Review Score:

When I first installed Dragon Age: Origins, I don’t think I was prepared for the week and a half ahead of me.  Coming out of that time, wearing nothing but a robe covered in Cheeto dust and a pair of sunglasses to protect my eyes from actual sunlight, I can safely say that this is the best RPG that Bioware has written yet.

Notice that I didn’t say “developed” or “assembled”.  There are many good things to say about Dragon Age: Origins, but the most remarkable aspect of the game is the writing.  I’d actually pay for a novelized account of my character’s adventures through Fereldan.

But lets get down to brass tacks, shall we?

User Interface

Fans of prior Bioware titles will instantly feel at home with this game.  The standard keyboard shortcuts are all there, and getting into the game and just moving around should take no time at all.  The game prompts you with tutorial popups while you’re playing through the first time, but for the most part, I found I didn’t even read them.

As the camera in this game can zoom down to 3rd person view (as well as the more traditional tactical sky-view) a player will also notice that the standard movement keys for a game like World of Warcraft are present:  You use a combination of WASD and your left and right mouse button to simultaneously control movement and camera position.

While the User Interface is to blame for some limited game play (character portrait space allocation limits party members, not counting pets, to a maximum of four) a move-able mini map and a shortcut bar that can stretch to fill the bottom of the screen are some elements that will do a little to ameliorate the limitations.

Game Play

Once again, Bioware follows form by allowing for real time play, and a tactical space-bar controlled pause to issue tactical orders.  You’ll find that on the harder difficulties, not only is this suggested, but the challenge encounters will require it.

Each character can be independently controlled by the player, and each issues commands, but it’s eventually down to the AI to make snap decisions.  For that purpose, you can set up combat tactics scripts for each of the characters.

Difficulty in this game can scale dramatically.  In Easy mode, your party members are not subject to friendly fire, and your opponents are greatly diminished in power and toughness.  On the other end of the scale, on Nightmare difficulty, you’ll find each encounter to become an exercise in how not to kill off your entire party with a misplaced fireball.

If you read the sales literature on this game, or you’re just standing around in a game store reading the box, I want to stress one piece of marketing relating to game play:  This game is advertised as containing 80 hours of potential play.  I’d like to go on record as saying that they’re not lying here.  Remember when Fable first came out, and people were astounded to hear that there was an estimated 12 hours of game play involved in the game, and then ended up running through the main plot in 2 hours (and then subsequently, a mob of disaffected nerds attacked Peter Molyneux when he went down to the corner store for some milk)?  Yea, that’s not going to happen here.

Not only is the game dramatically long to play, but it promotes replay-ability.  When you begin the game, you’re given the option for race, class, and background.  You can end up playing through a number of different openings that have some minor variable outcomes depending on your initial choices.  And when I say “different openings”, I don’t mean that people call you by a different name and they substitute the phrase “backstabbing rogue bastard” for “knight.”  The openings are completely different areas of the world based on your selected background and race, complete with a selection of NPCs, quests, and even cinematics.

Story

Dragon Age: Origins shines with the original storyline, the minor quests along the way, and the character interactions between party members.  You’ll find yourself yelling along with your characters in certain battles, wiping away a tear during specific quests, and laughing along with some of the pop culture references that have been thrown in the game as not-so-subtle Easter eggs.

Like prior Bioware titles, your party characters have a range of like or dislike for you, the main character.  You can modify this by asking the right questions and talking about the right things, but DA:O has added another wrinkle in the form of Gifts.  Gifts are small items that you can find along the way that, when given to the right party member, will greatly enhance their attitude toward you.  In fact, some gifts are so appropriate, the whole game will come to a halt so you can discuss the implications of the gift, and the gift itself can become the subject of a side quest or plot line element.

Beyond the standard fantasy trope that’s present here and in just about every other Fantasy RPG you’ve ever played, the writing has overcome some of the stilted back-and-forth of questioning and quest giving.  The only drawback of this is the noted lack of any voice acting for your main character.  You’ll be posed a question by an NPC, you’ll answer it by selecting from a multiple choice range of answers that set you up as a decent person or a raging asshole, but nothing will end up coming out of your mouth.

It’s as if you’re playing “Adventures of the Mute in Fantasyland,” and like most people with disabilities, you have to get used to the fact that everyone around you is too politically correct to notice it.  You’d think that some of the more evil characters in the game, who stop at nothing to belittle your attempts at intimidation or just randomly insult your sexual prowess would make some effort to mock you for not being able to speak.  But noooo…you should never make fun of the cripple.

Bioware is getting a small amount of press out of this game as you can modify your party members’ attitudes so much that they’ll eventually want to have sex with you — and then you’re treated to possibly the most awkward sex scenes imaginable.  The media hasn’t focused on just the sex, however:  It’s the fact that you can potentially have homosexual sex in this game.

If you read that and gasped, then the answer to your question “Does playing this game make me gay?” is “Yes.  Definitely.”

Finally, the game follows in the footsteps of titles like Oblivion by offering downloadable content for expanded play.  The company is already offering 2 areas that are available for purchase (or which come bundled in deluxe versions of the game) as well as a number of items or enhancements that were only available to people who pre-ordered, or who used a particular retailer, or who purchased on the evening of a gibbous moon.

Graphics and Sound

Outside of some humanoid form oddities (limbs are a little too long, and the hands are oddly claw-like), the game is spectacular.  You’ll find yourself running through areas where the sun is shining down on dappled autumn leaves, or crystals are forming eerie shadows on the walls of some deep cave.  Weather can sometimes be severe enough that you can’t hear a party member shouting for help, or you have difficulty targeting an enemy in the distance, not to mention their overall contribution to the drama of your situation.

The game client itself will scale up to the maximum resolution of your monitor and graphics card, as well as play in a windowed mode.  It’s a relatively hardy game, and for something so graphically intensive, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the lack of crashes or BSODs that I’ve encountered.

A lot has been made in the press regarding the amount of gore in this game.  It doesn’t really bother me too much, but I may be more jaded toward this sort of thing.  In general, I found most of the gore (outside of the occasional decapitation) to be rather comical.  The level of gore is actually something that can be tuned in the game options, so you’re free to play without addressing the king or the holy mother while covered in embarrassing blood spatter from your last battle.

Sound in this game is, as you’ve come to expect from most games these days, dynamically responsive to your situation:  Battles are accompanied by thrilling bass drums and a dramatic chorus of well-meaning angry people, while a trip to, say, a neighborhood bar will treat you with fine strains of a harpist or bard in the corner plying his craft.  At some point, you’ll have heard it all, however, and even the most die-hard of fan will find themselves tuning up a Pandora station based on the Carmina Burana.

Conclusions

I tend to personally rate a game based on my regret after having actually shelled out money for the title.  I bought into the deluxe version of the game, as it offers you the opportunity to play with a party member that is mostly made of stone (His name is Shale, but I call him Ben), so that was a considerable chunk of change for a single player game.  After playing this game for a week and a half, I don’t regret the purchase.

Even after logging more than 100 hours in the game, I have yet to exhaust the combinations of character types and play styles.  I imagine that, after running through the game with my rogue, I leave royal chambers in castles and don’t get to experience the conversations between the NPCs: “Well, it’s a relief that he solved our problems and restored the world to normal, but Jesus, what an jerk.  I was tempted to take back that magical dagger and shove it up his ass.”

On the other hand, one of my female mages had sex with Morrigan.  Yes, the pixel count was ridiculously low and the women never took off their underwear.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it.

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