Lets Hope Dragon Age Inquisition Finally Has Dragon Age Figured Out
I've liked none of the Dragon Age games. Not even the first. But I'd have to say I enjoyed the first immeasurably more than its lazy sequel, which conjured feelings of loathing by the time I was ticking off the game's last few achievements and rolling through its embarrassingly recycled cityscapes for the umpteenth time to experience all of its tedious alternative denouements. In October 2009, when I spoke with Dragon Age Origins lead designer, Mike Laidlaw, I asked him about something he'd said elsewhere He wanted the game to be the HBO of RPGs he also referenced George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" books, which hadn't transitioned to television yet, but everyone already thought of as exemplary, But when I finally played the game, it felt nothing like the HBO of anything, mistaking mere blood splatter for maturity, and foisted-upon-you consequences for meaningful ones, and overwrought, cliched fantasy banter by writer David Gaider about mature topics for artful storytelling. Fair warning, I'm a literary snob I'm looking for Cormac McCarthy and Gene Wolfe and Jorges Luis Borges and Alan Moore and China Mieville all the time, and why should games get a pass?, I want to think the best of Dragon Age Inquisition, though Laidlaw returns as lead designer and Gaider as lead writer. It doesn't feel like a Dragon Age game in the trailer above, though it's obviously trotting out the horse-beaten amnesiac hero shtick about random-person-you surviving a calamity and having no memory of why. If the gameplay turns out to be intriguing, of course, all bets are off, because I can play the heck out of a Final Fantasy VII or X or XIII or Fallout 3, or Diablo III, or Baldur's Gate II and just let the first-rate game systems override the unimaginative storytelling. In any case, the other pullout you'll be interested to note here the trailer confirms Dragon Age Inquisition will ship on October 7 for Windows, PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360. MORE The History of Video Game Consoles  Full,