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: #78 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2009-11-06
• 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

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.

Forgiving flaws?
Having been playing the game now a while I remain amazed at just how well received it has been and how willingly most seem to brush flaws and problems under the proverbial carpet. The game is okay, and there is some enjoyment to be had from it, but it is also very often an exercise in un-necessary frustration and disappointingly lacking in "immersion" for a game of this style.

Surprisingly, it handles some features less ably than Baldur's Gate, made many years ago now. There you had six characters interacting and on screen, Dragon Age has just four. Tactical options or instructions, plus "formations", are gone or just ineffective. In Dragon Age, for example, in order to get your party to spread out, and hence use "ranged" weapons effectively, you need to tell the characters to "hold" position. However, when in the hold position is toggled, then the characters generally do not fight back when being struck - so say you pull back an archer and set him to fire on some beastie, he kills that beastie, then stands there doing absolutely nothing when some other creature steals up on him and starts bashing him over the head (You may get the sense that you are playing "Moron Age", not "Dragon Age"!). Take off the "hold" option, and your archer automatically charges back to the group, nullifying his ranged threat. As a strategy game, this is just rubbish. Additionally, you have to constantly monitor and adjust everything as the game devolves into a typical pattern of: hit pause, make a change, hit pause, check things - change view, hit pause, hit pause, hit pause, see the character doing absolutely nothing and wake him/her up, hit pause, hit pause, hit pause. And hopefully, assuming you haven't broken the space bar at this point, eventually win the battle (which is, in turn, pretty much the same as all the other battles given the strategic inflexibility of the engine).

Another very irritating thing is the frequent cases of enemies re-spawning immediately - go into a room, kill all the monsters successfully, but they immediately pop up again and you have to kill them again but they immediately re-spawn and maybe for a third time you have to kill exactly the same monster set. It becomes just a "strategy" of holding on if you can, which is tedious and not very interesting.

Then there's the endless repetitive dialogue. Want to talk to a merchant you have to put up with the exact same longueurs - appropriate on first hearing, totally tedious on even the second and on. Character comments themselves are often as pointless: want to open that door... "It has begun... " says your character. What has? The door? What are you on about? Meaningless and pointless. In general, there were times when my concentration drifted on the longer scenes and I forgot who the participants in the conversation actually were!

The map is fast travel only, ie just jump directly to major sites without any actual travelling. I remember reading many a heated debate about the mere inclusion of "fast travel" in Oblivion but here that's all there is. A surprisingly backward inclusion for a game in this day and age. The second Baldur's Game was like that but that at least had the excuse of the technology of the day - not so now. Also, sections of the game get cut off from you once visited, preventing you from returning: overall, it is not the open, exploratory experience some of the big recent rpg games have delivered.

Anyhow, I'm getting long winded here now myself. It's not a bad game overall but it is a flawed game and a somewhat unbalanced game. I'd still recommend giving it a go as it has a strong "lore" element to it but I would also tell anyone about to purchase it to beware the odd over exuberance in these reviews here. Edge magazine recently gave the game 5 out of ten - it isn't receiving universal praise - so be leery to avoid disappointment.

Excellent tactical RPG
Neverwinter Nights 2 meets Oblivion meets Baldurs Gate 2 meets The Witcher meets KOTOR. An excellent RPG that rewards players that both seek to immerse themselves in the storyline and are willing to approach battles with tactical considerations first and foremost in mind. Of course, if you are the kind of player that likes to skip conversations and cutscenes in games, or think that the very basic tactics that you need to employ in the first few very simple fights are then going to see you through the rest of the game then you are going to be sorely disappointed. This truly is one of the very few RPG's around that rewards tactical use of your environment and creative thinking.

Graphically the game is pretty stunning at the higher settings, especially if you zoom the camera all the way in so you are controlling your character KOTOR style (or indeed just about any MMORPG style), and both the sound effects and music in the game are excellent.

If I do have a gripe with the game it is in the limited selection of characters and classes. There are only three races (humans, dwarves and elves) and only three classes (fighter, rogue and mage). It is possible to specialize later on in the game but these specialisations don't add any great depth to the feel of the game. On the other hand maybe later modules or add-ons may feature new races and classes, but this doesn't seem likely, given the construction of the game engine.

Where Dragon Age Origins truly shines is in its storyline. Like the best of RPG's the story twists and turns and, like the storyline in The Witcher, it isn't always easy to tell enemy from friend, and choices you make in the game can influence whether companions join you, stay with you, leave you or even turn on you.

If you liked any of the five games mentioned in the first sentence of this review then this is one of those games that you'll probably want to pick up and give a try.