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Releasing this week: Dragon Age: Origins
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Bioware's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic video games meet Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film series?
Tired of waiting for Bioware to drop Mass Effect 2? The acclaimed action-RPG giant is set to release Dragon Age: Origins tomorrow for the XBOX 360, Playstation 3, and PC.
Dragon Age is the spiritual successor to Bioware's successful PC-based series Baldur's Gate. Gameplay shows Origins to be an action-RPG very similar to Baldur's gate. Pause-and-direct type players will be right at home with Bioware's near-trademark radial menus -- micromanaging a battle will be easy for players that wish to play the game that way. The more action-oriented player will be fine as well, as the game will flow freely with artificially intelligent party members making their own decisions thanks to a system reminiscent of the old gambit system seen in Final Fantasy XII.
The game is described as a "heroic, dark fantasy" and has had a similar tone and ambiance to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film series. There are various political, racial, and national conflicts within the world. Early reviews of the game have praised the overall atmosphere of the game, describing it as having even more of an aged, living feel than the galaxy of Mass Effect.
Players will be given a myriad of choices to begin the game, including a choice of six different "origin stories" to apply to their character. These biographical stories include that of a human noble, a human or elf mage, a dalish elf, a city elf, a dwarf commoner, or a dwarf noble. Players can further customize their character by applying a class to their origin story, choosing from the base classes of warrior, rogue or mage. These can be further augmented by choosing specialties such as berserker or templar for the warrior or shapeshifter or blood mage for a mage. There are also a bevy of moral choices for the character to make that will affect the world of Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware has ensured that the player has plenty of possibilities to shape the character exactly as they see fit.
Bioware will be releasing a developmental toolset to PC users in order to foster the creation of modified content. The mods are sure to flow for this title, so if you've got a gaming PC, your best bet would be to take advantage of the user-created content that will be available for it along with the more pristine graphics that the game has shown on the platform thus far. If you're a console user, fret not, for Bioware has plans to release the upcoming user-created content as an add-on in either downloadable or disc form.
Dragon Age: Origins releases tomorrow, November 3rd. If you have any interest in RPGs, this is a must-play.
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