BioWare's latest RPG is a satisfactory attempt at bringing the gameplay of Baldur's Gate into the current generation.
Dragon Age: Origins is set on BioWare's very own dark fantasy world of…I forgot what it was called; I'm terrible with fantasy names. Anyway you start off in one of many brief "origins" which serve as your character's introduction into the events of the main game. Through a series of unfortunate events you somehow lose everything you had, and then get drafted into the few, the proud, the "Grey Wardens" the guardians of peace and justice in the world; their primary nemesis being the Darkspawn and their Arch Demon. The origin I actually used for my playthrough was the Human Noble origin as it seemed to be the only one that really fit into the main story of the game. I found the core storyline itself to be pretty bland I'm sorry to say; the most glaring flaw is the lack of an antagonist that actually drives you forward on your quest to defeat the big bad Darkspawn. The Arch Demon is a mindless beast and you rarely see him, never speak with him, nor are you given very much incentive to stop him other than "it is your job". Compared to Sarevok, Jon Irenicus and even Amellisan from the Baldur's Gate series the Arch Demon falls flat as an antagonist.
The storyline did have some saving graces however, and these come mostly in its detail in setting. For one thing the politics of the Dragon Age world are just as likely to kill you as the Darkspawn threat which is nice (figuratively speaking of course). I can't emphasize enough how it often feels like stable governments don't exist in fantasy RPGs because they seem to avoid major happenings in the world no matter how dire. If there's an ancient evil rising in the north that destroys villages and orphans children it's a group of adventurers (usually lead by aforementioned orphan children) who end up saving the day while the government officials just sit back, smoke cigars and drink champagne. When a government does get involved it's usually clear that the developers didn't do their homework when it comes to politics, but Origins managed to come across as somewhat believable from a political standpoint. In fact I think the politics were given more development than the Darkspawn; although I suppose there's only so much development you can give a group of mindless, antagonistic demon cannibals.
Dragon Age's gameplay sort of reminded me of Baldur's Gate, only without the challenge and depth. It was nice to see full party based gameplay back though I would have preferred being able to take five people with my protagonist rather than only three. However you don't have to worry about death like you did in BG as your characters only fall unconscious and return with a crippled limb which gives that character a fairly minor penalty until the limb is healed. This isn't likely to happen often though as your characters heal practically instantly after combat which I found absurd seeing as how you can find health potions everywhere, and mana recharges allowing you to easily heal your party members without resting for two days. At least limbs don't heal automatically…until you return to camp.
Combat in Dragon Age is painfully tedious most of the time. Essentially it comes down to spamming certain attacks and magic spells since all enemies seem to have the exact same resistances. Never the less the game can be enjoyable at times because unlike most of BioWare's other recent RPGs Dragon Age does require some actual strategy for larger battles, and these larger battles are ultimately what makes the game worthwhile. I recall one dragon battle that was particularly grueling and required a lot of effort on my part to win; it wasn't as challenging as some of the most difficult Baldur's Gate battles such as Draconis, but it was hard enough that I actually had to use my head.
The side quests and dungeons of Dragon Age deserve their own section. Now some of the side quests in the game are okay; they're not as diverse as the side quests of BG2, but they're passable. Some of them are also quite ridiculous; some side quests are little more than MMORPG style ingredient gathering quests where you have to kill certain enemies for a certain ingredient type and return for a prize. Well that sounds like fun doesn't it? That's certainly preferable to something in-depth like a murder investigation. Dungeons in Dragon Age are unfortunately long and monotonous. Most of them take hours upon hours and are little more than a bunch of repetitive, tedious combat encounters in a linear set of tunnels; this wouldn't be as big of a problem if the combat encounters in the game were well done which is not the case as I've previously stated.
Visually Dragon Age looks pretty good. Since I played the game the way it was designed to be played (top down camera) I didn't see the detail of the textures very often outside of conversations. I thought that the game looked fairly nice from what I did see however; at least there wasn't an overuse of HDR which is the bane of my existence. One thing I would like to touch upon is the blood splatter effect. Was that really necessary? It's nice that there's an option to turn it off, but I don't see what the point was of including it in the first place. I was under the impression that this game was meant to be dark and mature, but the way people just walk up to you and start casually speaking to you while you (and sometimes they) are covered in blood is hilarious and campy, not dark and gritty.
As far as audio goes the voice acting was pretty good; BioWare used a combination of veteran voice actors and random celebrities who I've never heard of except Tim Curry whom is an evil deity in mortal form. Mostly everyone presented decent performances. The music on the other hand was by Inon Zur, and you can tell as the soundtrack is predictably bland with a few decent tracks here and there. There's also a really bad heavy metal song that plays during the credits; I wasn't expecting that in a fantasy game, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised seeing as how BioWare thought including Marilyn Manson jingles in the Dragon Age trailers was a good idea.
Is Dragon Age: Origins the second coming of Baldur's Gate II? No, in my opinion the second coming of Baldur's Gate II would be an actual Baldur's Gate III that played just like its predecessors, but in 3D with notable gameplay IMPROVEMENTS. As it stands Dragon Age is not the Baldur's Gate III that BioWare said it would be, but it's a great game in its own right. At the very least Origins is more enjoyable than Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2.