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Bob Blaser
United States
Wildwood
Missouri
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Recently I had the opportunity to complete BioWare’s new fantasy-RPG Dragon Age: Origins. What a fantastic game! I easily played more than 60+ hours of the game and I very much enjoyed it!
What hooked me? What kept bringing me back to the game?
First of all, the graphics are gorgeous! I love the recent innovation in computer games where you get to design and customize your character. I’m not just talking about the standard RPG fare of skills and abilities, I mean the look, facial characteristics, hair, eye color, etc. To me, this greatly adds to the player’s level of connection, immersion into the game and attachment to your character.
The story was deep and engaging. Fereldin is a dark world and has a distinct George R.R. Martin Game of Thrones feel to it, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The world is being overrun and you must gather an army to counter the threat. There are many TOUGH choices to make along the way, and seldom are they easy, black-or-white choices. In my opinion, that is terrific story-telling. BioWare spins a good yarn. They get extra credit in my book for not compromising on the topics addressed. This is an adult game, with adult themes. No whitewash, good-for-all-the-masses tripe here. During your adventure to save the world you boldly wade into topics of religion, racism, sexuality, homosexuality, blood & gore, murder, betrayal, religion and demons and BioWare doesn’t compromise. As an adult gamer, I appreciate that.
The combat is visceral and looks good, the spell effects are spectacular and the sound effects are terrific. Personally I found the early game combat a little rough, as I did not have a healer and found my party getting wiped out every third battle. So, to avoid too much frustration, I turned the combat on easy. Later in the game, I better understood the Tactics settings and had developed a good healer. Then the game’s combat became much more fun. As mentioned previously there are many options and abilities to customize. Therefore a player can approach combat the way that one wants to; again, a sign of a strong game.
For me however, the best aspect of the game were the characters. This is one of BioWare’s true strengths and the hallmark of an excellent game. The characters were diverse and multifaceted. They had their own personalities, their own agendas and I found myself wanting to know all that I could learn about those characters that fought and traveled with me. That was one area that I felt the game excelled. For me it was a tough choice on which three characters to take with you as you journeyed along. I loved the banter and the dialogue between them – it often made me laugh out loud. The writing and the voice acting were extremely well done.
I felt like the pacing was good and not too rushed, but with a sense of urgency to move the story along.
Treasure and in-game items were diverse and good. The ability to find and buy “runes” to add to and modify your key magic items was very cool. I liked the fact that it allowed you to “plug & play” and keep using your best combat modifiers rather than forever locking them to a particular weapon.
The game itself was rock solid. It only crashed to the desktop on me twice. I had one bug and that was around new, downloadable content involving the Gray Warden’s old keep. The keep was a welcome addition as a place to store some extra stuff, instead of forever having to lug it around, filling up your inventory. I wished that I would have been able to do more with the place and make it truly feel like a base of operations instead of a big trunk with two shops around it.
I don’t know whom to credit the recent trend of unlocking “achievements” in a game, but I like it! It’s like an addicting hobby collecting pins. I am motivated to unlock things and earn “badges” of honor. The fact that you can share these on-line is also pretty cool, although I doubt anyone but me ever looked at them.
The ability to quickly take screenshots in the game was VERY welcome. I found myself taking snapshots of then game and then using them as my computer’s wallpaper. This kept me thinking about and interested in the game even when I wasn’t playing. Often times others would happen by and remark on the picture and ask me about it. I would highly recommend this feature to other game makers.
Dragon Age Origins was one of the best fantasy RPGs that I have played in the past five years. While it was not as “wide-open” whole-world immersive as Oblivion, I felt like the quests, the plots, the characters, the voice acting and the story were better crafted.
I enjoyed the additional content, even though I had to pay for it. I look forward to the expansion, although not too soon as I have been hooked by BioWare’s other classic: Mass Effect 2! Is Dragon Age perfect? No, but it’s so close you can see it from there.
Enjoy!
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Shake,Rattle, & Roll!
United States
Connecticut
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 Great review of a truly fantastic game, I can't wait for the sequel (3/2011). 
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Chip Hundley
United States
Danville
Kentucky
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I've been putting buying the X360 version of this for awhile waiting for the price to drop. I've heard so many good things about the game; I think I'll be giving it a whirl soon.
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Max Maloney
United States
Portland
Oregon
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This game has far too much poorly-written, poorly-acted dialogue in my opinion. We gamers must demand better of our game companies! Blizzard seems able to find talented voice actors; why can't other video game developers?
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Anthony DuLac
United States
Minnesota
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misfits859 wrote: I've been putting buying the X360 version of this for awhile waiting for the price to drop. I've heard so many good things about the game; I think I'll be giving it a whirl soon.
Get the PC version, it's far better by all accounts. The 360 version had some issues.
To Max (Dormammu): I think Relic actually tops Blizzard for quality of voice-acting. Just my preference, really, but they're both really quite good in that regard.
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Jonathan Berry
United States
Louisville
Kentucky
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A friend just gave me this game for the 360 for my birthday and I just started and so far find it to be a great game. I tried playing Oblivion but got bored and just didn;t have the time to play it. Dragon AGe has really caught my attention though!
What issues did the 360 have?
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