Cleril
01-03-2010, 07:41 PM
Dragon Age: Origins (I will refer to it as just Dragon Age from now on) is a dark fantasy RPG made by Bioware which is known for making great RPGs with fantastic story telling to boot. There is no shortness of amazing in this game, but is it perfect? No, no it is not. It's damn near close though.
http://vgtribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dragon-age.png
Plot
The story in Dragon Age is deep with a malleable tale. When you first start a new game you make your character. Based on your race, class, and origin the game changes both the story, dialogue, and choices given to you. I'll go over those three things later on but each option adds good reason already to replay the game.
To not spoil you, the story involves you becoming a Grey Warden, a sect of people who are in tune with the appearance of dark spawn, demons. You are tasked with ridding the land of Ferelden from these dark spawn, while exacting revenge on a certain someone. This may seem a tad cliche but the length and quality at which the story is told makes it so original and rather captivating.
There are also other stories other than the main one to occupy your pondering mind. Each party member has their own background and personality that you can explore in depth over various conversations with them at your camp. There are many side quests each with their own stories to tell and by simply talking to a random NPC can a story be told.
The plot, needless to say, is wonderfully presented and grand itself. The only slight concern one may have is that so much detail by detail is given that you may get confused while trying to keep up with at least the main story. There were times when I didn't know exactly what I was talking about with someone until my brain caught up. But perhaps that's due to me not being a sponge.
Controls and Gameplay
Before I go into the controls and gameplay let me discuss the character creation process. You can choose from three races, human, elf, and dwarf. The humans are the most populated in the land. The elven people are slightly shorter than humans and are generally poor slaves to them. The dwarves are your standard dwarves but they are not always blood thirsty warriors.
Humans and elves can choose to be warriors, mages, or rogues. However dwarves can only be warriors or rogues, due to their people having a resistance to magic they are not gifted with magic. Based on your class and race you can choose your origin story. There are origin stories such as the Magi, where you complete your training to finally become a mage, or the Noble where you are part of a royal family in the midst of war. Your race, class, and origin story all relate to and heavily affect the main quest. Almost every dialogue is different simply based on these three things. Couple that with your moral choices there is a lot of replay value on all this alone. It is also noteworthy to mention that each origins story on it's own is about an hour long and each is heavily different from each other.
If you have ever played Knights of The Old Republic or Mass Effect you'll see similarities in Dragon Age in terms of controls and gameplay. However, Dragon Age improves and in turn complicates things a tad.
The controls can take some getting used to if you have never played a game like this. It's either a RTS or a Turn based affair, even both if you like. You can freeze time and choose what each of your party members do to what enemy and how or you can control one of your party members and use a selected six skills at any one time. You hold/toggle (based on your preference) the left trigger to bring up a radial menu from which you can select skills, items, poisons, traps, abilities, and give some party commands. You can access this menu from any of your party members but the skills and abilities will vary based on the character. You hold the right trigger to take the RTS route and use assigned skilled mapped to your X, Y, and B buttons. Your A button attacks with your normal weapon.
http://media.crispygamer.com/screenshot/Title749/11-640x.jpg
Now, that sounds awfully complex, and it gets more complex. Since you can only personally control one party member at a time you can use tactics to adapt the AI of your party members to your liking. Want them to heal when their health is < or = 75%? You can set that up. Want them to use a certain skill when an enemy is attacking them with a melee weapon? Go for it. Want them to use an ability when there are three enemies but then if there are four to use a different ability? Have fun setting that up. It's a bunch of if then statements, if your a programmer and it's easy to do but can be daunting for the first few hours to learn all this.
Couple this with the fact you can make/use traps, poisons, etc. against your enemies and you've got quite the makings of a very strategic game. You'll need your brain to have any hope of facing tougher enemies.
