Dragon Age: Origins is a fantasy/medieval RPG, in which your character is expected to put an end to an invasion of filthy beasts, sure to take over the land.
It is a BioWare-made RPG, and since Mass Effect is what I would consider the gold standard to RPGs in this era (and also made by BioWare), I will be drawing a lot of comparisons between the two.
Gameplay: 9.0
Unique gameplay concepts - What drives the game, and what is it similar to?
Dragon Age: Origins is an RPG, and the classic conversation system is in place. You choose something to say, and the person you're talking to responds. Like Mass Effect, you also get points based on what response you say to people, but in Dragon Age you are awarded or deducted points that show how much a particular person likes you. One response or story choice might make a particular character like you, and another one dislike you.
Throughout the game you are given massive amounts of story control based on your actions. There are 5 or 6 major subplots that you all but control the outcome of, and you can see completely opposite outcomes depending on what you choose. Plus, the ability to bring in new party members, kick out or lose party members, or totally skip over them is exaggerated and actually quite enjoyable. The same can be said about quests as there are several dialogue-driven quests that you can simply arrive at an impasse because all of the parties involved think you're a jerk. Also like Mass Effect, you can develop love interests and progress those as far as you'd like, through dialogue. It's different from Mass Effect, and I think it's slightly less enjoyable to watch, but the ability to change the outcome of the story, quests and party members is far superior to Mass Effect.
Leveling up your character and choosing ability paths is also a lot of fun, particularly as a mage.
I thought their inventory management was seamless and fed into a good merchant system, where a lot of items are basically out of purchasing reach unless you dedicate a lot of your time to buying it. In an era where inventory is getting more and more cumbersome, Dragon Age did it very well.
Their biggest attraction when it came to combat was their system of customized triggers and actions, giving you ultimate battle control. On any character you can choose a trigger that, when set off, will provoke them to do any sort of action, and you can line up these triggers in a set priority so the AI teammates play as you command while you can be off doing your thing. It's an ingenious idea and should really be put into more games. Developing strategies and being forced to change those triggers is very rewarding, and finally there's a game where you have X amount of AI allies that feel like their own individual players instead of the same old predictable AI that stand in one spot and swat at something while you're the only competent person on the battlefield.
It's also cool to be able to switch between party members and play as anybody in your party at any time instead of being forced to play as your character.
My biggest complaint is that the gameplay is way too unbalanced for an experienced player. There's absolutely no reason to start the game as any class besides a Mage, because Mages are simply better than the other classes, by far. Based on my decisions throughout the game, I lost all of the Mages in my party by the end of the game and due to that, literally could not complete the game on any difficulty other than the easiest (not because I'm not good, but literally because it's not possible to win the final battle without a ranged character). Once I started my second play-through, as a mage, I dominated on the hardest difficulty and abused all of their combat tricks to gain a massive edge. The difficulty curve is just way too centered around what class you choose.
Also, 2 of the 3 classes are too similar. They would have done a lot better to balance it out a little more between ranged, melee and magic instead of being very narrow within those classifications.
The element of exploration is also severely lacking. I was hoping for a more open-world feel as opposed to auto-traveling to several tiny areas amidst a paper map.
Presentation: 4.0
Graphical and audio presentation (animation, texturing, overall look & artistic style)
Frankly, at parts, this game just looks bad. It's really hard to get into at the start partly for this reason.
The character modeling is well below average and a lot of animations/skinning are just bad. I don't know what it was about this game that BioWare decided to ax the visual presentation so badly, but it happened and it can often be very distracting.
Theatrics: 9.0
Story, Dialogue, Cut-Scenes and Artistic Use of Camera
As I had mentioned, the amount of different beginning, middle and end sub-plots to the story are wildly diverse, and you have almost full control over everything that happens throughout the game.
However, the game is really hard to get started depending on what race and background you choose (which completely alters the first 30 or so minutes of the game). I found the beginning boring and stuck through (thankfully) to play the rest of the game mostly out of curiosity.
Their voice acting is pretty good, and their cut-scenes are interesting to watch. The overall story, while decent, isn't anything more than that. The most memorable points in the story were unexpected quest outcomes.
This is a rare game where every character feels important and unique. Rarely can games pull this off, but Dragon Age does.
Controls: 7.5
Ease of Use and Smoothness of Controls
This game has a problem with very sensitive controllers. Some of my Xbox controllers, after having a lot of use, have a VERY slight drift on the movement sticks that maybe only a couple of games pick up. This is one of those games, and the undesirable action of my character walking forward when I want to stand still got irritating, especially because it cancels any attacks you've ordered.
There was also the issue of choosing a target and then not pressing anything until they arrive there and do the fighting almost automatically. You could tell it was meant as more of an MMO mold where often you tell your character to attack somebody and then use abilities (rather than move around and be more tactical about positioning), but on the Xbox it just doesn't feel right and if you play as a melee fighter you'll likely get bored easily.
They had some reasonable ideas for mapping abilities without having to access your menu, but it still could have been done better.
Replay Value: 10.0
Total Gameplay Time versus Expected
I played through 2 full times, and it's a pretty lengthy game. The ability to change quest outcomes, party member relations and even important story arcs for potentially importing into the next game (of course there will be a next game!) was a lot of fun.
Fun: 9.5
How much fun was the game?
Overall, it's a fun, memorable game, despite it's many flaws. There were rare times of frustration but they were usually due to me trying to rush through the game without properly leveling. A lot of the mage abilities, and considering there's almost no reason to play as the attacking mage, are fun to use.
The ability to play as any party member at any time is very convenient and opened up gameplay a LOT. If it was the other way around it would have made a huge, negative difference.
