Yes, after much waiting and anticipation, I finally got my hands on the game of the season - Dragon Age Origins, thanks to one kind vendor who had managed to ship it down. I started the game and yesterday and it's been 10 hours of game now. What do I think of it? Well, so far it's not quite the game the hype made it to be.

The game universe is quite large, not very different from the Oblivion or Fallout games. It's the basic fantasy role playing game, with all it's machinery. The storyline is darker and more engaging than Oblivion and the game seems more story driven than Oblivion... In a way, I think it's a good thing, since I can enjoy the storyline and not be distracted to hell, like I got in both Oblivion and Fallout 3. The combat system is much better than Oblivion and allows for more satisfying battles, rather than the half hearted attempts in Oblivion. Also, the inventory management and Quest/Information management feels more comfortable.

On the flip side however, the game scales much less. Frames rates dropped at 1280x1024 resolution with no bells and whistles and it still looked worse than CoD 4 at the same setting. I could even crank up CoD4's setting with x2 AA and x2 AF and still enjoy a stutterless experience. The textures were incosistent - there was smooth texturing for most part, but there were places where the bad texturing became an eyesore.

The game is also pretty glitchy. The character would get caught on the edges of obstacles, like logs or rocks. You wouldn't even notice that there is an obstacle there and yet find your character stuck. I found the other obvious glitch when I was fighting a large monster. The monster would strike the ground long after I had moved away from the spot and yet I would lose HP... or it would do a headbutt and I'd easily dodge it; the monster would ram into the wall, but still my character took the toll. Pretty irritating that.

Overall, except for the combat system and a more streamlined storyline, I find little that stands out in the hype fest. Of course, it is not bad... in fact far from it, but then it's not all that revolutionary or stands-out-of-the-crowd kinda game, either.

I'd give it somewhere between 8 and 9. However, I have to play the game more to actually find out how good it. Storylines are an important factor for such games, and a good one can surely sway my opinion... just the way Mass Effect did(having little novelty and not a very deep gameplay, but an incredibly awesome storyline)

How did you find the game?

See you next time... probably with the review.