Dragon Age: Origins

10 Review to this product

• 

  Desert Dweller
  August 18th, 2010 on 9:34 am

  Rating

  Hello everyone. This is for those of you Mac Bootcamp users who are wondering if this will run on a Mac. Well, I’ll share my experience so far, in case anyone is on the fence about buying this:

  I’ve got a 2-year old iMac with a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 2 GB of RAM, and I’m running Windows XP with SP3 on Bootcamp, and this game runs flawlessly. I’ve got it set to a high screen resolution, and “medium” detail for graphics, and it runs very nicely.

  In about 15-20 hours of playing, I’ve had one QTD error (“quit to desktop”), and that’s it. I’ve seen none of the slow load times or any other glitches. The graphics are beautiful on my settings. Better than NWN2 on highest, and and as good as or better than The Witcher too (which was stunningly beautiful IMO).

  From a gameplay standpoint, there’s plenty of reviews, but I think Dragon Age is great. I’m one of those that has done Baldur’s Gate I & II many times, including their expansions, NWN 1 with all it’s expansions, and NWN 2 (without expansions – I have the Mac versions, so the expansions aren’t available).

  I’m not sure Dragon Age is the “spiritual successor” to Baldur’s Gate, but I don’t know that it needs to be. It’s definitely at least as good or better than NWN I or II (in my limited play of Dragon Age so far). I also was skeptical it would top The Witcher , which I’ve recently played several times through, and which also runs flawlessly on my Mac Bootcamp setup as above. So far, I’m forced to admit Dragon Age at least equals, if not succeeds, my beloved “The Witcher”.

  So for anybody with a fairly recent desktop iMac running bootcamp and Windows XP, feel comfortable giving this game a go!
• 

  RPZag
  August 18th, 2010 on 1:09 pm

  Rating

  Dragon Age has now been out for 2 Months. I’m a big fan of RPGs (and Bioware has a fantastic track-record with me), but timing is everything and before I knew it, Christmas was nearing, so I put DA:O on my Christmas list.

  The big dilemma for me, was deciding which platform to get it on.

  I had planned on getting it for the XBOX, since playing it on the big TV seemed like such a great idea. And it still is, but I had hoped to play as a Mage, and after reading a few reviews I started thinking that playing a Mage on the XBOX would be more tedious than fun. I’d also read the graphics weren’t as good on the XBOX. The latter fear was cleared up later when I saw friend playing as a warrior on his XBOX – I thought it looked fantastic on his huge Plasma. One thing I didn’t realize though, is that even though my “main” character is a mage, I’m still controlling all the other characters as much as my own. So even if I played on the xbox as a warrior, it may still be alot more tedious since you’ll probably have a mage in your party.

  But I’m on my laptop WAY more than I’m in front of the TV, although business laptops don’t always play games very well.

  So there was the dilemma.

  In the end, I decided to go with the PC version.

  So here’s my review after 8 days in!

  I was expecting a 3d version of Baldur’s Gate. On paper, that may sound about right. However, while playing it, I’m reminded way more of World of Warcraft (except I can’t jump, fall off cliffs, or walk thru water). And I actually liked playing WoW back in the day. DA:O has great background Lore if you want to read it (which I do), many skill trees to over-analyze, great graphics, engaging music, and lots of fighting strategies. It’s all done well enough that I would have given it an “A” review with that alone. But it’s the story, the voice acting, and the cut-scenes that really seal the deal for me. When I complete a quest, examine an item, or walk into a specific area, a cut-scene will often kick in, and when it does I get a real sense of something Magical happening. It’s really amazing to see. The entire cut-scene has “YOUR” character in it. So the character you customized, with long hair, tattoos, and a protruding chin is fully realized in the cut-scene. You’re IN the story, exactly as you made yourself out to be. Just before one of the cutscenes took place, I equiped one of my party members with a cheap-looking helmet that came down over his face. Sure enough, when the cut-scene started and it showed my character and my party, my party member was wearing his silly helmet! The cut-scenes are created with the in-game engine, so the fade-in and fade-out of the cut-scene is very transparent and fully immersive.