The other gameplay aspect to Dragon Age is much simpler. The dialogue. Every conversation you have with anyone you are given choices for what to say. Although your character is a mute, save for typical combat chants and grunts, you have a lot you can say. Want to be the goody little two shoes? Talk the talk. Want to be the most sadistic bastard to walk the lands of Ferelden? Go ahead, if you have the persuasion skill at the proper level, you can.
The gameplay can be cumbersome at first but once you get used to how it work it feels more manageable. There is also a slight problem with some parts of the game having a sudden spike in difficulty. I myself died 25+ times in the same part of the game, about ten of which were unavoidable kills, another ten were cheap kills, and the other five was due to me being a Rogue Archer alone with no party assistance....I chose to start over as a mage due to this but I never raged quit surprisingly, unless starting over counts.
Graphics and Audio
The graphics in Dragon Age are not too good, not too bad. The character models and facial expressions and mouth movement are all great and look fitting. As do the creatures you'll face and other characters you will meet. However the environment and world itself lack in much amazement for the eye to see. The world itself is not a copy/paste affair but the lack of good detail shows. The animations and much of everything else is suitable but the graphics are not one of the strong points in Dragon Age.
The audio on the other hand is a mismatch. While the voice acting is simply astounding and fits really well....the music is something to yawn at. The peaceful town music doesn't aid much to the atmosphere and the combat music is a tad on the overly loud side but regardless of that the music is really just there and not really noticeable. The sound effects are fine, swords clang, lighting bolts bolt, and they are all standard sounding.
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/9/2009/08/504x_dragon_age_delay.jpg
Okay, so do I get it?
Depends, if you didn't like Mass Effect or Knights of The Old Republic then I recommend you don't get it because the majority of talking will likely bore you. But if you do have a decent attention span, like using your brain, and don't mind moral grayness then you are in the right town mister or misses. Pick the game up right away and hey, you even get two free DLCs with it if you do. Though, only one adds some story and a party member while the other is just some armor.
I digress though, Dragon Age is quite possibly the most prominent RPG to date. With great story telling, complex yet simple gameplay, and a lot of player choice the game will last you for many months to come.
Cleril is guilty of playing Dragon Age: Origins for 10 hours, 19 minutes, and 56 seconds straight. Only stopping because his parents wanted to watch a romantic comedy.
http://vgtribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dragon-age.png
Plot
The story in Dragon Age is deep with a malleable tale. When you first start a new game you make your character. Based on your race, class, and origin the game changes both the story, dialogue, and choices given to you. I'll go over those three things later on but each option adds good reason already to replay the game.
To not spoil you, the story involves you becoming a Grey Warden, a sect of people who are in tune with the appearance of dark spawn, demons. You are tasked with ridding the land of Ferelden from these dark spawn, while exacting revenge on a certain someone. This may seem a tad cliche but the length and quality at which the story is told makes it so original and rather captivating.
There are also other stories other than the main one to occupy your pondering mind. Each party member has their own background and personality that you can explore in depth over various conversations with them at your camp. There are many side quests each with their own stories to tell and by simply talking to a random NPC can a story be told.
The plot, needless to say, is wonderfully presented and grand itself. The only slight concern one may have is that so much detail by detail is given that you may get confused while trying to keep up with at least the main story. There were times when I didn't know exactly what I was talking about with someone until my brain caught up. But perhaps that's due to me not being a sponge.
Controls and Gameplay
Before I go into the controls and gameplay let me discuss the character creation process. You can choose from three races, human, elf, and dwarf. The humans are the most populated in the land. The elven people are slightly shorter than humans and are generally poor slaves to them. The dwarves are your standard dwarves but they are not always blood thirsty warriors.
Humans and elves can choose to be warriors, mages, or rogues. However dwarves can only be warriors or rogues, due to their people having a resistance to magic they are not gifted with magic. Based on your class and race you can choose your origin story. There are origin stories such as the Magi, where you complete your training to finally become a mage, or the Noble where you are part of a royal family in the midst of war. Your race, class, and origin story all relate to and heavily affect the main quest. Almost every dialogue is different simply based on these three things. Couple that with your moral choices there is a lot of replay value on all this alone. It is also noteworthy to mention that each origins story on it's own is about an hour long and each is heavily different from each other.
