Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Old-school"

Ohmigodohmigod. Oh. My. God. Not since the good ol' days of the computer RPG has a game been this incredible. Forget being a spiritual successor, Dragon Age: Origins is what Baldur's Gate III would have been if they hadn't moved onto Neverwinter Nights. But Dragon Age snaps away from the shadow hanging over it from its big brother, excelling in both storytelling and characterization.

At this point almost anyone out there not living under a rock knows the general gist of the game. For those few who don't let's sum it up pretty quickly – Playing through one of six different origin stories (determined by race and class) you will find yourself recruited by The Grey Wardens. This organization battles the Darkspawn, an ancient evil army, wherever they rise. Alongside your mentor Duncan you head into battle against the Darkspawn horde to save your homeland of Ferelden.

There are technically two versions of this game on the market – the PC and the console versions. Normally the differences aren't too pronounced but they're huge in this case.

When playing on the consoles you will control your characters one at a time with a third person camera. To compensate for the pulled in camera and the fact that you can only control one person at a time the game is actually a good bit easier. It's very important that you get used to using your character tactics - more on this below. The game is paused by opening up the radial menus so you can assign skills / spells to be used. It controls in a manner very similar to Mass Effect so it should be familiar to any Bioware fans.

On the other hand the PC version controls much like Baldur's Gate where you can control each character individually. You have full control of the camera, able to pull it out into a fully overhead view where you can command your troops with efficiency. It's a lot easier to maneuver around to avoid hostile spells and effects as well. The game is also a whole lot harder thanks to how much you can control your party. If you've played an MMO then the graphical interface will seem immediately familiar.

To address one complaint many have had about Dragon Age let's talk about the graphics. Yes, the textures and graphics in Dragon Age aren't really anything to write home about. However the facial animations are very good so it doesn't get in the way of the character interactions. If you're one of those gamers who has a conniption fit if they see low-res graphics then this is definitely a game to avoid.

If you're playing on the 360 then you get the lowest caliber graphics but the steadiest frame rate while PS3 gamers get better graphics but the frame rate isn't as steady as it should be. Neither of these is a real hindrance to the game but the edge goes to the 360 here simply for playability purposes. The ideal way to play the game, of course, is on the PC but you're going to need a fairly good computer to get anything better than the Xbox can muster.

But frankly if you're going into Dragon Age for the graphics you're here for the totally wrong reason. With fantastic characters, great characterization and an interesting world, graphics should be the last thing you notice. Unless you're totally graphics obsessed all it should take is one or two conversations with your party members, listening to their excellent voice actors, to realize you're in for a living, breathing experience. There's little more you can ask for.

Ratings
Xbox: 9.0
PS3: 8.5
PC: 9.5