  A note about my specs. I’m running a Dell Latitude E6500 with Windows 7 64-bit and 4GB of memory. I run it on Medium settings and it runs very smooth. There were only a few fights where things slowed down. I’ve had 0 crashes. ZERO. The graphics aren’t “stunning” on my laptop but they’re pretty darn amazing, and I can only imagine what they’d be like on a machine with a better graphics card. But it’s still amazing to see and play. The entire landscape, scenery, ruins, castles, dungeons, monsters, are a sight to behold.

  Graphics/GamePlay: A+

  Some random thoughts about the graphics/gameplay:

  -Fire! Fire! Fire!!! Fire effects are AWESOME and plentiful. One of the spells is to cause all your party’s weapons to light on fire for extra damage. Not only are they flaming, but the visuals around the fire waver from the heat. Now that’s attention to detail! Also, once, my party got hit by a huge Fireball and the whole party fell to the ground in flames! Effects like that make my jaw drop.

  -My rogue went invisisble and tried to sneak across a bridge to get up behind an enemy mage before I sent my main party running full-steam into their camp. Unfortunately, just as he was over the bridge, he stepped on a trap. But not just a trap that simply indicated he took damage. This was a TRAP! His foot is stuck in the trap and you can see him struggling to get free. Triggering the trap caused his invisbility to disappear, and he can’t move! Suddenly, I see that there’s more monsters than I thought and they’re nailing him with arrows and the mage cast a fire spell on him. He burned to death and was a pile of charred bones on the ground! So much for that idea.

  -Ever noticed how some top-tier games only have a small handful of enemies? Halo3 & ODST? Gears of War 1 & 2? Fallout 3? It’s something I LOVED about WoW – I fought all kinds of creatures, and I’ve experienced a lot of variety in DA:O as well. The area BOSS battles are breathtaking. Those monsters are HUGE!!

  The maps and dungeons are Epic.

  Sound: A+
  
  Voice Acting: The voice acting is top-notch. We’re not talking about 5 people alternating between fake British/Scottish/Austrailian/Fargo/Star Trek accents, nor is Jim Carey starring in this one. They really treated the voices right.

  Ambiant Music: Once again, very top-notch, lots of variation, and very Lord of the Rings sounding. Not distracting, but engaging enough that when it starts going fast and the drums start beating, you know there’s enemies around, and it really makes the game exciting! Also, I wear my headphones when I play, and I can hear the jingling of armor coming from the correct sides as my party walks around me.

  Controls: A+
  
  Pretty much the normal Tried ‘n True layout. AWSD for keyboard movement, Right-click-and-Hold Mouse to pan around. ‘M’ for Map, ‘J’ for Journal, ‘I’ for Inventory, with a hotkey launch bar for you to drag items to. Pretty standard fare, so no complaints there.

  Dialogue: A+
  
  There were a few times where I actually laughed out loud. The dialogue is very clever and funny. This isn’t Baldur’s Gate where you’ll get sick and tired of the same background chatter. I’ve seen other comments about too much dialogue. There is alot of it, but you’ll be doing WAY more fighting and exploring than talking.

  Other: B
  
  Online Experience: This one’s a little gimmicky, but I think it’s just the beginning of a trend, and will hopefull mature as time goes on. You can’t get online friends to help you (which I can’t imagine would be very much fun anyways), but you can link the game to an online account. This provides the following:
  
  -Avatar picture that matches the character you’ve got customized ingame.
  
  -Screencaps, Lore, Story Progression, Skill Trees, Character Details are periodically uploaded to your account, which you can view online. You can also take pictures manually. Unfortunately, the whole thing is a little clumsy. I’ve had in-game error msgs indicating that it can’t communicate with my online storage space, and the web-interface when you sign into your online account is a bit clunky.
  
