Product Description

From the makers of Mass Effect, Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, and Baldur's Gate comes an epic tale of violence, lust, and betrayal. The survival of humanity rests in the hands of those chosen by fate. You are a Grey Warden, one of the last of an ancient order of guardians who have defended the lands throughout the centuries. Betrayed by a trusted General in a critical battle, you must hunt down the traitor and bring him to justice.

As you fight your way towards the final confrontation with an evil nemesis, you will face monstrous foes and engage in epic quests to unite the disparate peoples of a world at war. A romance with a seductive shape-shifter may hold the key to victory, or she may be a dangerous diversion from the heart of your mission. To be a leader, you must make ruthless decisions and be willing to sacrifice your friends and loved ones for the greater good of mankind

Game features:

• A Stunning World to Explore:
• BioWare's deepest universe to date with over 80 hours of gameplay and more than double the size and scope of Mass Effect
• Travel throughout dozens of environments and fully immerse yourself in a shattered world that is on the brink of utter annihilation
• An epic story that is completely shaped and reactive to your play style
• Complex Moral Choices:
• Tailor your Dragon Age: Origins experience from the very beginning by choose from six different Origin Stories
• Decide how to handle complex issues like murder, genocide, betrayal, and the possession/sacrificing of children without the security of a good/bad slider to tell you what to do
• Full Character Customisation:
• Sculpt your hero in your own image or fantasy
• Elaborate character creator allows you to create your own hero unique from anyone else
• Shape your character's personality and morality based on

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2009-11-06
• ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: Unknown format
• Dimensions: .26 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
From the Makers of Mass Effect, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Baldur’s Gate comes an epic tale of violence, lust, and betrayal. The survival of humanity rests in the hands of those chosen by fate. You are a Grey Warden, one of the last of an ancient order of guardians who have defended the lands throughout the centuries. Betrayed by a trusted general in a critical battle, you must hunt down the traitor and bring him to justice.

As you fight your way towards the final confrontation with an evil nemesis, you will face monstrous foes and engage in epic quests to unite the disparate peoples of a world at war. A romance with a seductive shapeshifter may hold the key to victory, or she may be a dangerous diversion from the heart of your mission. To be a leader, you must make ruthless decisions and be willing to sacrifice your friends and loved ones for the greater good of mankind.

Customer Reviews

One of the best
I have read a number of different reviews about this game in the gaming press and on-line. Some were not that complimentary and not being a hardened RPG player I was in two minds whether to purchase Dragon Age : Origins. I am glad that I did. The story is very detailed and if you study the Codex (which is a form of Book of Knowledge which you add to as you play) the history and the characters have some very detailed backgrounds. This all adds to the depth of the adventure and the characters you meet are at times intrigueing and in some cases you find yourself becoming very attached to them. Just the same as in any good film it has more of an impact if you like the characters and you begin caring about what happens to them. There are real touches of humour (check out the elderly sister of the chantry at Denerim who chooses her own version of the Chant - hilarious)and some moments of real pathos. On the whole it is a very immersive game world and you will want to savour it slowly. Graphically it is not a big leap forward and there are some rather rediculous fights when you could use more people in your party to even up the fight a little but you are restricted to four party members. On occasions it will be 4 against about 15 or 20 which seems a bit too much. Otherwise I like this game a great deal and I know when I have finished it I will want to play it again.

Baldur's Gate 3
I love Baldur's Gate 2 and still play it through quite regularly so I was somewhat dubious at the announcement that they were making a new contender. However, so far, my fears have been unfounded. The game is innately playable, and so addictive that I sit here at work twitching, waiting to get home so I can score another hit of DA:O.

I was always of the belief that it was the NPC (computer controlled) character interaction, both with you and with each other that made BG2 what it was, so I'm glad to see that they kept that part of it alive. The characters no longer stop to chat in text boxes as before, but instead you can hear them bickering with each other as you roam the villages and cities of the world. You can swap over which characters travel with you each time you go to a new quest area and in-between times a base `Camp' can be set up (by clicking the Camp icon on the world map screen). Your own relationship with each character is determined by your responses to them during quests but also around the campfire. Additional friendly points can be gained by giving characters items labelled `gifts' found throughout the game. Obviously your relationship stats with a character is going to change how they react to you in various situations. I'm a little disappointed that you can only max out your party to 4 rather than 6, which gives it more of a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic feel than a Baldur's Gate 2 feel, but you can't have everything!

