John French
Author and Musician
Good to see you again
18/11/24 18:07
I bought a new monitor while playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I can tell you about it:
It's the same resolution as my old one (4K), but it's physically bigger so that I can see the stuff on it a little better without my glasses on (a few years ago, that wasn't an issue). It's a VA panel so it has more vibrant contrast than the IPS panel it replaces, but that contrast gets wonky when you look at pixels at steep angles. To fight this flaw it is curved so that all the pixels are more-or-less pointed at my face when I'm using it. It has a higher refresh rate too, which is nice for a sense of fluidity and let me enjoy a few more frames for every second of gameplay.
It made no difference to how much I enjoyed the game.
Veilguard invites you to be part of a story full of bombast and big ideas, all competently and extravagantly delivered on-screen. As a game it is easy to learn and smooth to play; as a world it is charming, if mildly tedious, to explore. The palette of villains (some old, some new) are enticing, and requisite-for-the-genre companions are broadly likable, each loaded with a unique variety of baggage and personalities all their own. It has been a decade since we last saw a new on-screen adventure set in Thedas and going back is a most welcome excursion.
Veilguard picks up several years after the concluding events of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and while it includes quite a number of returning references and faces from that game's era, many are left behind for better or worse to make way for a new band of well-resourced misfits become their own region's heroes. Tonally it is a little brighter than previous adventures, but not so much as to be unrecognizable, and it does readily descend to grim depths as the plot demands.
Mechanically-speaking, Veilguard is focused and distinctive, giving you a straightforward but highly nuanced way to define your character's growth from disoriented and confused Level 1 Peasant to emotionally damaged and pissed-off Level 48 Demonshredder. I think it actually provides the most competent example of this RPG progression staple to come out under the BioWare name for a long, long time.
I'm not overly fond of Veilguard's Hobbit-esque aesthetic flavor; I think the tone of the game would have been better served by something more grounded. It didn't stop me enjoying the story, but I got the facial proportions 'wrong' (as in, out of line with the rest of the characters) in the character creator a few times. A word to the adventurous: exaggerate your eye, brow, eyebrow, nose, and cheek spacing/qualities at least a little bit. The rest will work out.
Without spoilers: I will both commend BioWare for braving new social territory in their role-playing games, and criticize them for their exploration being too anachronistic. The specifics felt forced in-situ and I am positive they could have found a way to explore the ideas which may have been a bit subtler, but more natural to the residents of Thedas. I hope they try again, and more cohesively, with their next project.
Now, back to the vibe: This is big, swashbuckle-y storytelling, not a subtle tale of intrigue and hard choices. While it is by far at its strongest with bombastic set-pieces, Veilguard does occasionally show an ability to cherish the quiet moments, and these remain my favorite parts of the game. It accomplishes the trademark BioWare feel, and is easily among the best-executed of the studio's catalog. It is, in the most fanciful sense, a role-playing game.
In the context of a computer/video game there are two versions of what the "role playing" part of the term means:
The first is primarily mechanical: You, the player, use complex, interlocking systems to map your imaginative will upon the game world. If you care to, you may maintain a fiction about your character in your head to ground the actions you take within the game world. This is, loosely, how I would categorize the likes of Skyrim or Baldur's Gate 3. Games in this model prize improvisation before everything else.
The second version is primarily imaginative. You, the player, put yourself into the head of a character in this world and use its characters, quests, narrative choices, and conversations to take part in a fantastical story. This is more how I would describe most BioWare games and titles from CD Projekt Red. Games in this model prize active, "on-screen" storytelling and narrative complexity above all else.
Veilguard fits in that second group almost gleefully, and that is, I think, going to remain a point of consternation for anybody comparing it to more improvisational games. As I've gotten older (and my eyesight slightly worse), I've increasingly hoped for games to add new layers of improvised responsiveness and flexibility, letting me poke and prod their worlds in hope that the game might notice and poke me back for once. Instead, much like this new monitor, this game is really just bigger, shinier, and modestly more polished (but not really any more nuanced) than what I've had before.
And that's fine. I can find flaws with it or point to places where I'd hope for more nuance or depth, but I unreservedly enjoyed it. There's nothing wrong with iterating on an idea as long as the execution is good, and Veilguard is rather good where it counts.