  -Integration with Twitter & Facebook. I wouldn’t want my friends to know how much time I have spent playing the game, so I haven’t used this feature.
  
  -DownLoadable Content (DLC). By purchasing the standard game (the Collector’s Edition is pretty much sold out in retail stores), I get access to a couple of in-game items and one side quest (I haven’t gotten there far yet), but from the main menu, I can see that I can also purchase an additional quest called Warden’s Keep. And announced recently, a new DLC called “Return to Ostagar” is coming Jan 5th for a measly $5, and another one, DA:O – Awakening is coming in March. One interview I read said BioWare is committed to releasing DLC for the next 2 years. Not sure how often, but Fallout 3 released 5 DLC Add-ons, so I’m excited to play DA:O for a long time to come.

  Fun Factor: A+
  
  The fact that I wrote such a long and raving review at all says I’m having a blast. If you’re on the fence, and like RPGs, then it’s time to get off the fence. This is worth the $50 price tag. I’ve seen reviews indicating 80+ hours, and I believe it. Each save game tells you how many hours you’ve played. I’m 27hrs in now, and feeling like I’ve barely scratched the surface. As a matter of fact, there’s a summary screen where it shows you how far along you are. It says I’ve completed 12% of the game. This game is HUGE!
• 

  Jaelus
  August 18th, 2010 on 7:39 pm

  Rating

  I would describe Dragon Age: Origins as a spiritual sequel to Baldur’s Gate with a distinct Mass Effect feel and better camera control.

  The game has a deep and beautiful story with great NPC variety and lots of dialogue. It’s not a flawless game, but it’s deserving of RPG of the year hands down.

  I purchased both the XBox 360 and PC versions of the Collector’s edition and in comparison I must say that the PC version is VASTLY superior. The graphics are better (360 only has medium resolution textures due to space constraints), the interface is significantly better and actually makes sense on the PC, the camera and unit control on the PC is fantastic and non-existant on the 360, and the difficulty on the PC is much more in line with what it should be (same difficulty is easier on the 360).
• 

  VA Gamer
  August 20th, 2010 on 12:27 pm

  Rating

  Before diving into the review, a brief summary: Dragon Age Origins is the epic role playing game that many of us have been waiting for since we first fell in love with the genre with the classic Baldur’s Gate. It drops the player into an immersive fantasy world rich with lore and compelling settings. The aesthetics and score are as pleasing and engrossing as a good cinematic feature or novel. And while it is spectacular in just about every way, it is not without its faults (mostly technical in nature, and affects players with very specific computer hardware as far as I can tell – I’ll explain more later). In short, if you’re a fan of the genre you will do yourself a favor by purchasing and experiencing this game. I have never felt more comfortable suggesting a RPG to the Internet-at-large as I do right now with Dragon Age. I will swear upon whatever holy text you prefer that it’s the best single-player RPG to come along since Fallout 3. If you’re not a theist, I suppose I could place my hand upon a photograph of Carl Sagan before making the same solemn vow. But I digress. Onto the review. Aspects I found positive are preceded by a (+), negative aspects a (-).

  GAME PLAY
  
  (+) Dragon Age (hereby referred to as “DA”) plays like a perfect hybrid of turn-based and real-time RPGs of yore. The controls are a mash up of overhead tactical maneuvering ala Baldur’s Gate and the third-person RTS-like mechanics found in Knights of the Old Republic. You control character movement with either the WASD keyboard directions familiar to MMO and FPS players, or via mouse-click navigation (concurrently). You can play from a third-person perspective to get a full view of the world around you, or zoom out into an overhead tactical view to aid in unit placement and positioning (in which the graphics take on the painted look and feel of Baldur’s Gate – a nice touch). The camera may be controlled with either the keyboard or mouse. All around, stellar.

