2 Hour Impressions (8 hours in): Dragon Age: Origins

Note: This is usually a post I'll make after playing a game for a few hours, you know, get into the game a little, let the story start kicking, get at least an ability or two. However, in the case of Dragon Age, I went a little overboard.

Somewhat lost in the shuffle of big name FPS's and third person adventure games this year is a little ditty by a small company that goes by the name of Dragon Age. Made by Bioware, and set in a fantasy setting, I haven't seen much press or coverage on this game besides the nu-metal action sequence ad that was released a few weeks ago. Now that it's out, and now that I have it in my grubby little hands, how does it live up to the high expectations that come from the Bioware vault? I took a few hours to figure it out for you.

Starting off, I installed the disc onto the hard drive, as I usually do with games I expect I'll be playing a lot of, so everything I say is written from a 360 with the game installed perspective. I loaded up the game and downloaded the extras that came with it, which is to say the two gamestop exclusive items and the extra character that came with the game. I was personally led to believe that the extra character was an exclusive for the collector's edition, but it seems to be in just the regular game manual for the time being, so if you want it, pick it up now. After spending twenty minutes downloading a 200mb file because my internet sucks, I was finally ready to play.

This being my first playthrough, I decided to fall back on my staple "Human Warrior" class. I like getting into the action and chopping up things, so I usually go through games as some variation of that class the first time, and change things up on subsequent playthroughs. So I picked my sex(male), my race(human), and my class(warrior), and the game left me with only the option of "Human Noble" for what my origin story would be. After spending a few minutes changing up some of the facial features, and giving myself a sweet-ass 'stache and beard combo, I was ready to hop into the action.

Dragon Age: Origins is so named for the "origin" stories of each of the playable main characters. To avoid spoilers, I won't go into any of the actual story, but the origin story of our Human Noble was a nice little introduction into some of the game's mechanics, and how deep the story actually runs. And it has some "surprise" enemies that make their appearance and show that Bioware remembers their roots, as well as the roots of all old school point and click hack and slash games. And if you don't know what kind of enemy that is by that sentence, you probably won't enjoy this game.

The battle system works by (basically) running up to an enemy and hitting the A button to whack at them with your sword, or whatever variation of whacking equipment you decide to put there. There are "hotkeys" assigned to the different face buttons, and pulling the right trigger will bring up three more. The left trigger pulls up a wheel that you can perform different actions with, as well as set your skills/talent hotkeys. You can have up to four different party members at one time, and with your AI's you can set different parameters, much like the Final Fantasy XII gambit system, so you don't always have to keep switching back and forth through them, but I haven't quite figured out how to assign actions to them that will make a difference in a fight just yet.

As for the world, the history, and the other characters, this is where Dragon Age has hooked it's claws and pulled me in with reckless abandon. Not in a long time has a game sunk it's teeth into me and dragged me across it's threshold to where I don't want to stop playing for the pure and simple fact that I'm lost in it's world. Every character has a story, save the random NPCs, every story is deep, and every story is different. The backstory to the world is slowly revealed through books and random interactions with people, and you never quite know when you'll walk into an encounter. As for your interactions, this is where the game shines. It's no longer a question of black or white answers as there are black, white, and shades of grey lined up for you to choose from. This is the first game I've played where I've actually stopped and thought for several minutes prior to making a choice. Let me repeat that. I thought for several minutes, because the choice I was asked to make had a profound effect on a main plot line and the characters involved with it. There are small choices and there are game changing choices to make, and you can't change them once they are made.

I love this game so far. It's all I'd hoped it would be and more story wise, and the gameplay, while I admit would probably be easier on a PC, is strong enough not to damper my interest. While I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, if you like your RPGs hard and old school, with an epic fantasy backdrop, this game, despite minor flaws, is for you.