For those of you who loved Baldur's Gate, you will certainly enjoy Dragon Age: Origins (DAO). This is a rather formulaic, but very well done, fantasy role playing game. People who enjoy this type of game generally have no problems putting in 50 hours or more into a game and exploring every area in it. It is meant for the a gamer who perfers slower paced games. This genre of game is what got me into gaming many years ago, and Dragon Age is one of the best by far, taking its place along side the Baldur's Gate franchise and Planescape. To make this review more concise, I will break it down into sections.
Controls: This is a multiplatform game, it is also available on the XBOX 360 and the PlayStation 3, However, it seems as though it was made originally for the PC then ported over to the consoles. The PC version has an entirely different control scheme than the console versions. If you have played Neverwinter Nights 2 or any other RPG on the PC, then the controls will be very familiar to you. You simply point at an object and click on it. In a battle, you do the same, but you can select various skills and spells from a toolbar at the bottom of the screen or press the corresponding key to activate them.
Graphics: Once again, this is a multiplatform game. With the PC, higher resolutions, anti-aliasing, and better textures are available. This game looks fine, it would have been very nice a few years ago, but the graphics just look old. I believe this might have something to do with the amount of time game has spent in development. Once the developers got so far along in the development cycle, it may have been too costly or difficult to redo the graphics in their entirety. As an example, the character models are well done, not Mass Effect well done, but still pleasant to look at, but when the characters are placed against a wall or other gameplay object, the character looks sharp but the background appears muddy and dull. The character animations are functional, but largely wooden. Also, the game is quite bloody, so it is not meant for children. The gore is much like that in Kill Bill, very over done. Large enemies spurt blood like a fountain and you get covered in it all the time. I had to rid a pantry of mice and when I was done, I looked like Carrie.
Audio: The audio is by and large, top-notch. The musical score is well thought out and sets the mood when it is needed. The music is unintrusive and the voice acting is of a high calibur. For you science fiction fans, you may recognize one of the voices...
Gameplay: Dragon Age shines best in how it presents the story. Sure it is mostly standard fantasy with elves, dwarves, and magic, but the developers polished it and made it a truly deep and engrossing tale. I found myself playing for hours and hours, oblivious to the time, and when I wasn't playing, I thought about the game. Few titles capture me like that. One of the hallmarks of the game is how the characters are realized. Every character in the game has a story that you can explore. Even while you are in town adventuring they will banter amongst themselves and when you speak to a townsperson they will offer their opinion based on their background. I was always eager to talk with my companions just to see what they had to say, it adds a depth to the game that few titles have. When you start the game you get to choose your race and origin story. Both will alter how certain characters respond to you and what you can do. For instance, a human noble (Noble is a origin story) is treated positively by most of the townspeople and the noble origin makes vengence against one character more satisfying. It also allows for the player to become royalty very late in the game, if conditions are perfect. As the game progresses, your choices have real effects on the game's universe. Unlike some RPG's where you play as a good or evil character and get various bonuses as a result, in Dragon Age, there is no morality meter and the only way to guage the effects of your choices within the party is to see the various members' feelings towards you. If it dips too low, the character will run off or attack the player. When I finished the game, I found myself caring about what happens to the characters and various people we met along our travels.
Other Considerations: Dragon Age will play on many PC's, it is suggested that you play with the recommended system specs. I have an Intel Core 2 Quad 9450, 8GB of RAM, two NVidia 9800GTX's in SLI, and Windows 7 64-bit and didn't have any slowdowns while running at max settings with the anti-aliasing turned off. Anti-aliasing is very hardware intensive and at a high resolution, 1920 x 1200, I didn't see the need to turn it on. Over time the game did slow down while loading some areas, but when it did, I had played the game for over three hours in one sitting before it started to take longer than 30 seconds to load an area. Most of the time, areas load very quickly. Usually less than ten seconds for most areas, 30 seconds for large maps. The game is also quite stable, I only ever had a single crash and that was at the end. This game also has very weak digital rights management (DRM). The DRM is just a simple disc checker with a product key, there is no online activation. However, the product key will be paired to your online account, which is needed if you want to use their Bioware social site and downloadable content. The Bioware social site is a bit buggy but PC players can post achievements, similar to XBOX Live and PSN, screenshots, and character profiles. The forums at their social site is extensive and very helpful. If you're planning on showing off your achivements or screenshots to other non-Dragon Age players, you may be out of luck since viewing profiles is restricted to members only, for now. Also, this game is not a Games for Windows or a Games for Windows - Live title, so there is no achievement integration with the Microsoft system and the downloadable content comes from EA's servers directly. Once again, this is a multiplatform game and there are differences between various versions. From what I can tell, it seems as though the PC version was made first and then ported over to the consoles. On the PC, there is better graphics, much faster load times, the ability to zoom all the way out and view the party from a top-down perspective (similar to Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale) which is very helpful during battles, a keyboard and mouse control scheme, and a less expensive price. If your PC can run it, go for it over the console editions. If you are limited to the console version, the story is exactly the same and some features aren't available, but the controls are very similar to those in Mass Effect. If you have a choice between the XBOX 360 and the PlayStation 3 version, the PS3 version seems to have a slight edge over the 360. Remember, this seems like a computer RPG that has been ported over to the consoles, so some actions might be more difficult to perform on a console. Also, there is absolutely no multiplayer at all in the game. Personally, I like having no multiplayer, it means the story and your interactions with it can be deeper. If you're a player who must, without question, have a multiplayer component, look elsewhere.
