Dragon Age: Origins reviews

I'm 20 hours into this game and loving every minute of it. If you are a fan of any of Biowares previous titles, such as Mass Effect, NVN, BG, KOTOR, you'll find a the best parts of each of them combined into this game. Epic storyline, hard decisions, frantic combat, this is the game RPG fans have been waiting for.

Damage Per Second, Tanks and Ranged. These MMO class staples have come to the single player RPG and it's brilliant.

Dragon Age may be the spiritual successor to Balders Gate, and the epic storyline reflects this, but their paths diverge wildly when it comes to character development and gameplay. Baldurs Gate was based on the older AD&D2 ruleset, way before the word “Trait” was coined. This led to fairly simple character builds, where the core class was what it was, with very little leeway. Then came Neverwinter Nights and things got complicated. One wrong choice in a skill tree and a restart would have been in order.

Now, you longer have to plan your character builds to the Nth degree so that you don't nerf your character by choosing the wrong trait. With a new skill or talent every level, your style will develop more naturally until you find out which way you want to play, and whether you are a Rogue, Warrior or Mage, you can stand back and ping Darkspawn, or wade in and have at the little buggers up close and personal.

This flexibility has let me focus more on the game and the story, rather than replaying the first 5 hours to get that “perfect” build under way. And what a story it is. Sure the story is one long cliche, but the way it evolves through backstory and conversation is head and shoulders above the rest.

And thats what is so great about DA. You can hack and slash it, level yourself stupid and get your character build “just right”. Or…you can go through the (wide) dialog trees and get to know your party members. Go with them on their personal quests and there's not only some great locations and set pieces, but also some great loot waiting for you. You can even get VERY personal with them if you want to.

Get it, play it, love it, then play it again and kill everything in sight!!

Perfect graphics, runs exceptionally well on my rig, diverse range of voice actors, awesome and detailed environments and a challenging fighting system. I am happy with the purchase of DAO and was surprised at how quick delivery was received! However, the games downloadable content (DLC) isn\'t free (for the most part) and i found if i want to pay to keep a game fresh i might as well revert back to playing World of Warcraft (WoW), seems kind of low for developers to require \“points\” to purchase this content (points which are \“earned\” by paying money). On the other hand, gameplay is hardly ever stale with varying quests and storylines brought about by each new race, class, origin and \“good\”/\“bad\” decision you make. I must admit, i had some reservations about the \“Pause\” gameplay style since i have adapted to real time battle sequences, but DAO has really kept battles interesting and challenging; rather than slowing down gameplay, \“pausing\” a battle allows for you to ponder over what strategy would be best in the current situation as its almost impossible to win battles on the harder difficulties without some sort of plan! for example, burst DPSing one target may burn his/her life quick but if that target has high defense your party may take far too much damage from other enemies. Therefore, pausing and taking time out to assess the battle is a viable option; perhaps you can position your mage in a way so as to freeze the larger target, (positioning is extremely important, you may end up freezing your own ally!) or disable him with some bow skills. This is a simple example though, and there are many encounters which challenge you to think about resistances, armour types, weapon types and planning your skill cycle.

It has been five years since this game was first announced, and I have now been playing this game for the past few weeks. It has been absolutely worth the wait. This is a well polished RPG, great visuals and a story with depth and replayablity. You will be replaying this game to complete all the different Origin stories for weeks or months(depending on how hardcore you are). Worth every cent. People have been comparing it to Mass Effect, this is not an accurate comparison. Mass Effect is a shooter with RPG elements. Dragon Age: Origins is an RPG. If you were a fan of Knights of the Old Republic or Baldurs Gate you will be at home with Dragon Age: Origins.

This game is by far one of the most entertaining RPG's of this year, I have clocked over 50 hours and am still trying out different races and characters just to see how the story plays out, the game has 6 origins stories which are all very fun which keeps the game fresh every time you make a new character.

Bosses are hard but fun, the environments are very dynamic, cool characters that you will love, a great combat system piled with the fantastic story, this game is excellent and I recommend it to anyone who loves RPG's or even adventure games.

I hate to be the heretic and everything, but being a huge fan of the entire Baldur's Gate series I just have to say that this does NOT compare. Everyone keeps comparing it to the great BG, and I can totally understand why, but its just not good enough, and I can even tell you why: the game is based on a tile system.

Anyone who's played NWN any length of time will know exactly what I'm talking about. The game just looks bland, and unimaginative, and repetitive, and the reason is that the art department had to create “tile-sets” rather than “environments”. Once you've seen the first 3–4 areas, you've seen them all. Armour and equipment design is totally behind the times, even NWN was superior, and enemies just look…I dunno, “monstry”, no personality. In fact, here comes a bit of sacrilege – I would far sooner classify this game “Diablo 3” than “Baldur's Gate 3”.

