Dragon Age: Origins

Game Info

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: BioWare

Genre(s): Role-Playing Game

Players: 1

ESRB Rating: M (Mature)

Release Date: November 3, 2009

Summary

As the spiritual successor to BioWare's "Baldur's Gate", one of the most successful role-playing games in the industry, Dragon Age: Origins represents BioWare's return to its roots, delivering a fusion of the best elements of existing fantasy works with stunning visuals, emotionally-driven narrative, heart-pounding combat, powerful magic abilities and credible digital actors. The spirit of classic RPGs comes of age, as Dragon Age: Origins features a dark and mature story and gameplay. Epic Party-Based Combat – Dragon Age: Origins introduces an innovative, scalable combat system, as players face large-scale battles and use their party’s special abilities to destroy hoardes of enemies and massive creatures. Powerful Magic – Raining down awesome destruction on enemies is even more compelling as players apply "spell combos," a way of combining together different spells to create emergent unique effects. Players develop their characters and gain powerful special abilities (spells, talents and skills) and discover ever-increasing weapons of destruction. With its emotionally compelling story, players choose with whom they wish to forge alliances or crush under their mighty fist, redefining the world with the choices they make and how they wield their power. Players select and play a unique prelude that provides the lens through which the player sees the world and how the world sees the player. The player's choice of Origin determines who they are and where they begin the adventure, as they play through a customized story opening that profoundly impacts the course of every adventure. [BioWare]

Also On The Web: Official Website

What The Critics Said

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What Our Users Said

Vote Now! The average user rating for this game is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 220 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Phalange gave it a7:
This game is similar to Final Fantasy 12, in the fact you unlock spells/abilities and then use the "Tactic slot" menu to plan our your attack. For example, you can have a tactic that goes by Self: Health < 50% --> Drink health poultice So yeah, you don't need to micromanage every single companion this way, which is quite nice! As soon as I started playing, I did get hooked on. The story is not linear, you can do sidequests, go back to most places. These things I enjoyed. However, after you "complete" an area, for example by killing all the monsters in a tower which mages occupy, the area is still bloody and does not go back to "normal". I found this quite annoying, as the same scene was stuck on the same area even though I had cleared the place of evil. Another bit I didn't like was the fact that there was only a certain amount of enemies you could train on. There were no true "random " encounters of enemies. Once you killed an enemy, it would not respawn and you could not kill it again. I did not like the fact that you could easily "mess" up your story by choosing a wrong dialogue option that may cause the NPC to turn against you or perhaps you would not be able to gain their quest now. Because of this, I saved every 10 minutes, to avoid having to go through the whole scene again if I chose a bad dialogue option. I also found it annoying that at the beginning of the game there are locked chests in which only a rogue can pick. You have the ability to pick between a rogue, warrior or mage at the start, and so if you did not pick a rogue, you would lose the loot in the chests. I found it annoying that you could not unlock all spells due to the level cap (level 25) which can only be reached by exploits, especially because the manual said there was no level cap (To unlock a spell or ability, you must level and then use the skill point) In order to get the Platinum trophy, you need to play the game 3 times. For me, the first two times took about 30-40 hours each, so yes, it is quite tedious! Another unique thing is that the race and storyline in which you begin with will alter the story somehow. For example, only Human Nobles can become a King/Queen of Ferelden - not any other storyline. Overall, I would play this game once to experience it, but it would get boring after a while, and I would not invest a lot of time into it.

Chad T. gave it a10:
Alot of people either hate this game or love it. I personally love this game. It took me awhile to get into it but once i did and started leveling my character and getting into the quests i found the whole game very immersive and addicting. Once i got going into the main quest i couldn't pull myself away from my xbox. I played it for about 3 days straight and once i finished my first playthough I found myself repeatedly going back to do things differently and changing the outcome of the game. Very good game, and once it picks up speed it never lets you go with its great storytelling and fun combat and tactics.

