Creating an Elf Mage at the beginning of my campaign, Dragon Age puts gamers on the fast track through an origin story that should last anywhere from two to four hours. There are six origin stories to play through that differs from another such as the Dwarf Noble who must endure politics of a royal family compared to the Elf Mage where players are forbidden to leave the mage tower until they pass through The Fade and are bound to the organization for the rest of their life. After finishing up the origin stories, players embark on a journey that is open-ended and full of a variety of choices to choose between. Each city the player visits holds new truths to the mission ahead of them to stop the Blight, new characters to encounter who may or may not join the player’s party, and a whole lot more the begs exploration.
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Over 100 hours of gameplay is said to be available for gamers to experience with different outcomes of how the story plays out with subsequent play-throughs. In one instance, players can choose to kill a dragon that guards an integral item and allow for safe passage for villagers to see the temple for themselves. Or players could decide to let the dragon to live and continue on with its task to guard the item so villagers never know of its existence. Players could even let the dragon live and tell the villagers they were able to slay the dragon, so when the villagers make their way up the mountain, they’ll meet their ultimate demise. Each and every decision made will affect the attitudes of the supporting cast. They might decide to turn against the player and ask for a battle to the death. It’s crucial for players to understand where each supporting character stands, so they figure out how to keep them content. If players are finding it too hard to keep their party pleased, they can resort to giving their party gifts to keep spirits up. This system can also be used to influence the romances that are implemented into the game.
The storyline supplied is geared towards adults with heavy amounts of sexual tension, gore, and brutality. Players will meet their first adversary in Teyrn Loghain, a back-stabbing right hand man of King Maric that leaves King Cailan Theirin to die on the battlefield against the darkspawn for reasons unknown. Players will meet a good majority of their party within the first 10 hours of the title including: Alistair, a young warrior who is hilarious as a party member, Morrigan, a shape shifter who is the polar opposite to Alistair, Sten, a Qunari giant who is straight to the point with his thoughts, Leliana, a rogue who is easy to spark a relationship with, and a Mabari war hound that is capable of being named to the gamer’s biding after saving its life.
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The dialogue and writing of Dragon Age is one of its strongest selling points. The laughter that ensues after a conversation between Alistair and Morrigan is bound to be one of the high points for a gamer to experience once players leave their origin story. The witty banter interweaved throughout the story is brilliant and helps sell the story to fanatics who look for a vastly involving and widely branching campaign from their RPGs. Players need to remember that their decisions affect not only their character, but everyone in the game world.
The gameplay is a “spiritual successor” to the Baldur’s Gate franchise, so players are able to queue up actions for their entire party by pausing the title or utilize real-time combat as they battle hordes of darkspawn. The camera can be manipulated to have the classic isometric-style view when it’s fully zoomed out or players can zoom all the way in and play the title from a third-person perspective.
Players expecting a multiplayer cooperative campaign will be disappointed to hear that Dragon Age: Origins is single-player only. Bioware is providing a dynamic toolset that should make up for the lack of multiplayer. It’s one of the more extensive toolsets I have witnessed in action that will allow for a superb modifications to the title. Having already released the toolset to beta-testers, there will be a wide number of mods released at day one of the title’s retail dates. The toolset that was shown allowed gamers to create their own characters, environments, missions and much more for wonderfully unique stories that can be told through several downloadable campaigns by the users themselves.
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On top of that, Bioware is delivering a social site for gamers to search for mods, check stats, compare objectives, and find artists or writers to assist in mods. The level of dedication that is being placed into Dragon Age: Origins should assure the gaming community that Bioware is ready to deliver one of the better experiences of 2009. It’s apparent that Bioware will be sticking around to help out their fans with customization, downloadable content and a whole lot more after it officially releases.
Dragon Age: Origins releases on the PC and Xbox 360 on November 3rd in North America and November 6th in Europe. The PlayStation 3 version releases on November 17th in NA and November 20th in EU.
