Dragon Age Origins

Dragon Age Origins

Dragon Age: Origins PC…Dragon Age: Origins represents BioWare’s return to its roots in the form of a dark, heroic fantasy game that combines deep and immersive storytelling with classic role-playing. As the spiritual successor to BioWare’s popular Baldur’s Gate series, Dragon Age: Origins lets players acquire party members and interact with them while featuring a stunning amount of high quality cinematic dialogue. The pause-and-play combat system lets players make tactical decisions from an overhead view. Players that prefer a more in-your-face style of play can also take control of each party member to fight and explore in an over-the-shoulder view. Origin Stories are a major feature of the Dragon Age: Origins experience. Players choose their origin, and from that starting point they will play through a unique prelude that lays the foundation for their adventure. The player’s choice of origin defines how they will perceive the world and how the world will perceive them. Certain situations, storylines, and conversation options will change dramatically depending on the player’s choice of origin and personal motivation. In Dragon Age: Origins, the choices players make will change the world and affect the people around them, making every journey through Ferelden unique.

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Lots of depth, fun game, horrendous controls
This is a rich and engrossing game, and I would enjoy it more, but…

the controls are just… bad.

You can zoom way in, or way out, but not in the middle.

You can configure some keys, but there are still some keys that

aren’t in the config menu. For example, HOME and END are associated

with zooming in and out somehow, but when you assign other actions to

them, they do both actions.

Sometimes the camera gets hung up with walls in the way so I can’t see

my characters.

Sometimes, the screen is not centered over my characters, but over some

wall or hallway to the side of where the action is.

I would *love* screen edge rotation instead of panning. This game has

screen rotation, but only when you hold down the mouse button which is

a real pain.

Dungeon Siege got a lot of these elements right, but this game is hiding

a lot of it’s excellence behind a fumbling UI (especially frustrating

whent the battle starts).

The frustrating part is, I think just a little coding time would fix most

of these problems.

On a more positive note, they didn’t repeat the Bioshock fisaco (I couldn’t

play for 3 days after buying it because of DRM issues). You type in your

CD key, run with the dvd in the drive and you’re done. No complicated

in-game patching, just download it and apply it. All this is great

and I don’t feel like I paid to be abused by a DRM system.

It is a good game.

5 Stars AWESOME, Awesome, awesome game!!
This is by far the best game I have ever played. The story line if great, the voice acting is fantastic (huge cast), and the graphics are gorgeous. And if you are anything like me and have been barred from today’s other excellent games because you get nauseous from watching the graphics – this one has no effect on me. Buy it. It’s a great game and Amazon’s price is the lowest I have seen.

5 Stars An Evolution in Computer RPG’s
So – I just finished Dragon Age (after about 70 or so hours or game time) and I thought I would share my thoughts.

I grew up on old fantasy D&D Games for PC’s such as Pool of Radiance, Eye of the Beholder etc. It’s been fun to watch how these types of RPG’s have evolved. When we were treated to the Baldur’s Gates series I did not think that the genre could be improved upon that much (maybe graphics). I was wrong.

The Great:

– The Story: most stories like these seem very cookie cutter and non-involving. Be a hero, kill the bad thing, get the girl. This is a game that paints around the edges. Not only is the story engaging (albeit, still somewhat generic) – it is fleshed out in a very Tolkien-esque way with much history and back story. The writing is of the highest quality being both interesting and at times quite humorous. I can’t remember a game where I actually took the time to read every piece all the way through. It’s that good.

– Cut Scenes: In many games, cut scenes tend to be more a distraction from the action. Eye candy for a poorly executed game. In THIS game, a cut scene is a reason to put whatever else you were doing down, shut the room up and listen carefully. It provides a welcome break from the action and gives a more humanistic perspective. This allows you to become fully engaged in the material. It also provides…

– Top Notch Voice Acting: Once again, I can’t recall a single game where the dialog, cadence and general voice overs were as good as this. Each character is infused with a distinct personality, mostly do to the professionalism and high quality of the voice acting. Just when you think that a character is on the verge of chewing a scene – which each could do easily, it is buffeted by the sheer talent assembled. This is also the reason why you tend to get emotionally involved in the fate of more than a few party members.

The Good:

– Playing the game: At the end of the day this is a turn based RPG, albeit an extremely polished one. If you are familiar with the Balder’s Gates or NeverWinter Nights saga’s you know all you need to know to play this game. Line of site plays a huge roll, the monsters themselves are well rendered, the magic is polished and things flow generally how you would expect them to. Once again, without a good story or any emotional involvement, it doesn’t matter how good the game playing is. I’ve played lots of pretty easy to navigate games that are awful.

– Graphics: Quite good for an RPG. The lip syncing on the characters leave a little to be desired and when things get busy on the screen it can crawl. Overall, for a game released in 2009 it’s not mind blowing (like Lord of the Rings Online), but it’s above average.

– Sound: I thought the sound was excellent. I listened through headphones (the way I think it should be played personally) and it never got tiring. The music, sound effects and immersion level of the acting is all of the highest quality.

The Ugly:

– Big Box: You need a beefy machine to play this. I am playing on an OC’d 3.2 quad with 2gb of RAM and two 512gb video cards in SLI (on XP). It runs OK – but the load times are rough and when the screen gets busy, go make a sandwich while it stutters into the proper frame rates. This does NOT happen often – but when it does it can kill the fun.

– Time: You WILL spend a lot of time playing this game. If you are married, make sure you explain the situation first so he/she knows what to expect. The immersion is incredible. Also, depending on your actions, you can get involved in intimate physical situations. It’s all PG-13 for the most part, but heads up (the banter to get there is most of the fun).

Overall, one of the best games I’ve ever played from ANY genre, period. If you even remotely like computer based RPG’s – this sets a new level. All games like this will forever be described as “How does it compare to Dragon Age?”.

5 Stars Addictively good fun!!
The story line is intense, and involving, your decisions will change the story and make it different every time you replay it. The only other games I’ve played that were as much fun was Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, and World of Warcraft. I highly recommend Dragon Age, Origins. Especially if you have lots of spare time and nothing to do.

5 Stars Fantastic game!
Wow! BUY THIS GAME! I can’t say enough good things about it. BioWare has once again shown they are the kings of RPG’s. Fans of the old Baldurs Gates games will find everything to like about this game. The graphics are top notch, the character art is unbelievable(Morrigan is beautiful#, and the voice acting/directing is the best I’ve seen. But while these are important, they are really secondary factors in this game. Its the story that sets this game far above other games of it’s type. It’s very detailed, well thought out, and extremely well written. The characters are larger than life, and you find yourself really caring about what happens to them. Or in case of the villains really looking forward to making them pay! Bethesda#Obilvion) should take note. Story and characters are what drive a great RPG, not pretty graphics, cookie cutter voice acting and repeated quests. Oblivion had a lot going for it in terms of graphics and combat system, but was ultimately a painful gaming experience. Dragon Age Origin on the other hand is addictive and you just can’t shut it off. Many evenings have gone from a planned hour of playing time into into 2 AM, eyeball bleeding, not looking forward to getting up for work, period of gaming bliss. With the many story arcs based around character type and countless decisions you make during game play, this is a game I will be playing for years to come. Kudos once again to BioWare for making the game that we all wanted. Keep up the great work and know that your efforts are much appreciated!!

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