Dragon Age: Origins

After a satisfying character creator, the game starts you off in an Origin story. This is where, depending on your race and class, you lay the background to your character's arrival with the Grey Wardens. Each Origin story takes about an hour or more to complete, and there are six different ones. Your story, while not totally unique from someone else's, really feels like you get to know your in-game persona. Characters will also react differently to who you are and what your race is or what you've trained yourself as: elves have only recently been freed from slavery under the humans, so many are regarded with open contempt and hostility. Mages, on the other hand, are almost universally feared by other non-mages, seeing as so many go rogue and are destructive, naturally making normal citizens wary of them.

Dragon Age shines best in its story and world. Ferelden feels like a living, breathing environment, with its own history and politics, you as the player feel very much a part of it. Combined with a solid story and tense moral choices, each action you make feels like it can have ripples everywhere. These choices are very gripping to be a part of (except for maybe that everyone seems okay with only you deciding, but we'll leave that alone); should you sacrifice a mother to enter a spirit world to kill a demon, or kill her child that is possessing it? Remember, you are trying to enter into the good graces of the father and husband. Or another, which successor to the dwarven throne do you support?

Alongside the story, the game is well done visually. It's not truly perfect, but for a game that can be played top down or over the shoulder, it handles the load quite well. Fights have plenty of blood splatter and the occasional decapitation, but otherwise look and feel very visceral. The sound is spot on, with music working well but not in your way. Voice acting is very well done, which really comes out in the more cinematic style of dialog conversations than other RPGs.

Battles themselves are also very fun and rarely repetitive. Since action can be paused to administer orders and with an overhead view of your area, tactics become important, and vital in the higher difficulties. Your party members need to be properly positioned in order to be effective, and even in simpler battles carelessness will cost you your life. Several times I breezed though a previously tough situation just by pausing the action, examining my enemies, and employing some simple tactics. This keeps each fight alive and stops things from feeling like a hack and slash.

Your party members can also be customized to a staggering degree. There are dozens of different events (along the lines of “Surrounded by two or more enemies” or “Health below 75%”), and you can set multitudes of reactions to those events (“Activate Skill X” or “Use Health Poultice”). This allows for a great degree of customization for your party members and yourself, if you aren't controlling your character.

If you've ever expressed any interest in fantasy RPGs, Dragon Age is instantly among the best the genre has to offer. Everything works together to pull you into a deep and immersive world. The replay value is obviously quite high, and the longevity is extended with DLC already out and more to come. It is absolutely worth getting, regardless if you're a die hard fan of the genre or just starting out.

Likes:

• Well developed party members that chat amongst themselves and have lives of their own
• Open ended world with plenty of reward for exploration
• Intricate and enjoyable storyline

Dislikes:

• Silent Player Character; after Mass Effect, this feels like a step backwards
• Camera can be a bit tough to handle occasionally

Review Score

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The review scale at LevelFortyTwo is between 1 and 5. A score of 5 is considered an amazing game, 4 is a well-done game with only minor issues, 3 is in the middle; not great, but not bad, 2 is a very problematic game, and 1 is absolutely terrible.