Author: random515
Title: Dragon Age: Origins Review
Posted: Monday, January 11, 2010 at 5:19 am




The term immersive is used a great deal in video game reviews, to the point where it has become a cliché. With the word being used so much, often to describe any aspect of a game which is high quality, one might erroneously think that the majority of games are ones which can draw you into their worlds; ones which you can play until four am without even realising the time, then think about all the next day while trying not to doze off because you got two hours sleep last night, and finally end up putting a staple through your hand because you aren’t paying attention to what you’re doing as you’re thinking about that game. Ahem. Excuse me, I got a little carried away there. Sadly (or perhaps fortunately), this is not something that describes most games. However, I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that Dragon Age: Origins, the latest offering from that storied developer of the RPG genre, BioWare, is one game that will pull you into its world and hold you there until the wee hours of the morning.

A brand spanking new IP for BioWare, Dragon Age: Origins is a return to roots for the company, similar in style and execution to their earlier PC successes, such as Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Although not based on Dungeons and Dragons rules (even though there are dungeons, and, as you may have guessed from the title, dragons), Dragon Age: Origins is very much a PC oriented, old school RPG, and a damn good one at that.

The game is set on the continent of Thedas, or more specifically within the nation of Fereldan. The world is, quite simply, huge in scope, and although the actual area in which you play is not as large as the game map makes it out to be, thousands of years of lore, complex political, social and religious systems, and a variety of races all with their own customs, laws and beliefs, all of which are carefully documented in the games codex for your reading pleasure, make the world seem much bigger than it physically is. It also contributes to that key factor, which I mentioned quite extensively (some might even say long-windedly, but we’re not listening to those people) at the start of this review; immersion.



As you’d probably expect, the character creation you go through at the beginning of the game allows you to customize your character’s appearance in just about any way possible. But the customization options go much further than changing a hairstyle or giving your virtual avatar a bigger nose. You also choose from three races (humans, elves and dwarves), three classes (warrior, rogue or mage) and six distinct origin stories. These origin stories, of which there are about two or three per race, completely change the first two or three hours of the game, and both the origin you choose and the choices you make while playing through it will have a substantial effect on the rest of your game, and how NPC characters react to you throughout your playing time.

No matter which origin you chose, after your first few hours the real story kicks off. You will find yourself recruited into the Grey Wardens, an ancient order dedicated to fighting the darkspawn, the main bad guys of the piece. I won’t go into too much detail here for fear of spoiling things, but to be perfectly honest the plot is really fairly generic fantasy fare: a band of travellers fighting to destroy an ancient enemy and save the world. Throw in a ring and some Hobbits and you’d have…well, you know.

But, like any good story, it’s not the plot but the characters (and, in the case of fantasy, the world that’s been constructed) that make it what it is. And Dragon Age has plenty to offer when it comes to characters. As you travel, you’ll collect a rather motley crew of companions to aid you on your grand quest. Each of these companions has their own backstory, motivations and goals. Each companion also has their own personal quest that you can undertake if you get to know them enough, and this will provide some extra insight into their character. Although these core companions have the most to offer in terms of character development, the attention to detail even in minor characters is remarkable. Even NPC questgivers, who you don’t interact with for more than a few minutes in a 100 plus hour game, have a sense of history to them, which, in addition to the high quality of voice acting throughout, greatly contributes to the realism of the world and the game’s immersion (there’s that word again).

There’s no good/evil meter in Dragon Age, no hard and fast light side/dark side division guiding your actions as there so often is in RPGs. Instead, each of your companions has an approval meter that is directly affected by your actions and decisions, as well as by the way you interact with them in conversations. If a characters approval drops low enough, they may leave your party or even betray you. If it rises high enough, you may strike up a virtual friendship, or even a romance (but don’t tell the anti-video game activists that).

While certain characters could, at least at first, seem to be evil or bad, it all depends on your perspective, and the more you play the game and get to know these characters, the more you realise that things in Dragon Age are very rarely black and white, but grey. This ambiguity, coupled with a focus on player choice, make for some very interesting situations and choices. Will you sacrifice the few to save the many? What if it is not certain you need to sacrifice those few to save the many? What if the few is a child? Moral grey areas are things often underused in video games, but in Dragon Age: Origins, they are used very well to create some confronting and, in the case of that last example, heart wrenching decisions.