The RPG value is huge, absolutely, and the stories well told, I mean it's Bioware after all. But it all just smacks too much of a “made for everyone” product, i.e. everything way too polished, generic, and predictable. If I may make a comparison, this game is the Harry Potter to the original Baldur Gate's Lord of the Rings.

Combat is also less than brilliant. My main gripe here is just the fact that it's down-right uncontrollable – unless you pause AT LEAST every 2 seconds your entire party gets massacred (BG with 6 high-level characters was 10× easier to control), and the camera is downright atrocious, in fact its the worst Ive ever seen – even The Matrix was better, and anyone who's played that knows the horror. Together this makes for really cool, spectacular battles that you just do not want to fight, for the difficulty in just controlling the game.

In summary I gotta say that despite without doubt being a world class game this title has been a huge disappointment, I've been waiting for it for over a year, got the collector's edition on pre-order, and have not even been able to make myself finish my first game.

Here's hoping Mass Effect 2 comes and saves my soul.

Although released two years after The Witcher (TW), Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O) feels and looks like it's several years older.

DA:O's graphics now look like a just passably-well painted backdrop to a theatre's stage – generic, rather blocky and cartoonish when compared with TW's breathtaking, almost photographic towns and landscapes, constantly changing colour and shadow to reflect the time of day and weather and its solid 3-dimensionality.

Combat in DA:O, too, is static, laboured and stilted when compared with the fast, smooth flowing dodge, parry and explosive attack of TW.

Too, TW demonstrates that for a great game it isn't necessary to micro-manage a long list of different player stats, agonising over whether to add a point here or there, nor plough through the description of dozens of different spells to decide which one to memorise or use.

Perhaps the mantle of ‘successor to Baldur's Gate’ weighed too heavily on the game's designers when they put it together for there is much in the BG series they seem reluctant to let go, yet perhaps the most appealing thing in BG – the charming eccentricity, the humour, the banter and tension between party members and occasional self-referential jibe, are missing. (Although perhaps that's just because I chose an elvish character to play, and the designers decided that the elvers of the game world lacked a sense of humour!)

All in all TW raised the bar in fantasy RPG a long way in 2007, and in 2009 DA:O has failed to match it.

So far i think im half finished with the human campaign, and im loving it!

As a human you start off as the kings son, but your whole family gets killed by your father's ‘best friend’ you are on a quest to avenge your family, find your brother and find allys on the way.

Its an awesome game, however the only downside is the long dialogues when interacting with NPCs in which i kept hitting the escape button to skip some of it.

Fantastic game, well worth buying. Great graphics and the sound/music used really adds to the effect of the battles. The only downside is the lack of a multiplayer mode. However, other than that I wouldn't hesitate in buying this game.

Gameplay is very good and will require you to think all the time, unlike a lot o Rpgs were they point you in the right direction and send you off to kill. Hitting the healing potion button will no longer keep you alive, strategy and approaching a fight is extremely important “OMG”. You also don't have to use a whole group in this game as you can play with just your main character…even though I'm not sure how well that would go in survival wise, you might find you self dyeing to much. But for people who like to play alone you can always remove everyone from your group. But believe me when I say this because I almost didn't get this game because of group style game play… the game works well with it and even a lone wolf player like me still enjoys it. The only con I can think of is that the graphics isn't the best but still nice enough to enjoy…but I personally prefer that to choppy game play. The game runs well and I haven't felt any frame rate issues or lag or even bottlenecks so what the hey..... Buy it if you consider yourself a hardened rpg gamer. Oh and the storyline is thick…something that has been missing in many games since Diablo.

This game will grab you and won't let go, it is a excellent RPG with locales, storytelling, memorable characters and fighting system, any RPG fan will be spending hours upon hours in this fantastic world of Dragon Age.

Great gameplay and side quests, difficulty is great – no walk in the park even on easy. On of the best games of 2009!!

I haven't played a fantasy-based RPG for a couple of years. NWN2 made me walk away from the genre. With the huge reviews DAO was getting I thought it was going to be a great way to get back into it.

Sadly the huge scores it seems to get just don't match up with my experience. I think there's an awesome game hiding inside it but it's too bad that there's so many things that let it down. I'm sure most of my complaints would match those on forums everywhere so I won't go into needless detail.

It's not awful, I'd even say it's good, but it's not worthy of scores like 9.9/10. That's just ridiculous.