  (+) The UI makes a powerful and elegant use of economy of space (it fits a lot into a little, all while looking and playing extremely well)

  (+) Character customization is as rich if not richer than any other RPG hybrid or pure RPG on the market – past or present. You have standard archetypes (warrior, mage, rogue) which alone have various “trees” or avenues of progression focusing upon things like weapon preference (sword + shield, dual wield, two-handed, etc) or general and crafting skills. In addition there are specialist classes that excel at specific vocations (such as the mage-nullifying Templar, shape shifting mage, or crit-happy Duelist – to name a few). On top of this, special abilities and vocations may be unlocked by finding rare items or special quests (often a combination of both)

  (+) Combat is highly tactical, taking into account elevation, range, “crowd control” mechanics, and vast synergy between the abilities of your party members

  (+) A deep tactics system can be utilized, in which you assign a custom AI to each of your characters based upon a variety of criteria and situations. For example, you can tell your mage that every time they’re surrounding by two or more melee mobs, they cast a certain crowd control spell. If a party member has less than 50% health, heal them. Or have your tank taunt mobs that attack the mage. Or have the rogue stun the mobs your main character is fighting. Etc.

  (-) Melee-centric characters draw from a pool of stamina to perform their various abilities and group-enhancing skills. This pool feels very limited, even when you invest heavily into the stat that grants more stamina. It’s further hampered by injuries that your characters will sustain, on occasion, while fighting (which are treated with injury kits or by resting at your camp). Hopefully this will be tweaked in a future patch.

  STORY, PRESENTATION, & SETTING
  
  (+) The seemingly hackneyed story (you`re the last in a long line of sacred warriors who’s mission is to vanquish a very particular foe) quickly unfolds into a compelling, immersive, and interesting tale that rivals those found in quality fantasy novels and movies. Each race, town, city, and region are wholly unique and diverse – from the political intrigue of Dwarven society to the juxtaposition of the city and forest Elves (and the layers of complexity involved therein). I can’t go too much into this without potentially spoiling the many excellent stories. Suffice to say, it’s superb.

  (+) While the world isn’t technically “open”, being divided into many instanced zones (if you will), it is nevertheless truly vast. Most areas are substantially large. There is no limit to draw distance: your viewing distance is essentially to infinity, and most zones can be fully explored to the smallest nook and cranny (and it pays to do so). You unlock more areas as the game progresses (and the areas vary depending upon your origin and choices), and there’s a complete underground zone in addition to the zone all non-Dwarves start within.

  (+) The story is always evolving and changing. Your most minor, or major, decisions regarding plot or character interactions will have lasting repercussions that may not come to fruition for some time. You can build intimate relationships with characters, and being an active participant in the dialogue and lore pay huge dividends in the end

  (+) Replayability is very high – due largely to the aforementioned dynamic story, as well as the “Origins” part of the DA title: different race and class combinations have different starting stories, and merge into the overall arc in different ways and at different times

  PERFORMANCE
  
  (+) The games looks, sounds, and plays perfectly well on middling hardware

  (-) If you own a dual or quad core AMD CPU, expect gradually increasing load times as your session time increases (the longer you play and the more you transition between zones, the longer the load times become). From 5 to 7 seconds at first, upwards of 5 minutes after 45 minutes to an hour of play. This can be resolved by restarting the game, which literally only takes about 20 seconds. But still, it’s frustrating, and many people are reporting it on the official forums. Hopefully it will be patched.

  (-) The first PC patch was a bit of a goof: the new build included a newer version of the Visual C++ 2005 runtime, while the retail version had an older build. The result was that many people couldn’t launch the game after patching. A trivial issue for the computer savvy (I just checked my event logs and saw the issue then patched), but the lay person would have no idea what’s going on. After days Bioware has yet to respond officially with the obvious fix, leaving it to the community to resolve. That behavior and communication casts doubt upon the level of commitment Bioware has in regards to DA from a technical support perspective.

  Overall, the few technical issues are far outweighed by the overall quality of the game. I would provide a more in-depth review, but I am honestly afraid that I’ll accidentally spoil something, as this game is ridiculously vast. Buy this game. You will not be disappointed.
  
