190°

BioWare Responds to Graphical Disparities in Dragon Age

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Dragon Age: Origins was released last week, receiving high praise from most critics, and judging by Valve's digital sales charts on Steam, good early sales results as well. BioWare is known for releasing high quality products and Dragon Age certainly fits the bill, but one aspect of the game that reviewers seemed to complain about is its visuals, particularly in the console versions.

The consensus seems to be that the PC version is superior in every way (Metacritic backs this up with a 91 for the PC version vs. 89 for PS3 and 86 for Xbox 360), but what's perhaps more surprising is that there are noticeable differences between the console versions. GameSpot's review claims, "the Xbox 360 version looks positively disappointing."

Curious about these differences, IndustryGamers reached out to BioWare for comment.
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industrygamers.com
Columbo - moderator
Published: 46 days 4 hours ago | News | PlayStation 3 | Xbox 360 | PC
 
 

Showing: 1 - 29 of 29 Comments
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skeletonss - 46 days 4 hours ago
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1 - the graphics
pop ins, glitches and fading is so bad in this game for all versions. but its not about that, the gameplay is awesome and the story is awesome. There is SO much jammed in the game, its incredible. at times though, it does feel empty. cant wait for mass effect 2!
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Genesis5 - 46 days 4 hours ago
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1.1 -
I'm playing it as well. Love the story and the game play. Coming into it right after playing UC2 though makes the graphics some what lacking.
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skeletonss - 46 days 4 hours ago
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1.2 - haha
well thats your fault. thats liek playing crysis than playing goldeneye for N64. dragon age and UC2 serve different purposes. ones insanley deep and ones insanley fun.
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Timesplitter14 - 46 days 2 hours ago
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1.3 -
There are some serious loading issues too, but I love the game.
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Sarcasm - 46 days 2 hours ago
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1.4 -
Dragon Age IMO has some pretty dated graphics, looks like a 2005 game. But who cares, the substance severely outweighs the visuals. :)
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Saaking - 46 days 2 hours ago
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1.5 -
What's pretty impressive is Bioware managed to not only make a functioning PS3 version but actually make it superior to the 360 version on their FIRST try. I really expected this game to look a LOT better on the 360, but I guess Bioware really grasped PS3 tech.
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barom - 46 days 1 hour ago
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1.6 -
I actually like the idea of taking advantage of each console's strength. It makes the different versions a little bit more interesting and you don't get the feeling that one is holding the other one back but instead you get the feeling that they're the best version they possibly could be. I mean use resources to have the two versions identical? Or use the resources to push each console's strengths? I'll take the latter thank you very much BioWare.
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toaster - 46 days 1 hour ago
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1.7 - Well..
I don't think people play this game for graphics. This is the most engaging RPG I have played in a LOOONG while. While the graphics aren't super amazing, it's no letdown either. Just think of how vast this game is. What I mean Ferelden HUGE. It would be very hard to achieve graphical perfection when there is just so much going on.

But I'm glad Bioware didn't spend every single moment working on the graphics, because the story well makes up for it.
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IdleLeeSiuLung - 45 days 21 hours ago
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1.8 - Reminds me of Mass Effect for the 360. Great game, marred by terrible frame rate....
....
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tda-danny - 45 days 14 hours ago
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1.9 - @ skeletonss - "the graphics pop ins, glitches and fading is so bad in this game for all versions."
I'm playing on the PC version, and experience none of those things. The game is pretty good looking on the PC with settings maxed.
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DaTruth - 46 days 4 hours ago
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2 -
GameSpot's review claims; "The PlayStation 3 version features higher-quality textures than those on the Xbox 360, better color saturation, smoother facial animations, and shorter load times."

"the Xbox 360 version looks positively disappointing. Textures are highly compressed and colors are washed out."

IndustryGamers reached out to BioWare for comment. "We created the game to take advantage of each platform’s capabilities"
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swiftshot93 - 46 days 2 hours ago
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2.1 -
reading your comment and then your name made me lol xD
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Sarcasm - 46 days 2 hours ago
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2.2 -
Pretty impressive considering it's BioWare's first full fledged PS3 game.

Most other developer's first PS3 game = Socomplicated: Confrontation
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dchalfont - 46 days 2 hours ago
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3 -
People saying gameplay over graphics need to calm it down. No one said the game sucks, I am playing the CE now and it's more delicious than 2 large pizzas to yourself after a big night on the drink. BUT even on PC maxed out with 8aa the graphics are still lacking. There were more detailed environments in FFX. Even besides he obviously low res environments, there is no detail, in the bracillian forest, there is almost no trees/plants/effects. Just some plain low res grass textures, a few sparse trees ( almost all identical, no variation, unlike in other games where there were 100's of different tree models), when you first enter the forest thee is a line of plants about 7 in a row, all with the same orientatation. The level designer must have spend a whole hour designing the entire outside forest area :S
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Tony P - 46 days 1 hour ago
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3.1 -
I agree, it's a very middle-of-the-road job visually. Particularly, objects close to you look ok, but anything beyond the boundaries of your area tends to look pretty bad and cookie-cutter by today's standards.

http://ve3dmedia.ign.com/im...

