Dragon Age: Origins Previews

A couple more hands-on previews of BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins usher us into another weekend.

First in line is GameSpot with an even closer look at the game’s mage class:

…properly specialized mages are excellent at controlling individual enemies as well as crowds, using such talents as the spirit line’s force field or primal’s petrify to remove a single enemy from play, while using other talents such as entropy’s sleep, horror, and paralysis spells, or creation’s glyphs of repulsions and paralysis to render groups of enemies helpless. This kind of strategy seems useful not only to stop an enemy charge, but also to divide and conquer–when facing a paralyzed battalion of enemies, you and your troops can pick off and eliminate choice targets one by one. In addition, fighters who are specialized in two-handed weapons can learn the “indomitable” warrior talent, which makes them immune to talents and spell abilities that would otherwise knock them off their feet, so concussive spell talents like earthquake and glyph of repulsion are a great setup for a party packing two-handed weapons, since the fighters can rush right into the area of effect, immune to the magic, and begin hacking away at the monsters lying on their backs.

Alternately, proper talent selection can make your mage a strong support character that softens up tough bosses for your fighters. Abilities such as the entropy line’s hex spells and creation’s glyphs can reduce these formidable foes’ resistances to damage; the spirit line’s talents can eliminate any boss character’s protective magics or drain them away; and both primal and spirit have weapon-enhancing spells that can help you deal additional damage. The spirit line’s walking bomb talent (and its upgraded version, virulent walking bomb, which spreads the effect of making foes explode when they die to any nearby foes) works especially well against large groups or bosses with smaller minion critters. And of course, when fighting powerful bosses, it’s important to keep your team up and running with the creation line’s various healing and buff spells.

Then we have a more generalized overview of the Xbox 360 version at RPGamer:

We were allowed to enter the game room and sit down at the Xbox 360. As soon as we started, the clock began. I dove right into it, leading my group down the path. We quickly took care of the wild wolfs and the mindless darkspawn who couldn’t even raise a challenge. I quickly gathered up my three vials and proceeded along the path to camp. I came upon a bridge and crossed without thinking. I was quickly snared into a trap. Without mobility, I was cut down by archers and mages. My inexperience handling multiple characters made me an easy kill. I put the controller down and turned to the BioWare representative. He looked at the screen and smirked. “You have fifteen minutes,” is all he offered for advice. I had to start over, but I wasn’t done just yet.

As I started again, I was given a few more tips for controlling my characters. Pressing both shoulder buttons allows me to control everyone at once, allowing for focused attacks. This was very helpful. He then explained how to quickly swap and heal my characters; also very helpful. Since I knew the way, I rushed down the path, cutting down anything in my path. I got to the bridge and took out the archer on the left, then went after the mage who started to run. Since I had no way to call my team back, I simply followed behind as my two melee characters took down the mage and were then taken out by a heavily armored dark knight. Playing a quick game of cat and mouse, my rogue and mage took out the knight and then gathered on the other side of the bridge. Our melee got back up and we healed. I asked for a time check and I had eight minutes. The only problem was, I didn’t know where to go.