Dragon Age: Inquisition v1.0 PC Download
The epic role-playing series from BioWare takes a thrilling leap forward with the power of Frostbite 3. Beautiful vistas and incredible new possibilities await you. Ready yourself for Dragon Age: Inquisition with this free download.
A cataclysmic event plunges the land of Thedas into turmoil. Dragons darken the sky, casting a shadow of terror over a once-peaceful kingdom. Mages break into all-out war against the oppressive Templars. Nations rise against one another. It falls to you and your party of legendary heroes to restore order as you lead the Inquisition, hunting down the agents of chaos. Bonds will form - and some will break - as the campaign for truth takes its toll.
BioWare’s latest action-adventure delivers an unparalleled story set in a vast, changeable landscape. Explore hidden caves, defeat truly monumental creatures, and shape the world around you based on your unique play style.
Explore, lead, and battle: Tough choices define your experience, and even one decision can change the course of what's to come.
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Metacritic Review:
I am not sure why, but whenever Fall rolls around I find myself with strong desire for an RPG (Really? Just during Fall? I have the urge all year – Ed. Vader). Not sure if it’s the weather turning cooler that provides the perfect excuse to camp in front of my PC, but whatever the reason, the leaves change and I start hunting for the next great Role Playing escape. This year I got lucky as EA and Bioware has released the third installment in the Dragon Age series: Dragon Age Inquisition. The first Dragon Age game out to critical success in 2009. However, fans were disappointed with the sequel in 2011 (Yes, it was shit. – Ed. Vader). Bioware said they listened to the fans and Inquisition was going to correct the problems players had with the second game. When I played the game during a BioWare preview event last month, I was cautious. Now that I have the finished product and have invested some serious play time (40+ hours to date and still going), I can validate the old saying: the third time is the charm.
At the beginning, you create your own hero. You choose the sex, the race and the class and then customize your appearance. Regardless of your choices, the story starts the same way for all. You are the sole survivor of a massive magic explosion that kills the leaders of Templars, Mages and leader of the Chantry in one fell swoop, while leaving you with a pulsing green light in your left hand. This light gives you the ability to close the fade rifts that resulted from the explosion, unleashing demons from the magical realm into this plane. In response to the political power vacuum left by the explosion the Inquisition is formed. Even though you are the prime suspect, you are pressed to help close the rifts that have popped up around the land while looking for clues to the mystery. Tensions are running high and the undercurrents of a civil war are bubbling closer to the surface, so in addition to closing the rifts, you also need to gain support for the Inquisition from the people of Thetas by completing quests. Sounds simple and like a familiar construct from a dozen other RPGs, but the scope of the game is massive. Not just the size of the regions you can explore but in the choices you make in the course of the game with your party and how you choose to resolve quests. In some cases how you chose to resolve a quest will have lasting effects leading to alliances with some while creating enemies by others.
You decide how to proceed with the investigation by choosing which order you will undertake missions and what areas you will unlock. As you complete quests, explore new areas, harvest resources and a do a myriad of other things, you gain power points used to unlock other areas on the map to explore and “influence,” which allows additional perks for the Inquisition’s efforts. There is a fast travel option to return to previously explored areas, which helps with all the exploration you will be doing. However, you will (and should) make use of it to frequently return to your base of operations to meet with your advisors in the War Room to advance the plot and make use of the region map. The map allows you to spend your power points to unlock new areas to quest in or assign agents to mission which give bonuses, upgrades and provide resource rewards. My OCD kicked in early on in the game and I was determined to fully explore the Hinterlands (the starting area) before returning to confer with my group at the base (So, exploration and going on side-quests constitutes OCD? Never knew that. – Ed. Vader). This was a bad idea. Even though I was in the starting zone, the game has purposely been designed as an open world that has varying levels of difficulty when it comes to enemies. If you want a smoother flowing experience, it is sometimes necessary to pop out of your current area and chase down leads or quests in other areas to get gear or level your team as you can and will blunder into groups of tougher enemies. Nothing will shake your strategic combat confidence like getting your butt handed to you in combat by a group of high level demons from Fade rift over and over again.
