Do you enjoy fantasy games? Or do series such as “Lord of the Rings” take your interest? Maybe you should try Bioware’s latest game Dragon Age Origins. Essentially its a Dungeon and Dragons type game where your dominant objective is to fight evil creatures called the Dark Spawn. In the world of Dragon Age Origins you will fight these evil creatures and defend the innocent race’s that inhabit the world. It covers all the elements of an RPG such as quests, XP points and character customisation with great success and will keep you entertained for hours on end. 

Before the game starts you create a character, using the meticulously detailed character creation system. Your are able to change everything from their wrinkles to their tattoos. When you create a character you have three races to select-Human, Elf, Dawf. After you select your race, you select one of three classes-Warrior, Mage,and Roge. You also have two backgrounds to pick from, which will determine how the world will treat you in your future game play. Each class has specialization skills which grant your character special abilities. Already the game is beginning to sound like the highly acclaimed Elder Scrolls series. The game features different “origins” that you play and they are very addicting. Each origin is picked based on the class and races that you picked when you were creating your character.

One important feature in the game is the party feature. It consists of people that you met on your quest’s and adventures through out the game. The people that you chose to join you party have feelings just like people of the real world. This also applies to the inhabitants of the world that you play in, If you make a decision that they like, your relationship with them will strengthen. If your decisions are unacceptable then your relationship will start to fracture. If you continue to make decisions that your party members don’t like then they can eventually leave.

The plot line is very deep, and will take at least a good 80 hours to complete,depending on how you play. Furthermore,when you finish the story of your first character you will be more then ready to start a new game to explore the next origin. So if anything else you might play it just for the origins. Dragon Age Origin’s story is very compelling, and addicting and will offer you plenty of suprises along the way.

The console and the PC versions have some noticeable differences. Providing you have a hi-tec computer with a good graphics card, this is by far the best option to choose. The reason can vary but most people can agree that the graphics are significantly better than on the console counterparts. The PC version is more tactically more difficult but nothing you can’t figure out with time. Most gamers prefer the PC version because it gives a wider range of difficult abilities to do. The consoles do look a little bit duller then the PC version. There is nothing left out from the actual story line. All though the some of the game play is lost. There is no micromanagement and it has a limited number of strategic attacks that you can perform. Though that doesn’t mean you can’t have good fun on the Ps3 or the Xbox 360. Its all about personal preference.

The highlight of Dragon Age Origins is definitely the story which will deliver a deep, entertaining and compelling experience. It will keep you entertained for many months. It maintains strong replayability with all the twists and turns that you’ll encounter throughout your travels. With all the Character choices, the possibility’s are endless. Although you’ll get the best performance with a computer. The game is great fun to play on whatever platform and his is definitely one of the year’s best RPGs.

+ Huge Fantasy World

+ Superb story

+ Loads of great abilities to use throughout the game

+ Well animated and voiced characters

- Lots of backtracking

- Occasional Glitches and framerate issues

8.8/10

By Nick McLean Posted Friday, November 20th, 2009 5:37 pm