Dragon Age: Origins
Game Info:
| Platform: | PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation3 |
| Developer: | BioWare |
| Publisher: | Electronic Arts |
| Players: | 1, Online Play |
| Format: | 1 DVD9 |
| Gallery: | |
| Minimum Req.: | Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 DUO/1.8GHz AMD Athlon64 X2 1 GB RAM 20 GB Free HD space 128 MB DX9.0 video card |
| Reviewer's Machine: | Windows Vista Ultimate x64 Intel Core 2 Quad processor @ 3.8GHz 8GB DDR-SDRAM 300GB WD Raptor hard drive 2GB ATI Radeon 4870x2 video card |
Editor review
As close as you can get to Baldur's Gate III
|
The mid to late 90s was not a very popular time for the computer roleplaying game. While its console counterpart was carving out its best era ever, the CRPG crowd was seemingly left languishing for a golden era of its own. Their prayers would soon be answered by a gaggle of developers determined create a resurgence of RPG goodness for the rapidly evolving PC gaming scene. One of the more high profile titles leading the charge was from then little known developer BioWare with their new franchise, Baldur's Gate and the rest, as they say, is history. The CRPG scene today is looking about as dismal as it did during those turbulent times and just our luck, a game being hailed as the spiritual successor to the venerable Baldur's Gate has made it out to the masses. While I doubt that any one game is going to save CRPGs as a whole, Dragon Age: Origins is certainly an example of how great this subset of the genre can truly be. Despite the fact that Dragon Age has no ties to the Dungeons and Dragons universe, BioWare has weaved an engaging swords-n-sorcery story and presents a variety of choices that can affect how the plot progresses. The game takes place in Ferelden, a young nation still reeling from a bloody invasion by a neighboring country. The war has left the nation in a fragile state, leading to a brewing internal power struggle between the nobles. To make matters worse, there are signs of yet another invasion, this time by hordes of merciless demons appropriately called Darkspawn. No, it's not just your imagination, the story is a little derivative of a certain Tolkien epic, but there's enough originality here to make up for the similarities. Political intrigue, unlikely allies, and betrayal are but a few of the things you will experience during your adventures and you will be charged with making many important decisions. The early parts of the game are dependent on your choice of race for your character and guarantees a unique experience for first couple of hours since each race features different backgrounds and starting areas. All of the paths will eventually lead to the same conclusion, but don't let that dissuade you from being a little ballsy with your choices. BioWare's writing truly deserves a lot of credit particularly with the dialogue. There are really no right or wrong decisions, but the more brash responses really showcase the wit and humor of the writers, so don't be afraid to experiment a little. Veterans of the Baldur's Gate series will be thrilled to know that behind Dragon Age's fancy new graphics engine lurks the same core gameplay with a few tweaks made for the sake of accessibility. Instead of the usual six character party, you are now limited to four; a decision that was probably made to reduce the amount of micromanagement and it does exactly that. The long winded dialogue found in the Baldur's Gate games have been shortened considerably without severely affecting the delivery of important plot points. The action has been dialed up considerably, so there's no shortage of places to explore and people to beat down. Combat is real time and can be stopped with the spacebar in typical BioWare style to assess a situation or issue orders to individual members of your party. As with many other RPG franchises before it, the game is being marketed to the mainstream gaming crowd, but make no mistake, BioWare has made no compromises when it comes to retaining the intricacies of combat. Many battles, whether early on or later in the game are not forgiving of hack-and-slash rush tactics which will undoubtedly turn off a lot of casual gamers who aren't used to dying in their games. Those who persevere, however, and decide to take advantage of their party's strengths and form cunning strategies will be in for a rewarding experience. If you're still getting your butt kicked, never fear; as you can tweak the difficulty in real time to coast through the tougher battles. It's also worthwhile to note that even though Dragon Age is a multiplatform game, there's nary a hint of consolitis in either the interface or gameplay; definitely a big plus in this age of craptastic ports. The graphics engine is easily the game's biggest selling point with its highly detailed character models and environments. The characters are rendered startlingly lifelike particularly in the cutscenes and come complete with every piece of equipment worn. The environments are varied and detailed, but the texture quality is a little disappointing especially when compared to the character models. They're far from terrible, but since they do make up the majority of the game world it would have been nice to have some higher resolution textures. Lackluster textures aside, the biggest offender in this game is decidedly more elementary: the camera. The console versions of the game are played permanently in a third person, behind-the-back view, similar to Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic while the PC version has the exclusive and nostalgic, Baldur's Gate isometric angle as an additional option. In theory, the isometric view is the optimal angle to play the game, but in reality it simply fails. It's obvious that this "exclusive" perspective is nothing more than an afterthought added late into the game's development cycle to appease the Baldur's Gate fans. While it does give the player a strategic vantage point, it only works in wide open spaces and even then it will demand constant manipulation to properly navigate through areas. Should you find yourself in a confined space, say, within city walls or among dense residential areas, the camera becomes utterly useless. For some odd reason, objects obstructing the camera's path don't become translucent so there will be plenty of times where you lose complete view of your party; this is painfully evident in Denerim, where the capital's towering city walls will regularly work against you. In a game where your party is consistently outnumbered by baddies and utilizing every advantage (like bottlenecks) is often a key to victory, the camera fails miserably at providing the player with a very basic necessity. I suppose this is what happens when you make compromises between staying true to a game's roots and making it more appealing to the masses. The sound doesn't fail to deliver, however, as every bit of it is appropriately epic. The music is sweeping, dramatic and emotionally stirring, easily comparable to scores found in big budget motion pictures. The voice acting is top notch and really showcases the excellent job done by BioWare's writing staff. Each character's personality is drawn out superbly by their voice actors and actresses, adding a ton of atmosphere to an already authentic feeling game world. BioWare has always been on top of this aspect when it comes to their games and it should be no surprise that Dragon Age is no exception. A few questionable design decisions aside, Dragon Age: Origins is worthy to continue the Baldur's Gate legacy. BioWare proves that old fashioned CRPGs are far from dead and with a little extra polish, you can attract even the most casual of gamers. CRPGs still have a long way to go before they're once again at the frequency that their Japanese counterparts are operating at, but Dragon Age: Origins has made that first huge leap and we RPG fans hope that this marks the beginning of a new golden age for CRPGs. | |||||||||
|
User reviews
|
There are no user reviews for this listing. To write a review please register or login. |
Comments (0)
Subscribe to this comment's feedWrite comment
Show/Hide comment form
