Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, Star Wars: Knights of the Old
Republic. A company that puts all of its heart and soul into its
games, and the outcome is more than worth it. Dragon Age:
Origins is a platinum medal among gold. With an expanse of RPGs
in this past decade, it's difficult to narrow it down to the
best. But what most players agree with is that DA:O is one of
the top RPGs this decade, if not the top. The Start Up Like any RPG, you get the character selection/customization. I
first tried making a Dalish Elf, These are the elves that have
stayed in the isolated forests, hiding away from the humankind.
It started out with a nice intro to the story line and to the
Dalish Elves. After the video I immediately was thrown into
decisions, whether or not to kill a few humans wandering through
our woods. Of course I had to let them go, I know how humans
are. They also tipped me off about some ruins that I ventured
into with an elvish friend and delved right into an easy, short
intro to combat. The easy switch between the zoomed out, over
head zoom and the up close "adventure" camera view with the
scroll wheel makes the switch between combat and walking very
fluid. The first part of the game is very forgiving and eases
you into the style which I was not used to. It's like a cross
between RTS and classic Third Person, packed with lore and
action and quests. The cut-scenes are absolutely gorgeous, and
the voice acting is top-notch. My second character I made was
the generic, Human Noble. I generally don't like melee fighting
in RPGs but I decided to push this game to its limits. This
proved to be a great choice. Even the very last thing I ever
wanted to be was a lot of fun. You start off with the choice of
having your dog as a companion, and I don't know how you could
pass up a chance like that. During gameplay, you may only have 4
companions out at a time, so you're generally fighting in a
team. I decided to be a tank (defensive character) to help hold
enemies and take the blunt of the damage. The combat and tactics
were pretty easy to get used to, but the gameplay is incredibly
difficult. Graphics While playing on maxed out graphics with a new GPU from the
Radeon 5800 series, it's an incredibly beautiful game. The faces
are the best I've seen, the armor and weapons are incredibly
detailed, and the environment is gorgeous to look at. Lighting
and shading are at a perfect balance, each light has a nice glow
and the darkness is greatly contrasted. Even the fire alone is
just about the best fire I've seen in a game this far. It has
this warm, comforting glow, with a strong lick and... well, it's
really nice looking fire. The detail in the game is
unbelievable, after fighting, your characters are covered in
blood specs, as opposed to the usual clean heroes in most games.
People will notice eventually that each place, each forest, each
dungeon and cave they go through is detailed and extravagant,
along with it's contents and enemies. The game is top quality
for DirectX10 and only DX11 can beat it. It was a smart move
using DX10 though, as not everyone has a DX11 GPU (recently
released). Basically, the game is absolutely pristine. Gameplay This is one of the hardest and most frustrating games I have
ever played, except for Street Fighter and Mega Man 9. The
difficulty can be summed up as such: On the second quest, I had
four characters, full health and was ready to fight. There were
just two enemies waiting by a bridge over the swampy waters of
the Wild. I figured "hey, easy enough, just tank 'em and spank
'em." But no, I was mistaken, those two led us through bear
traps and a multitude of more enemies. They overtook us time
after time after time. It must have taken five tries to get by
them finally. Within the first half hour of the game! On normal
difficulty! It's a great challenge. One feature that really took
some time to get used to was the tactics. This bundle of menus
determines what your character does when a certain event
happens, such as if you character's health is below 20% they
will use a special block move. This really comes in handy for
big fights where you can't really keep track of everything every
second. Besides the occasional, jaw-gnashing difficult parts,
the game is pretty straight forward and simple. Completing
quests, continuing the storyline, gaining levels and skills,
improving armor and weapons, it's your no-surprises RPG. But
what you don't always come to see is the fantastic, unique,
engrossing storyline. This rich tale sticks out in the RPG world
because it's so original and detailed. The Blight (a bunch of
ugly, gray-ish guys) come around and try to kill everyone every
couple of hundred years. They were old Magi that tried to take
the heavens, but were defeated and cursed. There is an
arch-demon that leads the blight and he must be defeated to end
it. The Grey Wardens are a group of fighters that work to defeat
the Blight with the help of the people, and you become one of
these last Grey Wardens. You must work with three other
fighters/adventurers (whomever you pick up) to delve further
into the world with quests and objectives and fights. And yes,
much like Mass Effect, there is a sex scene involved, it
probably won't be in the news quite as much because there's no
aliens involved. But anyways, the gameplay is fantastic, easy to
get into, incredibly challenging and fun, and the storyline is
great. Each time you start a new character, you're thrown into a
completely different starting are with different choices and
quests. As you progress, you choose your path depending on what
you decide to do, so you could play through the game twice in
two totally different ways. The replayability is staggering,
because not many other games give you this much decision. The
fact that it is solely one player doesn't hinder the experience
at all, and in my opinion is a better route to go, it would just
feel weird playing with other people. Compared to other RPGs,
Dragon Age: Origins is a gem; it has taken everything we love
about RPGs and perfected it. BioWare knows how to make a great
game, and I look forward to any sequels of this fantastic game. Ratings Graphics - 9.5/10 Audio - 10/10 Story - 10/10 Gameplay -
9/10 Replayability - 10/10 Final Score - 9.7/10 Required Specs/Recommended Specs (Vista/7) CPU Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater/Intel
Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent RAM 1.5 GB or more/4 GB GPU ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater/ATI 3850 512 MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater/NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or
greater Hard Drive 20 GB free or more
