Dragon Age - A New Game That Drove the Internet Crazy

Dragon Age: Origins By Wizzs Hey guys, i'm Edgar Hokkanen, on the net i'm more known as Wizzs. I'm just 17 years old, yet i have played hundreds of games in my life. If there is anything i enjoy more than gaming then it's creating stuff for others. I have wrote my own games, made my music, drawn my pictures and now i'm up for writing and sharing my opinion with others.

If you haven't noticed then the internet has been going crazy over two new games in the past week. First one was the sequel for one of the most popular FPS games – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and the second one, yes you've guess it, Dragons Age: Origins. We'll let the fans of Call of Duty to discuss the good and bad sides of that game and head straight away to the RPG. Now notice I wrote RPG without the common MMO part, because that's what Dragons Age is. The game is being developed by BioWare, a Canadian company who is mostly known for its great single player roleplaying games such as Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights and the Baldur's Gate series. Although the company has released several great games, they haven't really succeeded to reach the bar of roleplaying games they set with Baldur's Gate. This is until now, because Dragon Age: Origins really seems to be revolutionary game.

Full Size

The game gets the name "Origins" from one of the main mechanics in the game.  Origins are sort of prestories that help player get started and set their main goals by binding each character with the main storyline. There are 6 prestories (or origins if you wish) to choose from, yet the choice depends on which class and race you wish to play. Gender has no effect on this choice. For example humans can choose either Noble or a Mage origin, while Elves have a larger choice between City, Dalish and Mage origins. Origins don't have massive effect on the gameplay, but they help to make game more enjoyable if you wish to go through the story once more and this cuts a nice piece of repetition feeling away. Going through each origin also lets each player to see his characters point of view and thought about the world.  Character classes also play important role. Instead of the typical Warrior, Mage and Rogue classes you may find in other RPG games, BioWare decided to make the selection of a class even deeper and added 4 specializations under each main class type. Some of the classes are quite typical like assassin and berserker while other, are rather exotic. You can try your hand at a Bard class, or switch your gametype every time you change your appearance as a Shapeshifter. A total of 12 classes should give enough choice for every roleplaying fan. Once you get inside the game you woun't want to leave.

Full Size

The game looks absolutely amazing on high end machines, somewhat better than oblivion. The game is polished at the every possible aspect of it. You can tell that the developers have really done a great job because even the smallest details you might look at as perfect as the whole world together. What i have noticed as a big flaw in many games, is that they forget about the quality of the cinematics. They often lack sync between video and audio, are choppy or look „bad" in some other way. Cinematics in the Dragon Age: Origins are truly state of the art. Everything is smooth (assuming you have a good graphics card) and seems almost too good to be true. What truly brings the story to life are the voices of the characters. You can spent hours of gameplay and cinematics and you still will be amazed how clean the sound is and how real the voices seem to be. Most important and long waited ofcourse is the world itself. As i already mentioned it looks amazing, but the value of it increases even more once you see all the possibilities you have when inside. The game has one beginning and one ending, but even though you would think it is linear rpg, then guess what, it's not. The game gives a variety of choices to the player and a list of possible actions for every one of them.

Full Size

I truly don't think there can be anything better than a world that reacts to your actions and makes changes accordingly. What they also did well were the quests. Instead of the usual bring X amount of item Y to me, the developers of BioWare decided to make the game even more interesting by adding possible plot twists and unexpected endings to their quests. I don't know about you guys, but i don't like grinding much and if you don't enjoy it either, then Dragon Age is a game for you. Do you still remember a game called Morrowind from The Elder Scrolls series. They gave the players an option to take a break from the long storyline and quests and just explore the world. Gather some notes, pick herb samples – you know what i mean. Luckily they use the similar system in Dragon Age: Origins, but in a more massive way. This gives players ability to optionally explore lost temples, learn more about magic and religions inside the game or pursue their search for wisdom of the elders. They also allow you to learn more about the history of the events. All this bonus content is truly an addition, not the goal of the game as it doesen't pressure you to explore, just once in a while tells you that there are other ways and possibilities. They also decided to add to the experience by making some pay-to-play bonus packs. It's nothing you would really need, yet something you want because you know that it's good. Not good like any RPG, but good like Dragon Age. Besides playing you can also build. BioWare lets every player (with a pc version)  use their toolset and create their own adventures. Giving players such option benefits greatly any game, especially roleplaying game, because if the community is active then it can create more custom content than the game itself had in the beginning! This keeps game fresh and new even after the years to come and helps to overcome fact that it is a singleplayer game. The game is avaible for Windows,  Xbox360 and Playstation 3 and although they all have slight differences then the game looks quite the same on all platforms. Once again thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed this review. – Wizzs.

Full Size