There's so many Dragon Age: Origins reviews out there that it seems like writing one somehow gets you on St. Peter's good side when you finally get to the Pearly Gates.
So here's mine.
Before I start though, if you clicked this thread, then you should buy this game. Pretty much that simple.
In case you're waking up from a 28 Days Later coma, Dragon Age: Origins is a western fantasy RPG, and it's from Bioware. Now nuts and bolts.
Dragon Age: Origins
What it is, yo
Dragon Age is a RPG that focuses primarily on character development in a way few other games have managed. When I say character development, I don't mean leveling up. I mean the character you play, and his/her companions develop just the way relationships and polaroid photos do. Over time and with increasing insight and information into what's going on.
You learn things about your party members. You grow to love, pity, hate, trust, mistrust, desire, despise, please and displease almost every single character. The setting is deep enough if you enjoy pausing the game to read through your codex of information (eg: Mass Effect) but it truly comes alive through interaction with the NPCs.
You will feel almost every emotion there is in the human range...on just a single character. Each character's background and dialogue is well scripted, and the voice acting is right at the top of the industry. Numerous celeb voices abound, including Tim Curry and that hot and sassy chick from Stargate and Farscape.
Which is good, because you'll be talking quite a bit. Thankfully, the dialogue is usually right at the right length, and character information is doled out through naturally rhythmic conversations. Rare were the times I felt I had simply exhausted conversation options to pick from and had to say "Ok, goodbye." When conversation ends, especially in the beginning portions of the game, it's usually because you've exhausted all the potential small talk and obvious topics that can occur between two near strangers.
And the characters may feel like strangers to you at first. They certainly did to me. I was a couple of hours in before I got to know characters well enough to have a pretty definite idea of what would piss them off and make them happy.
Because you have to keep 'em happy, or they'll leave your butt behind. Just like in real life, if you abuse your friends and coworkers, and continually make choices they're morally opposed to...they'll slip into walking shoes.
Which brings me one of the best things about what this game is. An absolute masterpiece of the "ethical decision" bit.
This is no Fable or Black & White, where you're easily able to metagame and pick the "Earn Good Points" or "Earn Evil Points" decisions. There's no obvious indication that what you're choosing, saying, or doing is right or wrong. It's up to you.
But rest assured, people react, and you can change the game drastically. My first run through I ended up killing an NPC that was so absolutely opposed to a decision I made that they felt they were forced to attempt to kill me to stop it.
I later realized that had I chose differently, that person would have joined my party as a permanent and powerful member.
To clarify, I wasn't playing through as an evil character. The character I had to kill wasn't an evil person. We were both good guys. We both had radically different ideas about what was the "good" course of action.
And it doesn't feel forced, stilted, obvious or overdone. Dragon Age is going to throw your character into some of the most difficult moral quandaries human beings have ever faced.
If someone is happy, but the reality they perceive is not what exists...do you force them to confront reality? ...Even if it may destroy them? Do you let them live on, though it's living a completely fabricated lie?
What is the greater good? And where do you draw the line at protecting it? Will you protect thousands of potentially innocent people, even if it means your actions might kill a few other innocents?
Do you help a potential ally because your need for their support is great, even if they require you to do something that you're not sure is right?
This game is going to force you to make choices that will leave you a little uncomfortable, at least once. Unless you're a sociopath. I can't stress this point enough, as it's one of the few times that moral choices are so ambiguously presented and have such an impact on the continuing story.
And all that is possible because of the expert way that characters are handled. When they are brought to life as beautifully as they are here, the setting lives and breathes around them.
What it sure isn't!
Short.
Anyone who has a completion-per-days-from-release ratio that even approaches .5 is either lying or does not exist. If they do exist, then they are dead or stuck in a temporal infinity loop (trust me, I watch Star Trek). Or most likely, they're stuck in a temporal infinity loop AND dead.
This game is long. Especially when compared to most of the recent console releases. Thankfully, the game is good enough that you'll probably be OK with that.
It isn't quick. Combat takes awhile, because...
This aint no ice cream social. Unless you're planning on going easy mode (and if so, have the decency to lie about it), you're going to have pause the game and assign orders in combat. A system exists for pre-programming your NPCs to respond to situations with certain actions (like FFXII except there's no need to hunt down variables before you can assign them), but as the difficulty levels increase you'll only be able to use those for general all-purpose stuff and for emergencies. Otherwise, you're gonna lose teh battlez.
You might preset a character to always activate a combat stance as soon as fights begin, or to immediately heal any character below 25% health, but if you hope to sit back and let the AI do even half the work then you'll be disappointed.
That being said, the combat on normal mode isn't really hard. Trust me, I'm no tactical genius and I made it through alright. You'll die a few times, and some of the fights are suitably difficult (and awesome) but eventually you get the hang of it. If you find it too easy, you can up the difficulty level at any time via the in-game options menu.
It's not for kids in any way/shape/form. It's violent, and adult themes abound. Standard M rating stuff and Dragon Age: Origins deserves it.
