PAX 2008: Dragon Age: Origins, now with blood and ceilings
The Dragon Age: Origins booth at PAX08 has been surrounded all weekend by both walls and people lining up to get inside. So when PAX opened for the third and final day this morning, we bolted straight to the game booth and avoided the nasty line. By joining in with the first group of the day to see the game demoed live. It didn't take very long for the room to fill up and once the doors close, we were elbow-to-elbow with what turned out to be some pretty enthusiastic BioWare fans.%Gallery-30910%
The demo started with an introduction of the game and some hot-of-the-presses old information. Actually, a whole lot of the demo was full of previously heard of features and content. However, our efforts were not in vain. As we watched the game load up for the first time, we were pleasantly surprised with how well it ran. The only object pop-in to be seen was at the very beginning moments and even then only for a few seconds. After that, everything ran nice and smoothly. Aside from graphical mastery, we found out that BioWare has also recently mastered the art of ceiling design in their games. Someone bring out the gold stars.
Surprisingly, the most impressive thing about the live demo was when the main character popped the head clean off of an enemy and blood literally gushed up into the air. The kill was of course paused for effect, creating all kinds of laughter. We weren't sure to laugh because it was funny or because it was the best way not to get murdered by all the apparent psychopaths occupying the space around us, so we just went with the safe option.
Our overall experience with the live demo was a good one, though. It ended with a short Q&A between the audience and a mysterious black armored BioWare employee, which we've transcribed for you below.
Q: Why is there no voice for the central character?
A: There's no voice for the central character because you're playing as several different races and as either male or female. So we just thought it would be better to concentrate on everyone else and left the character's voice to the you.
Q: When is the release date?
A: Early spring next year, I swear.
Q: Does the inventory not suck?
A: It does not suck!
Q: Will this be coming to the Xbox 360?
A: PC singleplayer only. We're in talks for other things right now, but we don't have any announcements to make.
Q: How many races will there be?
A: Elves, Humans and Dwarves. I can't talk about anything else right now.
Q: Are there weight-based inventory limits?
A: There are inventory limits, but we're going to be talking more about that and character creation later.
Q: What kind of machine are you running it on right now?
A: The machine running the game is based on alien technology, it's an awesome machine. However, have no fear, we just started the optimization process and bug squashing. So we're not able to give system requirements yet.
