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."
The reviewer elaborates, "Textures are highly compressed and colors are washed out, though the upside is that this version maintains a smoother frame rate than on the PlayStation 3, where things might get jittery when swiveling the camera around. The PlayStation 3 version features higher-quality textures than those on the Xbox 360, better color saturation, smoother facial animations, and shorter load times. Minor visual hiccups, like corpses that disappear and reappear, are a bit more common on the PS3, however. The PC version is the superior experience, but if you're choosing between the two console releases, the PlayStation 3 has the upper hand."
Curious about these differences, IndustryGamers reached out to BioWare for comment. The PS3 and Xbox 360 of course have vastly different architectures, but you'd hope that studios could produce SKUs of roughly equal quality across the two high-end consoles. Nevertheless, BioWare is satisfied with the end result. “Looking at the reviews as a whole, we’re seeing that people are enjoying the game no matter which platform they are playing on. We created the game to take advantage of each platform’s capabilities and we’re extremely pleased with the reactions we’ve received on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC,” commented Matt Atwood, Sr. PR Manager at BioWare.
4 Comments
10 months ago
I toiled over which console version to get for about a week. I chose the ps3 for a few reasons.
For me, controller comfort and supporting Bioware's first venture to PS3 where important factors.
I am glad the PS3 got a good port and that it released at the same time as the other versions. Kudos to Bioware on the port and a great game to boot.
10 months ago
It doesn't surprise me too much that the PC version is vastly superior. The consoles are getting dated, and with a game of such immense scope as Dragon Age, it's just not going to fit perfectly onto consoles. This is the trade-off of consoles containing static hardware for their lifespan. I certainly expect to see more and more games with a major disparity between their console implementations and the PC version. The choice for developers will be to make a superior PC game that console gamers will be jealous of, or a console game ported to PC that will increasingly be unacceptable.
10 months ago
The problem is that PC game sales are usually lackluster, even if the PC version is superior. I am very curious to see how this game sells on PC vs consoles though. And of course it's on Steam too and appears to be off to a good start there.
10 months ago
The PC version will do well enough to be sure, but it's not a smart move to undercut their console customers. While there's no problem with giving the PC version better capabilities, a company is more likely to suffer if their game doesn't scale down to consoles well, rather than scale up to PCs.
Post a Comment
Login With IndustryGamers
Create an account, it literally takes like 5 seconds and you'll never have to do it again.
Login / Register
Login With Facebook
Have a Facebook account? Just hit the button and you can comment on our site!