This is taken from the PS3 review:

Anyone familiar with the Baldur’s Gate games will feel right at home with Dragon Age’s gameplay on PC, but it’s a very different experience between PC and consoles. On PC you can switch between either 3rd person over-the-shoulder view or a much more tactical isometric view. Combat moves can be selected from a skill bar at the bottom of the screen by clicking on them or using hotkeys. Combat can also be paused with the spacebar, allowing you to switch between party members and queue up actions. This is essential for survival on anything above normal difficulty.

Tactics are certainly the name of the game with Dragon Age. Careful combination of abilities such as freezing and shattering moves, and fire and oil traps will be necessary to surviving many of your fights. Often you will find your party outnumbered three or four to one, and poor micromanagement will get you quickly killed, even on normal difficulty. This combat system is engaging, and extremely challenging. Those new to the genre will absolutely want to start on Easy, at least on PC.

Consoles are another story. The isometric view is not an option, limiting you to the over-the-shoulder view. Instead of hotkeys, you use a radial menu to select your attacks, which works pretty well. You can also switch between characters, but without a wider view it can be hard to get them to perform the tactics you want. To compensate for this, the enemy AI and general difficulty of the console version is drastically reduced. Even the hard mode isn’t as tactically challenging as normal on PC, and friendly fire on spells is turned off by default. This makes for a game that’s fun to play, but feels more like an average action RPG than a challenging tactical experience.

On PC Dragon Age is pleasant looking, but not stellar. There is some nice detail in the armor and facial expressions, but you’ll often get the feeling that it was meant to be played in the isometric view, which the game looks impressive in. The environments are attractive and some of the settings are creative and interesting. I especially enjoy the Mage domain known as The Fade.

There is an awful lot of talking about the PC game

Whats wrong about talking and comparing it with the PC version?

He is just showing you that the experience is better on PC, so if you have a PC capable of running the game

you should pass on the console versions.

The first paragraph that I quoted is not a comparison, it is just talking about the PC version. If it were a combined review, then I would be happier, but as they are presented as seperate reviews with different scores, then they should read differently

I agree with Munkeh here. We've seen this debated in relation to Wii vs PS360 reviews. The game should be reviewed on its own merits rather than compared to other versions.

Furthermore selectively cutting down different versions for performance disadvantages isn't a sustainable position. To begin with there isn't a baseline performance level for the PC version so where do you draw the line? Also between the Xbox 360 and PS3 there has always existed a margin where if they are close the scores are identical. Wouldn't it be more truthful to go backwards in time and change the scores for pretty much every single multiplatform game because the Xbox 360 plays them a little better?

Squilliam said: It would be funny if Digital Foundry came out with the Xbox 360 showing a higher framerate.

Would you believe Digital Foundry or your lying eyes?

But then you also have to consider that for value, 360 games should get a lower score if they have multiplayer since you have to pay for gold as well... The value category is rubbish, because then platinum (or greatest hits) games should be getting higher scores because they cost less

I think you either review them together or entirely seperately. In this case, I would have one PC review and one PS360 review, with a paragraph in the later comparing the 2 versions.

But that would be completely wrong for someone like me who doesn't play with/against other people and only downloads demos and things. Therefore the value score should be the same or higher for the Xbox 360.

I personally think theres no point in mentioning whether one version or the other has slightly more spiffy textures unless its quite obvious. The people who care obviously can find out from other sources which game runs slightly better.

@Dbot Digital foundry are run by a grandmaster of sorts.

Well sometimes 360 games are slightly cheaper, FIFA 10 360 is £2 cheaper than the PS3 version, so should probably get a higher score

I think there is some point in just saying that they are basically equivalent, because there is still a fear of inferior PS3 ports, but nothing major, most multiplatform owners will just have a preference for one platform and get multiplatform games for that, so it isn't essential

Normally differences between versions are minor enough that they don't merit a change in any of our component scores, which are only given in .5 intervals. The differences in Dragon Age's performance were rather large. Large enough to effect the enjoyment of the game. I understand it's difficult for single platform owners to get this, but if you actually see the game run on both platforms the difference is very large in comparison to most multiplat games, and I'm not the only reviewer to note this difference and score differently because of it. The reason my score difference was only .2 is because even with some major performance advantages it is still not enough of a difference to completely change the game's scoring.

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/dragonage/review.html
http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/dragonage/review.html

As for writing the same review for all 3 platforms, it's a multiplatform game. The fact that it's grossly superior on one platform doesn't change that, and we, just like everyone else, write a single review for multiplatform games, but talk about any notable differences in the way the game performs.

The reason this hasn't stood out in the past is most PC console multiplats play pretty much exactly the same with the exception of things like dedicated servers (which aren't even always present anymore) and very minor graphical advantages. Even other RPGs like Fallout 3 and Oblivion only had the advantage of mod tools and cleaner graphics. The only other game with fairly large improvements on PC was Mass Effect, which was a late port.

This was a game with major gameplay differences, and not just higher resolution graphics but an almost generation sized gap in graphical prowess, and a very stable game versus a very shaky one.

Sorry that you have to read about issues your favorite console has with a game. I know, we all like to believe anything we've ever spent money on is perfect and flawless and shouldn't be compared to anything else because it's already perfect, but as a reviewer that's not an option for me. I have to be able to play and rate games across all platforms, and when major differences show up I need to be aware of them and responsive to them.

That said, scores are always just guidelines. Don't take them to gospel. You will obviously enjoy some games more or less than the review scores we have given them. We write them as general guides to the quality of games, not as absolute statements of good and bad, and yes, it's possible for us to miss things at times because we are human, and if 10,000 people read my review I'm sure a few of them noticed something I didn't. Play what you enjoy, read the review for some information to help you make a decision, but don't complain every time a review isn't EXACTLY what you beleived it should be. Believe it or not, there is no one else in the entire world that shares your exact score opinions on every game you've ever played.

Maybe the games are afraid of the power of teh cell?