I bought Dragon Age for two reasons. The first was that I was bored with what I was playing when we didn’t have enough people to get a game of Left 4 Dead 2 going (which will heretofore be referred to as Left 4 Dead; the original no longer exists in my mind, a sentiment with which I know Squid agrees). The second is that it’s made by Bioware, and their track record speaks for itself.  I have yet to play a Bioware game that I didn’t like (KOTR II, though I liked it, didn’t benefit from the developer switch from Bioware to Obsidian and felt very unfinished, especially late in the game).

So, Dragon Age.  On the surface, it appears to be a typical fantasy setting, complete with Men, Dwarves, and Elves as well as an Orc/Goblin race called the Darkspawn.  You choose a gender, race, and class, customize your appearance and your initial points.  However, there is an added element in this process.  Depending on the race you’ve chosen, you also have to pick a background.  Human warriors and rogues can only pick the noble background, while mages (Human and Elven) must choose the mage background.  The Dwarves, who cannot be mages (some light is shed on this during the game itself), choose between noble and commoner, while Elves choose between City Elf and Dalish Elf.  Each one of these choices has it’s own unique origin story which should last about an hour to an hour and a half of play time before they reach a common point. 

Yes, the dog is covered in blood.  No, they don’t seem to notice.

Each will also give you a rather unique view on the world you will be adventuring in.  Let me preface this section by saying I’ve only done a complete playthrough as the Human Noble, and have only done the introductions for the others so far.  The Human Noble story is predictable.  Not to say it’s bad, but it’s just rather standard.  Wealthy land-0wning family, betrayal, family dies, etc.  The Dalish Elf intro (a bit more on the difference between Dalish and City Elves later) is, in my opinion, the weakest of the intros.  It’s just never that interesting, and you don’t really much care about the characters you interact with.  And unlike characters in all of the other intros, I doubt you’ll ever see them again.  The Dwarf Commoner (this is actually something of a misnomer, as you play as a Casteless dwarf, which makes you automatically poverty-stricken and shunned) is also a bit bland.  The City Elf is a bit more interesting, and introduces you to a few characters and events that will affect the game later.  The Mage gives you a great deal of insight into the workings of the Circle of Magi and the Templars that watch over them that is difficult to get otherwise.  But by far the most provacative (to me, anyway) was the Dwarven noble.  Again, a story of betrayal, but the truth ends up a bit more obfuscated until everything goes down.  I also can’t wait to see if playing with this background has a significant impact on the way other people interact with you later in the game.  I imagine it will.  As of this writing, I haven’t played more than an intro as a female character, so I don’t know if your gender will affect outcomes or how characters deal with you.

That’s right baby.  Just you and me, by the fire, covered in bloo- wait, who the hell is that guy?

The basic premise is that the Darkspawn are coming up from underground to destroy the surface realm.  When this happens, and the evil horde is lead by an Archdemon, it is called a Blight, and a Blight can only be stopped by the Grey Wardens.  The Wardens are made up of pretty much anyone that are deemed worthy and can pass a Joining Ritual.  No matter what intro you choose, you end up becoming a Warden.

At least in this game, that outfit actually doesn’t offer any protection.

The most striking part of this game, and what sets it apart from others, is the completeness of the world you live in.  It’s a world of grey tones, in which very little is black and white, good and bad.  It has political problems, social strife, vague international tension, and a fully realized religion of its own.  You can easily feel yourself getting immersed in it all, and developing some emotional bonds with what goes on around you.  Like all good RPGs, you have to make moral choices.  A few are black and white, but very few.  Most are very, very grey, or they have an element of good and bad, but you won’t have all of the information to know which choice you’re making.  This was the most intriguing part of the game for me, and it’s what kept me going (for almost 80 hours combined so far, and I’ve only finished around 50% of the game).  When it comes time to make a decision that could change future events, I found myself agonizing over which course was the “right” one, which of course is based on how you decide to play the character (full disclosure: I am incapable of playing as evil characters.  I’m just too nice a guy, I guess).  In the end, I made the ones that would have satisfied my character, but it was far from an easy path.

The social situation in the game is extremely interesting and worth paying some attention to.  There’s a great deal to it, but the long and short of it is this: Human nobles run the gamut from exemplary to completely douchey; City Elves are subjegated urban laborers who have little idea of their own past; Dalish Elves are in self-imposed exile and avoid humanity and seek out links to their history whenever possible; the Dwarves have a caste system, look down upon the casteless and the surface dwellers, and the political intrigue and backstabbing of their nobles reminds one of Imperial Rome.  I found the Dwarven society to be the most interesting in the game, but let’s face it, any game that makes the Elves a beaten and deflated people instead of the elder and superior race is going to make for some interesting stories.

