Dragon Age: Origins- Review

Every decade or so there is just one game that blows me away. In the 90’s it was Baldur’s Gate, and this decade I thought my RPG of choice was going to be Fallout 3.

Oh was I wrong.

Dragon Age Origins came along and blew everything else out of the water. With a fantastic story, powerful characters and an entirely immersive world Dragon Age Origins sets itself apart from the rest of the RPG vein. You would be a fool to let this game pass you up.

The game begins with a goose bump raising tear-conjuring cut scene that introduces you to the game’s story and shows you a brief snippet of lore. Next it ships you off to your make a character screen.

At first I was disappointed with this aspect. Three races? Three classes? This hardly seemed to leave many options open. You get to choose from Elf, Human, and Dwarf race wise and warrior, rogue and mage class wise. Depending on what you pick for race and class you then get to pick your character’s background, be it Tower Mage, Noble, or four others (six total.) We’ll come visit this later.

My fears of low character customizability were immediately alleviated by the next screen. Here you pick your character’s attributes; their personal abilities (weapon skill, herbalism, conversation skills, etc). Next you undergo class customization. This is where the character customization shines through. Warrior doesn’t just mean shield and sword fighter, you can specialize bows, two handed weapons, one hand a shield, dual wielding, or any combination of them. Mage allows you to focus in many different types of magic, each which can be further customized. There is primal (fire, electricity, frost, etc) death, life, and creation. Again, you can mix and match what you want. Even the rogue can be a bard if he so chooses.

In addition to these paths you can specialize later in the game. For DnD or Neverwinter Nights fans this is like taking a prestige class, just less drastic in the way it affects your character’s development.

After this is done you are treated to yet another cut scene, this time specific to what you picked as your starting background. Depending on what you picked you then play the first few hours of the game differently that the other five starting paths. Your origin effects more than just the start of the game, it has long reaching and very well interwoven effects into the story. You feel like the whole game was tailored to the background you picked, not that it was just an introduction that doesn’t affect anything else.

Right at the start you are thrown into dialogue. Everyone is voiced in this game, everyone. You will not have to read a single word that comes from a characters mouth. The voice actors are fantastic, I never once picked out two people with the same voice and the one time I thought I had it turned out to be the same character from earlier, but in disguise. You are given multiple dialogue options, but this is nothing new in RPG games. What strikes me about the dialogue is how your party members interact with it. Throughout the game you pick up a plethora of party members and you are allowed to take three with you at any given time. To my surprise and delight they take part in conversations, not sporadically but quite often. They will talk to each other mid dialogue, and it really does a fantastic job of immersing you and making you feel like the group you have is the group you were meant to play the game with.

Immersion wise this game has no rival- you feel like you are in the world. It feels like your choices have consequences (and they do) and there is no “morality meter” that goes up and down. Everything in the game is geared towards immersion, dialogue, story, even combat. One annoying immersion-breaking factor is the sound when the camera moves. Instead of hearing everything through your characters ears at all times, you hear from where the camera is situated. It can be strange talking to someone and having the camera shift and along with it the volume. Minor complaints though.

The game’s combat is probably the weakest point in the game, but the weakest point in a titanium bar is still quite formidable. At first, combat ends up being auto attack with an ability or two. Eventually you receive more skills and it becomes significantly more fun- and hard. This game is hard. Very hard. Chances are you won’t be able to make it through on normal difficulty unless you pause and relay orders every few seconds. Occasionally you or your comrades will pull off a finishing move, these are tasteful and not over the top and add quite a bit of flare to the game. They never get old as you don’t see them all that often.

This game is an adult game. The lore is dark, the combat violent, the themes intense and the relationships steamy (depending on how you play your cards.)

(Above) Some of the baddies you fight are quite large. And want to eat you.

Console wise this game is best on PC. The interface is better, the graphics are better and the frame rate is smoother, even on a computer from 3 years ago. Second up comes the PS3, but only because of slightly better graphics over the 360. Overall, it isn’t going to be a big deal.

Overall, the game is fantastic. Only a few nitpicky things keep this game from being absolutely perfect. Go out and buy this game, now!