My Overall Rating: 9.0
Suggested Gaming Experience Level: Medium/High
What kind of experience playing video games do you need to really appreciate this game?
It is a BioWare-made RPG, and since Mass Effect is what I would consider the gold standard to RPGs in this era (and also made by BioWare), I will be drawing a lot of comparisons between the two.
Gameplay: 9.0
Unique gameplay concepts - What drives the game, and what is it similar to?
Dragon Age: Origins is an RPG, and the classic conversation system is in place. You choose something to say, and the person you're talking to responds. Like Mass Effect, you also get points based on what response you say to people, but in Dragon Age you are awarded or deducted points that show how much a particular person likes you. One response or story choice might make a particular character like you, and another one dislike you.
Throughout the game you are given massive amounts of story control based on your actions. There are 5 or 6 major subplots that you all but control the outcome of, and you can see completely opposite outcomes depending on what you choose. Plus, the ability to bring in new party members, kick out or lose party members, or totally skip over them is exaggerated and actually quite enjoyable. The same can be said about quests as there are several dialogue-driven quests that you can simply arrive at an impasse because all of the parties involved think you're a jerk. Also like Mass Effect, you can develop love interests and progress those as far as you'd like, through dialogue. It's different from Mass Effect, and I think it's slightly less enjoyable to watch, but the ability to change the outcome of the story, quests and party members is far superior to Mass Effect.
Leveling up your character and choosing ability paths is also a lot of fun, particularly as a mage.
I thought their inventory management was seamless and fed into a good merchant system, where a lot of items are basically out of purchasing reach unless you dedicate a lot of your time to buying it. In an era where inventory is getting more and more cumbersome, Dragon Age did it very well.
Their biggest attraction when it came to combat was their system of customized triggers and actions, giving you ultimate battle control. On any character you can choose a trigger that, when set off, will provoke them to do any sort of action, and you can line up these triggers in a set priority so the AI teammates play as you command while you can be off doing your thing. It's an ingenious idea and should really be put into more games. Developing strategies and being forced to change those triggers is very rewarding, and finally there's a game where you have X amount of AI allies that feel like their own individual players instead of the same old predictable AI that stand in one spot and swat at something while you're the only competent person on the battlefield.
It's also cool to be able to switch between party members and play as anybody in your party at any time instead of being forced to play as your character.
My biggest complaint is that the gameplay is way too unbalanced for an experienced player. There's absolutely no reason to start the game as any class besides a Mage, because Mages are simply better than the other classes, by far. Based on my decisions throughout the game, I lost all of the Mages in my party by the end of the game and due to that, literally could not complete the game on any difficulty other than the easiest (not because I'm not good, but literally because it's not possible to win the final battle without a ranged character). Once I started my second play-through, as a mage, I dominated on the hardest difficulty and abused all of their combat tricks to gain a massive edge. The difficulty curve is just way too centered around what class you choose.
Also, 2 of the 3 classes are too similar. They would have done a lot better to balance it out a little more between ranged, melee and magic instead of being very narrow within those classifications.
The element of exploration is also severely lacking. I was hoping for a more open-world feel as opposed to auto-traveling to several tiny areas amidst a paper map.
Presentation: 4.0
Graphical and audio presentation (animation, texturing, overall look & artistic style)
Frankly, at parts, this game just looks bad. It's really hard to get into at the start partly for this reason.
The character modeling is well below average and a lot of animations/skinning are just bad. I don't know what it was about this game that BioWare decided to ax the visual presentation so badly, but it happened and it can often be very distracting.
Theatrics: 9.0
Story, Dialogue, Cut-Scenes and Artistic Use of Camera
As I had mentioned, the amount of different beginning, middle and end sub-plots to the story are wildly diverse, and you have almost full control over everything that happens throughout the game.
However, the game is really hard to get started depending on what race and background you choose (which completely alters the first 30 or so minutes of the game). I found the beginning boring and stuck through (thankfully) to play the rest of the game mostly out of curiosity.
Their voice acting is pretty good, and their cut-scenes are interesting to watch. The overall story, while decent, isn't anything more than that. The most memorable points in the story were unexpected quest outcomes.
This is a rare game where every character feels important and unique. Rarely can games pull this off, but Dragon Age does.
Controls: 7.5
Ease of Use and Smoothness of Controls
This game has a problem with very sensitive controllers. Some of my Xbox controllers, after having a lot of use, have a VERY slight drift on the movement sticks that maybe only a couple of games pick up. This is one of those games, and the undesirable action of my character walking forward when I want to stand still got irritating, especially because it cancels any attacks you've ordered.
There was also the issue of choosing a target and then not pressing anything until they arrive there and do the fighting almost automatically. You could tell it was meant as more of an MMO mold where often you tell your character to attack somebody and then use abilities (rather than move around and be more tactical about positioning), but on the Xbox it just doesn't feel right and if you play as a melee fighter you'll likely get bored easily.
They had some reasonable ideas for mapping abilities without having to access your menu, but it still could have been done better.
Replay Value: 10.0
Total Gameplay Time versus Expected
I played through 2 full times, and it's a pretty lengthy game. The ability to change quest outcomes, party member relations and even important story arcs for potentially importing into the next game (of course there will be a next game!) was a lot of fun.
Fun: 9.5
How much fun was the game?
Overall, it's a fun, memorable game, despite it's many flaws. There were rare times of frustration but they were usually due to me trying to rush through the game without properly leveling. A lot of the mage abilities, and considering there's almost no reason to play as the attacking mage, are fun to use.
The ability to play as any party member at any time is very convenient and opened up gameplay a LOT. If it was the other way around it would have made a huge, negative difference.
My Overall Rating: 9.0
Suggested Gaming Experience Level: Medium/High
What kind of experience playing video games do you need to really appreciate this game?
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