Dragon Age: Origins (PC)

If you are a long time fan of RPGs, playing Dragon Age: Origins is like meeting up with an old friend you've not seen in years.

There's excitement, of course, and fond memories of all the good times you've had together. There's also a little bit of apprehension. Are they as fun as you remember? What if they've changed? What if it's awkward? Before long, it's 3am, you're covered in blood, and are standing atop the ruined corpse of a monstrous ogre.

Okay, maybe Dragon Age isn't that similar to an old friend, but if you've played any of developer Bioware's massive library of role-playing classics before, you'll certainly find yourself in familiar territory. You're plunged into a dark fantasy world where you must recruit allies from a selection of well realised characters, and together adventure your way through hours of game play. As with the best of their previous games (Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape:Torment), choosing which characters to take with you is tough, and everyone will have their own favourites. The characters all interact with you, as well as each other, so picking the right temperament for the party can be as important as picking the right skills. On the battlefield, there's a system called Combat Tactics that you use to manage your party's behaviour, making sure the Healers heal, the Fighters fight, and the Archers, er, arch.

It's not all about the other characters, of course, and there is a massive amount of customization you can get up to with with your hero. There are three basic classes, which are fairly typical of any fantasy game; Warrior, Rogue or Mage. As you get a bit further into the game however, you'll get the choice of several specialisations for each, so you should find a good match for whatever play style you favour. Your choice of origin path is tied to whichever race you pick, and each is a fully realised introductory quest arc. Elven traveller constantly moving from place to place to avoid the humans, or decadent human noble seducing the serving maids? The choice is yours! This has the double advantage of avoiding the usual RPG trope of “orphan thrust into adventure”, whilst also adding to the game's already considerable replay value. Before you get started you can even mess about with your character's face, with a level of customisation on par with the latest Sims game. You'll be looking at that face quite a lot throughout the game, so make sure you like what you see before you hit the play button.

There are flaws I could point out. The blood effects are a little over the top, taking it from gritty to kinda funny, the camera can be a little frustrating at times and some of the lighting effects are overdone, making you wonder if disco mirror balls come as standard in Ferelden.

Really though, these are minor quibbles, and with hours of game play, not to mention the optional premium downloadable content, Dragon Age: Origins is an epic adventure in every sense of the word.



Released on 6th November 2009 by Electronic Arts for PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Mac.

Written by Rob Kenrick.