It'll pull you in, enchant your imagination, and capture your heart. And then, it'll kill all of your free time.
Here's your chance.
In Dragon Age: Origins, you're whisked away into a mystical journey across the landscape of Ferelden - A conventional fantasy-story land full of elves, dwarfs, knights and mages, which is all being threatened by the fearsome power of the approaching armies of the Darkspawn. It is into this strange, dire, and crucial time that your character enters the story.
You choose one of six unique origin stories, two within each of the three different races (Human, Elf, Dwarf), which acts as your starting point. But this isn't just a random choice – Your origin will affect much about your character, and the choices and actions within the origin will have consequences throughout your adventure in Ferelden.
One of the most compelling features of the game is its amazing storytelling prowess. As you speak with the hundreds of characters throughout the land, you'll find that each is unique. Some want to use you, some want to abuse you, and some just couldn't care about your either way. There's no "morality meter" in the game, so you're left with your own intuition to decide what the best choice would be. This, however, is probably one of the most powerful indicators you could have.
You can go through the game as a kind, loyal soldier, always striving to do what's right, or you could be a dominating, ruthless killer, or even a conniving, persuasive schemer – The choices are all yours, and the consequences of your actions always come out eventually, and often in ways that you don't expect.
This is most apparent in your relationships with your party. In Dragon Age, you play as the leader of a party of four characters at a time, much like the system in Knights of the Old Republic. Your roster of usable characters will bolster as the story progresses, and each of these characters has their own histories, their own personalities, agendas, likes and dislikes. And since you'll be spending time with each of them, you'll find that your relationship with each of them is always a little different, from some allies who barely tolerate you, to others who you may even develop romances with. But through it all, the choices of everything are always up to you.
Back all of that up with characters that are very believable, very interactive, and seemingly very real, and you have the recipe for one of the most immersive gaming stories that you'll ever get a chance to play.
Now, the story is unbelievable, but it's backed up by a solid, well-implemented control scheme with a strategy system that's as deep as you want to make it. Using the "Tactics" menu, you can plan out your battle strategies for each character, to create a team that can support and defend one another, utilizing strengths to defeat the onslaught of enemies.
For example, if you're playing as a Warrior, whose strengths are often in taking a lot of punishment and dishing it out with heavy weapons face-to-face, you can set a Rogue up as an Archer to fight from a distance, or a Rogue Duelist to flank the enemy and stab them in the back. All the while, you can set your Mage up to heal characters whose health falls below a certain level as they fight to use their spells and enchantments from a distance.
It's a system that takes a while to learn, but works well when you understand it. I personally found it best to experiment with the different characters early on, and to then find a group that you like and stick with them. When your characters are specifically tailored to support one another, the team becomes much more powerful, and as a result, your become much more effective. The controls are very responsive, aside from some minor hiccups, but definitely be aware that the AI loves to use spells that freeze your character in one place, while simultaneously attacking you, so it's best to learn quickly to swap control to a teammate so that you can defend your disabled hero.
The graphics were very good, and the animations seemed much better than similar games such as Oblivion or Fallout 3. While there were definitely some frame rate issues here and there, it was smooth for the most part, and didn't pull you out of the action. The problems seemed to come, however, when there were more than fifteen or so different enemies on the screen at once, especially when there were multiple magic-users throwing spells all over the place, but it's forgivable.
The sound is definitely one of Dragon Age's strengths. The voice acting is top-notch, getting unbelievable performances from a high-quality acting cast. Each of the characters feels real and true to their personality, and never at any time does any of it feel forced. Add to that an epic, powerful composed soundtrack that changes with the ebbs and flows of battle and calm, and you have a rich tapestry of audio accompaniment as you march your way across the landscape.
All in all, this game is stellar. It's truly the stuff of epic storytelling – You'll laugh, you'll cry. You'll get angry, sorrowful, relieved, worried, and elated all throughout the adventure, all the while connecting with characters in powerful ways that will leave you constantly hungry for more. Your journey through Ferelden will be a memorable one, and you'll definitely want to experience it again and again.