Dragon Age:Origins Review
Introduction
Dragon Age has been called the ’spiritual successor’ to Baldur’s Gate 2, the old Forgotten Realms PC RPG from the 90’s. BG2 was one of the games that launched BioWare to success. Can Dragon Age live up to this fantastic claim or will it fail at establishing a new franchise?
Gameplay
Dragon Age plays like most RPG’s, there is nothing new here. Your characters have hit points that let you know how close to death they are and mana/stamina that lets you know how many more special moves they can perform. They gain experience and level up, unlocking new and more powerful abilities with which to smite their foes.
The tactics or scripts that you can program your party members with are really bad. You only get four by default and have to go out of your way to spend skill points on them to make them better. Even then they do not seem to work that well. At one point my caster who was set to behave as a ‘Ranged’ character ran ahead of my fighters and into a room full of mages. She then proceeded to promptly die; go figure. This makes the game more difficult than it should be.
The game’s menus can seem a little confusing at first but before long you will find yourself navigating them with ease. Inventory space can become an issue unless you purchase the DLC that rewards you with a storage chest upon completion.
Presentation
Though the game is fun to play its graphics are lacking. Within the first hour I was seeing some conversation portraits clipping through chairs or walls along with pre-scripted NPC’s walking through each other. Things like that should not happen when a studio like BioWare is behind a title. We have come to expect better from them.
During one cut scene that involved the whole party, one of the character models just disappeared. He was not there but there was a big empty space where he should have been. At another point during a dialog tree the person I was talking to just quit talking. The audio stopped. That is when I decided it would be a good idea to turn on the sub titles.
Even though these technical issues can cause the game to be difficult to enjoy at the best of times, there is still a great story with unforgettable characters hidden in there. The quality of story telling and world crafting is superb; it is where the game shines!
Extras
Dragon Age:Origins is an old school single player RPG. It brings back the dungeon crawling and dragon slaying from the glory days of yore. Unfortunately that means there is not any co-op of any kind but this is fine because the game is designed and written for one person to enjoy.
If you purchase Dragon Age new you will be rewarded with download codes for DLC that is provided on day one. This DLC will run the used game purchaser $15. There have been issues with some of the DLC not conveying the ‘rights’ to play them without connecting to EA Servers. This makes it impossible to load those saved files while offline. This is unacceptable.
Rants and Raves
Rants
- The graphics are sub-par given what BioWare has already done.
- Technical glitches are rampant in this title, they ruin an other wise excellent story and captivating characters.
- Being unable to play the game while not connected to Xbox Live is unacceptable.
Raves
- The characters and the way they interact is very well done.
- The story of the game, while not anything new, is good and well executed.
Conclusion
Dragon Age:Origins is a great role playing game that is tossed into mediocrity due to technical issues that are very hard to look past. With a compelling cast of actors voicing genuinely interesting characters and a strong story it is hard to find Dragon Age not appealing. I want to love Dragon Age, I really do, but I can not side with the majority of critics on this one. The story and world have so much potential but it is squandered by unacceptable issues.
Score: 6.5
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