Dragon Age: Origins is the latest game from Bioware, the guys behind games such as Star Wars: Knights of the old republic and Mass Effect and if you like a story driven RPG game then your absolutely going to love this one.
Dragon Age Origins is the kind of role playing computer game that I have been waiting on for years but thought would never come. I honestly thought this type of gameplay had died in favor of MMORPG’s, but I was wrong. This game is exceptional in every aspect and I hope it turns out to be a massive success so more game companies can make games like it. Spoilers ahead if you read more :)
In Dragon Age Origins, you begin by choosing one of three character classes and begin your ‘origin’ type story before getting into the main quest. The classes are warrior, mage, and rogue. You also have different races to choose from, including humans and elves, and drilling down even further you have different race types. The idea is that you can start the game over many times and get a little something different each time. Although this game is not set in the Dungeons & Dragons world, it bears many similarities.
Once your origin story is out of the way and you get into the main plot of the game, you will become a Grey Warden. They are like a secret order of knights sworn to protect the land. When a huge invasion leaves the king dead and a villainous power-hungry knight trying to usurp the throne, you find yourself on the losing side of a civil war. It’s up to you and the last remaining Wardens to help restore peace to the land, and you’ll be outnumbered all the way to the end.
Dragon Age Origins combines great storytelling with challenging tactical combat. You will spend a lot of time just walking around talking to people and performing quests, and how you interact with others will determine some of your opportunities. You can be nice or mean, and sometimes you have to play it both ways depending on who you are dealing with. The game uses an interesting approval system to show how you stand with others as well as your own party members.
An interesting aspect of the gameplay is that it utilizes both third person and overhead views, and you can switch between them with the scroll wheel on your mouse. Being able to go back and forth works really well during combat because you can get a player’s eye view of the action as well as wider aerial view for positioning your characters. I did find that the AI got a little confused or seemed sluggish to react while moving some of the characters, and hopefully that will be fixed in a later game patch.
Tactics play a huge part in combat and there’s even custom options for setting up the way you wish your other party members to attack or defend. The combat takes place in real time, so you’ll constantly be hitting the spacebar to pause the game and determine your next move. You simply can’t charge into a fight swinging your sword and expect to live, so be prepared to use a lot of strategic thinking when it comes to casting spells, positioning rogues for backstabs, and drawing away enemy fire with your heavily armored warrior.
The graphics in Dragon Age Origins are amazing, but it takes a decent system to run them. On my system (AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000+ with 4 GB of RAM and a ATI Radeon 5770) i try and play with max settings but it still gets choppy at times. You’re going to need a PC with some serious horsepower to make this game play well, but the payoff is that you’ll be playing one of the best-looking games out for the PC right now.
Before you get too far into this game, I suggest you take the time to tweak the video settings in order to make this run well on your PC. Don’t be turned off if you have to use lower video quality, because even the ‘low’ quality stuff looks very good. Also be sure to update your video card drivers before playing.
I could go on for hours about how much i love this game it truly is amazing, I'm now on my 2nd playthrough and what is amazing is how much different you can make the main storyline just by being different with certain characters and what you say and do at certain points during the game. For me this has certainly got a shot at Game of the year.
