If You Dont Have Dragon Age: Origins Yet Your Missing Out on One of The Best Games of All Time
I held off on getting Dragon Age: Origins because I honestly have never had an interest in Bioware games. The combat looked to slow, the story sounded boring and even though critics hailed the game some gamer reviews made me wait for a little bit, and I am sad that I waited so long.
Character Creation: The CC in this game is 1 of few things that actually bring the game down. There are 3 races to choose from and out of those you can choose to be a Templar, Rogue or Mage. Though you can customize your face if you mess with even the nose it ends up looking dumb and there are only about 5 hair styles to choose from, so it is very limited. If you have a character in mind later on you will get cool gear that covers up anything you didnt like but for the most part you are stuck with the bad hair do's. 5/10
Story: Every character has a different origin story, each which can take 2-3 hours to complete, after that you are on the same story path though how the story unfolds is completely up to you. If you want certain people to like you and others to fear you well your actions can make it that way. If you dont want someone in your party just tell them no or leave them at camp. Other characters involvement in the story is entirely up to you. I played a Mage and thought the origin story was great, the main story gets even better where your character becomes a fighter of evil beings known as Dark Spawn and you embark on a journey to try to get other nations to help you fight them off. 10/10
Characters (NPCs): The characters you meet up with in this game are amazing guys, though sometimes you meet people you dont like or even hate there is usually an option to kill them off. If you like a male or female your traveling with you can give them gifts and talk to them more, try to sweet talk them and eventually you can form a relationship. Some will give you items as a love token, you can even sleep together, but how this works out goes off of how you treat them. It might sound nerdy but you will find yourself thinking about the friendships you formed in game even when not in the game, when going to bed at night you will think about what you and your group do tomorrow and the only bad part about this is knowing that sooner or later...its gonna end. 20/10
Gameplay: The gameplay is great, not quite an action game but not a turn based RPG either, you can let the other party members attack how they want and set up Tactics for them so they will use different attacks in different situations. Like you can set your Templar (warrior) to taunt when a teamate is being attacked by 2 enemies, make your mages stay back and fight from a distance etc., the choice is yours. Maybe not as fast paced as action players are used to but the system works and works well, it has some glitches here and there but most of the time it makes you feel powerful and is fast enough you stay interested. At first you can only take on 2-4 enemies at a time but as you get stronger your party of 4 can take on 16 enemies at a time if played right. 10/10
Graphics: Though I hear the graphics on the PC are more crisp than on the 360 the graphics were great all the way around. There are no CGI cutscenes, the gameplay graphics are the same as the cutscene graphics, though I like that because I think it gives you the sense that these characters are real. Overall the graphics are great 9/10
Audio: The music in this game is great, it gives you that dark medieval feel. The sound effects are amazing as well, when you cast a lightning attack it sounds like thousands of birds whistling (CHIDORI!!!!!) and when you burn someone they scream and run around like a chicken with its head cut off. All in all a great soundtrack was put together by this team. 9/10
Overall: Dragon Age: Origins might not be the perfect game, and it might not appeal to everyone, but if you havent played this game because you havent liked RPGs in the past, or even if it just didnt look good to you, go pick this game up guys. The PC version is supposed to be the best and if any of you like RTS games the PC version offers a way to command your characters like an RTS, but if you cant play the PC version on full graphics get the 360 or ps3 versions. The ps3 version is supposed to look a little better but the 360 version is great as well, just dont miss out on this game. The sequel comes out in a month and I am 25 hours in with only 45% of the world explored so pick it up asap because I promise you, like myself, will be there March 8th when the sequel is out.