Bioware delivers again...
In my humble opinion, the most important ingredients in a CRPG is a great, engaging, long story and good developed characters done with capable voice-acting. The story in DA is as good as you can expect from Bioware, if not that original. But hey, it´s a fantasy set in a medieval environment with elfs, dwarves, ancient monsters, green forests and mucho magic. We really seen it all before. But it takes developers, who love the genre ,to make it all work for players who love to play these kind of games.
The side quest are a little disappointment. They are short and the usal fetch this - kill that. Devs could have done more I think.
Your companions comes in a mold of the usual good-, evil-, and rather natural types. Most of them you can choose to discard, but to do that would not be that a good option. It´s all about the different skills they can provide you with. Warriors who tear through enemies with their swords and axes. They keep the foes away from your mages who launches fireballs at your enemy and heals your party. And then the rogues, who shoot monsters from afar with bows and have the skill to pickpocket unaware people and open locked chests. The speech in the game is almost top notch and the characters have their distinct personality.
A rather dark type female mage with an sharp tongue, a grumpy male dwarf with alcohol problems, an enity made of rock ( provided by downloaded extra-material) are three of them. All with great voice-overs. Dialogues can also be hilarious at times. Lots of different options makes the conversation to take unexpected turns once in a while.And of course there are the romances. And it´s just not boy loves girl this time around :). The world of fantasy has also reached the 20th century in political correctness.
The idea with different orgins is an innovative one. You have six different to choose from, from noble man to an cast-less dwarf. It only provides an unique gaming experience the first hour and a half though. After you choose to come with an mysterious man named Duncan, to become an Grey Warden, the game is about the same. Different choices to solve certain situations can also provide with a little variations in story, but the game is as a whole rather linear. To some players dismay. But I think you have to choose between a story -, character-driven and an open world - RPG.
Two things with this game that I don´t like. Firstly, as many has stated the difficulty-level is ridicolus at times. Even at easy setting you can get your ass pretty messed up even when fighting minions. Yes bosses are supposed to be hard, nothing wrong there. But minions are supposed to be minions and not overwhelming your party so often as they do in this game. Make sure that when dungeon crawling always bring lots of heal- and mana-potions and a mage who can heal and cast DISPEL at those damn hexes.
Second is more of a graphical issue and one that was included in the game-hype - The Blood. I was starting out as an warrior out on a quest to find my beloved puppy dog. I found him in a kitchen with a bunch of huge rats. Then me, my dog and a friend started to hack the vermin to pieces. After that we had an jolly conversation all covered in blood. It looked so ridicilous that I dropped my jaw. And another thing, wow, the stains are permanent. And that was from killing just some rats. Luckily there is an option to turn this off - so I did. Don´t know what is most stupid - two characters having an romantic conversation covered from head to toe in blood or the fact that GameSpot has an game-emblem for the fact that the game is real bloodish.
Yes, it is real realisitic, just like everything else with this game. Like when all your characters has plowed through the entrails of thousands of foes with no obvious mental health issues because of it.
DA is a great game with some issues, as stated and some graphical and load-time ones to booth. I hope the world is gonna expand with future expansions and add-ons. The community for RPG's are also notorious for being an productive bunch. So the franchise might have an bright future. If you played Baldurs Gate in ´98 and wondered how it would look like in real 3D - this could be it. If you love CRPGs you should get this, thats for sure. And play it on a computer.