Dragon Age: Origins (2009) by BioWare

Dragon Age: Origins drops you head-first into the deep-end of the grim, troubled world of Thedas

Most of the gamers that are going to purchase Dragon Age: Origins know exactly what they're getting into. They're likely to be either old school PC gamers with love for the Baldur's Gate series or a younger, fresher class of gamers that have enjoyed BioWare's more recent Mass Effect series. I'll preface this review by letting you know right now that if you fall into one of these two categories and for some reason haven't yet purchase this game, you need to buy it immediately, because you will be hopelessly enthralled by it. You don't even need to read the rest of this review. Just go get it. For those not familiar with any of BioWare's other games, or those who have played only more recent RPGs and enjoyed them, read on.

Dragon Age: Origins' most important strengths are the story, ambiance, and characters. Lead writer David Gaider came from a job in hospitality services to begin writing for Dragon Age years ago, but his lack of proper experience certainly hasn't hampered him in the slightest. He's brilliant. The world building is a particular strength; it's amazing, and the art team supports Gaider and his team's writing very well. Every structure has an apparent age to it, and everything feels well-worn. It doesn't just look like the structures and settings have a history behind them, it feels like it, and the game certainly helps out the feeling by providing a detailed history codex providing further detail on everything you encounter in the game. We're talking about a Tolkien-esque level of effort put into developing the lore behind this game. I was shocked to learn that I hadn't even seen combat yet in nearly two hours of playing the game simply because I was so engulfed in reading every entry provided to me in the game's encyclopedia. For gamers like me who enjoy this sort of thing, it's fantastic. If you ever feel bogged down by the constant codex entry notifications, don't worry, because you're free to go about your way without ever delving too deep into the historical aspects of the world, and the game doesn't at all punish you for neglecting it. Nearly anything you need to know by means of storyline will come up in conversation anyway. A realistic, living world is always nice, but the true value of this lies in how many different ways your choices actually affect this world. There's no good and evil meter to gamify and cheapen them, and your choices all affect the land of Ferelden in a very real way.

Another strength of the game is the richness of the characters. The nuances of your main character will be more or less shaped by you, and while that's a good thing, I would've liked to have heard spoken dialogue for my character rather than have him go the silent protagonist route. I thought BioWare did a fantastic job with how they allowed a healthy mix between player construction and static, unchangeable attributes regarding Shepard in Mass Effect. I wish they would have steered the main character of Dragon Age more toward that end of the spectrum. Aside from that gripe, the rest of the cast of characters are simply fantastic. All have deep, fully realized personalities and feel as genuine as a character from a great novel. There are no Vaans or Penelos in this game. Each character has their quirks, their strengths, and their weaknesses. The characters are so lifelike that you'll end up legitimately liking or disliking them after only a few conversations, and that's one of the real strengths of Dragon Age. It's all due to the fantastic writing done by Gaider and his team.

The gameplay is almost what you'd expect from a classic cRPG. It's very much like Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, KOTOR, etc. If you're familiar with the combat in those games then you'll be able to step in to Dragon Age and feel right at home. If not, then you'll need to make a bit of an adjustment to this style of game. You can pause and micromanage, queueing up actions for your various party members if you wish, or you can set the AI to do what you'd like it to and let your party run on autopilot without pausing the action at all. At lower difficulties the game doesn't punish you for playing either way, though once I pumped up the difficulty I found it almost a necessity to utilize the pause-and-play micromanagement style. The way you choose to play will depend strictly on what type of gamer you are.

Make no mistake, this game was meant to be played on a PC. The graphics are absolutely atrocious while playing on a console, and it's obvious that the devs designed for a PC and then ported to the consoles -- A stark and unfortunate contrast to most titles nowadays. The graphical level of the XBOX 360 version of Dragon Age is equivalent to those of the first Mass Effect's now infamous pre-texture pop-ins. There is surprisingly little detail in the texture, and framerate has a terrible tendency to grind to a choppy halt at random intervals -- even when there isn't all that much going on onscreen. This, sadly, looks very much like a game that belongs back in 2005 or so. The PC, however, is very different, with much nicer textures and environments. The use of a hotbar and the tactical overhead view on the PC also favors that platform. The radial menus on the consoles are decent enough once you get used to them, but the hotbar is infinitely more effective, flows more continuously, and is far more comfortable to use. When you consider the amount of user-generated content available for this game in the form of mods, it's really no comparison. Rejoice, PCMR: This is a game created primarily for old-school, hardcore PC gamers.

There is, however, an issue to be had with the bugs present in the retail version of this game. Several times your character will get stuck on a bump or smooth rock on the ground, causing them to run in place continuously until you move them away manually. There's also an issue with your controlled character not responding to an attack command. Little things like this take away from the experience of an otherwise quality game, which is unfortunate, but now easily correctable with bug fix mods.

If you're a fan of BioWare's previous titles or old school cRPGs in general, this game has a very good chance of becoming an instant favorite of yours. It's not for everybody, though. Those who find RPGs to be a bit too slowly paced or plot heavy for their liking will probably be instantly turned away from this game. But if you can look past the faults of the game, there's a wonderful experience to be had with this title, and I'm sure I won't be done playing this for a long, long time.

In conclusion, this is a love letter to old school CRPGs like Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate II, and the like. If you liked those games, you'll absolutely love this one. If you're an RPG fan in general, it's absolutely worth a purchase, as the story, world building, and characterization is second to none. You'll just have to get used to the overhead, tactical style of gameplay.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Note: This review was originally composed on November 4, 2009 for a now-defunct publication and focused on both the console and PC versions. It was then updated in November 2014 to modernize some references and make it more palatable for a gamer considering the title in the modern day.