Dragon Age: Origins PC, 360, PS3 Review
DRAGON AGE. AGE OF DRAGONS. ELVES WHO PRANCE ABOUT IN FORESTS. DWARVES WHAT LIVE UNDERGROUND AND DO MINING AND STUFF. AN UNQUESTIONABLY EVIL RACE OF MONSTERS THAT ARE TRYING TO WIPE OUT ALL FORMS OF LIFE, AND IT’S DOWN TO ONE PERSON TO SAVE THE WORLD. AND THAT PERSON IS YOU.
Yeah, alright. At first glance, the kindest thing you can say about Dragon Age is that… um, I guess there are no giant rats, as far as I can remember. But the nods to the traditional Tolkienesque fantasy setting are as countless as they are obvious. It’s no wonder that EA decided to publicise the game by putting out a load of bizarre trailers showing a whole bunch of fighting and shagging while Marilyn Manson rasps away in the background. But is the final game really as desperately adolescent as those trailers might’ve suggested, or was it just a ploy to get the kids interested since fantasy nerds were already paying attention anyway?
READ ON.
Dragon Age: Origins is a fantasy role-playing affair, modelled very much after the fully-excellent Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games. The combat is almost identical, giving you real-time control over one party member at a time, whilst also allowing you to pause the game at any time and issue orders to the party members you’re not currently controlling. There’s a catch, though – while the KotOR games allowed each character to queue several actions at a time, Dragon Age allows just one. This can be pretty irritating when you’ve got a character’s next three or four moves planned out in your head, but you have to wait for each one to happen, pause the game, set the next one, unpause, and so on. However, all’s not lost, because Dragon Age gives you a ‘combat tactics’ section to work with. Similar to Final Fantasy XII’s gambit system, it allows you to set up the AI behaviour for each party member yourself. It sounds like a total ballache, but it’s essentially a series of ‘if, then’ statements – for example, if an ally’s health falls below 50%, then throw a healing potion in his or her face. It’s surprisingly fun once you get the hang of it, and you’ll even begin to plot your character’s skill development around it – spotting groups of skills that work well together, then ‘programming’ your team to perform them in the right order of their own accord. Dragon Age isn’t an easy game by any means, but sort your tactics out and 90% of your battles are already won before they’ve begun.
That said, the combat does feel a bit backwards at times, at least in terms of its presentation – a lot of the trailers we saw prior to the game’s release showed off a bunch of badass-looking finishing moves with people’s heads flying off and the like, but they seldom occur in the game. Most of the time, the combat just feels like a numbers game – two melee fighters can charge at each other and go into their looping attack animations while their health gets steadily flayed off, yet neither fighter will appear to take (or block) a single hit. Of course, this shouldn’t hamper your enjoyment of the game one bit – after all, it is just a numbers game, really – but when you consider that even the first KotOR game had lightsaber fights with the characters actually appearing to engage with one another and parry each other’s attacks, you can’t help wondering if someone needs to tell BioWare what year it is.
Still, none of this is what makes Dragon Age important. After all, Mass Effect had some pretty awful combat, but it was the characters and setting that made it so compelling. And by Christ, BioWare have done it again – the main draw of Dragon Age isn’t really the combat, but the decisions you’re forced to make on your travels. Of course, most good RPGs give you choices to make, but few have done it quite like Dragon Age. In most RPGs, there’s a clear-cut distinction between the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ choices – or, in Mass Effect’s case, a choice between compassion or ruthlessness. But Dragon Age has very few obvious choices. Sure, your goal of gathering an army to fight the Darkspawn might be unquestionably noble, but no matter how ‘good’ you try to be, you’re going to end up treading on people’s toes. There’s very little good or evil here – just people. People with their own motivations, histories, perspectives and rivalries – many of them perfectly understandable or sympathetic – and you’ve got to pick sides. It’s a surprisingly mature approach for a videogame, and certainly a far cry from the puerile trailers. One decision towards the end of the game gave me an actual headache - I stared at the available dialogue options, hoping that if I waited long enough then a new option would appear, saying “JESUS CHRIST I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO, JUST WORK IT OUT YOURSELVES”. Each of the decisions you make will affect the ending, and when you add the fact that your main character has six different origin stories to choose from, each of them giving you a unique perspective on the world, then you’ve got a lot of reasons to replay a game that already takes at least 50 hours to finish.