Very good story and brings back so many memories of playing the mass effect series and skyrim alike Must have for any Pc gamer

An RPG from Bioware that lives up to the expectations created by Mass Effect. Well designed levels, characters and voice acting. The kind of game you can't stop playing. Highly recommend.

A great RPG infact! I found the fact that race/class options were so few, but I just assumed it had to be simplified for a wider audience. Great, in-depth, quests, beautiful graphics, a good plot (not a point I normally give out often) and very fast, enjoyable battles. Much better than DA:O 2

I absolutely loved this game. It is heavily plot-driven with a well-crafted storyline that throughly engages the player. I easily clocked up 50+ hours in the world of Thedas without realizing it–while it is not as much a random sandbox game as the Elder Scrolls series, there is enough flexibility that the player certainly determines how the game begins and ends. I really enjoyed the character-creation process and all of the different origin stories. The companions are well-rounded characters, and the in-game fighting requires strategy and planning. This is one of my all-time favourite games!!

This game is so cool. And I'm so happy to get it for $15 at the Mighty Ape marathon. But I do wish that the game had a bit more free roaming.

I'm not usually into playing this sort of game more of a open ended game like Oblivion,but was surprised to find I liked the game for it's story line and rather enjoyed playing it.

I had been looking for this title at a good price for some time. I often buy through Stardock's Impulse, as there isn't the massive markup one often finds in software retailers in NZ, but this title was restricted to North America… so when this came up at a comparable price at Mighty Ape, I jumped on it. The first thing I must say is that I was not disappointed in my choice. This is in no small part because of the game's voice talent, especially Claudia Black (of Farscape & Stargate SG1 fame), and the occasional banter that goes on between her character and the others in the party. I've always been a fan of subtle humour, and this game has it running through its core. The graphics are excellent, while not overtaxing, and the gameplay is smooth as a result. I would happily recommend this game to anyone who wants to kick some tail, and have a laugh doing it

Fantastic plot, characters have great depth that is developed over the course of the game. The story can only be described as an epic. And the final battle is very satisfying. Watch for the Portal reference at the end.

Gameplay didn't feel repetitive at all. Plenty of side-quests of varying natures. That said, the game isn't too long as to put off the more casual gamer. In recent years I have been more of an FPS/action gamer, so this was a good game to get back into RPGs.

Play-wise I found myself trusting the tactics less, but rather using the pause screen and micro-managing battles. This was particularly the case using a tank+3-mages party; the tank didn't always attract all enemies. But different party configurations let you play in different ways, that is the beauty of these game mechanics.

The game was hard work at times, but never fustratingly difficult. I don't think I ever had an entire party die. Nor did I ever cast my mouse aside screaming profanities at the game developers.

Consider getting Dragon Age:Ultimate Edition, which includes the DAO: Awakening addon for Origins.

Great game. Lots of action and side quests. It is a long game but holds your interest. Very stable game as well. I have played a great many games and would rate this one as trouble free and great value for money.

Simply one of the best PC games out there, played through multiple times and never got bored

Great graphics, awsome story line – well worth it, enjoyed playing it very much. Time really flew while playing this game

This game is a well polished, good story driven game as all previous Bioware rpg games. It runs better and plays better than there last offering Neverwinter Nights 2. However this also is a departure from the roots of Bioware / Black Isle, gone are the pen and paper rpg using

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Edition Rule book (which made the previous games so unique), gone is the world of Forgotten Realms and the Sword Coast, and Wizard's of the Coast have also disappeared.

This game is not really a true rpg anymore which is disappointing as it made the original series stand out from the crowd. This plays more like Dungeon Siege or Diablo.

They have spent alot of time and effort on the story and improving game play but have ditched the most important part of the original series which made them classic's.

Dragon Age is a great addition to RPG titles for those who enjoy a good story as well as good graphics and gameplay. Has all the great elements of a good RPG – Character customisation, dialogue choices, interactive npc's with personality and story.

Also good is this game has some replay value, with unique beginning stories for the different races and backgrounds. A recommended game to those who are a fan of RPGs.

As you would have most likely heard, it is comparable to the great Baldur's Gate series. With pretty good graphics, well made character dialogue and in-game content. The different beginning backgrounds are interesting giving replay value.

Not really much bad to say about the game, though combat could be better, like it was in the Baldur's Gate series. To be more nit-picky, the main character could do with some face animations during cut scenes and dialogue as to not look like a zombie while the NPCs are well animated and full of expressions.

But overall, a highly recommend for those who love the action RPG genre, though more emphasis on the RPG part.

