Video Games: Enter the Dragon

Screen shot from “Dragon Age: Origins”

“Dragon Age: Origins”
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare
System: PC, Playstation 3, Xbox 360
ESRB Rating: M (Mature)
Released: Nov. 3, 2009

BioWare has developed some of the best role-playing games of all time. Its catalog includes some of the best titles in the genre, such as “Baldur’s Gate,” “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” and “Mass Effect.”

“Dragon Age: Origins” does not stray too far from the formulas pioneered in those games. The player builds a character, recruits party members with varied skills and undertakes an epic quest with multiple potential outcomes depending on the player’s reaction to different moral dilemmas.

“Dragon Age: Origins” is set in the territory of Ferelden, a land of humans, elves and dwarves. The nobles of Ferelden are at the brink of civil war even while evil beasts called Darkspawn are invading in a periodic attack called a “blight.”

The player takes the role of a Grey Warden, an elite warrior squadron sworn to protect the world from the blight. It is up to you to recruit allies and unite the kingdom to prepare for the onslaught.

“Dragon Age: Origins’” epic story is the star of the show. How it unfolds depends on the type of character you create and the personality and motives you imbue. There are six unique origin stories depending on if you build a human, elf or dwarf and whether he is a warrior, mage or rogue.

Each origin story takes a couple of hours to complete before the storylines merge in the main campaign.

While your character’s race and class effect how others react to and treat him, your actions drive the story. The game presents a variety of situations where good and evil are not quite as black and white as in previous BioWare games. It is possible to rationalize nearly any moral dilemma you run across in the game.  

Instead of a slider to measure your character’s progress towards good or evil, as in Mass Effect, your actions are weighed against the opinions of your companions. Some of which are kind-hearted, while others are more … pragmatic.

There are certain moments in the game where you can almost feel the air being sucked out of the room as you set down the controller to deliberate your path forward. Which dwarven candidate should you support for king? Should you accept a willing sacrifice to save an innocent life, or is there some other way? Is preventing blood magic enough reason to justify the guiltless being caught in the crossfire?

And these decisions are indeed momentous. They influence which allies you can recruit to fight the darkspawn, which companions join and leave your party, and how the game’s last battle and epilogue play out.

This dynamic of choice and consequence takes the emphasis off trying to reach one of a few pre-determined endings, and gives the player more freedom to create their own stories.

“Dragon Age: Origins’” story thrives on the people that populate it. Great voice acting grants every character personality. This shines in small moments, when party members banter back and forth as you explore a dungeon. Or when the two girls in your party disapprove and gang up on you for accepting a kiss from a damsel in distress as a reward.

The player can attempt to court several party members in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. If only getting laid in real life was as easy as selecting the right conversation options and giving the right gifts. While the scenes of digital sensuality are slightly awkward, BioWare does get points for being one of the few in the game industry to approach homosexuality and heterosexuality on equal grounds. 

BioWare created a massive world with a deep history and culture with “Dragon Age: Origins.” The story is relayed to the player in tiers, allowing you to soak up as much as you want without over-burdening those who do not want to read pages of text.

The meat of the narrative is revealed through cutscenes that often include player input. For more information, you can engage in further conversation with non-playable characters. Finally, there are hundreds of discoverable objects that unlock codex entries with background information on the culture and history of the races in Ferelden. 

However, the Blight is not the only thing wrong in Ferelden. For all of “Dragon Age: Origins’” strengths, there is enough ailing the game that may frustrate and force you to cut your epic short.

First, control is an issue, especially in combat. Problems occur when the controlled character attacks once and runs away, or runs right by an enemy. Combat is governed by mathematical rules with roots in tabletop gaming. The effectiveness of your attacks is based off your stats, and those of your weapons, not your timing. This style might be a turnoff for those who prefer more action-oriented games.

Pulling the left trigger pauses the action and brings up a radial menu to select the appropriate attack. This system seemingly allows for increased strategy. However, battles are often so chaotic that excessive micromanagement significantly slows the pace of the game, especially without the ability to queue attacks.

“Dragon Age: Origins” introduces a new tactics scripting system that allows you to program your companions’ reactions to specific combat situations. For instance, you can tell your mage to project a cone of lightening if three enemies are clustered together, or your warrior to automatically use a potion when his health falls too low.

But the system is almost too robust for its own good. Its intricacies are not explained in a tutorial, and if not programmed correctly allies can act like buffoons, standing idle while being attacked.

Figuring out the right tactics for your team takes trial and error. The effort is worth it, however, as a team tuned to self-heal and combine spells for added effect is a thing of beauty.

“Dragon Age: Origins” also suffers from some wearisome organizational problems. Missions are a prime example. The only way to tell where quest objectives are located is to enter an area and look for markers on the map. This can lead to wasted time cris-crossing expansive regions just to check for missions. 

“Dragon Age: Origins” is a massive game. After playing the game for 40-plus hours, a loading screen happily informed me that I had explored less than half of the game’s regions. With multiple origins and endings, you will be compelled to play through this game more than once to see how your choices could play out differently. On top of that, BioWare has announced it will continue to support the game with new quests via downloadable content.

If you are a fan of BioWare’s other hits, you will also like “Dragon Age: Origins.” It borrows successful aspects of the developer’s past games and combines them with an epic story, rooted in fantasy and guided by the player’s actions.

Note: This review is based off the Xbox 360 version. To read past reviews, or comment on this one, visit cornfedgamer.com.