Dragon Age Origins is a fantastic story that is full of potential.
The writers give the player a choice of six different characters to play as. They are a human noble; a dwarf noble; a dwarf commoner; a mage; a nomadic elf and a city elf. After you play through the initial "Origin" story of your race, you are recruited into the Grey Wardens by Duncan and brought to Ostagar to help the king fight the dark spawn coming out of the forest. Each race you choose to play as is treated slightly differently by NPCs, for instance if you are an elf, generally people will treat you like garbage. Or if you are a human noble, you are treated like an equal or when speaking to soldiers a superior. Or if you are a mage, the massive majority of people will be terrified of you. Although you are given a choice to whom to play, the storyline is the same for whichever type of person you choose to be. The only differences are a very slight change in how you're spoken to, and a very slight change in characters appearing in your story. Although the original idea for Dragon Age Origins was a gigantic task of writing six separate story lines that each tie in together with you fighting dark spawn. It would have been made a lot better if EA had not been breathing down the necks of the Bioware studios.
Bioware was working with limited time and money for this project should have taken a lot of the time, if you look for it, you can spot mistakes and unfinished parts of the story. A lot of mistakes were made in the original dialogue, which seems to have been written and casted before the script was finalised. You can also spot where the actors had a stuffy nose at a particular time, or where a particular NPC was somewhere else and then Bioware decided to move him at the last minute. The EA timeline made the Bioware team say "That'll do" for a lot of the production. Steve Valentine has a cold today but we need these lines done a half hour ago, "That'll do". We really like this one NPC but you only see him on the Dalish elf origin for like 3 seconds, let's move him so you can interact with him more, even though he's mentioned in a line from your Dalish Elf companion at the Origin story; "That'll do". Leliana works really well if you play as a human, but she's particularly racist in her wording if you play an elf; "That'll do". Etcetera, etcetera...
Although EA rushed the writing phase of the production, the visual effects and gameplay are particularly good. The artists at Bioware did a great job in character creation and texturing and creating the settings. Although the environments are made larger and less realistic due to the medium, they work very well. Although the character you play has no voice at all, the NPCs and party members seem to be able to have a fluent conversation with you. When you sit there listening to the dialogue of your companions you almost feel like a mute because your responses are in text at the bottom of the screen. This has made the conversations a little one sided and your companions and NPCs do get some very long winded dialogue because of this, another unrealistic fact of the role playing game genre. I believe, because the actors are not interacting with another actor while they do these lines, it does make these lumps of dialogue to not flow all too well. If EA stopped being a hulking menace Bioware could've gotten an actor for the characters we created and it might have made it easier for the other actors who are talking with the hero to have a more believable conversation. Alistair does tend to say the word "anywho" a little too often in one sentence.
Fighting in Dragon Age Origins is a little bit technical. You can't always just set a good tactic for your party members and let them do what you expect them to do; a lot of the time you have to personally direct your companions, in particular your healer, and tell them to do what you want them to do, instead of wasting their mana casting a wishy- washy attack at the enemy. It doesn't help the fact that the enemy has at least 10 more tactic slots in their tactics, than any of your party members have at that time. So for a person who is new to the role playing game formula, casual mode is the way to go; although if you go and download the Advanced Tactics mod, it makes the game a lot easier and more fun to play. If you don't have a rogue in your party you will find yourself with a lot of injuries and you'll see your party getting up a lot because of traps, especially oil traps. A mage and an oil trap, it'll go boom and you'll have to wait for all your characters to get up, use their potions and then run over to the mage to not let it cast fireball again. Everything is exceptionally slow during fights, and the computer always seems to think you've made a mistake in your commands and doesn't do what you want it to.
Overall, Dragon Age Origins is a great game with great potential, most of which has been snuffed out of it by the EA giant. It has a lot of room for additional stories of the Dragon Age universe, but one more thing, Bioware get out now! EA is bleeding the life out of your stories! If you stay with EA the rest of the games will be more of "that'll do."