• 

  David Dressler
  August 21st, 2010 on 1:36 am

  Rating

  Dragon Age is genuinely revolutionary. The Baldur’s Gate series is probably the closest thing to this game, but even it seems downright tame compared to some of the innovations here. Not everyone is going to like it (although, judging by the current reviews, I would say that number is going to be very small).

  The biggest innovation is the ratio of plot to combat. You will spend A LOT of time…talking. Do you get to kill things? Of course, but this is the only game I have ever seen in which you will actually spend a lot of time in camp, chatting with your companions. Some of this is unnecessary, but some of it is actually essential to the gameplay. Your relationship with members of your party effects the outcome of the game in a number of ways. You can probably zip through much of it, but then you miss the point of the game. If you want a hack-and-slash, look elsewhere. The best way to enjoy this game is immersively. Listen to the dialog, learn the history, become part of the world.

  The characters in the story are genuinely worth getting to know. They are not simply stereotypes, they have true personalities and even moods. They can be funny (at one point there was a squabble between two of my companions over a dirty sock in a bedroll). They can inspire actual pathos. I can’t honestly say I started crying at any point, but Allister’s affection for a fallen companion is actually quite touching.

  If I have any complaints, it is that the world may actually be a little too open-ended. I have oodles of items I’m sure are useful somewhere, but I haven’t a clue where. I’m afraid to drop them, so I am constantly having to re-organize my pack in order to accommodate. Also, the various specializations for each class are someone difficult to find. Some of them can be purchased, but others have to be found, and there is no logic to it. Even though you can specialize as early as level 7, my mage was level 13 before she actually found something to specialize in.

  One other note: this game is rated M and it absolutely should be. After a fight, your party will literally be splattered with blood for a time, and the corpses of your vanquished foes actually decompose. There are several opportunities to have sex, including sex with a demon and sex with prostitutes (although there is nothing shown). Finally, there are concepts in the game that are positively creepy. I recently met up with a disturbed young woman in the story who had turned her true story of murder, rape and cannibalism into a nursery rhyme in order to keep herself from going insane from the memories. Great for atmosphere, terrible for insomniacs. Keep the kiddies away!

  Overall, this is a spectacular game. It is the first time I ever pre-ordered a game, and I am very glad I did.
  
• 

  backfromspace
  August 21st, 2010 on 10:00 am

  Rating

  Dragon Age is a kind of game that is becoming increasingly rare: a deeply immersive single-player RPG with an interface clearly designed for the PC. It’s easy to sling around the word “immersive” at any game that looks pretty, but DA isn’t messing around – the world of Ferelden shows a unified sense of design and depth that blows even famously vast games like Oblivion out of the water. Coupled with consistently excellent writing and across-the-board quality character design even down to relatively unimportant NPCs, the game truly does feel like it’s reacting to your choices dynamically from the very beginning, and how you play your character can have amazingly subtle effects on the way the story unfolds.

  Graphically, the game’s a little uneven. All the design elements are there, and it has plenty of high-quality textures and strong environmental visuals – particularly fire effects. The polygons themselves, particularly on character faces, are a little simpler than you’d expect from a 2009 game. Overall, the game looks about on level with Oblivion, although the visual distinctiveness and design ethic of areas and characters are significantly better. Animation stands out as a strong suit here, particularly during the game’s frequent dialog sequences, with none of the dead-eyed staring or bizarre walk cycles that plagued other RPGs like Fallout 3.

