Dragon Age: Origins

Review from Cormac - Thursday, 03 December 2009 @ 12:07am

Those of you playing at home may have noticed that Mass Effect is my favourite game. I think when Bioware dropped the Star Wars universe for a sci-fi world of their own design, they really created something beautiful. This year with Dragon Age: Origins they've dropped the Dungeons & Dragons universe for a new fantasy world, and I'm afraid to say that the lightning has not struck twice.

You play as a Grey Warden, an order of soldiers specialising in killing bad guys who totally aren't orcs. Unless the line "For Ferelden!" on its own gets you going, I can't recommend the story. About halfway through I couldn't help but notice that I had Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn following me around. There's the ambidextrous, blonde haired elf, the axe-wielding, red bearded, beer-swilling dwarf, and a human rightful heir to the throne. Now to be fair, that's where the similarities end, but I'm getting somewhere here: they're satirical takes on these characters. Thing is, the majority of DA:O follows a similar formula. I'm reminded of a Jim Thompson quote "there is only one plot: things are not as they seem." Which this game treats a bit religiously. It takes everything established as archetypal then inverts it or adds a gritty undertone, making it exactly as predictable. It essentially subverts all the generic set pieces, splatter paints everything red and declares itself a dark fantasy.

It's probably fairer to say that he's a cross between Legolas and Xandir.

Vanilla fantasy aside, the story and characters are a bit hit and miss. Many characters exist entirely to deliver info-dumps, most of which could be faithfully replaced with "You need to stab more bad guys." One of the major villains has a bit of an Albert Wesker feel to him, in that his motivations don't really make sense and I can't shake the feeling that he just really likes backstabbing. There's also a scene in which he just yells at you for a good few minutes, after I'd wiped the spit from my face I wondered if he was voiced by Samuel L Jackson. On the awkward cutscenes note, one of your party members may sing you a song. Now, I felt the bard was one of the strongest characters of the piece; she's one of the few who actually gains depth as you get to know her. As much as it's good to see a bard actually getting their ballad on, and it's a nice enough song, it really overstays its welcome. I don't remember signing up for Dragon Age: The Musical.

Beyond that, this is still a Bioware game, once you get going you'll wonder where the last few days went. I was about 30 hours in before I knew I had to see it through for the sake of this review, and I've completed three playthroughs at point of writing.

Character customisation gives the player a lot of freedom. It's not completely bottomless, I couldn't make my character look like the Joker, not until someone makes a mod allowing green hair anyhow. Also, the option exists to make yourself black, however your parents will remain white and no conversation on adoption open. From there it's human/elf/dwarf, warrior/rogue/mage, not necessarily in that order. Then there are several voice options to chose from. Your character isn't actually vocal in conversations, so it isn't that big a choice, but maybe stay away from the Experienced voice option. I just can't hear the phrase "my warden sense is tingling" and take it seriously.

"I'm just so happy to be here!" "I know right!"

Visually, the console versions have a lot of muddy textures. If you have the machine for it, maybe preference the PC version. Many armour and weapon models work well enough in gameplay, but during cutscenes you'll see a lot of armour pieces intersecting with each other and weapons dangling roughly around someone's hand. Combat animations are flowing and varied. Most boss fights will conclude with a party memeber executing an impressive killing blow animation. Cutscenes don't follow suit and feature unnatural character movement and awkward facial expressions. Key plot moments involve more polished scenes that make up for the others however. With the sheer amount of dialogue in the game, it can't be expected for all of it to be brilliant cinema.

I could go on about the combat system for a few grumpy paragraphs, but it'll be easier on both of us if I just say that I sucked at it. This goes down as the first game I've had to play on easy since I hit puberty and had something to prove. There's a certain breed of RPG players who like having to quick save every time they open a door, and I suppose they're DA:O’s target audience. Recent RPGs being a lot more action based, the hardcore strategist crowd haven't really been catered to in the instant gratification age. I however, was left inadvertently convincing my neighbours I'd developed tourette’s syndrome.

So it's a game for hardcore, and micromanaging is pretty much essential. The tactics system allows you to have your party members perform action X under circumstance Y, although you can still control them individually. Then there's individual actions, sustained talents/spells and party member positioning to think about. It is satisfying to figure out just the right strategy to apply with just the right tactics system to achieve a sort of party-Zen with everything behaving as it's supposed to. These are rare moments usually followed by the thought "Man, I just killed a fucking dragon." After a few Trogdors it became apparent that some of these fights come down to dumb luck or lack thereof, but that mostly added to the intensity of the fight.

And your thatch-roof cottages.

There are certainly things I can and will blame on the game though. Often it just takes control away from the player so all you can do is watch yourself suck and die. If this happens to your healer there's a good chance they aren't getting back up. There are more than a few balance issues. I found myself as a mage with mostly fire spells, separated from my party and facing monsters immune to fire. If you shop around it's pretty easy to exploit the crafting skills. I think I made about 300 health poultices (not health potions, they weren't dark enough) for not a lot of coin. Boss fights may hit you with both unskippable cutscenes before and infinitely respawning baddies during. Plus it didn't seem to matter how much effort I put into my rogues archer tactics, they'd still end up swapping to melee weapons as soon as I wasn't looking.

For me, the strongest element of DA:O is its ambition. They've made an emphasis on the idea that this is just your hero's origin story, and from start to finish, your decisions actually make a significant effect on both the story arc and world around your character. If they're planning to have your choices carry over to inevitable sequels, it's a bold move with a lot of possibilities.

Pros

Story is engaging, if lacking innovation. Stacks of replay value.

Cons

By "lacking innovation" I mean "nothing you haven't seen before." Combat lies somewhere between challenging and completely inaccessible.