Dragon Age: Origins

Over the last week, I have been playing Dragon Age: Origins, from Bioware. After the success of Mass Effect, Bioware returned to where they started and released a fantasy RPG. BioWare co-CEO Ray Muzyka described Dragon Age: Origins as a "spiritual successor" to the Baldur's Gate series. The game has been released to rave reviews, and I don't plan on saying anything different.

The game consists of 3 classes, Mage, Rogue and Warrior. Each of the three classes have 4 specializations, which must be unlocked while playing the game. I began as a mage. I enjoyed the opening story line for the mages, from the start of the game, you feel that your choices have a large effect on the world. The entire story feels epic, in many games when you are saving the world, but it doesn't feel like you actually are. In Dragon Age, every choice you make has major effects on the world, also, it effects how the rest of your party feels about you.

The game play is excellent, you are allowed 4 people in your party, yourself and 3 others that you have met along your journey. You can control one at a time while the actions of the other party members are controlled by pre-designed tactics. You can also pause the game mid-fight and queue up one action for each member of your party. This allows for some great ability chaining. You can also change the tactics so that the other members of your party do specific actions under specific conditions, very powerful.

The battles are challenging. They are not hard to the point where you want to give up, but they are hard where you want to continue playing until you win. The boss fights are excellent, all have very unique dynamics that makes the challenging and fun at the same time. I have faced a few bosses already and I have had to come up with specific strategies and utilize specific party members to win each.

As I noted before, the story feels epic. Like most Bioware games, they put a ton of time into perfecting the story, there are piles upon piles of lore, if you wish to see it. If you enjoy listening to dialog, this is a good game for you. From each quest, to just shooting the shit with your party, there is a large amount of dialog, all done with superb voice acting. You can even ask merchants for gossip, and rarely is anything repeated. It gives you a sense that Bioware put a lot of time into the world, and it's story, on top of the game play.

One of the interesting things added to the game is reputation with party member. All of your major actions either please or upset someone else in your party. If you are in good enough standing with them, they can teach your their specialization, or in some cases, you can begin a romance with them. There are also gifts that will allow you to increase your reputation with them. It ads a realistic feel to the game. As opposed to having a group of blind followers, these people have real personalities, and have no issue leaving you if you don't fit in with their own goals and feelings.

If you ask me, the golden standard of Fantasy RPGs is Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, from Bethesda. It is impossible to create a game of this nature without the comparisons. Dragon Age: Origins stands up to Oblivion. I loved Oblivion, and go back and play it as a new class every few months, but I can also see this happening with Dragon Age. There are some things in Dragon Age that make me enjoy it more than Oblivion. The extra party members that you control and the tactics are great additions. Also, the unlocking of specializations is a great touch that wants me to run around the world and discover them, and the boss fights are much more involved. On the other hand, Oblivion has elements that I like, that Dragon Age is lacking. The first and foremost is an open world. In Dragon Age, you can do whatever quests you wish, but you can't travel from one location to another on foot. When you choose your location, it goes to a loading screen where it shows your journey on a map. I enjoyed walking through the world looking for random dungeons to explore. The other thing that I feel is missing is epic side quests, at least, I have not gotten any yet. Oblivion had some amazing side quests, the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood were both amazingly fun.

One thing that I am looking forward to is the toolset. I dabbled a little bit with the Fallout 3 toolset, and it was very fun, but I never got around to making any mods. With Dragon Age, you are able to create everything from campaigns, to quests, to cinematics. Some amazing modding should come out for PC. I can't wait to play with it myself. On top of that, Bioware has said that they have a full 2 years worth of DLC planned for it. I am pleased that this game will continue to grow over the next two years, and I will be able to continue to play new content.

Dragon Age is an amazing game, there is no doubt about that. If you enjoyed Oblivion, you should enjoy this game, just keep in mind they are not the exact same beast. I would absolutely recommend anyone who enjoys RPGs to pick this game up.