From my early childhood, I’ve been fascinated by knights, dragons, magic and the whole fantasy thing. Now, I’ve been a gamer for over 20 years, but in middle school I spent a lot of time playing Dungeons and Dragons, and I always wanted a great game that could really encompass everything that I dreamed up while playing the tabletop game. Well released in November, Bioware gave us Dragon Age: Origins, and it is what I consider to be Mass Effect meets Dungeons and Dragons, and is potentially the best fantasy adventure I’ve played, combining drama, sex, an epic quest to save the world, and even a whore or two thrown into the mix. Sound good to you? Let’s take a look!
If there’s one thing we’ve come to expect from a Bioware title, it’s a wonderfully engaging and deep story, and Dragon Age: Origins certainly does not let us down. On top of that, we could replay the entire game several times and each time it’s going to be different. That’s because there are 6 different “Origin” stories that define both your character and the way that the story is going to unfold for you over the course of your adventure. Led by an Archdemon, a race of evil creatures known as the Blight have arisen and threaten to enslave the world for themselves. Historically, a group of heroes known as the Grey Wardens have defeated the Blight every time they have tried to take over the world, but since it’s been so long since the last attack, the Grey Wardens have found themselves a little short in their numbers. Based on the story you select to start, you are going to end up joining the Grey Wardens for one reason or another.
After a series of plot twists, things get really crazy and you, the new recruit, are forced to assemble the armies of the world to fight off the Blight once and for all. Right from the beginning you will love the story and become completely immersed and won’t be able to wait to see what’s going to happen next. You will go through many challenges, political battles, sexual encounters, and finally end the tale in truly epic fashion!
From start to finish in one play-through, Dragon Age: Origins took me 40 hours, but I’ve heard of others who have taken significantly longer. Besides the main story itself, there are a ridiculous number of side quests, and what’s great is that you can perform them many different ways. Whether you decide to take the path of good or evil, your choices will greatly determine how these quests unfold for you. The game itself is single player, which is slightly disappointing because you will gain a party of adventurers that travel with you and it would have been great to allow a friend to play as one of your companions.
There is simply a ton of ways that you can develop your character. Initially you’ll choose between a human, elf or dwarf, and between a warrior, rogue and mage. Based on your selections, you’ll be presented with one of the 6 origin stories that define your past and how you were raised. Each character class also has 4 specializations that may be unlocked like a ranger, bard, Templar and blood mage. Further still, there are a wide variety of spells and talents that you’ll have to choose to define how you want to play your particular class. For instance, warriors can specialize in two-handed weapons, sword and shield, or dual wielding specialties.
The game-play in Dragon Age is pretty much identical to that of Mass Effect. It’s a third person Action-RPG where you control a party of up to 4 characters utilizing commands using a radial command dial. Unfortunately the radial command dial is not all that responsive, as it doesn’t always fire off the commands that you issue to it. Aside from that, everything works pretty smoothly. The main problem is that there are so many different talents and spells, which would be a good thing if there were enough buttons on the controller to accommodate them. The AI in the game is very complex and well defined. There is actually a screen where you can set up exactly what you want your characters to do in every possible situation. For instance, if there are more than 3 enemies clustered together, cast a certain spell, or if an ally’s health drops below a certain threshold, heal them.
In addition to the plentiful combat in the game, you will spend as much or more time in dialog sequences where your conversations completely define what is going to happen throughout the game. Aside from basic conversations, you can persuade and intimidate to get additional information or events to occur. In each major section of the game, there are multiple ways to accomplish the goal and you get an achievement for going each particular path, so you have plenty of incentive to replay the game and go down the additional paths.
Dragon Age utilizes a new gaming engine called Eclipse. The frame rate of the game is always smooth during actual game play, but suffers occasional drops in frames during certain cut scenes. I feel though that the graphics are very last-generation, not once in the game was I amazed or wow’d by them. Fortunately the game play and story are so freaking awesome that you’ll be able to look past the aged graphics right away. On a brighter note, as you battle things, blood will get splattered all over your characters and you’ll see it in the cut-scenes. I thought this was a cool addition to the game and made it seem more realistic.
The music throughout your adventure is pretty good but it never blew me away or anything. On the other hand, the voice acting is fabulous, as it should be, considering like 50% of the game is dialog, and all dialog in the game is voice acted. Morogan the witch sounds very sexy, Alister the templar is kind of a pansy, and various other characters sound just hilarious; I loved it. As you walk past characters in the game you can listen in on their conversations without going into the dialog screen. I also thought this was a pretty cool feature. So the graphics aren’t anything to give props to, the music is mediocre, but the voice acting is superb.
There have been so many great games released this year, but Dragon Age: Origins certainly is a contender for my Game of the Year. With what seems like an unlimited amount of replayability and uber-long play-throughs, you’ll have a lot to do if you want to tackle all of the content in this epic adventure. The game play is extremely addictive, the story will immerse you instantly, and all in all, it’s just fun to play. Bioware, I must give you a round of applause, you’ve given us a wonderful game. I can’t wait to get back to my second play-through. For 60 bucks, you just can’t go wrong with Dragon Age: Origins. For a full write-up and screenshots, head on over to ZeitgeistGameReview.com. Let me know what you thought by rating the video and leaving your questions and comments below.
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[...] Dragon Age: Origins brought us an epic tale of love, adventure and mystery in a hopeless struggle against all odds to save the world as seen through the eyes of several different characters; each with their own story giving you massive amounts of replayability and drama. Dragon Age 2 takes a different approach by telling a story of one man or woman through events that take place both during and after those told in Origins. Overall, the story really is about the political and religious battles fought over those who would be leaders and their ideals on the moral implications of slavery. [...]