Dragon Age Origins is a video game RPG released on 2009 for the PS3, Microsoft Xbox360 and PC. In this fantasy adventure developed by Bioware and published by Electronic Arts you are cast as a member of a knight order dedicated to fight an ancient evil, born of past human greed. This I’m sure most readers have done before, since the forces of darkness usually threaten to swallow the land every so often. Dragon Age begs us to return to the good old formula and offers what I hear is a lengthy campaign and a great combination of tense and funny moments. Let’s have a look at my own thoughts after toying with it for a little over 10 hours.
Sensory Overload
The peaceful country-side.
The graphics in the game don’t push the hardware limits (for the consoles) but that does not mean that they are a sore to the eyes. You will be dealing with some bland textures and a surprisingly low polygon count in some areas but after the first few minutes you will find that the package itself works rather well. The outdoors natural areas are the ones that suffer the most on the graphic department which can hurt immersion until you get used to them. This is not helped by some areas which are very linear and can really break the illusion that this game presents us with. The character models, however, are vastly superior to most of the scenery and are quite detailed. The game is also truly pretty when you are exploring a city, dungeon or cavern. I found the lighting to be particularly good, adding a much welcomed depth to the imagery and doing much to establish or reinforcing the mood of the various locales.
While the graphics didn’t blow me out of the water I find myself really enjoying the art style of this game. It is clear that they wanted to go for something that could be called nitty-gritty without being too grim or harsh. The result is a set of imagery that combines some traits of heroic fantasy with a down to earth style that depicts the game world without excessive flair. Character models are one of the areas that I’ve enjoyed most: the body and facial (particularly facial) animations are very nice and complement the already superlative voice acting to deliver believable parts that are one of the major driving forces of the game.
The music score can be very pleasing; the main song is a rather good exponent of the classic medieval fantasy tunes that you can find on most productions this side of the Lord of the Rings movies. The rest of the soundtrack works well for establishing the mood of a scene, but sadly there is nothing that has been memorable so far. Sound effects do their part by being adequate (and usually no more than adequate) with a varied array of metallic and organic sounds that are complemented by a horde of magical fx. Voice acting is excellent, and succeeds at selling the characters and their feelings very well which is such a great boon to this particular game.
Gameplay
Battling a fierce ogre.
Having played the game on my PS3, I find that the what is offered for the consoles works very well. The combat sections (of which there are many) are all in real time although you have the option to pause the battle. You use the face buttons for sets of short-cuts and access all the other character functionality through an easy to navigate radial menu that pops up with the click of a shoulder trigger. Bringing this up also pauses the action, allowing you to go through your characters issuing commands, using items and changing stances before going back to real time. The combat can be very challenging (and equally rewarding) and, although the enemy AI is not particularly bright, the game balance is very well polished so you are always being challenged by the opposition.
Interaction with other denizens of the virtual world brings nothing new to the table. You always have several options to choose from and most situations can be tackled in several different ways or not tackled at all (if you should choose not to.) Each of the 3 classes offer a set of different abilities that come to the fore both in and out of combat and you always feel like there are very real paths that you gain and loose by choosing one of them.
Final Words
Leaving the technical details aside, the game is really fun to play, a blast even. Clocking little over ten hours of playtime on less than 3 days I have not been bored once so far. The greatest success with Dragon Age Origins seems to be two-fold: on the one side, the fast and fluid combat that combines with a responsive interface and results in visceral and cinematic action; on the other a combination of an epic and action packed story with some incredible voice acting and characters you love to love (and hate.)
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First!
Nice read although I’d like a little more about the character interaction but I might be a bit obsessive I guess.
I was planning on leaving that for the full review. I was really trying to keep this one short and to the point.