Unfortunately, these critical story points only punctuate some rather lengthy combat sections, some of which definitely outstay their welcome (I’m looking at you, Deep Roads) – but if you’re a fan of dungeon-crawlers, you’ll be right at home. Everyone else, rest assured that your efforts will be fully rewarded when you reach the end of the game – especially when it all goes a bit Dynasty Warriors, in a very good way.
With Dragon Age clearly being a bit of a PC-centric title, there’s some wariness amongst console owners to pick it up, and it’s not entirely unjustified. The PC version benefits greatly from mouse & keyboard control, better graphics, and a fairly vital quicksave button. In contrast, the console versions are a bit clumsier and less appealing to the eye, with the PS3 version in particular suffering from the occasionally dodgy frame-rate. But if you don’t own a decent PC, don’t let it put you off – the game is still perfectly enjoyable across all formats, and if you haven’t touched the PC version you certainly won’t find yourself screaming “OH MY GOD I WISH I WAS PLAYING WITH A MOUSE AND SLIGHTLY NICER GRAPHICS”.
Is it the RPG of the decade, as some have famously claimed? Nah. Not for me, at least. As great as it is, there are too many irritations with the combat (and too many unnecessarily drawn-out combat sections) to hail it as a true classic. Dragon Age’s story, and the decisions it forced me to make, will certainly keep swimming around in my head for quite some time – but the likes of Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic kept me engaged throughout the entire experience, while Dragon Age almost put me to sleep on several occasions. But it is nonetheless a brilliant game that appears cliché-ridden at first, but reveals a whole load of its own ideas as you go. Just make sure you’ve got no other games to play for at least a few weeks.
27 comments ↓
UK_John
November 29th, 2009
One of the best, more honest reviews for this game! When it comes to over-hyped games from the major publisher’s I find it fascinating how many problems can be written about and then a 9.8/10 score given! This exact same problems in an RPG from a smaller publisher would have garnered an 8.0/10 score maximum, which is what you have given Dragon Age! Having found this excellent review that says it and scores it as it is, I will definitely check out this site more often! So well done, and stay true to yourselves!
meh
November 29th, 2009
the only reason why it’s just an 8 instead of 9 like everywhere is because he found combat uninteresting, otherwise it’s drivel like the rest. Don’t get excited.
UK_John
November 29th, 2009
meh: Look at all the other reviews that mention half a dozen problems and then take 0.3 off a perfect score! Do you think a small publisher with 1/2 dozen problems would only get 0.3 taken off?
The more I put into DA, the more I realise it is a number of linked almost linear quests! Not in the least open-world and non linear as RPG’s should be, like Risen, Linear, or dare i say it: Baldur’s gate or Neverwinter Nights!
AK
November 30th, 2009
The first mission for the ‘human noble’ involves killing giant rats, to which a character comments “It’s like the beginning of every bad adventure story!” BioWare are SO comic.
Denim_Forever
November 30th, 2009
I agree with UK_John’s initial post. Excellent, concise and unbiased. I will also visit this site again. Nice work. Thanks.
Zeta Crossfire
December 5th, 2009
I respectable disagree, I believe this is the greatest game to be made so far. I was not really looking foreword to this game at all but i absolutely love this game.
UK_John
December 5th, 2009
I have 40 hours into this game, and being to realise how it does hold your hand. Once you decide what to click off you go…. The Daleish camp, the towns, once in them the main quest raises it’s head. You fight through the Circle you fight through Redcliffe Castle, you fight through…..
Yes, its a good game, but 8/10 is fair as it it somewhere between Baldur’s Gate (good) and Mass Effect/Jade Empire (bad).
Gera
December 9th, 2009
This is SHIT. Bell, you CUNT. FUCK. DRAGONS
UK_John
December 9th, 2009
Please delete Gera’s post – it serves no purpose.
Gera
December 9th, 2009
Bless, I’m kidding. It was an inside joke.
UK_John
December 10th, 2009
Still, please delete it admin,
Ian
December 10th, 2009
Fuck it, let’s delete all the comments seeing as were being incredibly irrational.
Gera
December 10th, 2009
I truly give up on this readership
UK_John
December 10th, 2009
JUST DELETE EVERY MESSAGE THAT HAS SWEAR WORDS! Swear words in posts are just juvenile and idiotic!