PC gamer J gave it a6:
A very, very heavily hyped game that does what it does solidly and with polish, but shows precious little inspiration. Voice acting is generally of excellent quality. However, dialogue is often painfully bad, with character stories dipping into territory more suited to soap opera than a heroic epic. The plot and game world are a cliched and bland Lord of the Rings pastiche; the game's locations and enemies are very generic and insipidly designed; the game engine renders the main characters nicely but natural landscapes are unacceptably crude for a supposed AAA title in 2009/10. The 'Mature' rating is maturity as understood by an adolescent, consisting of gory violence (complete with a ludicrous blood-spattering of characters), some suggestive dialogue, and some embarrasingly staged 'sex' scenes with partial nudity (yes, they keep their underwear on). NPCs stand around in the same place whatever you do. There is no day/night cycle, though it may occasionally rain. Indeed, the passage of time is completely imperceptible: the 'Blight' (the monster invasion) only spreads across the game map as you 'tick the boxes' that progress the plot, meaning there is no dramatic tension in your actions. For example: at one point you are told you may travel to another location to gain help for a possessed boy but it will cost you precious time. However, this is not true - you can wander the map as much as you like with no adverse consequences: you will not fail the quest if you go visiting sundry other locations, and the invasion will spread no further than if you made any other choice available. If you have never played an RPG before this may be a delight for you. Otherwise, it's nothing special.

Ben B gave it a4:
On the PS3, very buggy, shoddy graphics and user interface, more reading than interacting. The bugs would be okay if not for saved games being lost, for example. The graphics are dated [dare I say] by about 5 years if not moreso. (Side story: friend of mine saw the game and said, "nice graphics!" His computer can handle graphics like these. So I show him Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, SF4, LBP, Fallout 2, SG4, and other games. His "nice graphics" comment went to "wow those suck!" Eye of the knowledgable beholder.) Lastly the reading is morbidly overwhelming! I like to read books, mind you. But reading and listening to conversation shouldn't be overbearing like this. A good reason is for the re-playability. Start a new character and you have to go through so much of the same diagolue and piecemeal a viable retort .. again .. and again .. and again and again! A better solution is to follow the content and dialogue strategies of Fallout 2 and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Even Bethesda's Daggerfall followed this strategy with all its amazing content, and that was something like mid-90s! I normally wouldn't care to vote against any game. But the hype on this one is far too great for its makeup.

Niko W gave it a3:
Seriously, sooooo boring. Played almost 30 hours, took it as seriously as I could, so it's not like I didn't give it a chance: worst purchase I've made in a long time. Very overrated game.

Michael Van S gave it a9:
This game is MASS EFFECT meets Dungeons and Dragons. If you are a hack and slash gamer, you won't like this game. If you read fantasy novels, enjoy story driven role-playing games, you will love this game. The story is compelling and the game play is scalable to the level of control you wish to take. There is alot of dialogue, but unlike some negative reviewers, I don't consider that a problem. Like I said "story driven"...I don't know how you could do that without the dialogue. And some of the most hilarious moments come just listening to your party members chit-chat as you walk down the road. I recommend swapping out characters on a regular basis if for no other reason than to hear some of the hilarious lines they fire at one another! There are so many variables that rely on your starting background, you find yourself playing the opening sequence over and over, just so you won't miss any of the options. I would recommend that new players start the game using every possible combination both male and female, then once you have reached Flemeth's Hut with each; only then you can decide which character you want to play through the rest of the game with. The stories really are that good. My only complaint is the graphics could have been a little better IMO.

Chris M gave it a10:
This game scores on every category which makes an RPG great. The story is very long but ultimately satisfying, the combat is both simple and hard (if you wish it to be) through micro-management, team mates work with you, rather than against, if you configure their tactics and the graphics are adequate. Out of the previously mentioned, the only weakness is the graphics. Character models and armour details are poor, but the quality of the environment is amazing. You will find yourself standing in awe in certain circumstances. This game requires immense hours to be put in (I finished at 36 hours and mainly focused on the storyline, with a few side quests) but if you are ready to go on an epic fantasy adventure, akin to the Lord of the Rings, get this game. Just be prepared for the long haul. Absolutely fantastic!

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