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Dragon Age: Origins review
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A PC gamer when confronted by a console gamer
Let's be honest. Most of the gamers that are going to purchase Dragon Age: Origins know exactly what they're getting into. They're likely to be either PC gamers with love for the Baldur's Gate series or console players that have enjoyed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic on their XBOX. I'll preface this review by letting you know right now that if you fall into one of these two categories and for some reason haven't yet purchase this game, you need to buy it immediately, because you will be hopelessly enthralled by it. You don't even need to read the rest of this review. Just go get it. For those not familiar with any of BioWare's other games, or those who have played only Mass Effect and enjoyed it, read on.
Dragon Age: Origins' most important strengths are the story, ambiance, and characters. The detail put into the historical background of the world is just amazing. Every structure has an apparent age to it, and everything feels well-worn. It doesn't just look like the structures and settings have a history behind them, it feels like it, and the game certainly helps out the feeling by providing a detailed history behind everything you encounter in the game. We're talking about a Tolkien-esque level of effort put into developing the lore behind this game. I was shocked to learn that I hadn't even seen combat yet in nearly two hours of playing the game simply because I was so engulfed in reading every entry provided to me in the game's encyclopedia. For gamers like me, who enjoy this sort of thing, it's fantastic. If you're a more action-oriented gamer, fear not -- all of this reading is strictly optional. You're free to go about your way without ever delving too deep into the historical aspects of the world, and the game doesn't at all punish you for neglecting it. Nearly anything you need to know by means of storyline will come up in conversation anyway. A realistic, alive-feeling world is always nice, but the true value of this lies in how many different ways your choices actually affect this world. There's no good and evil meter -- your choices all affect the land of Ferelden in a very real way, and these choices are numerous and will weigh so greatly on your shoulders that you'll have to remind yourself that you're only playing a video game.
Another strength of the game is the richness of the characters. The nuances of your main character will be more or less shaped by you, and while that's a good thing, I would've liked to have heard spoken dialogue for my character rather than have him go the silent protagonist route. I thought BioWare did a fantastic job with how they allowed a healthy mix between player construction and static, unchangeable attributes regarding Shepard in Mass Effect. I wish they would have steered the main character of Dragon Age more toward that end of the spectrum. Aside from that gripe, the rest of the cast of characters are simply fantastic. All have deep, fully realized personalities and feel as genuine as a character from a great novel. There are no Vaans or Penelos in this game. Each character has their quirks, their strengths, and their weaknesses. The characters are so lifelike that you'll end up legitimately liking or disliking them after only a few conversations, and that's one of the real strengths of Dragon Age.
The gameplay is much what you'd expect from a BioWare game. This is strictly Baldur's Gate and KOTOR. Very little, if anything, has actually changed from the combat of those games, which may be a sticking point for gamers that are looking for an evolution of gameplay from BioWare's previous titles. You can pause and micromanage, queueing up actions for your various party members if you wish, or you can set the AI to do what you'd like it to and let your party run on autopilot without pausing the action at all. The game doesn't punish you for playing either way, though I found more success with the more difficult enemies when I slowed down the pace and began to micromanage things more carefully. The way you choose to play will depend strictly on what type of gamer you are.
Make no mistake, this game was meant to be played on a high-level PC. The graphics are absolutely atrocious while playing on a console. The graphical level of the XBOX 360 version of Dragon Age is equivalent to those of Mass Effect's now infamous pre-texture pop-in graphics. There is surprisingly little detail in the texture, and framerate has a terrible tendency to grind to a choppy halt at random intervals -- even when there isn't all that much going on onscreen. This, sadly, looks very much like a last-generation title. The PC is very different, with a much higher graphical level very comparable to that of the current generation's graphics. The use of a hotbar on the PC also favors that platform. The radial menus on the consoles are decent enough once you get used to them, but the hotbar is infinitely more effective, flows more continuously, and is far more comfortable to use. When you consider the amount of user-generated content that will be released for this game in the form of mods, it's really no comparison. This game is meant to be played on a PC, and it's sad that BioWare dropped the ball so hard on the graphical prowess of the console versions of this game.
There's also an issue to be had with the bugs present in the retail version of this game. Several times your character will get stuck on a bump or smooth rock on the ground, causing them to run in place continuously until you move them away manually. There's also an issue with your controlled character not responding to an attack command. Little things like this take away from the experience of an otherwise quality game, which is unfortunate. Hopefully Bioware will be able to patch small bugs like this in the future.
All-in-all, Dragon Age: Origins is a wonderful experience on all platforms as long as you can overlook its shortcomings on the XBOX 360 and Playstation 3. If you have a PC suited to gaming and are a fan of BioWare's previous titles or even RPGs in general, this game has a very good chance of being your game of the year. It's not for everybody, though. Those who find RPGs to be a bit too slow-paced or plot heavy for their liking will probably be instantly turned away from this game, and the console graphics are very disheartening to say the least. But if you can look past the faults of the game, there's a wonderful experience to be had with this title, and I'm sure I won't be done playing this for a long, long time.
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