As with Bioware’s other games, this is a party RPG, and as time goes on you’ll gather members.  Ultimately you can turn away most of them, but in my estimation you’re pretty much guaranteed to have 3 in addition to yourself.  You can improve your standing with various members through your actions, conversation trees, or the giving of gifts.  Certain gifts tend to work better for some characters than others, so it’s worth talking to them a bit to get a feel for who they are and what they might like.  Each of these characters has their own personality, and they’re all rather well written and voice acted (Kate Mulgrew and Tim Curry are among them, though they voice more minor characters).  The only one I didn’t like was Oghren the Dwarf.  Steve Blum, the voice actor for Oghren, seemed like he was trying way too hard to sound gravelly and in the end I didn’t really believe him.  This is nothing against Blum himself, as he is an accomplished voice actor in both games and cartoons, and let’s face it, he was the voice of Spike Speigel in Cowboy Bebop, so he doesn’t have to impress me.  It was probably more the director’s decision than his own, anyway.  He does other minor voices in the game, but I would rather the more major character sound like Spike and the random dwarf in the capital city sound like Spike with a sore throat instead of the other way around.

The Deep Roads, part of the ancient underground highway of the Dwarves.  As you can see, they haven’t gotten stimulus money yet.

The interaction with other characters is pretty much standard RPG fare.  You choose from a selection of dialogue choices and the conversation proceeds from there.  I have to admit that, after my experience with Mass Effect, I was a bit let down that the main character is not fully voiced.  I suppose I’m a little spoiled, but Mass Effect showed that it can be done and it sure as hell brings you into the game more completely, and it felt lacking here.  That being said, every other character in the game is fully voiced and that helps the immersion factor immensely.

Psst.  I don’t mean to embarass you, but your rhytidome is showing.

In terms of the mechanics, the game seems to be a bit of a cross between a more rigid D&D style RPG like Neverwinter Nights and a more action focused game like Diablo.  Mages don’t need to memorize spells, but your casting is pretty much restricted to what you can put in your quick bar (you can use spells that aren’t there, but that involves opening a menu, find the spell, right clicking, and using).  The number of abilities and the level of customization for characters is somewhat limited (more in a moment), but the combat is still tactical.  The Pause feature really comes into its own when facing more than two enemies at a time.  This allows you to stop combat and issue each party member their next command.  In addition to this, party members have a tactics page that allows you a great deal of customization in defining their actions in battle.  I personally didn’t use it, but that’s because I found the defaults to be acceptable.  If you want to define how your party members fight, this is an excellent tool and it’s not overly difficult to use.  The camera was a bit wonky at first.  W and S move your character forward and back relative to the camera, but A and D are camera rotation controls.  Instead, Q and E actually make you walk to the left or right.  This just seems like an odd default set up for computer players, but rebinding or adapting to it aren’t difficult. 

Demons are a major part of the religion in the game, and they’re not terribly friendly.

I’ve heard a great deal said about the graphics of this game.  I’m going to go on record by saying this is NOT the best looking game out there.  Some textures are bland or appear very low res, and the character models don’t seem to have the range of emotion that one would want.  Their skin also looks like it has a sheen, like they’re made of plastic.  That said, the environments are generally quite attractive and intricate, the armor detail is good enough, and spell effects feel weighty enough.  The actual model animations are a mixed bag.  Most of the time they’re ok, but sometimes the characters look excessively stiff.  They do make good use of depth of field effects, however.  I personally prefer Mass Effect’s graphics, since they were at least more impressive for their era (oh the difference a few years makes).  Generally speaking, it runs well enough on my slightly dated machine (specs to be added to my profile), but I noticed that the longer I played, the longer it took to load new areas, and eventually this becomes unbearable.  At first, areas load within 30 seconds or so, but if I wait too long before restarting the game, I can wait up to 4 or 5 minutes for the next area to load up.  The sound design is generally rather good.  The footsteps of your group change depending on terrain and armor type (you an hear them clomping about in armor boots), but sometimes voices cut off unexpectedly as you round a corner.  A minor quibble, but there it is.  The music is terrific and appropriate.  The game also sets up an online profile for you, and can automatically take screen shots of important plot events and tracks your achievements.  It also facilitates the DLC, which I found rather easy to use, though Steam combined with the in-game set up complicates the issue a little (hooray for product keys…).  I also got the digital deluxe edition, which included the soundtrack, but I had to look up how to access that in the forums; nothing tells you where it goes or how to get it (it’s downloaded into a Steam folder automatically). 

It is worth mentioning that the character skill sets and class system are somewhat restricting.  There are only three classes, and warrior and rogue share the archery and dual-weapon skill trees exactly.  There are 4 specializations for each class, of which you can eventually choose 2, but these add only one new skill set of 4 abilities (the typical tree is 3-4 sets of 4 abilities).  This can give different characters a “samey” feel and prevent you from feeling that character is truly your own.  I personally didn’t have much of a problem with, but hardcore RPG fans should be warned.

Overall, I found it to be an excellent game and I was pulled into the story almost immediately.  The fact that I’ve sunk about 80 hours into the game and still have completed only about 50-60% of the overall outcomes should be an indication of the immensity of the whole experience.  It has a few flaws, but they ultimately didn’t detract from the overall experience.  I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a story-driven RPG and a fresh take on the society of the traditional fantasy world.

Please note that the game’s Anti-Aliasing looks better than the screenshots.  Reducing the size to fit the page made them look worse.