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

Dragon Age: Origins

[My character and his best friend before the finale battle]

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So what was realeased?

A new expansion? The announcement of Mass Effect 3? No, it is a super awesome competition to win free stuff simply by participating in community activities. It’s called:

So how to you win stuff?

The bazaar is a place you can compete in Auctions using Bioware tokens. You earn these tokens by doing stuff like signing up, registering your games and answering questions. Pretty easy yea?

The items you can auction on range from US$2,000 Mass Effect 2 computers to Bioware branded beanies and books(full list here). Auctions start on April 5 so you have around one week to get as many tokens as you can get. If you want to get started now, head over to the Bioware Bazaar. Don’t worry about having to make yet another account on yet another website again, you can simply log in using your EA Master Account and clicking the Bioware Bazaar picture at the top.

If you don’t own DAO or ME2 you can still win

Bioware have guaranteed that you won’t need to spend any money to enter this competition. If you don’t own the games that you get tokens for registering, you can simply fill out a questionnaire to prove your awesomeness and pick up the points anyway.

If you want to grab the games anyway (like me), I just picked up Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening including shipping for A$113.85. They would not let me ship DAO to Australia. I did however get it on eBay for just A$30 including shipping! If I can though I usually stick to Amazon simply because I trust the brand and they have always looked after me with troubleshooting.

To buy in a store here in Australia it would have cost me A$258.95 for all 3 games. Simple proof that it’s better to go online for your games.

For more info and to start earning tokens follow the link.

Before I go, I want to know if anyone wins an Auction next week so let’s keep everyone up to date in the comments below.

UPDATE: This competition is only available to those who live in the USA (except for New York and Florida who are also out). This is due to Bioware not making sure that the terms and conditions met competition laws of every country and state. Big stuff up by them which has resulted in quite a kerfuffle on the Bioware forums.

Bioware has promised more competitions for the excluded countries at a later date.

Today Bioware intrigued fans and gaming sites across the world by adding a countdown timer to it’s main website, as well as it’s Dragon Age and Mass Effect websites.

Best guesses have been that a release date for Dragon Age 2 will be announced. Or will it be something completely new? Only time will tell.

To fill out this post with some extra information, Blizzard have released a new Sound Blaster World of Warcraft headset. It is available in either USB (currently $120) or wireless ($160). Check out these user reviews of the product.

Bioware is expanding on their already cool game with a new playable and very shapely character, Kasumi Goto, in a new downloadable expansion called Stolen Memory.

That thieving prick!

Playing Kasumi will unlock the ability to become a master thief. You will recieve a new mission in which you will get to try out Kasumi’s new skills in stealth and deception. The mission involves recovering some data, hence the name ‘Stolen Memory’. The pack will also include a new research upgrade, a new weapon and of course and new achievement to strive for.

Kasumi Goto

Price was released on Monday

Bioware has announced that this pack can be purchase for US$7.00 using points systems on the Bioware site or XBOX360. Players can expect to download and play it early April 2010.

Cool teaser video of Kasumi

Gamespot says…

Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening doesn’t reach the high standards set by its illustrious precursor, but it’s still a great game on its own terms. The combat and questing are as fun as they ever were and will keep you involved up until the very end, in spite of the uneven quality of the story and the characters that fill it. Oghren once said, “Misery, vomit, and malt liquor. Ah, reminds me of home.” You know you’ve missed such delights too, and now’s the time to head back.

Kevin says it’s good fun but lacks the memorable experience of the first game. Read more.

IGN says…

It should come as no surprise to fans of the original game that Dragon Age Origins Awakening is going to give you more of what you want. There’s an epic story with choices that really matter, fantasy combat with loads of amazing enemies, and a deep character system with lots of flexibility. It has a strong narrative connection to the original game, but the sense that your previous choices matter isn’t as strong as we’d have liked. I still miss the old companions, but the new characters are just as interesting once you get to know them.

Steve Butts was all smiles about this expansion and seemed to enjoy playing it a lot. Read more.

My Review

Is coming out soon!

Get it now on Amazon or Play-Asia

Gamespot video review (includes gameplay):

Based on Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition rules, this fantasy style game gives you the choice of 8 classes to choose from. The original game alone contains over 50 hours of gameplay not including online gaming. 2 expansions provide you with nearly double the content as well as epic level feats and skills.

The storyline is a typical save the world and kill all the bad dudes. There is plenty of options to create your character into a super being of your choice. Take the path of a heavily fortified warrior with many layers of armour or become a sorcerer who can blast away all of his enemies in one fireball.

This is one of my favourite games of all time. While the graphics are a little dated, the story and gameplay are still top quality. I really can’t recommend it enough.

Buy it on Amazon cheap:

Neverwinter Nights Diamond

Check out these screenshots:

Get Neverwinter Nights on eBay:

[wordbay]neverwinter nights pc -2[/wordbay]