It's the same resolution as my old one (4K), but it's physically bigger so that I can see the stuff on it a little better without my glasses on (a few years ago, that wasn't an issue). It's a VA panel so it has more vibrant contrast than the IPS panel it replaces, but that contrast gets wonky when you look at pixels at steep angles. To fight this flaw it is curved so that all the pixels are more-or-less pointed at my face when I'm using it. It has a higher refresh rate too, which is nice for a sense of fluidity and let me enjoy a few more frames for every second of gameplay.
It made no difference to how much I enjoyed the game.
Veilguard invites you to be part of a story full of bombast and big ideas, all competently and extravagantly delivered on-screen. As a game it is easy to learn and smooth to play; as a world it is charming, if mildly tedious, to explore. The palette of villains (some old, some new) are enticing, and requisite-for-the-genre companions are broadly likable, each loaded with a unique variety of baggage and personalities all their own. It has been a decade since we last saw a new on-screen adventure set in Thedas and going back is a most welcome excursion.
Veilguard picks up several years after the concluding events of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and while it includes quite a number of returning references and faces from that game's era, many are left behind for better or worse to make way for a new band of well-resourced misfits become their own region's heroes. Tonally it is a little brighter than previous adventures, but not so much as to be unrecognizable, and it does readily descend to grim depths as the plot demands.
Mechanically-speaking, Veilguard is focused and distinctive, giving you a straightforward but highly nuanced way to define your character's growth from disoriented and confused Level 1 Peasant to emotionally damaged and pissed-off Level 48 Demonshredder. I think it actually provides the most competent example of this RPG progression staple to come out under the BioWare name for a long, long time.
I'm not overly fond of Veilguard's Hobbit-esque aesthetic flavor; I think the tone of the game would have been better served by something more grounded. It didn't stop me enjoying the story, but I got the facial proportions 'wrong' (as in, out of line with the rest of the characters) in the character creator a few times. A word to the adventurous: exaggerate your eye, brow, eyebrow, nose, and cheek spacing/qualities at least a little bit. The rest will work out.
Without spoilers: I will both commend BioWare for braving new social territory in their role-playing games, and criticize them for their exploration being too anachronistic. The specifics felt forced in-situ and I am positive they could have found a way to explore the ideas which may have been a bit subtler, but more natural to the residents of Thedas. I hope they try again, and more cohesively, with their next project.
Now, back to the vibe: This is big, swashbuckle-y storytelling, not a subtle tale of intrigue and hard choices. While it is by far at its strongest with bombastic set-pieces, Veilguard does occasionally show an ability to cherish the quiet moments, and these remain my favorite parts of the game. It accomplishes the trademark BioWare feel, and is easily among the best-executed of the studio's catalog. It is, in the most fanciful sense, a role-playing game.
In the context of a computer/video game there are two versions of what the "role playing" part of the term means:
The first is primarily mechanical: You, the player, use complex, interlocking systems to map your imaginative will upon the game world. If you care to, you may maintain a fiction about your character in your head to ground the actions you take within the game world. This is, loosely, how I would categorize the likes of Skyrim or Baldur's Gate 3. Games in this model prize improvisation before everything else.
The second version is primarily imaginative. You, the player, put yourself into the head of a character in this world and use its characters, quests, narrative choices, and conversations to take part in a fantastical story. This is more how I would describe most BioWare games and titles from CD Projekt Red. Games in this model prize active, "on-screen" storytelling and narrative complexity above all else.
Veilguard fits in that second group almost gleefully, and that is, I think, going to remain a point of consternation for anybody comparing it to more improvisational games. As I've gotten older (and my eyesight slightly worse), I've increasingly hoped for games to add new layers of improvised responsiveness and flexibility, letting me poke and prod their worlds in hope that the game might notice and poke me back for once. Instead, much like this new monitor, this game is really just bigger, shinier, and modestly more polished (but not really any more nuanced) than what I've had before.
And that's fine. I can find flaws with it or point to places where I'd hope for more nuance or depth, but I unreservedly enjoyed it. There's nothing wrong with iterating on an idea as long as the execution is good, and Veilguard is rather good where it counts.