Secondly, I have the feeling that much of the game's powerful moral choice portion would be lost/over the head of someone who doesn't have at least close to two decades under their belt (exceptions noted.)
There are just somethings that you really don't "get" until you've had quite a few years practice, like how to drive and how to swear. Sure you can do it at any age, but not properly. Same goes with making difficult decisions that you might never be sure are the right ones. Some of that magic that I felt might be resisted by those who haven't yet had to make a really tough, important, grown up decision without an authority figure there to tell them which was the right way. And with people counting on the decision being the right one.
Ok, off of my "look how grown up I think I am" soap box.
What I care to gripe about, because nothing's perfect.
There are only a few things to complain about, and they're pretty minor.
A few times (ie: fewer times than I have fingers, and I have a normal amount) I was unsure about a dialogue option because I wasn't really sure what tone my character was going to be speaking in. It's that classic problem with IMs and texting, where if you're not careful in your diction you might (or might not) come off as a total ass. There are a handful of times (throughout an easily 20+ hour game, so again not a bad ratio) where I wasn't sure if an option was going to be said insultingly or compassionately.
With reservation...the "you plus three npc's" party limit. Don't get me wrong, the game plays perfectly with four people in a party, and balance is great. It would probably ruin the game to raise the cap, especially when your mages become just super uber (and they do). No, I wanted a larger cap limit because I wanted more time with more characters! For the first time in an RPG I wasn't deciding who to put in my party because of stats and abilities, but rather because of the great conversations that happen between them. Trust me, when that menu pops up that says "Gather party and venture forth?" and you're forced to select only three of your brave companions...you'll know what I mean.
Big thing that I originally left out! The DRM. I'm perfectly OK with requiring a disc to be in the drive (I know it's annoying or a matter of principle for some people, but it's 2009...I only use my CD/DVD drive for the current non-direct download game I'm obsessed with) and I'm totally cool with entering a CD-KEY/Serial number.
What I'm not cool with is the fact that if my internet is down, I can't play any of my saved campaigns that have done/incorporated any DLC...at all.
I don't like that. If my internet was down for some reason, I wouldn't be able to play any of my current saves, as they all incorporate the free (with entry of the promo code in my retail release) DLC for "The Shale." I've gotten the error only once, and I blinked, clicked "Resume" again and everything was smooth.
It's not likely to be an issue, just based on the fact that my internet is fairly reliable. But if it were to go down, I haven't seen or heard a way to load save files with DLC. Maybe someone else knows, but I don't except for downloading a pirated and cracked copy.
As it is EA, I kind of expected a little worse, but I still don't like this at all.
--------------
tl;dr
Just buy it. It's Bioware for God's sake.
So here's mine.
Before I start though, if you clicked this thread, then you should buy this game. Pretty much that simple.
In case you're waking up from a 28 Days Later coma, Dragon Age: Origins is a western fantasy RPG, and it's from Bioware. Now nuts and bolts.
Dragon Age: Origins
What it is, yo
Dragon Age is a RPG that focuses primarily on character development in a way few other games have managed. When I say character development, I don't mean leveling up. I mean the character you play, and his/her companions develop just the way relationships and polaroid photos do. Over time and with increasing insight and information into what's going on.
You learn things about your party members. You grow to love, pity, hate, trust, mistrust, desire, despise, please and displease almost every single character. The setting is deep enough if you enjoy pausing the game to read through your codex of information (eg: Mass Effect) but it truly comes alive through interaction with the NPCs.
You will feel almost every emotion there is in the human range...on just a single character. Each character's background and dialogue is well scripted, and the voice acting is right at the top of the industry. Numerous celeb voices abound, including Tim Curry and that hot and sassy chick from Stargate and Farscape.
Which is good, because you'll be talking quite a bit. Thankfully, the dialogue is usually right at the right length, and character information is doled out through naturally rhythmic conversations. Rare were the times I felt I had simply exhausted conversation options to pick from and had to say "Ok, goodbye." When conversation ends, especially in the beginning portions of the game, it's usually because you've exhausted all the potential small talk and obvious topics that can occur between two near strangers.
And the characters may feel like strangers to you at first. They certainly did to me. I was a couple of hours in before I got to know characters well enough to have a pretty definite idea of what would piss them off and make them happy.
Because you have to keep 'em happy, or they'll leave your butt behind. Just like in real life, if you abuse your friends and coworkers, and continually make choices they're morally opposed to...they'll slip into walking shoes.
Which brings me one of the best things about what this game is. An absolute masterpiece of the "ethical decision" bit.
This is no Fable or Black & White, where you're easily able to metagame and pick the "Earn Good Points" or "Earn Evil Points" decisions. There's no obvious indication that what you're choosing, saying, or doing is right or wrong. It's up to you.
But rest assured, people react, and you can change the game drastically. My first run through I ended up killing an NPC that was so absolutely opposed to a decision I made that they felt they were forced to attempt to kill me to stop it.
I later realized that had I chose differently, that person would have joined my party as a permanent and powerful member.
To clarify, I wasn't playing through as an evil character. The character I had to kill wasn't an evil person. We were both good guys. We both had radically different ideas about what was the "good" course of action.