You’ll spend a lot of time fighting bandits, monsters, and other assorted baddies while playing Dragon Age. Some dungeon treks can be seriously long affairs, so it is most fortunate that the combat is very enjoyable. It’s fast paced, exciting and visually pretty cool, while at the same time deeply tactical and strategic. It’s party based (although you can try to slog it alone if you really want to), and ensuring you have a well-balanced party of well-developed characters with specific roles is just as or more important than having a quick trigger finger. Or sword finger. Or whatever…

From my, admittedly limited, experience with the console versions of the game, I can say that they are geared more towards the action side of things, with the camera remaining fixed in a fairly close up third person view. On the PC, however, one can use the mouse wheel to zoom right out to an RTS reminiscent isometric perspective, allowing much more tactical play. The ability to simply see all members of your party on screen at once, and know exactly what they are doing, makes tough fights significantly easier, and is just one of the reason why Dragon Age: Origins is best on the PC.

If tactical isn’t your thing, though, have no fear, for Dragon Age is here! Both PC and console versions of the game feature an extensive suite of fully customizable AI commands, allowing you to set up members of your party to perform certain actions based on pre-set conditions. For example, you could order your healer to automatically cast a restorative spell when any character’s health drops too low, or set up a warrior to intercept any enemy going after your mage. The number of slots each character has available for these combat tactics is tied to your (surprise, surprise) Combat Tactics skill, which in turn tied to your Cunning attribute, meaning that only cleverer characters will get the maximum number of tactics slots.



While you’ll still probably want to manually cast that last minute healing spell, this AI command suite means that players so inclined can set up their party to do just about everything automatically, allowing them to kick some serious butt while not having to muck around with all that micro-managing, at least not to the same extent.

The whole adjustable view thing is not the only reason the PC version is superior to the console versions; it also looks better. While Origins isn’t the best looking game on any platform, the PC version is the clear winner on the graphics front with sharper textures and richer colours. Unfortunately, no version escapes the abundant lo-res background textures, but these are honestly barely noticeable in action. The only time they really bothered me was when a camera angle during a conversation revealed one for an extended period of time.

But the PC superiorities don’t end there. BioWare have released the developer toolset for the game to the community, and they also have their own site for hosting player created mods, and a Nexus site, similar to those for Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3, has also already come online. If this content receives any measure of the community support that the aforementioned Bethesda games have, there will doubtless soon be an abundance of ways to extend your time in Fereldan. This, coupled with the promised two years of official DLC from BioWare, means that Dragon Age is a place where you could be spending quite a few hours (and that, in case you haven’t guessed from the rest of this review, is a good thing).

Of course, no game is perfect, and Dragon Age does have some imperfections, most of which are cosmetic. There are the aforementioned low-res textures, and there is an odd graphical glitch around character’s hair, which is most evident during conversations when characters are against a bright background. Sometimes when you behead an enemy, you are left with an odd hole through the model instead of the appropriate inside-of-neck texture, and occasionally a character will stay in a bobbing combat stance when a conversation triggers.

If it sounds like I’m being picky here, it’s just because the overall game is of such high quality, is so fun and so engaging, that there’s really nothing else bad to say about it. These are all minor problems, and really do nothing to detract from the overall enjoyment of the game.

Dragon Age: Origins is, quite simply, fantastic. It’s full of hundreds of hours of great content, with the promise of more on the way in the form of official DLC and community created content. It an epic, dark fantasy adventure, and one that you will most definitely not regret embarking upon.

Summary
The Good:
- Intriguing dark fantasy story
- Fleshed out characters brought to life with superb voice acting
- Deep and rich world, complete with thousands of years of history and lore
- Fun, engaging and exciting combat with lots of spells and abilities
- Customizable ally AI is a great touch

The Bad:
- A few small glitches
- Console version aren’t quite as good as the PC version

Overall score: 9.9/10

- By Ira Herbold

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