For the most part though the fights are challenging and the methodology for killing bosses constantly fluctuates. You do need to pick which party members will be travelling with you quite soon though as it seems that failure to do so will result in you being a much higher level than your helpers, and some of those boss fights are hard!

Your party shares a joint inventory which also decreases the original's dragging and dropping as you pick up items with your main character (or rogue) and then move them over to the `mule' (strength maxed character) to carry around until you reach a shop. Buying backpacks increases your inventory space by 10 slots at a time too so there should be more than enough room to go around.

The humour of the original has translated well especially in the list of responses during conversations and the bickering between characters, and it made me laugh aloud when my faithful hound brought me dirty pantaloons! I'm glad to see that the pantaloon obsession is still kicking around.

The overhead camera view also translated well; I was very worried this game would turn out to be another generic first person game (Oblivion style) or chasing overhead camera (Sacred style) but it hasn't. A few people reviewing here have mentioned that they can't get the camera view to work in their favour, but using the scroll wheel (for zoom) and the Right Mouse Button (to spin the camera) I haven't had any problems at all - and somehow the general soft `feel' of BG2 permeates the graphics.

The only bad experience I've had so far was with The Attack at Nightfall quest. The quest involves defending the village from undead but you stand and wait, attack one mob, stand and wait, attack one mob, rinse and repeat until you get called away to defend another front; then attack, attack, attack, wait and wait and wait.... Finally I went for a wander (which you're obviously not meant to do) and found that one little undead had got stuck all by himself down at the docks - the moment he was killed the quest advanced. So perhaps the AI isn't so great on the mobs after all - but as with any new game I'm sure patches will be released swiftly to deal with the outstanding issues; so I'm not too bothered by an occasional glitch.

The spells now interact; ie. grease will catch fire leaving a flaming mass behind - but to be honest I've not really experimented too much with this. There are new skill sets like trap making, poison making and alchemy - for which you gather materials, usually from outside areas, and can then craft. Disarming traps seems to use your lockpick skill and in DA:O you actually get to see what the trap is (rather than a glowing purple mass), ie. a red tripwire (which your rogue will cut) or a red bear-trap which your rogue will trigger to disarm. You do still get XP for disarming traps too which was a good thing to keep - so many other games neglect this.

Like BG2 there is no linear play line; you have a mass of areas to pick from with more opening from subsequent play. In each area there are also places you can specifically go to (ie. the Chantry board) to collect short missions for extra cash. You have a quest log to help you remember which quest you were in the middle of and which ones you have as yet to hand in - and also markers on the map which show you where you should be heading to complete the missions or hand them in, which can be incredibly helpful, especially in the larger maps. Also, like in BG2, there are often multiple ways to complete missions - even more so than before giving the game the possibility of playing the game through multiple times and never doing it quite the same.

In all: I think this game is going to have the replayability of the original. It is an addictive, immersive, fun and sometimes frustrating game which will keep your interest for hours at a time. I would very much recommend this game to anyone who enjoyed any of the games I mentioned in this review; especially BG2 and SW:KOTOR.

I hope you enjoy the game as much as I do.

Future of gaming? Hope not
Okay, so you can't look up to the sky, or down to the ground; the characters are good; though the religious framework can be irritating for atheists and humanists. But what really puts me off this game, is having paid a lot of money for it, soon into the game I have to spend more money to go somewhere I would really like to. At least Fallout 3 had the decency to offer DLC later, here it is teased up early in the story. It is money-grabbing, tantamount to milking, pure and simple. If this is the future of gaming, thanks Bioware, thanks for alerting me that it is time to get a life, not a new game. Was looking forward to Mass Effect 2, but not now.