When Bioware first came out with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, people knew that this company would continue to produce amazing, high-quality games. So, a decade after their incredible Baulder’s Gate series, they have brought the magnificent world of Dragon Age to the plate. Not only has it brought back the familiar play-style of KOTOR, but it's introduced a new element into the mix that you can never go wrong with: dragons.
The premise of Dragon Age begins with a country called Ferelden, which is facing a threat called the Darkspawn, and the only ones who can stop it are the Grey Wardens. Your character starts off with one of 7 choosable background quests, which all invariably lead to you becoming a Grey Warden. From that moment onwards, your main goal is to travel around Ferelden and gather an army to fight the Darkspawn, and to kill the Arch Demon (the leader of Darkspawn). This just so happens to be the nastiest dragon you’ll ever see, of course, and it's amazing.What really makes Dragon Age amazing is that it's a perfect blend between Mass Effect, KOTOR, and Oblivion. This game really has a lot of depth to it that you can't find in many other games. Similar to Mass Effect, you find various companions to add to your party as you play. Each member has a special quest that unlocks once you hit a certain level of friendship with them, which adds to the already ridiculous amount of quests and things you can do. There is another, more important reason to gain your allies' trust, however; at the very last battle, all of your party members play an important role that can make a huge difference in the outcome. Let's not spoil the story though, and leave it at that.
Even more entertaining than the companion system, though, is the battles. You can switch between 4 party members and customize all of their tactics, armors, and weapons. This gives you a pretty wide variety of combinations. Each party member is either an Elf, Human, or Dwarf, and each of those races can be a Warrior, Rogue, or Mage (except Dwarves). Of those classes, there are 4 different specializations, such as Blood Mage, Reaver, Templar, Assassin, etc. As you can see, there’s quite a lot to customize for each character.
Alas, even with all of this customization, the game is lacking slightly in a few areas. After a while, battles do get pretty repetitive, and if you enjoy setting up each battle like I do, you might find yourself spending more time preparing than actually fighting. Another issue with the game is the familiarity. It's almost too familiar. Like I said earlier, it is a perfect combination of three very excellent games, but that means that it is also very similar to all of them in story as well. However, even an already known story is still pretty epic when you add dragons to the mix.
All in all, Dragon Age is without a doubt one of the better gaming choices of this decade. It's an incredibly well done, and more importantly, fun game, and it's being set up for what could be a very popular series in the future. With all of the extra-content downloads available for purchase already, I’m ready to pound out a few more intense hours with this game before Dragon Age 2 comes out on March 8th. Do yourself a favor and pick up this amazing game, and pre-order the sequel while you are at it. You won't regret it.
Submitted By: Alex Abreu (Employee)
Review: Dragon Age Origins (360/PS3)
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