Dragon Age: Origins

I find it interesting that others have reviewed this already and cast it off, or made complaints about cut-scenes. Please ignore these reviews. RPG's, in the most part, are played by people who enjoy in-depth aspects of games, and DO want to explore maps and get involved in a plot line. On that front, I can confirm that the plot is excellent, and the maps are there for hours worth of exploration. 20 hours gameplay since release tells me this. Other reviewers seem to have been discontented after only an hour or two....

So. Is the game any good? I laughed a bit at the excellent mish mash of Fable / Oblivion / Mass Effect storyline and gameplay. Even the map of Feraldon looks a bit to similar to Oblivions own map (note the sea and lake areas). The 'mashing an A button to defeat everyone' isn't quite that simple. as that All buttons are used depending on how you wish to attack. Perhaps 'just pressing A' works on easy-level, but not on hard, that's for sure.....

The graphics… more »

I find it interesting that others have reviewed this already and cast it off, or made complaints about cut-scenes. Please ignore these reviews. RPG's, in the most part, are played by people who enjoy in-depth aspects of games, and DO want to explore maps and get involved in a plot line. On that front, I can confirm that the plot is excellent, and the maps are there for hours worth of exploration. 20 hours gameplay since release tells me this. Other reviewers seem to have been discontented after only an hour or two....

So. Is the game any good? I laughed a bit at the excellent mish mash of Fable / Oblivion / Mass Effect storyline and gameplay. Even the map of Feraldon looks a bit to similar to Oblivions own map (note the sea and lake areas). The 'mashing an A button to defeat everyone' isn't quite that simple. as that All buttons are used depending on how you wish to attack. Perhaps 'just pressing A' works on easy-level, but not on hard, that's for sure.....

The graphics are quite good in my opinion. They're not as cartton-esque as Fable 2, but they are a step-up on Oblivion. It's not open-world, but there's still plenty to do. In fact, I would go as far as saying this is a Medieval Mass Effect, and an excellent stop-gap between ME1 and ME2. Those moral decisions are still there to be made, which was one of the more interesting features of Mass Effect. The romantic relationships bit is also still there, which made me chortle!

On the 20 hour mark, I can describe Dragon Age as an engrossing encounter, well worth your time if you're not busy shooting things on MW2. It sits well within the RPG genre, and competes for the spotlight as much as anyone.....and yes, I do have another 20-40 hours, and I'm looking forward to them immensely.