When compared to The Witcher: http://philipphacker1.files...

or Oblivion: http://www.techimo.com/phot...

it feels like Bioware did a less than thorough job there.

But still, pretty much everything else in the game is beyond awesome so I don't see any reason to get bent over it.
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dchalfont - 46 days ago
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3.2 - @Tony P
The witcher was my benchmark for dragon age. When I was reading about the poor graphics etc prior to release i told myself 'as long as it looks better than the witcher, i'll be happy", and as you pointed out, a lot of the time it doesn't.

But it is an rpg so it doesn't matter THAT much, but it still matters.

I doubt they'll patch any of the poor graphics issues out, patches only fix bugs in the code, they never patch in higher res textures etc. I'm already running 8aa so there's not a lot to do from there, hopefully modding the draw distance will be easy, that's another area that needs to be improved.
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Tony P - 45 days 22 hours ago
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3.3 -
"'as long as it looks better than the witcher, i'll be happy"

Ouch. Yeah, that sucks.

Well, when I was browsing around today I saw news of a hi-res texture mod in the works at least. So that's something...
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Bigpappy - 46 days 1 hour ago
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4 - This is not the game to fight over graphics guys.
You guys get a win one of the weakest graphical game this year and you are pushing this as the power of the PS3. It of course had nothing to do with all the extra time they spent trying to polish it up. Any way enjoy the win fanboys. I have it on 360. It run well, looks good, and plays great. I think 360 owners will be surprised how decent the game looks after all the bashing it has taken for not being prettier the PS3 version. The media seems shocked that is possible and the PS3 fanboys think this is pay back for so many multi-plat looking better on 360. I am happy that you guy have a multi-plat win from a multi-plat game that started on 360. Some 360 fanboys were rubbing it in when Virtua fighter looked better on the 360 when that started on PS3. Pay back time right?
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pixelsword - 45 days 21 hours ago
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4.1 - What page are you reading?
You're the first one to say anything about the "Power of the PS3"; besides, PS3 fans use exclusives to prove their point.
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kaveti6616 - 46 days 1 hour ago
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5 -
Well, I guess I'll get it on PS3 then. Although, IDK if I will ever have time to play it.
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Pixel_Addict - 46 days 1 hour ago
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6 - Funny..
Where is the Lens of Truth comparison for this game? You mean they were able to get one for CODMW2 and not this? Who knows maybe they did.
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Major_Failson - 46 days ago
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7 -
Well they had to compress over 20gig (pc install>20gig) onto a 7.2gig xbox dvd tells its own story.
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ReviewsArePolitics - 45 days 22 hours ago
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7.1 -
Don't blame a disc on the chipset's shortcomings ;)
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Figboy - 46 days ago
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8 - i'm loving the game so far, as is my wife: she's been playing it non-stop since
we brought it home.

graphically, the game is decent. it gets the job done, and i don't expect Uncharted 2 like quality.

Bioware is a great developer, and the gameplay of Dragon Age is quality.

it's one of the most engrossing RPG's i've played since Demon's Souls and White Knight Chronicles (Japanese import, of course).

i highly recommend it, and hope to have a review up on my site soon.

the PS3 version has some framerate issues, but nothing that really detracts from the gameplay.

i can live with the graphical glitches, because the rest of the experience is so solid.

it's not like Fallout 3, where the game has been crashing at least 4 or 5 times during a single playthrough.

so far, me and my wife haven't encountered any game-breaking bugs/crashes like with Fallout 3 (in particular when we bought the DLC for it).
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Feral Gamer - 46 days ago
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9 -
I am enjoying Dragon's Age immensely, however due to my bike getting fixed, I haven't been playing it as much as I should.
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Feral Gamer - 45 days 20 hours ago
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9.1 -
Phantom disagrees again...
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Saryk - 45 days 16 hours ago
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10 -
I am having a ball playing Dragon’s Age, I am happy and that is what counts.
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theroadtoruin - 45 days 15 hours ago
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11 - leave this game alone
this game is just fine im happy playing it on pc maxed out to me an RPG is more story and gameplay than graphics this game wasnt intended to be like Gothic, Witcher, or oblivion its its own game and if you dont like it you must not like RPGs cause this is one of the best ive played it has that knights of the old republic feel in the gameplay to me its like Japanese turn based meets western RPG's if you want a big open world game theres 4 newer good ones out right now Oblivion, Fallout, Gothic(do not attempt to play without newest community patch), and The Witcher go try them and stop hating on one of the best RPGs/devs ever
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sarshelyam - 45 days 14 hours ago
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12 - You know...
...for once I don't care about these comparisons. I'd LOVE to see what makes the PC version so special outside of K/M support and additional camera views. I'm simply enjoying a GREAT RPG experience that happens to be on my PS3...

...I think we all win regardless of platform choice.
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