Dragon Age: Origins review

You don’t have to do any of this stuff, but if you do, the money and experience you earn will be put to very good use, as there are some very expensive items some gamers may not even come close to acquiring. You don’t have to do any of them of course–you could do what I did as well, and help out with some quests on this playthrough, and save others for your next one, so you can spread out the experience and money without anything getting repetitive.

Not everything is great about Dragon Age, despite all the praise I’ve been heaping onto it. Graphically, the game isn’t that impressive on a console. Much of the time, it looks pretty good–I would go so far as to say it looks great when you are underground with the dwarves. Oftentimes though there are weird textures, loads of pop in as you walk through the game world, tons of slowdown–the inconsistent framerate didn’t affect gameplay, but it was noticeable to the point of annoyance on occasion–and blurry cutscenes with murky textures. Despite a manual install on the Playstation 3, there are very long loading times–maybe it can’t be helped with a game of this size, but it gets old, especially during longer play sessions or when you’re anxious to move on.

The game is also very buggy on occasion. Voices would cut out during conversations (though this happened rarely) so I would have to just skip ahead to make them come back. Sometimes while on a quest, the game would not register an event–there was one in particular that I could not finish because it failed to register a few times in a row, and then when I finally got it to go to the final room and completed it, it failed to register its completion even after playing the cutscene signifying I was done. These moments are rare, but they do exist–with so much else to do, it’s easy to forgive the game for it, but it’s not something to just sweep under the rug either.

Now that you know those complaints though, know this: I’ve completed one origin story and the main quest in order to review this game, but I have already completed another origin story and plan on playing the game again, in a different manner, in spite of the graphical and technical deficiencies. Why, you may ask? Because of the 1,800 words that came before any of my complaints, that’s why: this game is very enjoyable, and BioWare has crafted a title with a game world that gamers will care about–I just want to return to it and learn more about it as I play through in one of the various other ways BioWare has allowed.

Don’t care to replay through it, but still want to learn about what could have been? BioWare has setup a module on their Social Site that allows you to track the progress of others. It’s setup in a spoiler-free manner by default, but you can click through more and more until you learn in a little more detail what has gone on in other player’s games. This progress is tracked by playing while connected to the Dragon Age servers, so even though it’s a single-player game, BioWare aims to make it feel like a more social environment.

Blast Factor: Dragon Age: Origins tells a rich tale, with believable characters in an engrossing world. The gameplay, no matter how you choose to play, works well and is effective, and thanks to a long main quest and a countless number of sidequests and alternative endings, stories and party arrangements, the game can be completely different for you each time you play through. Most importantly, you will want to play through again, because the world of Ferelden is interesting enough to be saved more than once.

Dragon Age: Origins is available on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, as well as on PC. It retails for $59.99. A copy of the Playstation 3 version of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.