Ian
December 10th, 2009
Fuckin’ A!
UK_John
December 11th, 2009
As nobody stops these swearing idiots, I will not be coming back as often as I said in my first post!
Russ
December 14th, 2009
UK-John – No one gives a fat shit if you dont ever come back, as id guess also that no one else would give a shit if you suddenly dropped dead, you FUCKING whinging dick. Bugger off, you fucking prick.
Dragon age? yeah its ok
Admin
December 14th, 2009
Nobody looks at this thread because it full of dead messages
Sean
December 16th, 2009
Just so you all know, that last comment by ‘Admin’ was actually UK_John. Thus, while his initial comments were much appreciated, he has now revealed himself as a full-on mental.
Bullet
December 17th, 2009
To those who publish the bad language.. go pop a pimple or play with your peepee somewhere.
Jim
December 19th, 2009
I’ve played BG 2 and Mass Effect and this game is nether.
I don’t see how anyone who isn’t a blind Bioware fandboy can give this game anything more then 7/10.
Really are these the same people that gave us Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic? They must of been all on coffee break.
bladerogers
January 1st, 2010
This game is trash, pure and simple. It deserves nothing higher then a 6 to be honest. It’s obvious that other reviewers are having their palms greased to publish such blatant lies. This game is NOT fun in the least, at least for me. After watching all of those hype up ads I was pumped…what a let down. Open ended?? Where?? Battle system sucks, loot sucks, some of the battles are insanely difficult with no forewarning. And yes, I’ve played on all three systems, PS3 being by far the worst. The frame rate is MAYBE 20 FPS on average. What a dissapointment…and I don’t mean the game, I mean the reviewing sites out there that we trust to give us unbiased reviews upon which we rely to determine whether or not a game is even worth renting. They are all screaming BUY! for this pile of trash and sucking peoples hard earned money from their pockets. That is theft in my opinion, manipulating the consumer into believing it’s worth the steep price tag. Funny, people are smarter then that though you fools. See how it went on sale at future shop etc for 39.99 almost immediately, twice mind you? Wow, phenomonal. This is the closest to a real review I’ve ever read. Perhaps if your readership base expands enough you will one day be approached by bioware or another with a fat check to convice you to write lies…I hope you tell them to shove it up their ass.
Shaneo
January 2nd, 2010
Bladerogers — It’s a shame you didn’t enjoy such a classic, maybe because “easy” difficulty was still too hard for your simple mind, perhaps you should look at not playing RPG’s seeing as you’re evidently shit at them. “some of the battles are insanely difficult with no forewarning.” I quote, well that’s why they put the pause system is it not? and if you truely need to noob out, just put to easy for that certain fight, if its then still to hard for you, just get the fuck off, delete every game of your computer, because you fail.
All reviewer’s that are reviewing this game at 8-9.5 are not lieing and are honest, go play Runescape which caters better to your skill level,
Shane.
lolpwnt.
bladerogers
January 2nd, 2010
LOL@Shaneo. The game sucks, the reviews are “swayed”. I lost interest when I got thrown into a battle with a dragon that completely sapped my team almost instantly near the beginning of the game actually. And the pause system is useless. Give me oblivion or sacred thanks.
ShadowE989
January 8th, 2010
“…modelled very much after the fully-excellent Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games.”
FAIL. I’m shocked we have people reviewing games who haven’t played the classics, you should know this was based on Baldurs Gate series.
“BioWare co-CEO Ray Muzyka described Dragon Age: Origins as a “spiritual successor” to the Baldur’s Gate series”
So don’t complain when it doesn’t have something your star wars game didn’t have. Having the game made based on Baldurs Gate was prob one of the best decisions the game devs made.
Anyways great game, i love it.
Sean
January 9th, 2010
Eh? Yeah, the setting is very AD&D, but the combat clearly has more in common with KotOR than it does with Baldur’s Gate. And yes, I’ve played both.
Russ
January 21st, 2010
I agree its a fucking good game, and im loving playing it. hours and hours in but still nowhere near the end.
Given the fact that I think its such a good game, id just like to know one thing. Why are the graphics on PS3 so FUCKING SHIT!?
The PS3 version of dragon age (and prob 360 too) could have looked so much better! such an amazing game with such shit visuals and frame rate stutter. Why is this?