The writers give the player a choice of six different characters to play as. They are a human noble; a dwarf noble; a dwarf commoner; a mage; a nomadic elf and a city elf. After you play through the initial "Origin" story of your race, you are recruited into the Grey Wardens by Duncan and brought to Ostagar to help the king fight the dark spawn coming out of the forest. Each race you choose to play as is treated slightly differently by NPCs, for instance if you are an elf, generally people will treat you like garbage. Or if you are a human noble, you are treated like an equal or when speaking to soldiers a superior. Or if you are a mage, the massive majority of people will be terrified of you. Although you are given a choice to whom to play, the storyline is the same for whichever type of person you choose to be. The only differences are a very slight change in how you're spoken to, and a very slight change in characters appearing in your story. Although the original idea for Dragon Age Origins was a gigantic task of writing six separate story lines that each tie in together with you fighting dark spawn. It would have been made a lot better if EA had not been breathing down the necks of the Bioware studios.
Bioware was working with limited time and money for this project should have taken a lot of the time, if you look for it, you can spot mistakes and unfinished parts of the story. A lot of mistakes were made in the original dialogue, which seems to have been written and casted before the script was finalised. You can also spot where the actors had a stuffy nose at a particular time, or where a particular NPC was somewhere else and then Bioware decided to move him at the last minute. The EA timeline made the Bioware team say "That'll do" for a lot of the production. Steve Valentine has a cold today but we need these lines done a half hour ago, "That'll do". We really like this one NPC but you only see him on the Dalish elf origin for like 3 seconds, let's move him so you can interact with him more, even though he's mentioned in a line from your Dalish Elf companion at the Origin story; "That'll do". Leliana works really well if you play as a human, but she's particularly racist in her wording if you play an elf; "That'll do". Etcetera, etcetera...
Although EA rushed the writing phase of the production, the visual effects and gameplay are particularly good. The artists at Bioware did a great job in character creation and texturing and creating the settings. Although the environments are made larger and less realistic due to the medium, they work very well. Although the character you play has no voice at all, the NPCs and party members seem to be able to have a fluent conversation with you. When you sit there listening to the dialogue of your companions you almost feel like a mute because your responses are in text at the bottom of the screen. This has made the conversations a little one sided and your companions and NPCs do get some very long winded dialogue because of this, another unrealistic fact of the role playing game genre. I believe, because the actors are not interacting with another actor while they do these lines, it does make these lumps of dialogue to not flow all too well. If EA stopped being a hulking menace Bioware could've gotten an actor for the characters we created and it might have made it easier for the other actors who are talking with the hero to have a more believable conversation. Alistair does tend to say the word "anywho" a little too often in one sentence.
Fighting in Dragon Age Origins is a little bit technical. You can't always just set a good tactic for your party members and let them do what you expect them to do; a lot of the time you have to personally direct your companions, in particular your healer, and tell them to do what you want them to do, instead of wasting their mana casting a wishy- washy attack at the enemy. It doesn't help the fact that the enemy has at least 10 more tactic slots in their tactics, than any of your party members have at that time. So for a person who is new to the role playing game formula, casual mode is the way to go; although if you go and download the Advanced Tactics mod, it makes the game a lot easier and more fun to play. If you don't have a rogue in your party you will find yourself with a lot of injuries and you'll see your party getting up a lot because of traps, especially oil traps. A mage and an oil trap, it'll go boom and you'll have to wait for all your characters to get up, use their potions and then run over to the mage to not let it cast fireball again. Everything is exceptionally slow during fights, and the computer always seems to think you've made a mistake in your commands and doesn't do what you want it to.
Overall, Dragon Age Origins is a great game with great potential, most of which has been snuffed out of it by the EA giant. It has a lot of room for additional stories of the Dragon Age universe, but one more thing, Bioware get out now! EA is bleeding the life out of your stories! If you stay with EA the rest of the games will be more of "that'll do."