Speaking of combat, Inquisition has done a very solid job of allowing the player to toggle combat to their liking. Not only can you jump between real-time and strategic combat with the hit of a button, but you can also take control of any member of your party by clicking their portrait in the left corner of the screen. While most of the time I played my mage and stayed in real-time combat mode, I did stop the action and issue commands to the other members of my team in some challenging encounters. As in earlier Bioware games you can also customize the behaviors and tactics for the members of the team when the computer is controlling them if you find the default AI settings are not quite to your liking. The blood splatters have returned from Dragon Age II. Hm, doesn’t quite suit my taste. In Inquisition they have been toned down quite a bit. If you hate them they can be turned off entirely under the options menu.
Several characters return from previous Dragon Age games, like Varric the dwarf and Cassandra the Seeker who were central to the plot line of the second game. New characters will be available to join your party as well like the Qunari fighter Iron Bull and my personal favorite, a smarted assed elven rogue named Sera. The banter between the members of your party as you quest is one of my most favorite things about the Dragon Age series and I am thrilled to experience again in Inquisition. I like the banter so much that I find myself letting the game run in the background while I am occupied with other tasks just in the hope of catching some of the exchanges between party members. Yes, the ‘tasteful sexual encounters’ also make a return but to be honest, I have done my best to avoid any dialog choices that l assume will lead in that direction as that’s not the kind of ‘role playing’ I’m looking for.
Speaking of the game world the different regions range from mountain forest with streams, caves and pine trees, to nasty rotting bogs littered with undead. The ability to zone from one area to the next and not have to do the gradual transition from one to the other when in a truly open world allows more freedom when creating distinct areas but each one feels different and yet natural or organic in their own right. Some effects like streams, waterfalls and rolling waves along the beach are quite stunning. Characters look good with detailed texturing for metal and fabric but if you have played a Mass Effect game the character models will be instantly familiar. I do have a minor complaint with some with cut scene animations as the gestures made while some of the characters are speaking seem too broad and a bit over the top. This ‘over acting’ was distracting to the point that it caused me to stop watching the scene and wonder why they were posing like high school actors. Granted I have gotten spoiled as of late with some of the newer graphic engines but for as good as the characters look the animations do seem a bit dated. Characters on the map are solid objects, which in a lot of ways is good, gameplay wise, especially for combat. The only time this is bad is when you are trying to get through a crowded area and NPCs are firmly rooted in spot causing you to get caught between them sometimes.
While playing the previous titles is not required, veterans to the series who are expecting permanence by importing old save games are going to be disappointed as that option is not available. However Bioware included the ability to log into the Dragon Age Keep (using your Origin account) and then choose the major story arch decisions from the previous games to set the world state in inquisition. If you don’t want to fuss with it, you can jump right into the game. However this option to flip switches based on past game choices does open up a wealth of possibilities game replays. Coupled with the huge number of quests, area exploration, resource gathering for crafting and other things to keep you occupied in game, it might be a while before you try another go round with different starting options. It’s reassuring that the option is there for those that love to explore every nook and cranny of a game world.
Another complaint I have is with the missions you send your agents on via the map in the war room. Each mission has a real time amount that it takes for the agent to complete. While some take 10 to 20 minutes others can range upwards of hours. I understand that not everything is equal but it did seem more like a time sink rather than necessary game component. Usually I used this as an excuse to return to an to look for more unexplored areas and not too surprisingly I have so far always been rewarded with new locations, hidden items and yet more items to collect. There have been a few technical issues that seem to indicate some memory leaks as the longer I play and the more I travel the loading of large areas tends to slow down. With the sheer size of the game this does not surprise me but already EA has said they will have a number of items to be patched on the day the game ships.
One thing they can’t patch away is the need for EA’s Steam competitor, Origin. Sadly for the PC version it is still required in order to run the game. While it has gotten somewhat more stable than and not as obtrusive as it was when it first launched, I am a little bugged that I have to have yet another service running on my system. I don’t think this will change anytime soon but EA is counting on people wanting to play Inquisition badly enough to put up with Origin and I have to admit, I am willing to run it on my system.
Once you start the game you will have no shortage of things to keep yourself busy, even if you decide to put off making a bee line solving the main quest. Along with the single-player story there is also a multiplayer side to the game where up to four players can fight waves of AI on different maps. As you level up you unlock new abilities, pick up gold to buy better weapons and armor and resources to craft new gear. I have had issues getting into a multiplayer match thanks to a very stubborn router but honestly, while it seems like a fun diversion, I would rather get back into the single-player story as it is more appealing to me.
For people looking to get lost in a detailed world brimming with political intrigue, warring factions, tough choices that affect the story and gobs of replayability that will last you well beyond Fall and into the new year, Dragon Age Inquisition is a must buy.
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