  Gameplay is pretty straightforward, and very much in keeping with previous Bioware titles like Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect. You control a party of up to four characters, each of whom develops a plethora of useful abilities to keep track of. The inclusion of a minor programming element (very much in keeping with the gambit system from Final Fantasy XII) will let you set up a few default actions on each character so you’re not stuck frantically switching between them to make sure they drink their healing potions, but battles frequently require some degree of tactical planning. Setting up ambushes and planning your party strategy to play to strengths is necessary to get through some tougher areas. The interface is, shockingly, clearly tailor-made for the PC (the console versions have their own interfaces designed from the bottom up and are apparently easier games to allow for the sacrifice in easy access to skills). You have an insane number of quick-access slots, and nearly the entire keyboard is bound to one thing or another. It’s the kind of interface that hasn’t been in vogue since before the PS2 came out. The game is extremely linear, although the frequent and varied dialog options give it the feel of a more free-roaming game, and it’s very tempting to go back and replay huge chunks of the game just to see how the complex and dynamic conversations will play out. The main downside is that there’s no easy way to level-grind, which is to the game’s benefit to a point (no tedious circling around killing wolves) but occasionally means you can get in over your head.

  What the game sacrifices in terms of sandbox free-roaming it more than makes up with in the excellent writing and characterization. An absurd attention to detail and across-the-board excellent voice acting breathes a lot of life into the game’s conversations, which make up a significant chunk of gameplay. Characters are extremely varied and the interplay between them is a major draw, a trademark of Bioware’s games, but Dragon Age has some of the most likable characters I’ve ever seen in a video game and the excellent performances from talents like Tim Curry, Kate Mulgrew and Claudia Black really put the game a notch above. Even the game’s fairly generic-on-the-surface fantasy world is livened up by a few critical details – for example, the elves in Dragon Age are a massive underclass of servants.

  It’s actually difficult to find things to level complaints against in this game. One petty gripe is Morrigan’s visual design – her character is one of the game’s strongest, and she has great personality and some very clever writing, but visually she’s a pair of giant breasts with a cloth draped improbably over them. Other women in the game are treated with a bit more restraint, though, and female armor is gratifyingly sensible. Another issue is that it can be difficult to manage battles on the fly, and accurately targeting enemies with skills frequently requires tactical pausing just to line the cursor up over their relatively small active areas. It’s a petty annoyance, but the game clearly wasn’t meant to be played Diablo-style anyway.

  A few other things to know about the game:
  
  -The game is mostly DRM-free, and ships only with a simple disc check. EA has a reputation for fouling up its customers’ computers with DRM malware, but DA seems to be free of those problems.
  
  -If Dragon Age were a movie, it would be rated R. I don’t remember ever seeing any swearing, oddly, but the game is rife with violent imagery, extremely dark themes and frank sexuality (including a handful of relatively tasteful sex scenes and occasional demonic nudity). The game handles all of it with maturity and depth, but it’s clearly not meant for children, and even parents of younger teens should be cautious.

  Overall, Dragon Age is one of the strongest games to come out in recent memory, and is another installment in Bioware’s increasing resume of superbly-written RPGs. Players looking for a fast-paced hack-and-slash “rpg” should look elsewhere, but anyone who likes deep and elegant plot development, memorable characters and excellent role-playing will love this game.
• 

  Christopher I. Johnson
  August 22nd, 2010 on 5:04 am

  Rating

  If you don’t want to read my retarded ode to Bioware, please skip ahead to where it says, “Actual Review!”.

  Ah, Bioware. You’re like an old girlfriend. The one who defined love for me (1). Then you hurt me (2). I still loved you, but I didn’t understand; why did you have to do that?

  You went your way and I went mine. Eventually I learned to forget. I met new people; sometimes I’d fall in love, but it was never quite the same (3).

  We’d see each other every couple years, and we’d have a lot of fun for a night or two (4). But other times I thought to myself, “What are you doing with your life? We could be happy together! Why are you doing this? (5). After these ultimately disappointing hookups I’d always dig up our old photos and go through them (6). I’m not ashamed to say I cried a little.

  You always told me you were searching for something. Learning who you were, and how to be.

  Then, one day in early November, you called me. You said, “I know now; I know who I am. I know where I belong: with you.” And then you came back home to me.

