannia]

Just completed Awakenings so here's my thoughts...

 

Overall look and feel of the areas has gone up a notch since Origins, the lighting and environment textures have improved a great deal. I had no problems importing my Origins character over with her inventory seemingly intact. I was glad to see Ohgren back as he is quite funny (well his burping and sexual inuendos make me chuckle).

 

Now for the downside.... In Origins you actually had time to get to know your party members. In Awakenings it's a case of "welcome to the Grey Wardons..lets go fight). This was a huge let down for me as in Origins you actually had time to chat a little to your companions after a hard fight or two. I was also hoping for an improved Party Camp type of area so I could take a time out and just relax, listen to stories, have a song sung to me, have a little cuddle even, but alas all this was taken from me. I feel Bioware left out the essence of what made Origins so popular, yes Awakenings looks good but it somehow left me cold and with a sense of detachment from the whole experience.

 

Another problem I had with Awakenings was the sheer amount of loot and weapons constantly filling up my inventory, this got very annoying for me in the end. Having to spend a good 30 minutes just to abandon a quest part way through so I could off-load my loot is not my idea of immersive role play.

 

My personal suggestions to make the next instalment better....

 

Bring back romance (if this isn't for you then you can let your party members know you're not interested quite easily but for me it's a must)

Make loot less frequent (drop cash more so I can buy what I need)

Make the "Legendary" weapons rare and hard to come by (gives you a sense of satisfaction when you get them)

Give me the ability to own my own home

If I do have a romance going on then please carry it over to future releases

 

I'll stop at those but remember this has been just my personal assessment of Awakenings and my own personal game play experience may not be yours.

 

Almost forgot....where was my dog (Fido)? :)