Rating 8.5/10
The short review
This game is a cross between: Neverwinter Nights/World of Warcraft
It’s good because: • Great story • In depth NPC relationships • Cool combat animations
It’s bad because: • You must travel with a balanced party
The long version
Kick ass storyline
The storyline of Dragon Age: Origins is by far one of the best story lines from any RPG that I have played. For starters depending on your race and class the first chapter of the game is different.
I went with a Human Noble in an attempt to recreate my character from the original Neverwinter Nights. That’s all I’ll say on the matter as to not give away any spoilers.
Sex?!?
One of the rather odd things I found about Dragon Age: Origins is the ability to have sex with your companions. Som
e companions even swing both ways depending on how you want your character to act. These sex scenes are accompanied by some absolutely awful cinematics (with great ‘O’ faces) that just made me cringe.
On the other hand, the fact that the developers took the time and effort to allow you to do this did add an extra level to the game in terms of relationships.
[It doesn't get much cornier then this]
Great combat
I thoroughly enjoyed the combat and not once got bored of killing mob after mob. You are able to employ great tactics using the ‘Tactics’ options and you also have the ability to pause the game at any point and give each person their next order. I only wish that you were able to stack orders like The Sims.
Visually the combat looks fantastic. Each attack looks different and accurately reflects the description of the action. I also love how you can stun or knock down characters and then just bring on the DPS.
The only downside is that the characters I enjoyed traveling were all weapon users rather then magic users. While this was fine in terms of healing (you can make all the potions you want), it made some bosses quite difficult because I simply didn’t have the DPS needed.
Gameplay
In terms of class customization, you can really make your character exactly how you want it to be. Classes have access to both unique and universal class sets. You will however want to only select one combat/magic skill set to max out on initially as you will easily finish the game before being able to max out a second set.
The hardware running of the game was great. I haven’t done any major upgrades to my computer in 2 years and I had a smooth running game.
One thing I really liked was that I never got bored during any of the cut scenes or dialogues. The stories and information was genuinely interesting and I enjoyed finding out more about my companions stories.
[Dual weapon sweep]
Conclusion
This game brings a whole lot to the RPG genre. A lot of time and effort has been put into this game to create an easy to learn fun RPG with an in-depth story. On top of that it looks absolutely fantastic and features some of the most interesting NPCs I’ve ever seen in an RPG.
For all of these reasons and more I give this game an 8.5/10. Pick up Dragon Age: Origins on Amazon.com today for only $36.14
[My character and his best friend before the finale battle]
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