“Sword and fantasy, with depth and detail on an unprecedented scale…”
Dragon Age Origins is a game of humans, elves and dwarves; their neccessary alliance in the face of extraordinary evil with a good amount of adventure, magic, death, lust and sacrifice thrown in for good measure. No it’s not likely to win many awards for originality yet it presents all these elements in quite a unique way. As easy as it might be to make DAO sound like a traditional RPG it really is a very unique and challenging game to summise. We have all played games that have promised unique playing experiences; this might just be the first that actually delivers on that promise.
To begin with your starting race will greatly influence how things pan out – not only will decide where you actually begin the game but it will influence how others perceive you and what you are capable of as a character. For example dwarves begin in Orzammar, the dwarven capital city, but even the events that a player will experience there will differ quite a lot form adventure to adventure. The relationships you have, your allies and your enemies will all impact on how things proceed. Some common traits will of course be evident for every adventure with dialogue playing a significant role in all cases and combat punctuating progression for all. Combat take the form of a mix between real time elements and turn based orders in which you can control the entire party. On top of that the game features an elaborate combat tactics system which almost gives complete control over the AI of party NPC at a given moment or in response to certain criteria.
Despite being a game where politics, philosophy and relationships all have their influence a lot of conflicts are resolved through combat – which is no bad thing considering how well it works. Orcs, dragons and Darkspawn will all need to be slaughtered, so having a balanced party is vital. Here the game draws comparison to many of it’s MMO counterparts such as World of Warcraft. A party will need a healer, tanks and dps members in order to succeed. Thankfully it would seem that there are plenty of viable options to choose form. I have always liked playing mages – here they have healing abilities capable of reviving fallen allies, blood magic and shape shifting functionality – taking the form of a spider, bear or swarm of bees. I think my character choice has been confirmed!!
The game is steeped in lore with races and cities all carrying lots of historical detail. The game provides this information via the codex which updates as you explore. What seems really interesting is how completely unique each race seems and indeed how they relate to each other. Visually the game looks stunning with excellent character models and wonderful environments. I am immensely excited about Dragon Age Origins, hell I was excited at the word dragon, but further investigation and discussion with some people who have played the final build would seem to suggest that we may be in for something rather special in just over a week. Let me put it another way, PC Gamer magazine have just published their review and I will leave you with the closing line from such.
“… A truly astonishing game. Vast, vivid and microscopically detailed. Dragon Age is the RPG of the decade”
Roll on November 6th