If you have ever played Knights of The Old Republic or Mass Effect you'll see similarities in Dragon Age in terms of controls and gameplay. However, Dragon Age improves and in turn complicates things a tad.
The controls can take some getting used to if you have never played a game like this. It's either a RTS or a Turn based affair, even both if you like. You can freeze time and choose what each of your party members do to what enemy and how or you can control one of your party members and use a selected six skills at any one time. You hold/toggle (based on your preference) the left trigger to bring up a radial menu from which you can select skills, items, poisons, traps, abilities, and give some party commands. You can access this menu from any of your party members but the skills and abilities will vary based on the character. You hold the right trigger to take the RTS route and use assigned skilled mapped to your X, Y, and B buttons. Your A button attacks with your normal weapon.
http://media.crispygamer.com/screenshot/Title749/11-640x.jpg
Now, that sounds awfully complex, and it gets more complex. Since you can only personally control one party member at a time you can use tactics to adapt the AI of your party members to your liking. Want them to heal when their health is < or = 75%? You can set that up. Want them to use a certain skill when an enemy is attacking them with a melee weapon? Go for it. Want them to use an ability when there are three enemies but then if there are four to use a different ability? Have fun setting that up. It's a bunch of if then statements, if your a programmer and it's easy to do but can be daunting for the first few hours to learn all this.
Couple this with the fact you can make/use traps, poisons, etc. against your enemies and you've got quite the makings of a very strategic game. You'll need your brain to have any hope of facing tougher enemies.
The other gameplay aspect to Dragon Age is much simpler. The dialogue. Every conversation you have with anyone you are given choices for what to say. Although your character is a mute, save for typical combat chants and grunts, you have a lot you can say. Want to be the goody little two shoes? Talk the talk. Want to be the most sadistic bastard to walk the lands of Ferelden? Go ahead, if you have the persuasion skill at the proper level, you can.
The gameplay can be cumbersome at first but once you get used to how it work it feels more manageable. There is also a slight problem with some parts of the game having a sudden spike in difficulty. I myself died 25+ times in the same part of the game, about ten of which were unavoidable kills, another ten were cheap kills, and the other five was due to me being a Rogue Archer alone with no party assistance....I chose to start over as a mage due to this but I never raged quit surprisingly, unless starting over counts.
Graphics and Audio
The graphics in Dragon Age are not too good, not too bad. The character models and facial expressions and mouth movement are all great and look fitting. As do the creatures you'll face and other characters you will meet. However the environment and world itself lack in much amazement for the eye to see. The world itself is not a copy/paste affair but the lack of good detail shows. The animations and much of everything else is suitable but the graphics are not one of the strong points in Dragon Age.
The audio on the other hand is a mismatch. While the voice acting is simply astounding and fits really well....the music is something to yawn at. The peaceful town music doesn't aid much to the atmosphere and the combat music is a tad on the overly loud side but regardless of that the music is really just there and not really noticeable. The sound effects are fine, swords clang, lighting bolts bolt, and they are all standard sounding.
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/9/2009/08/504x_dragon_age_delay.jpg
Okay, so do I get it?
Depends, if you didn't like Mass Effect or Knights of The Old Republic then I recommend you don't get it because the majority of talking will likely bore you. But if you do have a decent attention span, like using your brain, and don't mind moral grayness then you are in the right town mister or misses. Pick the game up right away and hey, you even get two free DLCs with it if you do. Though, only one adds some story and a party member while the other is just some armor.
I digress though, Dragon Age is quite possibly the most prominent RPG to date. With great story telling, complex yet simple gameplay, and a lot of player choice the game will last you for many months to come.
Cleril is guilty of playing Dragon Age: Origins for 10 hours, 19 minutes, and 56 seconds straight. Only stopping because his parents wanted to watch a romantic comedy.