There's dragons in it!
As a lover of Bioware’s Baldur’s Gate series, I have had my eye on Dragon Age for a little while. The fantasy setting, the storyline and interactions led by your choice of class, everything about it pulled me in. The only thing that stopped me from jumping straight in to the deep end was a title you may have heard of called Mass Effect. While this was an excellent game I was among those that felt it was a touch on the short side, completing the main story and a large majority over three days over a Christmas break. On hearing that the amount of time need to invest in DA:O was more on par with the Baldur’s Gate, it did not take much persuading to get me to jump into Dragon Age: Origins.
As the game is so vast, playing the game to completion to write a review would be a mammoth task, so I am to write a series of journal entries over an extended period detailing my experience with the game (while trying not to spoil any major plot points), because like you guys, I like to spend some evenings shooting up people on CoD or even sometimes, not playing games at all!!!
So, shall we begin? First off is the character creation. I always have an idea of what I want to play before I start. Well, I guess basing a character on yourself is not the most original concept, I did just that. A Rogue City Elf, as handsome as he is devious much like his creator. I did not spend much time on his appearance however as my Xbox would surely RROD trying to capture such beauty. Assigning skill points can be left to the game to assign what it feels best or if you like, you can tinker with your character a little more so he fits how you like to play. I like to think myself at least an intermediate RPG player, so I opted to assign my own skills, going with some duel weapon skills and a little bit of stealth, because there is nothing like a good backstab on an unsuspecting enemy.
Playing your characters origin story takes roughly 2 hours if you (like me) investigate as much as possible and read up on the codex entries you are given upon gathering new information. So far the codex entries are not essential, but like Baldur’s Gate, all additional entries add extra colours to the game’s rich tapestry.
It’s a common complaint that graphically this game looks dated on the console versions, to be fair I can not argue with that. I have noticed a fair amount of tearing and pop in after 2 hours, this I can forgive as the rest of the game is so engaging, that the graphics almost become unnoticeable. So far I have only 2 minor gripes. I would like to have a camera view more like the PC version which can be adjusted and zoomed to suit rather than sticking to a 3rd person view. Secondly, the absence of a voice for your character is rather jarring, especially as the rest of the sound design and speech is done so well, which becomes a much more important aspect to the games.
So before my life slips away completely into Dragon Age, I best say farewell… for now. Until next time fair traveller.
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