Dragon Age: Origins

First off, if you haven't bought this and played, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR! But be forewarned, you should really buy the PC version if your 'Puter can handle it. I've read that it ports well to consoles, but certain functionality is not available, which I found vital.

DA is a game that reminds you of the LOTR lore. It is based in the Fantasy realm, and let's face it, the imagination for this realm has greatly diminished. you've got humans (arrogant city dwellers), dwarves (beer slogging melee fighters), elves (tree-living archers), and witches/mages (live in towers in fancy clothes), who all need to band together to defeat a great evil, The Blight. So from that perspective, I was highly disappointed that they didn't do something new or different. Almost.

You see, the game starts off with you choosing your protagonist, and all of their attributes (gender, race, class...typical, right?). But here's where things get interesting. Every combination creates a unique start to the game, with totally different Origin stories for you character for many hours into the game. It is not until the battle of Ostagar that the stories start to take similar paths. This plants the seeds for replayability right off the bat. And I have to tell you, it's worth it to go play each character's origin story for replay if nothing else.

I choose to be an elf who start out living in what is in essence the ghetto of a human city. It's my wedding day, and right off the bat, you start making decisions that affect the entire game play like I've never seen before. It put other Bioware titles to shame with how the decisions affect the total game (yes, even better than KOTOR). Are you excited to be getting married? Do you want to punk out? Insult the bride, or sweet talk her? Seems insignificant, right? Let's just say much later in the game, my decisions here came back to cause me some awkward moments. During the ceremony, the local human authority's son rolls up with his goons and takes the bride for his right of 'Prima Nocturna' (remember "Braveheart"?) This pisses of your character, and you set out for blood. And that is how my game started.

Sucked in yet? Ok, let's say you're still skeptical. Maybe this will whet your appetite.

- Like Battles? There's hundreds.
- Like Blood to be spewed? It's everywhere
- Like story? Probably the largest scale story system I've ever seen in a game
- Like Decision making? You better, because you are going to make hundreds, if not more.

Let's talk about the decision making for a second. You are going to be presented with the hardest decisions you've ever had to make in a game. You will be presented with options where every one of the options sucks. I mean, really sucks. Good or bad is rarely evident. Like life, it is a world of grey, which by the way, is why you become a Grey Warden. Again, just part of how they tie the story together in an amazing way. Like at one point, I had to decide who should die: Child, Mother, or Father. I won't tell you how it ended for me, but that decision alone gave me pause like no other in any game ever. I even had to ask for council from my wife! When do games ever bring that kind of turmoil up in your game! The reason is that EVERY DECSION MATTERS, and the game experience will change accordingly. It is impossible to have two people play this game, discuss, and have the exact same experiences. The game is that smart.

As far as the battling, I won't go into too much detail, because you can decide for yourself. But I will say this. I do play puzzle games, and love strategy and deep thinking in my gameplay. That said, there is a difference between hard thinking and hard gameplay. I don't play games to get frustrated. That's why I work. Games are supposed to be fun. So unless you like to be frustrated, or enjoy the gambit system from FFXII, then heed my advice and play this on the PC. You can hit the space bar and pause the battle, then micro manage where and what your team is doing. Tedious? Maybe, but you'll get your ass kicked if you don't. Mark my words. The gambit system can be setup so your NPC's work how you want them to, and it works most of the time, but for major battles, you are going to need to adjust your strategy as you play. From what I've read, that option to pause is not in the console version.

Lastly, the 'Romance' (or 'Bromance' depending on how you play...or 'Lezzy'...your call) is strange to have in a game. I mean, I like the idea of building relationships with my party members, and this game has depth of character like no other game, but really, do we have to worry about sequences of getting into a characters pants when we're trying to rally the world to defeat the Blight? It just seems out of place, and that BioWare does this simply for the publicity. It doesn't really hlep the gameplay, but it does affect it (Remember I said decisions came back to cause me 'awkward' moments later?) So anyway, it's there, it at least impacts the gameplay (not like Mass Effect), and 'nuff said. (Except dwarf on dude options? Really? Ugh...)

So if you haven't played this, and have a need to scratch an 80 hour RPG itch, then this is your game. The graphics aren't quite what I would expect at this point for new title releases by major developers, but they aren't bad by any means. I'm just spoiled by games like Uncharted.