1. DanielF

   10

   Having played many RPG games over the last 20 years or so (yes I know... dating myself :)) I have to admit this game threw me a little askew at first. Very little concentration on traditional magic in a fantasy game.. hmm... A bit odd there... but then I remember stories like George R.R. Martin and some of the later works by Raymond Feist and I remember the most intriguing parts of any story isn't the powerful magic, but all the plots and subplots.. the twists and turns behind every quest and subquest. Delving a bit deeper into the storyline I really had a difficult time remembering that I was playing a game and not witnessing a rich story unfold from a fictional text. The story is immense, the combat challenging, and the replayablility makes me wonder why more games can't be like this. Kudos go to the Bioware team that developed this game and Kudos to anyone who takes the time to pick up this fantastic game. I can't wait to see all the additional content that will be developed for this game by the community.… Expand

   • Helpful?

     7 of 7 users said yes
2. Necrotaur

   5

   Bland and boring is the best way I can describe it. From the contrived storyline, to the setting which borrows heavily from other works of fantasy and real life, I felt like I was thrust into a world that was a boiled down, flavorless version of every fantasy story ever told. I do give them credit for not making D&D: Sword Coast vol. XXVI, and the Origin system was a great idea. The characters are pretty good as is the interaction between them. Mechanics-wise DA:O is good - combat is tactical and fun, though I still can't figure out how, in 2009 (2011 as of this writing), Bioware STILL hasn't been able to come up with a decent inventory system. Probably the worst aspect of this game were the uberdungeons of the Fade and Orzammar, which single handedly dissuaded me from doing another playthrough. Bottom line, it's not the spiritual successor to BG it was billed as, but you may find some elements you enjoy.… Expand

   • Helpful?

     3 of 6 users said yes
3. LeahR

   3

   Most overrated RPG of the year. The AI is terrible. Left alone, it will either sit around doing nothing, which means you go nowhere if you�39;ve chosen to play a ranged or back-line support class--or else it will rush blindly into enemies, leaving you to perform damage control and clean up behind as it continues to charge forward without pause. If you play on anything above casual difficulty, you'll fight the AI every step of the way and end up having to constantly micromanage your party. The game offers "tactics" slots which you can use to assign conditional behavior patterns to NPC teammates, e.g. "Heal yourself if your health gets below X%," yet for some insane reason, you have to spend skill points to unlock these tactics slots. Essentially, you must spend skill points to make the AI slightly less stupid. The tactics also need far more flexibility and generality, e.g. "Use any debuff skill not on cooldown" instead of "Use specific skill X." Because of this, the tactics end up being mostly useless on harder difficulty levels and require you to micromanage the team anyway. On top of these gameplay issues, DAO has a ridiculous amount of dialogue, even by Bioware's verbose standards. It's well-written dialogue, for the most part--but it's still redundant jawing. Too much of the narrative is talked about rather than shown in action. This tendency to tell rather than show has been creeping deeper into each successive Bioware game for years, but it feels like DAO finally crossed the line into self-indulgent writing. Ultimately, the game is simply formulaic: it's the same linear, on-rails RPG with the same linear, on-rails dialogue "choices" which are supposed to give us the illusion of making moral decisions in tense, finely-shaded conflicts. Bioware has been making this same well- (if over-) written, painstakingly-realized, yet ultimately stultifying and narratively-funneled game for years. While playing, I kept thinking how cinematic the game felt, and how much more I would have enjoyed it as an animated film, or a novel. Dragon Age: Origins is a throwback RPG addled by last-gen gameplay and self-indulgent, tedious writing.… Expand

   • Helpful?

     10 of 33 users said yes

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