And it doesn't feel forced, stilted, obvious or overdone. Dragon Age is going to throw your character into some of the most difficult moral quandaries human beings have ever faced.
If someone is happy, but the reality they perceive is not what exists...do you force them to confront reality? ...Even if it may destroy them? Do you let them live on, though it's living a completely fabricated lie?
What is the greater good? And where do you draw the line at protecting it? Will you protect thousands of potentially innocent people, even if it means your actions might kill a few other innocents?
Do you help a potential ally because your need for their support is great, even if they require you to do something that you're not sure is right?
This game is going to force you to make choices that will leave you a little uncomfortable, at least once. Unless you're a sociopath. I can't stress this point enough, as it's one of the few times that moral choices are so ambiguously presented and have such an impact on the continuing story.
And all that is possible because of the expert way that characters are handled. When they are brought to life as beautifully as they are here, the setting lives and breathes around them.
What it sure isn't!
Short.
Anyone who has a completion-per-days-from-release ratio that even approaches .5 is either lying or does not exist. If they do exist, then they are dead or stuck in a temporal infinity loop (trust me, I watch Star Trek). Or most likely, they're stuck in a temporal infinity loop AND dead.
This game is long. Especially when compared to most of the recent console releases. Thankfully, the game is good enough that you'll probably be OK with that.
It isn't quick. Combat takes awhile, because...
This aint no ice cream social. Unless you're planning on going easy mode (and if so, have the decency to lie about it), you're going to have pause the game and assign orders in combat. A system exists for pre-programming your NPCs to respond to situations with certain actions (like FFXII except there's no need to hunt down variables before you can assign them), but as the difficulty levels increase you'll only be able to use those for general all-purpose stuff and for emergencies. Otherwise, you're gonna lose teh battlez.
You might preset a character to always activate a combat stance as soon as fights begin, or to immediately heal any character below 25% health, but if you hope to sit back and let the AI do even half the work then you'll be disappointed.
That being said, the combat on normal mode isn't really hard. Trust me, I'm no tactical genius and I made it through alright. You'll die a few times, and some of the fights are suitably difficult (and awesome) but eventually you get the hang of it. If you find it too easy, you can up the difficulty level at any time via the in-game options menu.
It's not for kids in any way/shape/form. It's violent, and adult themes abound. Standard M rating stuff and Dragon Age: Origins deserves it.
Secondly, I have the feeling that much of the game's powerful moral choice portion would be lost/over the head of someone who doesn't have at least close to two decades under their belt (exceptions noted.)
There are just somethings that you really don't "get" until you've had quite a few years practice, like how to drive and how to swear. Sure you can do it at any age, but not properly. Same goes with making difficult decisions that you might never be sure are the right ones. Some of that magic that I felt might be resisted by those who haven't yet had to make a really tough, important, grown up decision without an authority figure there to tell them which was the right way. And with people counting on the decision being the right one.
Ok, off of my "look how grown up I think I am" soap box.
What I care to gripe about, because nothing's perfect.
There are only a few things to complain about, and they're pretty minor.
A few times (ie: fewer times than I have fingers, and I have a normal amount) I was unsure about a dialogue option because I wasn't really sure what tone my character was going to be speaking in. It's that classic problem with IMs and texting, where if you're not careful in your diction you might (or might not) come off as a total ass. There are a handful of times (throughout an easily 20+ hour game, so again not a bad ratio) where I wasn't sure if an option was going to be said insultingly or compassionately.
With reservation...the "you plus three npc's" party limit. Don't get me wrong, the game plays perfectly with four people in a party, and balance is great. It would probably ruin the game to raise the cap, especially when your mages become just super uber (and they do). No, I wanted a larger cap limit because I wanted more time with more characters! For the first time in an RPG I wasn't deciding who to put in my party because of stats and abilities, but rather because of the great conversations that happen between them. Trust me, when that menu pops up that says "Gather party and venture forth?" and you're forced to select only three of your brave companions...you'll know what I mean.
Big thing that I originally left out! The DRM. I'm perfectly OK with requiring a disc to be in the drive (I know it's annoying or a matter of principle for some people, but it's 2009...I only use my CD/DVD drive for the current non-direct download game I'm obsessed with) and I'm totally cool with entering a CD-KEY/Serial number.
What I'm not cool with is the fact that if my internet is down, I can't play any of my saved campaigns that have done/incorporated any DLC...at all.
I don't like that. If my internet was down for some reason, I wouldn't be able to play any of my current saves, as they all incorporate the free (with entry of the promo code in my retail release) DLC for "The Shale." I've gotten the error only once, and I blinked, clicked "Resume" again and everything was smooth.
It's not likely to be an issue, just based on the fact that my internet is fairly reliable. But if it were to go down, I haven't seen or heard a way to load save files with DLC. Maybe someone else knows, but I don't except for downloading a pirated and cracked copy.
As it is EA, I kind of expected a little worse, but I still don't like this at all.
--------------
tl;dr
Just buy it. It's Bioware for God's sake.
Last edited:
