Impressive story telling saves the flatness of this games plot. Living up to a predecessor is harder than it looks.
I must say that my first impression was "wow". I really enjoyed playing this game, but I couldn't snuff out that hint of disappointment. The reason why was the story. In all its grandeur and epic-ness the story itself is as flat as a pancake with no plot twists, no turn of events, nothing to discover that you didn't already know at the start of the game. It's rather perplexing for a BioWare release. I can give the framework of the story without actually giving anything away in a few sentences and with it I'll explain why this story is junior high material. Your character will, within a few hours be presented with the games ultimate goal. This goal is not surprising to stop the upcoming Blight and deal with whatever is behind it. A few hours in the game this is your goal and this goal, regardless of the many sidesteps that will be made during the adventure, will not ever change. You will be required to raise an army by procuring allies from different areas. All these areas are built up in exactly the same way. You enter the domain to find out theres trouble. You will offer help and crawl through some dungeon, deal with a boss, end up as the hero of the day and will have gained an ally. You will repeat this exact setup many times over. I will not spoil the ending, but don't hold your breath.
The game never becomes as epic as it claims to be. the stories of these gain-an-ally-quests are interesting on their own, but they feel out of place on the larger scale of the story and leave the character to wander around without actually getting the feeling they're saving the world. The world you play in doesn't really seem to care about the blight, you never get the hint of danger or the idea that what you're doing actually leads to some sense.
If you combine these points with a main character that lacks the power of speech and has no development you end up with a pale depiction of what could actually have been great. And when I say no development we bump into the next disappointment which are the origins stories. All of them are great to play, trust me, but they are relatively short and after they are over the little to no impact your background has on the game will make each playthrough feel far too similar. Yes people will notice you're an elf for instance, but the rest of the conversation is completely identical.
The game is completely linear and it lacks freedom. There is no place on the map you will travel to without knowing what you'll be doing there. Why is this I wonder? Why should all accessible areas on the map have to come complete with a quest and description? Why is there no place on the map you can travel to without knowing what you'll walk into? Many questions and no answers. Only more disappointment. Now how does BioWare make all these facts simply acceptable? Through presentation, characterization of party members, the world and through the way the story is told. A good storyteller can make a dull story exiting and that is exactly what saves Dragon Age. Regardless of what lies under the the bonnet of this car, it seriously sounds like a V8 with 300bhp. Top speed is about 60mph though.
In terms of graphics Dragon Age delivers high quality textures and beautiful surroundings. Despite the great artwork, animation is pretty dated. And the greatest mistep is seen when it comes to women. The problem here is that BioWare is too lazy to develop body movements for both sexes and uses the same movement set for both men and women. This makes the women look like transvestites in a very bad way. Women in DA:O are NOT sexy. Bad BioWare! BAD!
A lot of movements, especially head movement seem near robotic. I seriously suspect Alistair of having a hydraulic system in his neck. On top of that a lot of the equipment could use some rework. I refuse to let anyone wear the Blood Dragon armor. Yes it IS the strongest armor (DLC) in the game, but it simply looks retarded on anyone. To me "looks" > "stats". I don't care for having an invincible party member if he has to look like a clown the entire game.
I honestly don't know how many playthroughs an average DA:O gamer will do, but when playing the game for the first time battles are sometimes incredibly hard upto impossible to win. Early random encounters on the map are easily capable of wiping your party out within seconds. The game is more forgiving than it's predecessor though. Party members revive automatically after a battle and will heal automatically after a battle. party members that died during battle still recieve experience points, although less than the ones that lived. This is hardly an issue since no enemy gives large amounts of experience.
To deal with the mass of information Dragon Age has to offer it uses a codex system that is simply far too confusing. If you didn't click on the "codex updated" button after gaining a new codex you'll be hard pressed to actually find this codex again through your journal screen. The interface is made out of images of scrolls and will only tell you what it is if you hover over it or click on it. All these codexes are categorized under irrelevant headers which you can open or collapse. But clicking on all of them to find what you're looking for is far too much of a chore. You could just read it when you pick up a codex, but there's an update or new codex every few steps your party takes. There's just too many of them. The quest system suffers the same problem. Having 30 active quests does not give the player any incentive to solve any of them. To overcome this problem the player has the option to let the game display hints on quests on the map and on the main screen. This is insulting to have to use, but it makes the cumbersome quest system so much more acceptable. Back to codexes, most of these are low quality fluff, which rarely will add to the value of your gaming experience. If they are not quest related, I suggest skipping them altogether.
Dragon Age wouldn't be an RPG if it had no party members. Most party members range from entertaining to awesome. BioWare has made an excellent effort to bring all of them to life. Voice acting is great and the way the characters mingle in your quests and conversations is refreshing. The approval system is a failure though. It can too easily be circumvented or tweaked. Meaning you can play the insane butcher of HighEver and still have a happy party of goody two-shoes with romances to boot. I will not say much on the gift system. That simply seems to have been implemented to cover up the apparent dysfunctional approval system. The only real downside to party members in Dragon Age is in it's numbers and choices. There's far too few of them to build a unique party each play-through. There's only 2 mages in the game, one good and one bad. There's only two rogues, one good and one bad and there are a handful of warriors of which one is bad. To top that off, the last good warrior you'll meet will most likely be halfway through the game or near the end. If you choose to play a warrior your choices are very limited in party setup since you can only have 4 people in your party including yourself and you'll at least want 1 mage and 1 rogue.
By the time you meet most of them they will have their talent/spell points spent for that particular level and paved the way for how they will be set up the rest of the game. Mage spells aren't procured by letting them read scrolls or such, they are selected at level up. One of the mages you will find in the game is almost a complete healer and will take at least 4 more levels to actually become useful, this will be far over half of the game. The introduction of weaponstyle specific talents is a big step forward, but it also means that a two handed swordsman will remain a two handed swordsman throughout the game. Investing points in other areas other than further down that particular tree are wasted and you'll end up with a broken character near the end of the game that is not half as strong as he or she could be.
Dragon Age's battle system is very entertaining and at times frustratingly challenging. Sometimes battles seem ridiculously unbalanced, but in many cases choosing a different tactic (or resorting to cheap methods, yes I mean you ranged fighters) can win you a battle. It has it's quirks though. I like to micromanage everything. I do not use the tactics system if possible. In order to do this you'll have to use the hold position setting, but this means that sometimes your party will stand around and do nothing unless an enemy is right in their face and even then they rather die than swing a sword in any direction. Using the follow mode in actual battles that require more than the "gang up on everyone method" will usually result in quick death and the game over screen. Party members choose oponents either randomly or by tactic setup, and that is really never what you want. On top of that you cannot split up party members with follow mode on.
A tip for new players: save often. In fact save after every victory and after every room you enter. Dragon Age gives you the save anywhere, anytime option for this very reason.
One odd thing about the battle system is that it seems to have been built for blades only. Each animation was created with the character holding a sword or dagger in mind. Prepare to be amazed how your character will stab an enemy with a two handed axe or a mace. This and some of the other animations (I mentioned the appalling female animation) give the idea that this game was not really finished before it was shipped.
Replayability is average. I intend to play this game three times, maybe four. It can also be completed rather quickly lasting little over 50 hours with all quests completed.
All in all, despite its many imperfections Dragon Age is a fierce game that will suck you in and present you with epic battles. Even though the ending is dull and predictable and some scenes seem to have been copy-pasted from Lord of the Rings it is a fully rewarding experience. Dragon Age is expected to be Baldurs Gate's spiritual successor, but it simply cannot achieve that height with this release. Perhaps with its inevitable sequel...