Definately worth a play through, although I didn't manage to finish it before it lost my attention. Quite a unique gameplay style, definately not what I was expecting, its somewhat turn based and somewhat real time with quite a steep learning curve. I found the story quite capturing but sadly the gameplay didn't quite hold my attention.

If you love RPG's and value replayability, then this is the game for you! Bioware have created a game that lives up to its hype with great graphics, interesting combat, and a story to rival much of the fantasy fiction around these days.

However, where they really excel is with the one aspect that is often overlooked in RPG's – the ability to immerse yourself in a game. Apart from creating a world that recognises genders, there is little difference between playing as either a man or a woman. Women are not just reskinned males in Dragon Age, they are essentially equals. Friendships and romances take gender differences into account but building skills, gaining specialisations, and combat do not. If you have ever wanted to RP a fighting woman, this is the game to buy.

Dialogue and the options to build friendships and/or romances with your party companions allows for role playing as either a heterosexual male or female, or as a lesbian or gay male, with romance options to suit. While this is only a small part of the Dragon Age world it makes the game so immersible that it's easy to RP real emotions and feel as if you are inside the game, experiencing it, not just on the outside directing it.

This is also a game for those on tight budgets. If you like to play out all the side quests and take your time to talk to NPC's and really get to know your world you can easily spend 80–100 hours immersed in the game. Every NPC is a mix of good and evil with shades of gray between and each decision has an impact on how the game plays out so this, coupled with 6 Origins x2 genders, plus classes and specialisations means you can replay many times over and still get surprises.

While DA is not the most technically brilliant game I've ever played, and many things in it could have been done better, as a female gamer its really refreshing to have a game that allows me to role play as a female and which offers real immersion in that role. It's a “must have” for anyone wanting a change from being forced to RP as a male.

A polished fantasy RPG, with six different origin stories that provides more replayability than Mass Effect that is a bit more linear. The missions have a similar modular component but are part of an overarching narrative that so far is pretty engaging. The view perspective is adjustable to Baldars gate but can be altered for closer perspective.

Damage Per Second, Tanks and Ranged. These MMO class staples have come to the single player RPG and it's brilliant.

Dragon Age may be the spiritual successor to Balders Gate, and the epic storyline reflects this, but their paths diverge wildly when it comes to character development and gameplay. Baldurs Gate was based on the older AD&D2 ruleset, way before the word “Trait” was coined. This led to fairly simple character builds, where the core class was what it was, with very little leeway. Then came Neverwinter Nights and things got complicated. One wrong choice in a skill tree and a restart would have been in order.

Now, you longer have to plan your character builds to the Nth degree so that you don't nerf your character by choosing the wrong trait. With a new skill or talent every level, your style will develop more naturally until you find out which way you want to play, and whether you are a Rogue, Warrior or Mage, you can stand back and ping Darkspawn, or wade in and have at the little buggers up close and personal.

This flexibility has let me focus more on the game and the story, rather than replaying the first 5 hours to get that “perfect” build under way. And what a story it is. Sure the story is one long cliche, but the way it evolves through backstory and conversation is head and shoulders above the rest.

And thats what is so great about DA. You can hack and slash it, level yourself stupid and get your character build “just right”. Or…you can go through the (wide) dialog trees and get to know your party members. Go with them on their personal quests and there's not only some great locations and set pieces, but also some great loot waiting for you. You can even get VERY personal with them if you want to.

Play it, love it, then play it again and kill everything in sight!

Dragon Age Origins is perhaps the most in-depth game I have ever played.

The character creation has loads of options to choose before you embark on your quest, selecting a origin story for your character, these playble background stories are probably my favourite part of the game and make you connect with your character before the main story comences.

The first thing I noticed upon commencing the game was the stunning detail of the enviroments, perfectly rendered, simply marvelous. The battles are truely epic with melee charaters drenched in the blood of there foes from battle, no aspect has been overlooked. The main plot is a good length and you really get your moneys worth if you are the hack and slash type of player. If you fall into the more in-depth player catagory theres is loads of content, pages of content discover throughout the worlds, entertaining and challenging side quests and even then there is some downloadable content that really extends the game much furthur. This game has entertained me for months and has alot of replayability in fact I'm about to run through again with a new character. Buy this game, you no regret it.

this game didnt do it for me because of the long dialogue scenes which are great for the first few hours but after that i just want to get on with the fighting, but when we get there there the only action to play with is selecting which spells/skills to use.

I first heard about this game perhaps 5 years ago, and being a huge fan of Neverwinter Nights, couldn't wait for it to arrive. I had a long wait, as it turned out – but there is no doubt in my mind it was well worth it.

