Similar to the movie Avatar™, there was a lot of HYPE about this game and it got nearly perfect scores across the board.  Needless to say, those who enjoy fantasy/rpg games and/or movies, will most certainly enjoy Dragon’s Age: Origins.  I’m not quite sure were the “Origins” part comes from though…maybe ‘a storyline within a storyline’? I’m not sure.

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                Similar to that of Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion(ESIV), you create a character (not as a broad range of characters or classes though) of one of three races: Human, Dwarf, or Daelish (or Elves).  You then pick what beginning class you wish to be and then if you are from the city or outside.  Character customization is very through similar to that of Oblivion as you can change your eyes, personality, hair color, etc etc.  You can spend nearly an hour to create your character if you are that creative type of player.

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                Once again, similar to ESIV, the storyline is very similar(save the world type of deal :P), except in Dragons Age, you must stop evil force known as the Blight.  The Blight, at best, can be describe as the horde from the Lord of the Rings series, as there are nearly thousands upon thousands of these Blight creatures.  Before you can stop the Blight, you must unite and recruit other lands to help you and just like any other typical situations: you have to help that land first in their peril.  Don’t let the simplicity fool you though, the game alone (either the main storyline or side quests) has a beautifully written storyline.  At most times, I had a tough time putting the game down at 5AM to go to sleep (yeah the storyline is pretty deep).

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                One of the most noticeable things about Dragon’s Age is that of is its dialog….and there is a LOT and I repeat A LOT of it!  Nearly every NPC you talk to, all your allies, and narrative text is voice dialog (similar again to ESIV).  The dialog is great in detail making you feel you are listening to a good audio book or watching a good movie.  That’s not only with the main storyline either!  As you travel, your companions will occasionally spat at each other with random dialog and it will make you pause just to listen to it, it’s pretty funny.  Sometimes it’s completely random; you will never know when they’ll go off on each other.  You get quite a few allies throughout the course of the game, so the various dialogs will always differ (depending on who is in your party at the time).  Perhaps the only downside of the dialog is that your main character doesn’t speak at all.  Instead, you are offer choices to pick of what your character would say.  This isn’t really a downfall, although with so many dialogs I am surprise they do not include dialog for the main character (other than shouts, screams, a few commands like “Let us fight!”)

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                Despite with all the fantasy, fighting, and dialog; you would think this game would be for any audience, it’s not.  The game is pretty gory in a lot of battle scenes and many of the dialog is very mature and “suggestive”.  You can befriend one of your companions and Dragon’s Age knows no limits on who they are.  There’s no actual SERIOUS mature content (other wise this game would have receive a higher rating than M(Mature)), but the game is “suggestive” enough.  Some conversations could also be conflicted morally or even politically.  It really depends how you view the game.  In any case, I would not recommend this title to those who are under 17.  Yes, I know those who read this review (you know who are) will think otherwise, but this game IS intended for Mature audiences.

                Those who enjoy fantasy games will most certainly enjoy Dragon’s Age: Origins.

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Graphics: 1.000/1.000: Wonderful looking graphics.  They make me feel I’m watching a Lord of the Rings movie.  Everything is very well detailed.  Trees, lakes, facial expressions…everything.

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Sound: 1.000/1.000:  I found no faults playing this title from start to finish.  The music is very well played.  While in combat, swords clashing, fire explosions, and spells going off are done in great detail.

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Control 0.800/1.000:  The control while in combat sometimes was a tad frustrating, it got confusing at times getting my characters to do exactly what I wanted them to do (even with the auto AI which offers all different types of tactics).  The menu system is very well done and there is a lot to the game.

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Storyline: 1.000/1.000:  No question about this category!  The storyline is wonderfully well written and there are points in the storyline that will make you go OMG.   I give kudos to the people who wrote the storyline, the dialog, and everything else about this game.  It is very well done!  There are different endings that can happen in the game as well as different situations you can choose from through out the game.  So the replay value is pretty high, should you wish to replay it.

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Gameplay: 0.750/1.000:  Perhaps the only major downfall in Dragon’s Age, was its combat.  If you are not careful, you are sure to get a QUICK game over.  The most frustrating thing about the combat system was the inability to fully run away.  You could do “trick” the game by telling your allies to hold their position, afterwards, you could individually move each character safely away (assuming the enemy isn’t following you of course).  There are many situations were you have to “hit n run” so to speak.  There are encounters that will overwhelm your party if you are not careful.  Your allies AI is pretty good based on how you set it, but none of them will try to run away in the fight.  This doesn’t seriously hurt the game, but it does increase the frustration level.  One way to avoid fighting hordes at enemies at once is to have one of your archers or spell casters characters hit one monster.   Usually, that monster, and maybe a few more will come at you.  This doesn’t always work, so it’s best to save often when you can.  The games combat follows similar to Knights of the Old Republic.  So you can switch to any character you want to play, and the computer AI’s the rest.  Seeing that this has KOTOR combat system, you guessed it, pause attack, pause heal, pause attack, and so forth.  This strategy will get out you some of the most horrific fights in the game, so be sure to use it.  The game is very rich with history and presents this a feature such known as the Codex.  This is somewhat like journals which will tell you your progress of various things such as monsters, the land, and artifacts.  There is a lot to see and do in Dragon’s Age.  This is no short game. I didn’t do everything in the game, but it nearly took me 80 hours to complete it.  Be as it that may, you can nearly spend 300+ hours on this title alone.  There are many ways to approach a situation and you have three different races (and two genders) to play from.  So this game has a LOT of replayablity.  I will properly not pick up this title again because I have many games to play and yes reviews to write about them.  Whew….I’ve said a mouthful.  This game is most certainly worth its buck. Speaking of which, the game has extra content (called premium content) that you can add extra to the adventure. Sadly, the gameplay score suffers for this because it should have been added with the game to begin with. Unless you bought the special edition of Dragon's Age, you won't get this extra content.

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