Bioware gave birth to yet another, beautiful child. They named it Dragon Age: Origins.
Among other things, the player gets to choose from one of 6 origin stories. Each story offers a completely different gameplay experience. First of all, your decision affects the way other characters interact with you. Also, each origin has its own special "area" where your choice reaches its full importance. For example, a noble dwarf will have a much more interesting and satisfying experience in the dwarven city of Orzammar then a casual human. Nevertheless, each origin offers a lot of fun and excitement, which combined with lots of different moral choices and dialogue options makes Dragon Age an extremely re-replayable game.
The player will have to make many important decisions. The game forces you to choose between morality and usefulness, which (depending on your game style) can either be very simple or extremely difficult. Each decision has its own consequences which can be seen at the end of the game. Even some of the minor choices and stories will be concluded at the Prologue. Unfortunately, some of the decisions don't seem to give the player anything more than satisfaction. For example, in some cases refusing to accept the reward for completing a mission doesn't benefit the player in any way at all, mainly because there is no "morality bar", which makes being good/being bad an idea, rather than an actual part of the game. Also, the majority of your companions have the tendency to do "the right thing", which makes the game a lot more difficult for evil characters, which is a problem in a lot of Bioware games.
The characters are my favourite part of the game. Each of your companions and NPCs has their own unique personality. The characters range from comedic dwarves to emotionless "tranquils", mages who had lost the ability to show their emotions. This creates a massive diversity of themes in the game. Not only that, each of the important characters is deeply developed, which sometimes grabs the player by the throat and enables for a different experience each time you play the game. Everything about the companions is perfect - the voice acting, the background and their attitude make this game what it is.
The gameplay itself is satisfying, although definitely not revolutionary. Depending on the game difficulty, the player can either mindlessly hack through the enemies or take a more strategic approach, which will appeal to many different types of people. The bad side of playing Dragon Age on the console is that the strategy aspect is very limited, which makes the game almost impossible to beat on the hardest difficulty level. Therefore, I'd advise you to play the game on the PC if you're looking for a challenge. Otherwise, you'll probably not enjoy playing the game on Nightmare.
The world is big and richly detailed, which allows the player to do exactly what they want to do. The downside to this is that the game levels are very lineral, which makes the game look ridiculous in some places because of its invisible walls. This is by no means, however, game-breaking.
The music is beautiful and blends in well with the environment. It creates the right atmosphere in the right places. The game isn't too visually advanced, but some of the designs make it pleasing for the eye.(*cough*Morrigan*cough*)
In conclusion, Dragon Age: Origins is a fantastic, addictive game which is a must-have for any RPG lover. It will provide you with hours of fun. Buy it now! I know you want to...