From the first crack at the game, it had me hooked – the gorgeous graphics, the intuitive enemies, the totally immersive storyline.

I am one of those players that attempt to do every side quest I possibly can – to obtain as much enjoyment out of the game, and not to get my butt kicked at the end because of simply rushing through just to get there. And I have now completed if 4 times over which is unusual for me.

Absolutely brilliant game – will not be one I will let go of.

A well thought out and involving RPG with plenty of moral decisions to make as per Bioware's MO.

I'd highly recommend this to any RPG fans out there.

dragon age origins is a spectacular game, a very compelling story line combined with some good graphics and some extremely witty banter left me wanting more.

Well, when I bought this game I was expecting something along the lines of Oblivion and Gothic 3 (an open ended, free roam game) I guess to some extent this game IS open world – but you do not have the freedom to do the questions when you want – you cannot go back to levels to do side quests – and you do not have the full RPG feel (like sleeping, eating and buying houses etc). You do however get very big levels to explore, such as a whole city or dungeon, and at some points in the game can elect where to go next. But to summarise, if you want an open ended free roaming game do not buy this. If however you do want an excellent level based RPG game, I will tell you why you should get this one! First of all the complexity of the story and characters is amazing, there is a huge ammount of twists and turns and different outcomes for your actions. There is also a heap of dialogue, almost too much, and the way you act when talking to an NPC can effect what happens. I like how you are never lonely, you can gather a whole team of NPC's to journey and fight with you, you can even control your tactics and switch control between them. At the start you can also decide how the game will begin, by selecting from different races and origins. So this is a very complex and in depth game – which also proves a BIG challenge, even at the easy setting you will need bit of experience. The graphics are great but for most computers they will have to be toned down – and you need over 20gb of hardrive in the first place. So for me it wasnt great but you have to admire the complexity and largeness of the game (over 80 hours of gameplay)

Having read a number of consistently glowing reviews, and as a fan of Bioware's cata­logue, I had high expectations when I purchased this game. As it was hyped as the “spiritual successor” to role playing classics like Baldur's Gate II (which to this day remains the best RPG I have ever played), I wanted to love this game, I really did. Unfortunately, IMHO, the game is not all it is cracked up to be. First of all, credit where credit is due: the setting is well developed and has its own distinct flavor. I preferred when Bioware was using the D&D intellectual property (as in the Forgotten Realms setting and the rule set) but can understand from a business perspective why they've struck out on their own. The graphics are very nice indeed, and it runs smoothly even on high settings. The characters and storyline are passable – neither are stunningly original and have their fair share of cliches, but fantasy is a tough genre in this respect, and not all cliches are bad. When compared to NWN2, I felt Dragon Age lacked “options”. There are only a small handful of classes and specializations. There are a range of spells and abilities you can unlock, but I didn't feel “spoiled for choice” as I did in the aforementioned game. I felt that the range of items (particularly weapons and armor) lacked variety. Melee combat feels a little cumbersome. Perhaps most importantly, I didn't feel like I had a chance to provide much depth to my character, particularly in terms of roleplaying options or important decisions. In almost every respect, I feel limited. If I had to sum the game up in a word, I might select “unspectacular”. Don't get me wrong this game is decent, and I'm not upset that I bought it. However, it does have a number of very real flaws which in my mind make comparisons to games like BGII unfounded; it's not a masterpiece.

Another great game from Bioware. As others have mentioned if you enjoyed their other games (NWN, KotOR, Mass Effect) this is a “must get”.

Fantastic voice overs for the companions (including Claudia Black – Farscape, Stargate) with hilarious conversational byplay between them.

I think this game is far superior to NWM & even Mass Effect

There aren't many RPGs of this quality being made any more. This one will have you entertained for hours upon hours. The difficulty factor in this game is a little tougher than most games out these days, which is refreshing. Storyline is interesting and although attempts to be mature, sometimes comes off as rather weak. Gameplay is slightly different from your typical RPG, with the introduction of more “tactical” gameplay. Overall though, this is a real gem, which is unfortunately very rare these days.

Having just finished this masterpiece of storytelling, I can safely say it is the defining RPG of the year, perhaps my generation. The characters were deep and complex, the story was excellently paced, the world was beautiful and exquisitely crafted, and the whole experience was nothing short of a masterpiece.

Bioware should be proud of this world they created. I hope they plan on bringing us another Dragon Age game in the future. For now though, I can see myself replaying this game many, many times in the years to come. 2 years' worth of DLC to look forward to will certainly help that fact.