Dragon Age: Origins

The Basics
Dragon Age is a 3rd person RPG by Bioware, following on from Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Medieval setting, party of four, story, exploration and combat with the possibility of pausing during combat to task actions to each of the party.

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The Good
The story is one of the best I have ever encountered in a game. Choices you make impact the story and the characters in your party. Some games present you with goodie/baddie options that are distinctive. The choices here are less transparent and impact different personalities in your party.

There is a fair bit of dialogue and although I normally skip through that aspect as fast possible, I found myself intrigued by what the characters had to say and the choices I was presented with. The voice-overs are pretty good and I am sure a fair chunk of the 15GB installation is for sound files. Whilst you are wandering around, characters in your party will talk to each other and the banter is amusing.

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I like the system of a codex where lots of history is written into the game but relegated to a place where you access it only if you are interested. I didn't spend much time in the codex and lost a few minor quests through not reading info in time.

You get good game time for your money. I think I played about 60hrs doing most of the side quests. If you are thorough, I guestimate around 80-90hrs for a play through.

The Bad

There were a few frustrations, mainly triggered by party control and camera angle. Each party member has tactical options that come with a preset. You are able to edit the tactics and whilst the tactical options are impressive, I found them impractical (lots of swearing as they run off to die without consent) in most instances and disabled them. Whilst it slows the game down a bit, I found it better to use the pause option during combat than the tactical presets.

Camera control also produced a few expletives. For open areas there are no problems whatsoever. You can, after a bit of practice, pan around easily. But, as soon as there are tall buildings/mountains/trees in the picture there are problems, particularly when you are being targeted by ranged weapons and you simply cannot return fire because the camera angle to view the enemies is unavailable. There were several battles where I had to run all my characters closer to see who I was fighting and return fire.

Eye Candy (Hello Paul)

Graphically the game is a mixed bag. Rendering of characters is decent but the scenery is quite simple. I appreciated the facial animations of characters as they spoke, it was more seamless than previous RPG's, but overall, nothing to write home about.

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Gameplay

Pretty good. I liked the rate at which the characters level up as each time it creates new fighting options in the quick slot bar at the bottom of the screen. Given that you can choose 3 of the 4 (the fixed character is you) in the group, and that each character comes with a different skill set, the options are diverse. In the end I favoured a group with 2 mages and 2 warrior types and focused on mastering their skill sets rather than changing often. The combat dynamics are very similar to NWN2 and drawn from previous RPG's rather than breaking new ground. Its not a bad thing, but don't expect something different.

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Overall

Pretty forking good. Nothing revolutionary in terms of an RPG, you have the same bad guys and flaming swords in a medieval setting but what Bioware have done is produce a finished game that is both intriguing and entertaining. Its immersive and addictive and the only noticeable bug, after 60hrs or so, was a minor quest that should have closed. (It may be that I still had a task to do but this was not evident. ) If you enjoy RPG's then you will enjoy Dragon Age. Get it, but make sure you have a few weeks to lose yourself in it.

Awesome, thanks for the review Geth!

After reading that review I just HAD to get the game.

Created my charming lil' character and having a ball slaying beasties with my buddies of choice.

Mention should be made of the add-on content.
You get one code for a free DL in the 'off the shelf' version (like they did with Dawn of War 2), which gives you an extra mission containing bonus gear.
There are more of them (speak to the dude in the camp site, near the wagon), but you have to buy them from the site.

I am busy playing the game for the second time now and its really good....


all the dif achievements is really cool also can also give you a reason to play the game more than once in a dif way

Couple of questions to people what have gotten further than I have.

1. How do you put runes into weapons? I've got a few of them, but can't figure how to insert them into my gear, even if it has a block for one.
2. I have Shale (the golem) in my party. I have given him a fancy crystal in inventory. What goes on his other 'hand' (Like the Mabari, he only has 2 slots. The dog got a collar, and war paint)? I can't equip weapons on him, and it won't take a second crystal/gem...
3. Where do you get trained for specialisation? I'm level 12 now, but haven't had the opportunity to specialise, despite the Codex telling me I get one at level 7 and one at level 12.

1. you have to speak to the boy of the dude at the wagon as he does the enchantments(just drag and drop the runes into the slots)
2.where did you get the golem? I dont have one ...
3.depend on what class you are... as a teplar training can be done by Alastair. Beserker training Olgren can do and Bard training Leliana can do. Shapeshifter training can be done by Morigan (these are all characters you pickup durng the main quest) Champion training you get from the Earl of Redcliff after completing the quest for andraste's ashes....
You can also buy books from merchants that can unlock the specializations. the merchant in the base camp has a few....

1. Ya, for runes, go to the caravan at your camp and speak to the 2 there, the younger does enchantment.
2. Never got the golem.
3. As a rogue, I got another specialisation from an elven chick in one of the taverns. The 2nd time I just got the option when I leveled up. Might be worthwhile to google your class type and see who you need to speak to. There are lots of guides online.

Shot-oh, chaps!

The golem, Shale, I re-activated in an arb little village that got pwned by Darkspawn, after I wasted all the darkies and killed the demon holding the mage's daughter (had to solve a really annoying puzzle thing as part of the mission, too). It was DL content I got the free code for in the box (also got one for Mass Effect 2 on the same voucher).
This is part of the reason why I buy boxes off the shelf, instead of buying softeware I still have to spend Bandwidth on, online. There are often bonus goodies in the case.
Borderlands had one too, for an uber-sweet machine gun, as I have only played the soldier.
Got one for L4D2 aswell, but haven't redeemed that yet.

I recommend going to get Shale if you can, coz that dude kicks ass! He has a 'rock lob' trick that just pwns bad guys at range, too. He's my tank.

So far, my minions are :
Alistair the wussy fag knight
Morigan the miserable w(b)itch
Gore the Mabari war dog
Sten the half-orc-ish warrior
Wynne the circle mage
Shale the golem
Liliana the mostly worthless rogue (AKA cannon fodder-cum-lock opener)

folowers I have been able to aquire having played the game twice

Alastair
My Wardog
Liliana
Wynne
Sten
Oghren(A dwarf from ozamar)
Morigan
and that elf dude from the antivan crows

there was a dwarf also in redclif which I wasnt able to recruit cos I only discovered him after the main quest there has been done

As a footnote: You have to spend a shit load of time to get a character up to level 20(I havent been able to get a character up to that level) I am on level 19 now(the first time around I didnt do a lot of the side quests)