Wednesday 18 Nov 2009

Life is full of decisions. The outcome of those decisions will shape you and the people around you. It can bring happiness, sadness, joy and fear. Some decisions can be as easy as deciding what colour socks to wear, while others can be as hard as deciding who will live and who will die. Dragon Age: Origins will toy with your emotions. You will choose who will live or die and you will cry when you make your choice. Play with tissues close by!

Dragon Age: Origins has been classified by Wayne as a “time-sink” (patent pending), and rightfully so. You get so entirely immersed in the world, the history, the sights, the sounds, the people, the little blood splatter patterns, the beautiful flowers in the field, the way the eyes of the characters seem so real…what was I saying again? Oh yes, you get so immersed in the world of Ferelden, where Dragon Age plays out, that real life skips by like a pebble on a lake. So much time has been spent on creating a world that is realistic in a fantastical way. It’s amazing they managed to do all this in only five years. To do this game justice, you will probably need to play the game for at least five more.

The land of Ferelden has been overrun by the Darkspawn, a horde of orcish monsters not dissimilar to the horde in the Lord of the Rings. This blight has been stopped before by a group of warriors known as the Grey Wardens, but the people of the land have become complacent and this makes it the perfect time for some uglies to run around the countryside, scaring babies and burning down houses. This sets the scene for Dragon Age. Depending on which character you choose, your introduction will be different but eventually the stories come together to the main plotline.

Never ending story

One of the main characters in the game is definitely the story itself. So intricately woven is it that for fear of having it unraveled in my review I will simply mention that she is a stunning woman with a sense of humour and a bloody sword on her back: you want to get to know her, but are wondering why the sword is still dripping with blood…The story is also evolving. Depending on your actions and choices, she will adapt and sometimes strike back with great vengeance. Yes, she will make grown men cry!

Your character is fully customizable at the beginning of the game. Choosing between human, elf and dwarf, you also choose your sex, hair style, colour, accent etc. Thankfully the games beautiful characters are not being exploited like some fighting games (yes, I am looking at you, Soul Calibur) and the women characters appear sophisticated and respectfully proportioned. You also choose your class and initial attributes, but specializing your character only comes later as they learn more skills. Depending on your skills and class, the people of the world will treat you differently, so decide what type of person you want to become.

If it aint broke, don’t fix it

Combat is classic RPG fare, and is all that much better off for it. You can have a party of up to four, and you can directly control each person’s actions. But controlling one character in a game as complicated as this would be as hard as solving a Rubik’s cube with one hand. Picking the right mix of skills in the different characters is also vital for survival. Some magic healing, some strong soldiers, and maybe a pet War Dog named Lumpy just for some funny chatter among your party.

Harking back to the days of Baldur’s Gate you can pause the game, hand out orders to each character and then un-pause to let them rip into the enemies. Often a battle will be over in 10 or 20 seconds of game time, but due to my obsessive nature the battles will take closer to 5 to 10 minutes in real time. Some boss battles take a LOT longer. Alternatively you can simply control your own character and let the rest fend for themselves. On easy difficulty this would not be such a big problem. On Medium and Hard difficulties this will not only be silly, but it will be impossible to press on alone. And yes, you will end up alone as they will not survive the visceral and bloody battles.

The difficulty of Dragon Age deserves a special mention. Dragon Age: Origins can be tough. There are times when Easy is not easy enough and there are times when Hard is a cakewalk, but overall you will feel challenged enough on Medium and a real sense of achievement after each battle. Just make sure you save often (that is my free tip of the week). I played on Medium difficulty. You can change the difficulty from the menu at any time, and this will take immediate effect. So when you get to those battles where you feel like pulling out your hair, simply tone down the difficulty, beat them baddies and turn it back up. On numerous occasions I was faced with a decision, and I chose the Easy way out. When a game is this long, and has so much narrative and so many battles, it makes no sense to struggle through the same battle over and over, failing repeatedly. I want to get to the good stuff!

It’s all in the details

The Dragon Age world is extremely detailed in every aspect. The monsters are horrifying, and their animations are varied enough to not make it look like a Saturday morning cartoon. The magic spells are carefully crafted and make Harry Potter look like Liewe Heksie. The armour glistens in the sun, blood splatters onto our heroes and trees cast a soft shadow in the meadows. You will get to kill your staple monster in any RPG, the garden variety rat. You will also face terrifying dragons (yip, the title is not false advertising).

Every character has a detailed story too. Every town has its residents, each with their own story. And it’s not simply a “Hi! I’m a farmer” type of story. Imagine something more akin to: “My name is Georg. I am a sweet potato farmer. Been a farmer my whole life. This is my wife, Hannah. We have been on this farm since my father left it to me. He was killed by the Darkspawn. See that skull over there? That’s the skull of the orc who dared to use his sword against my family.”

Conversations never feel like a chore that you have to listen through. You want to listen to what people have to say. The voices are superbly casted and a mix of well known stars with unknown plebs makes for the perfect concoction of emotion. The only issue I have is with the way you interact in the conversations. Firstly, your player character never speaks, but this is understandable as the player can be any race or gender in the game that would make recording these voices a nightmare. But it still feels a step back from Mass Effect where you could choose your response before the other character has finished speaking. This made for more naturally fluent and cinematic conversations. Your conversations will also lead to your party members liking or disliking you, even forming romantic relationships with you.

Man, I wish I could tell you more but I will ruin it for you. I realize I am ranting about the story and how it grabs you by the hand and leads you away. That’s what gaming is all about: escapism. And in Dragon Age: Origins it all comes together to offer you the perfect escape from real life. It is a beautiful tale of battles and loss and love and here I go again. Suffice to say it is a powerful story. It is huge and will suck time away from you unlike any other single player game. If you choose to stick to the main plot, you will finish the game in around 50 hours. If you choose to stray into the side quests this will stretch to more than 150 hours I am told. So be sure you take a few days off work to enjoy this game! That’s what I did! I call it Game of the Year on PC.

The good: There be dragons!
The bad: Grown men will cry.
The ugly: Don’t save at your peril… no really, you have been warned!

Rating:
Contributor:	Oltman

Purchase: