(First review, decided to give it a shot)
Note that I will not be going into game mechanics such as player stats, DPS, and the like. I firmly believe that a game with great story and semi-average gameplay is better and surpasses a game with average-decent story with superb gameplay. So if this is not what you are looking for that I suggest to exit out and look at something else; your time, like everybody else's, is valuable and I will not do you the discouragement of wasting it.
Ahhh yes Dragon Age: Origins, PC game of the year of 2009. Now I love RPGs, I also believe that story precedes over gameplay in games (especially in RPGs). I liked Dragon Age: Origins, but overall it was barely above-average and didn't live up to it's expectations: "A return to classic RPGs [Baldur's Gate]", "A dark heroic fantasy", "Complex moral system." This review will prove those claims false and what really happened in Dragon Age: Origins.
But first, I will give BioWare's game a fair advantage and name some positives (not they will matter in the long run [to my eyes atleast]).
One aspect Dragon Age: Origins got right was strategy and tactics. Note that I didn't say combat here, I'm talking about the premeditation required to successfully start and be victorious in fights. Most RPGs like Mass Effect and Fable don't have a semi-complex tactics/strategy system if any at all. Most of the time (practically all cases [including bosses]) the player charges in guns-blazing (which is really stupid if you're talking about immersion here) and come out victorious 90% of the time.
Basically the player has the option to pause the game (applies to both console and PC) and from the paused screen the player can choose what specific abilities to use and control their party members' attacks and positioning. Anyone who prefers strategy, tactics, planning, etc. will enjoy this aspect of the game.
Another aspect Dragon Age: Origins got right was character. As with any BioWare game, they have the gift of making the player emotionally-attached to their characters, not all of them have to have intimate relationships either. There's a great deal of character progression here: a young manipulator turned priest troubled with past, a drunkard dealing with relationship, a foreign stern warrior with philosophies challenged, and many more. Kudos to BioWare on this.
Now let us get to the juicy bits and see me explain how Dragon Age: Origins, for all its hype and praise, failed in execution.
First the plot. Dragon Age: Origins decides to use a common recurring theme throughout most RPGs: world is in danger by evil, recruit allies, defeat evil (sound familiar? [*cough* Mass Effect 2*cough*]. It seems that both franchises (both meaning Dragon Age and Mass Effect) decided to make different franchises both based on the same story. Might be over exaggerating but it's not unreasonable, even Blizzard can make different franchises and still come up with unique storylines and lore reserved only to their specific franchise (Go Metzen!). The game's story was already spelled out in the start where the player is recruited into an organization existing to stop said evil. From there the game just leads up to the 'final battle' (lol Mortal Kombat) with extra lore to explain why one is fighting said enemy and what your organization is. Hardly innovating, this story can be written by a middle schooler (no joke).
Second, the complex moral choices. Dragon Age: Origins is hardly complex at all when around moral choices. In game there's a particular questline whose end one is faced with:
A)Sacrifice Person A to save Person B from Villain C
B)Kill Person B, which in turn kills Villain C, but makes Person A sad
C)Go to Place A and come back to save Person A and Person B, and kill Villain C
So, tell me why would a player choose Option A or B when Option C gives win/win reward? The only downside is that Option C would take longer, but really this is a RPG, the only reason why one would choose Option A or B is if you were to metagame which defeats the purpose of a RPG in the first place. There's no shades of Grey here, just Black and White. Complex moral choices, no.
Speaking of Black, White, and Shades of Grey, let's move on to the most contradictory aspect of the game, 'dark heroic fantasy'.
Dark Heroic fantasy, certainly a term that likes to be thrown about when describing Dragon Age: Origins, sadly it is not true. There is no 'dark' in Dragon Age when you have win/win situations to make everything happy (as explaining in the Complex Moral Choices segment of this review). The background/scenery is well-designed though, but this pales in comparison to the actual gameplay mechanics of role-play and immersion where one can practically turn up a win/win result in almost every single situation.
Last but not least is the immersion factor. As with all BioWare games, the NPCs tend to be a bit... how does one say it... stern, monotone. Their posture is more like statues rather than human, and the stare... the blank stare of doom. Now granted this is mostly expected (I really suggest BioWare revamp or design a new engine), but it is really immersion-breaking when the player comes soaked in blood and talks with a NPC and they reply "would you like to check out my goods?" or "[recite religious scripture]" with no attention to his/her current predicament.
So in conclusion, Dragon Age: Origins is an above average game. One will be entertained and might play it a couple of times, but classified as an epic RPG is plain false. RPGs are games who derive solely on story first and Dragon Age: Origins didn't deliver. A score? 7/10.
Note that I will not be going into game mechanics such as player stats, DPS, and the like. I firmly believe that a game with great story and semi-average gameplay is better and surpasses a game with average-decent story with superb gameplay. So if this is not what you are looking for that I suggest to exit out and look at something else; your time, like everybody else's, is valuable and I will not do you the discouragement of wasting it.
Ahhh yes Dragon Age: Origins, PC game of the year of 2009. Now I love RPGs, I also believe that story precedes over gameplay in games (especially in RPGs). I liked Dragon Age: Origins, but overall it was barely above-average and didn't live up to it's expectations: "A return to classic RPGs [Baldur's Gate]", "A dark heroic fantasy", "Complex moral system." This review will prove those claims false and what really happened in Dragon Age: Origins.
But first, I will give BioWare's game a fair advantage and name some positives (not they will matter in the long run [to my eyes atleast]).
One aspect Dragon Age: Origins got right was strategy and tactics. Note that I didn't say combat here, I'm talking about the premeditation required to successfully start and be victorious in fights. Most RPGs like Mass Effect and Fable don't have a semi-complex tactics/strategy system if any at all. Most of the time (practically all cases [including bosses]) the player charges in guns-blazing (which is really stupid if you're talking about immersion here) and come out victorious 90% of the time.
Basically the player has the option to pause the game (applies to both console and PC) and from the paused screen the player can choose what specific abilities to use and control their party members' attacks and positioning. Anyone who prefers strategy, tactics, planning, etc. will enjoy this aspect of the game.
Another aspect Dragon Age: Origins got right was character. As with any BioWare game, they have the gift of making the player emotionally-attached to their characters, not all of them have to have intimate relationships either. There's a great deal of character progression here: a young manipulator turned priest troubled with past, a drunkard dealing with relationship, a foreign stern warrior with philosophies challenged, and many more. Kudos to BioWare on this.
Now let us get to the juicy bits and see me explain how Dragon Age: Origins, for all its hype and praise, failed in execution.
First the plot. Dragon Age: Origins decides to use a common recurring theme throughout most RPGs: world is in danger by evil, recruit allies, defeat evil (sound familiar? [*cough* Mass Effect 2*cough*]. It seems that both franchises (both meaning Dragon Age and Mass Effect) decided to make different franchises both based on the same story. Might be over exaggerating but it's not unreasonable, even Blizzard can make different franchises and still come up with unique storylines and lore reserved only to their specific franchise (Go Metzen!). The game's story was already spelled out in the start where the player is recruited into an organization existing to stop said evil. From there the game just leads up to the 'final battle' (lol Mortal Kombat) with extra lore to explain why one is fighting said enemy and what your organization is. Hardly innovating, this story can be written by a middle schooler (no joke).
Second, the complex moral choices. Dragon Age: Origins is hardly complex at all when around moral choices. In game there's a particular questline whose end one is faced with:
A)Sacrifice Person A to save Person B from Villain C
B)Kill Person B, which in turn kills Villain C, but makes Person A sad
C)Go to Place A and come back to save Person A and Person B, and kill Villain C
So, tell me why would a player choose Option A or B when Option C gives win/win reward? The only downside is that Option C would take longer, but really this is a RPG, the only reason why one would choose Option A or B is if you were to metagame which defeats the purpose of a RPG in the first place. There's no shades of Grey here, just Black and White. Complex moral choices, no.
Speaking of Black, White, and Shades of Grey, let's move on to the most contradictory aspect of the game, 'dark heroic fantasy'.
Dark Heroic fantasy, certainly a term that likes to be thrown about when describing Dragon Age: Origins, sadly it is not true. There is no 'dark' in Dragon Age when you have win/win situations to make everything happy (as explaining in the Complex Moral Choices segment of this review). The background/scenery is well-designed though, but this pales in comparison to the actual gameplay mechanics of role-play and immersion where one can practically turn up a win/win result in almost every single situation.
Last but not least is the immersion factor. As with all BioWare games, the NPCs tend to be a bit... how does one say it... stern, monotone. Their posture is more like statues rather than human, and the stare... the blank stare of doom. Now granted this is mostly expected (I really suggest BioWare revamp or design a new engine), but it is really immersion-breaking when the player comes soaked in blood and talks with a NPC and they reply "would you like to check out my goods?" or "[recite religious scripture]" with no attention to his/her current predicament.
So in conclusion, Dragon Age: Origins is an above average game. One will be entertained and might play it a couple of times, but classified as an epic RPG is plain false. RPGs are games who derive solely on story first and Dragon Age: Origins didn't deliver. A score? 7/10.
