Dragon Age: Origins Review - PlayDevil.com v2.0

Many early reviews were very positive towards "Dragon Age: Origins", but many accused it of having a rather generic style to it. Is Bioware’s RPG epic, that’s been some 6 years in the making, live up to expectations, or is a dodgy rip-off of Lord of the Rings?

Here, you chose a gender, race and career, of which there are six of the latter. Each one has its own ‘origins’ story, that lasts between 40 minutes and a couple of hours depending on how much you explore, and a little on the adventure itself. These are a great introduction to the characters- and the fact you get about 10 hours of play out of these alone is testament to just how much content Bioware has crammed onto a single DVD disc.

After your prologue, you then set foot into Ferelden, join a mysterious group called the 'Grey Wardens', and head off to help fight a darkspawn invasion led by an evil Archdemon. The world itself is varied and vibrant, no more or less clichéd than any other fantasy setting. In fact, some aspects are really interesting, like the fact that the elves are a downtrodden race of serving people, unlike the vast majority of RPGs.

To me, the story was involving, and I liked the fact that after the Origins Story, and then a couple of hours of prologue for the main quest, you are free to approach things as you please. Most NPCs have some voicework, and many will have long, complex dialogue trees available.

For a new IP, the amount of fiction and love and care that has gone into the game world is just incredible- this is a real triumph for Bioware which should allow for many more years of role-playing excellence.

If you’ve played Mass Effect, then you’ll have a rough idea of how Dragon Age plays, albeit with some small differences. As combat works a little different, your character is positioned in the middle of the screen, rather than from an over-the-shoulder perspective.

Additionally, aiming is never done in real-time. Any spell or weapon which requires a manual aim pauses the game for you in order to select where you are aiming. Most other attacks then merely require a simple press of a button. For example, if you are a warrior, all you have to do is press A by a dude, and you’ll bash him until he is dead. Press A to move onto the next one etc.

However, combat is never dull. You have 5 quick abilities and a quick heal button available by using the face buttons (either alone or with RT held). You can also pause the game and use further abilities by holding LT. You can also, Mass Effect style, issue orders to your party whilst in this mode. However, if you’re not happy, you can toggle with LB and RB between your party members and take direct control of them, whilst the AI takes over your character- this works really well. You can also set up loads of different rules too, to help you out, such as when you want healers to get involved. All of these are necessary though, because on any difficulty other than casual, this game is really, really tough.

As mentioned before, the game is really long- after your origins story, you could play for as much as 100 hours if you were a completionist, per character. Whilst the game is not open world per se, each of the areas are really large and offer multiple quests to carry out. There are also huge numbers of people to talk to- and so the game world just feels fantastically alive compared to other RPGs. You also care for your characters more than in most games, and you have to look after them too- if your actions upset them, they may even leave your party for good! On the other hand, they may even fall in love with you, leading to some steamy scenes between the two of you!

There’s a huge amount to see and do, and this has to be one of the best value games of 2009, as even the quickest of play-throughs would probably last for a minimum of around 30 hours. And with an interesting mix of combat, exploration and role-playing, I really doubt that anyone would get bored for a moment on their epic quest to destroy the darkspawn invasion.

Some people have given DA: O a kicking, especially on consoles, for having very outdated graphics. I don’t agree with this at all. The game may not have the fidelity or texture quality of the upcoming 'Mass Effect 2', but at the same time, the game’s scope is quite different. ME is mainly a linear game, and includes many enclosed areas. Additionally, you only play as Shepard. Here, you get full control over four characters, and on top of that, many of the game’s locales are huge, sprawling outside areas, which include mighty impressive vistas in the background. The sense of scale is just fantastic.

Character models may be a little behind ME and other AAA titles, but nor are they as poor as others have mentioned. When you compared the game against the other fantasy RPG games on the system, DA: O easily trumps them all, including Bethseda’s efforts, and is miles better than Two Worlds or Risen.

Texture work can be a little off on occasion, but rarely in a cut-scene or somewhere it actually matters. However, when you’re zoomed out behind your character, you get what I believe to be an excellent experience. Details are sharp, the frame rate constant, and no tearing either. Anti-aliasing and filtering seem good, and there’s virtually no pop-in, either from new items or texture-wise. Spell and weapon effects look great, and each of the monsters also look and animate great too. Some do look a little generic, but I don’t really take that against the game because the fantasy genre is a little clichéd by now, and it is difficult to do anything different, and to be honest, Bioware has done its best. Combat also looks incredibly visceral thanks to the uber-violent amounts of blood that spray everywhere during combat.

The engine also looks good across loads of different environments, whether you’re inside a mountain, questing up the snowy steppes of the Warden’s Keep DLC, or in the lush forests of Ferelden, or even a mud-strewn village. It might not be the most beautiful game out there, but to me DA: O is still impressive in terms of performance, scale, and style.

Sound is also just fantastic. The orchestral score is beautiful. It’s all original work, and those that snap up the collector’s edition get a full download of it- there’s around an hour’s worth of brilliant music to be found, that is used really well throughout the game. Additionally, and most impressively, is the fact that every single line of speech (apparently some 70 hours worth) is voiced. Obviously, some of it sounds a little unprofessional, but all of the main cast sound great, and there is way more to hear than most people can probably put up with!

Multiplayer would have been awesome- 4 players all controlling their character, and joining the host’s game-world. Alas, it was not to be, and there is no multiplayer option at all. It would have been awesome. However, as the AI is pretty efficient anyway, I won’t take it against the game.

"Dragon Age: Origins" is a truly epic RPG. With a huge main quest, loads of interesting side missions, four endings and six distinct prologues to the game, to get 100% completion could take some 200 hours plus. Coupled with a beautifully realised game world and you have a serious contender for a game of the year here. There are some minor control and graphical niggles, and many will find even normal too hard for them, but RPG fanatics will find that this is clearly the best the genre has had to offer in 2009.