Tonight I have another batch of Dragon Age: Origins screens, compliments of our friends at Bioware. There’s a mix of shots with and without hud elements. A few new baddies in here.

I have to be honest, I’m kind of tired of looking at screens and videos and am very much ready to play. I suspect the same is true of you, dear reader, but if there’s one person out there that finds something new to delight over, I figure they’re worth a quick post.

[Update: That lucky SOB Tom Chick is playing! I read this account of a battle and my anticipation ratcheted up another dozen notches. I also found it really interesting how much it sounded like an MMO battle in some ways.]

I also have a growing concern about the amount of gore that is in every batch of screenshots; I’m hoping you’ll be able to tone that down a bit when actually playing the game. I don’t mind gritty but some of the shots I’m seeing just seem a bit over the top…

Anyway, here’s tonights back of screenies!

Y’know if more ads looked this good, I’d be a lot more likely to pay attention to them! It’s all cgi and some of it we’ve seen before, but damn, does it look good. I love the “Not every hero is pure” tag line, too, referring to the taint that every Gray Warden takes inside his or herself in order to fight the Darkspawn. All of our heroes will be tragic figures, fated to die in battle or become that which we fight.

For the past few weeks Monday has been Dragon Age Trailer day here at Dragonchasers, thanks to the good people at Bioware and their finely tuned hype machine.

This week we have a quick intro to the toolset — what you can accomplish with it, which is apparently a lot. Also a creature animation ‘behind-the-scenes’ clip that shows how a monster goes from concept to model to animation to become a life-like scary opponent.

I also have to point you at Dragon Age: Journeys one more time. I’ve been having a blast playing it, and it has made the burden of waiting for Dragon Age: Origins much more bearable. 🙂

Lastly, Bioware asked me to remind you of the big competition that I talked about earlier. You can watch a live stream of the event this Wednesday, the 28th. You can find details here.

There’re some strange promotions floating around with regard to the game. Between this ‘competitive single player gaming’ event and pre-order bonuses that boost experience, it’s almost like they’re marketing an MMO rather than a game with a strong narrative.

After waiting so long to play Dragon Age: Origins, the *last* thing I want to do is rush through it (or watch someone else rush through it). I’m looking forward to savoring every minute of the storyline.

Anyway, enough of my rambling, here’re the trailers for this week:

Good news today for PS3 owners: turns out Dragon Age: Origins for the PS3 is going to ship on Nov. 3rd, same as all the other versions. The word had been that the PS3 version was going to be held back until later in the month. I guess the Microsoft check didn’t clear or something.

Anyway, today we have a new trailer, this one introducing Oghren, the dwarf whose tale you’ll experience if you pick his origin story. Here is his intro:

Oghren, of House Kondrat, was once a promising member of the Warrior Caste who had earned great prestige in the dwarves’ gladiatorial proving grounds. When a Smith Caste family with plenty of money but few political connections offered their daughter in marriage, his family accepted the match. And then everything changed. His wife, Branka, invented a process that revolutionized the smelting process and was declared a Paragon—the first in a generation, forever ensuring an honored place among the ancestors. Oghren gladly joined his wife’s new noble house, but when Branka took her followers and vanished into the Deep Roads, she left him behind. He remains determined to find Branka again and learn what obsession keeps her hidden away from the rest of her kind.

Steven Blum, who lends his voice to Oghren, also voices Wolverine in a number of venues (The Super Hero Squad Show, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2). He sounds a little Wolverine-ish in this trailer, doesn’t he? I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

It’s Monday and that means Bioware has released another batch of Dragon Age: Origins screenshots. Before we get to those, though, I want to point out a post at Kotaku by Stephen Totilo, You Can Play Dragon Age: Origins Sort Of Like Four Other Games. He tells us even more about the ways you can play DA:O, including creating AI ‘scripts’ that will control the characters you aren’t controlling directly. He compares it to Final Fantasy XII’s Gambit System. Or you can play it almost like a 3rd person action game and let the computer handle the other members of your party. Or jump from character to character. Sounds like there’s a lot of variety in how ‘deep’ into the game systems you want to go.

OK on to the new screen shots. I’m reading the second Dragon Age novel now, The Calling, and there’s a hunter character in it that has a trusty canine companion. I was happy to see some shots in this batch that appear to be that kind of character, so it looks like you can create the now-traditional ‘archer with pet’ style hunter. (This might also be evident in the Character Creator…to be honest playing around with that was just making me anticipate the full game so much that I put it aside!)

Bioware also released a couple pieces of concept art…the first two images in this gallery.

Today I’ve got a couple of screenshots of the character creator (direct link to the exe) in action, and one of the new Bioware Social Site. Specifically, the Social Site image is from my character page, so feel free to shoot me off a friend invite! Those are two of my ‘standard’ character names, by the way. Gillain is from an old, old BBS text-based RPG I used to be a part of, and Mimi is the name of one of our guinea pigs. 🙂

Also, several full-sized screenshots of game play taken from inside a dungeon. No, I haven’t played the game; these were provided by Bioware PR. But the shots give you some idea of what the game will look like from various zoom levels.

Enjoy!

Today Bioware released the Character Creator from Dragon Age: Origins. You can download it by following one of the links listed in this Bioware blog post. If you install it, create a character and then upload it to Bioware’s social site (which also launched today), you’ll get an in-game bonus, the Lucky Stone, when the game releases:

This old stone, set in a golden ring, has been an aid and companion to dozens of adventurers across innumerable years. Its trip to Ferelden was long and convoluted. Some say it has a life of its own.
Stats:
~ Adds +1 to all all stats.

Next order of business: gameplay. I had an interesting discussion on Twitter today, and someone pointed out to me that while Bioware has released a ton of trailers from the game, there’s been very little gameplay shown.

Well, Giant Bomb has a lengthy Quick Look that shows gameplay, which I’ll embed below. The reason I want to do this is that I’m discovering that some people are anticipating a different kind of game from what Bioware is delivering. They’ve promised a “spiritual sequel to Baldur’s Gate” and that’s the kind of game it is, and we’re talking about the PC games, not the console versions done by Snowblind Studios (which were action-rpgs). Dragon Age: Origins gameplay is going to be all about real-time RPG combat with the option to pause any time to adjust the actions of your party of characters. This isn’t an action game and you don’t have direct control over the characters to the point of, say, hitting a button to swing a sword. This is old school RPG gaming.

I just don’t want anyone being unhappily surprised on launch day. I’m super-excited to re-visit this style of gaming; it’s been quite a while since a major developers has done anything like this. But it won’t be for everyone.

Anyway, here’s the Quick Look. Do keep in mind that the Giant Bomb dudes goof on Dave, who is running this demo, because he is, as they call him, a Pauser (meaning he likes to pause the game a lot). You can play a bit more fluidly than he does, if you’d prefer. Or at least, I’m assuming you can because you could in the old games.