  Then it all became so clear; you HAD been learning. It was the old you, but a new version! Everything past was prologue to this; the version of you I always knew was there. I just needed to have faith, and you’d see it too, and we could get back what we had, what we’d always known was us.

  I love you Bioware. I realize now I’ve always loved you. Thank you for being in my life.

  Answer Key!

  1. Baldur’s Gate I and II, the infinity engine that led to Icewind Dale, Fallout, and Planescape

  2. Neverwinter Nights

  3. The Elder Scrolls, Neverwinter Nights 2, FFX, FFXII

  4. KOTOR, Mass Effect

  5. Jade Empire, Sonic RPG

  6. all those replays of BGII

  ACTUAL REVIEW!

  This is the best cRPG experience I’ve had in ten years. It becomes very clear within the first few minutes of your Origin story that you’re experiencing gaming history. Not the revolutionary, innovative, awesome new mechanic kind of gaming history. This is analogous to a new album from your favorite artist that’s been doing experimental side-projects for the last few years, and now comes out with a solid, deep, meaningful effort in a well-established form.

  All the old ingredients are here: rich, meaningful character relationships; deep, tactically challenging combat; well written, thought-provoking dialogue trees. In short, everything you knew Bioware was capable of, but hasn’t been fully present in any of their games since BGII.

  Don’t get me wrong; I’ve liked almost all of their games since then (Jade Empire and the Sonic RPG being the exceptions). It’s just that none have fully satisfied me, or they’ve left me with the nagging feeling that something’s just not quite right (re: KOTOR and Mass Effect feel slightly underdone).

  This game is an instant classic, from a master of the genre. It’s the kind of game that will be added to the roster of eminently replayable games (BGII, Fallout 1+2, Morrowind, Final Fantasy [pick your favorite], etc.). It’s as good as or better than all of those.

  Now, those of you that have NOT played Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, Icewind Dale, NWN2, beware.

  As evidenced by the very few negative reviews, the ad campaign for this game is not very representative of the content. This is a true western RPG, especially if you’re getting it on the PC. Combat is challenging on every difficulty mode but easy.

  IT IS BY NO MEANS a hack-and-slash or action RPG!!!

  I still recommend it, but be prepared to open your mind to a new experience.

  For those of you trying to decide on which version to get, here are some things:

  If you played and loved Baldur’s Gate, and got it because you bought into the “spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate” thing, get it for the PC, no question.

  On the console, the camera is locked in behind the character in the style of Knights of the Old Republic or Mass Effect. This is fine for those who fell in love with Bioware since their console years began, but not if you want to play it for full tactical enjoyment.

  Also, if you have a capable PC, the graphics are far superior to the consoles, which is often the case.

  360 vs. PS3?

  PS3 looks better, 360 moves smoother. 6 of 1.

  Don’t hesitate. Buy this game.
  
  Learn it,
  
  Live it,
  
  Love it:

  Bioware is Back.
• 

  NeuroSplicer
  August 22nd, 2010 on 6:43 am

  Rating

  First things first: in the past I have chastised EA a number of times for its release of cookie-cutter games, crippled with atrocious DRM schemes. So, in all fairness, I now have to say this: DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS IS A GAMER’s DREAM! It is an excellent game – and it comes FREE of any DRM madness. So, thank you EA for listening to your customers (let’s only hope this new trend holds…).

  This is one of those games that are easy to control, a joy to roam through and fun to play at no end.
  
  I am a huge cRPG fan and cannot remember such a great companion/squad cRPG ever since the Baldur’s Gate Saga. And to tell you the truth, this is the game I was dreaming of being able to play one day while playing BG (yeah, by now we all know that NEVERWINTER NIGHTS never delivered).

  There are about a dozen gender/race/class/background choices and a great many combinations in forming your party. The armor and the weapons are exceptionally made and everything shows on your characters. And the graphics are truly beautiful! You have to see the rendering of flames to believe them.
  
