Dragon Age Origins PC Review

It is back in the mid 90's and I've been in my basement for 36 hours straight. My eyes are sore and my body smells like something so bad I cannot even come up with the right adjectives to properly describe the effect it would have on a human nose. Yet after all this time I'm still not done, or willing to give up on playing Baldur's Gate 2. For anyone who was sucked into this 5 disk monster of an RPG game, relating to this situation will not be hard. The creator of Baldur's Gate, Bioware, has made some stellar RPG games, including some more modern entries. Not too long ago Knights of the Old Republic the Star Wars RPG series. Mass Effect was added to the list of Bioware RPG games just over a year ago. While we wait for the sequel to Mass Effect, Bioware has unveiled a return to the classic 'dungeons and dragons' RPG game style of Baldur's Gate. While the knights, elves, dragons and dwarves world may seem a bit cliche, it is hard to ignore the mastery of previous Bioware RPG games. The dungeons and dragons genre is seed from which modern RPG games stem from, but can Dragon Age Origins bring these classic RPG games to a relevant place in modern gaming?

Dragon Age Origins has a lot to live up to. Between the expectations fans have of Bioware games, and the rosy glasses of nostalgia classic RPG games are viewed with, a polished and deep game is a minimum requirement before RPG fans will be satisfied.

The first step when starting Dragon Age is creating your main character. You chose between three possible character races. Human, dwarf and elf may not seem like a wide variety, but with the sub classes opportunities exist to make each race play entirely differently. The limited number of races can be attributed to a different origin story with completely different opening sets of gameplay for each race. While this is rather impressive and is a big bonus for replay value, the unique storyline doesn't really carry forth past the first hour or two of the game in any real way.

The basics of the lead in story recount the religious mythology of the game world. It seems that a group of mages attempted to use their abilities to gain access to a heaven of sorts. Unfortunately the attempt ended up corrupting this group of mages, spawning a new evil race known as Orcs...erm... I mean the Darkspawn. In case you didn't follow that subtle reference, the evil race in this game is, at best, an obvious nod to the Orcs created by Tolkien, and put to screen by Peter Jackson. At worst you might say that they are blatantly cloned PC game world versions. A great number of fantasy creations from the mind of Tolkien made it's way into Dragon Age, however this feels more like an homage than something unoriginal. Tolkien is credited for all but birthing this genre, so his influence is obviously going to be felt. To put a unique spin on things Bioware attempted to break some preconceived notions of the genre related to some of the mainstay races. Elves, while still considered physically more ideal, are viewed by society as a sub human race, treated as slaves and berated by most of the general populous. Unlike the Tolkien counterparts, Dragon Age elves are no longer immortal. This is a side effect of their down trodden treatment throughout recent history.

The dwarves do still live in the mountains and generally stick to themselves. However, in Dragon Age they are portrayed as being a society heavily divided into a three tier class society based on birth rights. Everything about the dwarven culture is entrenched in political red tape and hierarchy.

The ancient story goes that the three races were plagued by the Darkspawn to a point where society was on the brink. In an attempt to combat this evil a band of heroes known as the Gray Wardens was created which allied the three races and fought back against the Darkspawn. As years pass the deeds of the Gray Wardens become legend and people begin to forget the threat the Darkspwan will have should they reunite under the powerful leadership of an Arch Demon, creating a 'Blight'.

Sure enough another Blight surge arises and now all the separate races must come together to again fight them back. No matter what race you chose, your main character ends up becoming a Gray Warden and will play an important role in the battle against the Darkspawn. Victory seems possible, but then the Gray Wardens are betrayed and left all but destroyed. This is when the main story of reuniting the divided races to fight the Darkspawn begins.

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