Dragon Age: Inquisition

[Phoenixguard09]

PRELUDE:
Okay, I'll preface this by saying that I have Inquisition on the 360, so I am unable to play the DLC, which I am led to believe actually includes the end of the game. I have however, bought it on the Xbox One for Ladyhawk, along with the Jaws of Hakkon DLC, and will probably purchase the other two story based ones in time, so eventually I will get around to finishing the game as it was meant to be played.

RATINGS:
Graphics - 4. On the 360, there are the occasional clipping and rendering issues, but for all that the graphics are pretty good. The landscapes and vistas are fantastic, and particularly on the One, characters and objects look very nice.

Gameplay - 3. Nothing particularly innovative in the combat system, but Bioware's companion interactions remain a strong point. Combat can get a little repetitive in places, but is generally enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed the way that the combat can be played either exclusively through the tactical camera or pretty well completely ignoring it depending on your preference.

Immersion - 4. You do tend to get pretty drawn in to the plight of the Inquisition and there is a lot of replayability due to the effects your actions have on the world. The humour, generally, works well and the emotional bits tend to hit the right notes. Unfortunately, the PC's voice actors are all a little bit naff, but the NPC's, particularly your companions, are all quite impressively voiced.


OVERVIEW:
Inquisition takes off a short time after the events of Dragon Age 2. A brief recap there, the events in Kirkwall, where your PC in DA2 was from, have led to a war between the mages, an oppressed mob of magic-wielding bookworms, and the templars, their jailors in shining armour.

Upon hitting New Game, the menu screen which has shown lines of mages and templars marching up to a Chantry up on top of hill, explodes. You are taken to the character creation screen, where you get to choose your race from human, dwarf, elf or qunari and class from warrior, rogue or mage. Dwarves can't be mages, but that's the only restriction.

Shenanigans ensue, you fall out of a massive green hole in the sky and are accused of causing the mess. In an attempt to prove your innocence, you pledge to fix it.

And then you go on to become one of the greatest heroes Thedas has ever seen. Or you can be a total jackass. Up to you really.

Overall Rating - 4. Definitely worth playing if you have some time on your hands.