  Nevertheless, what really stands out is the gameplay. Every battle is a puzzle to be solved, pausing ever so often to reallocate enemies to the best suited party members (a feature I loved in BG!). Of course one can always turn off the autopause feature and let the AI take over the rest of your party and turn the game into an hack&slash action RPG (not exactly my cup of tea but, hey, it’s still nice to know it’s there).

  Finally, this is a game made just like the classics in many ways, including duration. I am now playing the game for over 20 hours and I feel that I barely scraped the surface! DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS is one satisfying RPG!

  My only gripe is this: I did not appreciate such short dialogue options. Most fit a single line and more often than not they consist of a couple of words. I like my RPGs to be wordy and challenging to my verbal imagination as well – and I want my characters to participate in the humor, not just provoke it or react to it. Remember the long dialogue options in BG? Well, expect to find DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS much more laconic.
  
  I guess 10 years of fast-paced FPS and blitzkrieging RTS do take their toll…

  The blood sprays, the swords clang and the spells explode. The animations are beautifully made and add a lot to both enjoyment and immersion. There is a verse in Homer’s Iliad I love: “the warrior fell and his armor echoed around him” – and I was reminded of it many a times throughout the game.

  This game will stay with you. Do not miss on it.

  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
• 

  Trip Like I Do
  August 22nd, 2010 on 5:54 pm

  Rating

  I was doubtful when one reviewer mentioned that Dragon Age was better than Fallout3, but now I have to agree. This is an immersive, complex and enjoyable experience. Much of the game has the fluidity of an action movie, and the mature nuances of the scripted dialogue and the voice acting are several levels above any game in recent memory, including Fallout3. The music is cinematic and glorious. The graphic renditions are excellent, ornate and do not overwhelm the storyline. The combat system is reminiscent of Oblivion but it is much more elaborate and detailed, and it is very satisfying to see how small variations in combat tactics affects the outcome of even simple combat engagements. It is equally satisfying and horrifying to be jumped upon by a voracious giant spider and watch in disgust as your character wriggles helplessly under assault. It’s also fun to watch other people play it and see them jump when traps or very sudden ambush attacks occur. The multiplayer AI is smart, and versatile. The character generation engine is also fun, and each of the separate race and class pathways into the game are well-written and well-plotted. An astounding achievement by Bioware that would make Gary Gygax smile, or even chortle.
• 

  J. Neill
  August 23rd, 2010 on 4:45 pm

  Rating

  The idea of origins is that you can start as any of one “origins” – each origin has its own story line. My understanding is it is several hours of totally different stories at that. I’m playing a mage, which includes traveling to another world where demons struggle to possess you, and you must prevent it by pure force of will. Its extremely refreshing to see something actually putting something about your magical powers instead of just saying, “Oh, here you go. You can cast magic missile at the darkness.”

  Graphically, wow. And I mean WOW as in awesome, not as in a certain online game we’ve probably all played entirely too much. Definitely some of the best graphics I’ve seen to date. Think how good Oblivion was when it came out – Dragon Age crushes it. Not only better graphics (one thing I’ve noticed in some newer games is when they “focus” on the characters that are active and “unfocus” the background – really makes a difference.), but leaps beyond previous games of this depth.

  The sound is top notch. Voice acting is very good (and very wide spread so far), music is top notch, and general ambiance is really well done as well (hearing the wind blowing down through the mountain valleys, and dogs barking in the distance. People having conversations that get louder as you get closer, etc).

  And the story line – when I finally forced myself to quit playing last night so I could get up for work today, I sat back thinking EPIC. As in LOTR epic (not LOTRO, but the books/movies). I just felt like something really big was coming, and I was going to be right in the middle of it. And the twists and turns that are already occurring as the story unfolds – I don’t want to give anything away. Let’s just say you HAVE to experience this.

  This is one that will be mentioned for years to come. I can only imagine what is going to happen, but so far it is extraordinary.

  If you didn’t order it yet, do it. If you have other games on your plate, quit playing them. If you have no time due to RL, quit your RL.

  Seriously. M’kay?