The gameplay of Dragon Age is different than Mass Effect. However, it's not quite the same as the gameplay of the old top down RPGs of the 90's either. The best way to describe the game is by discussing the camera. In older RPG games the camera was locked in a top down view of your characters in the flat environment. In modern Bioware games like Mass Effect the camera is over the shoulder of individual characters. Dragon Age hybrids both of these techniques. By scrolling the mouse wheel you can change between a close up over the shoulder view, and a top view of the general area. The camera view when close up can be fully adjusted up down and full circle of the selected character. In the top view you can move a little ways around the top view of the general area of your characters. Unlike Mass Effect, Dragon Age allows you to directly control each character in your party.

While there is a great deal of versatility with the views, the camera has a few little foibles at both angles. When the camera is pinned behind a selected character, movement can sometimes behave in an erratic manner. The camera has little manoeuvrability when in tight spaces, and the scroll out to the top view is often disabled entirely by walls. This means you have to fiddle with the camera rotation before you are able to zoom out to the top view. The top down view camera has it's own set of issues. The area of the map you can move the camera to is restricted. If your party separates over a larger area the top view will not allow you to simply move camera view around to each character. This forces you to manually select each character profile picture at the top left after every action.

The tactics section is designed to allow a party members to perform an action based on a set of parameters. Basically programming what your character does in each situation. Being of the 'old school' I was more comfortable pausing the action and selecting the action manually. While I am sure there is a skill to using the tactics screen, I don't use it. I was more annoyed by characters using up skills I wanted them to save without being prompted. I couldn't find an option to disable this.

While I do wish there was a way to queue up attacks like in Mass Effect, I am still comfortable with the one action selection. The AI is a bit of a problem, there is occasions where the character will simply get stuck and not perform any tasks. This isn't related to being frozen, knocked down or any such thing, but rather the AI being told to move or attack and not responding. I've found that the fastest way to force past this is to simply nudge the character a bit with the manual walk movement keys, then chose an attack. Overall the game is well polished and very detailed. However, there is a few little bugs that were a tad bit annoying to come across. Certain plot points can get confused and out of order. Area maps do have a few little glitches. One example of a mapping problem is on a bridge near the beginning of the game. I simply walked to a crumbled side of the bridge and was teleported down to the base of the bridge. This area was obviously supposed to be backdrop, but I was stuck there and forced to reload. Dragon Age is a very large game with a huge amount of maps to explore. I found only a few major bugs like the bridge, but like so many large open area games, invisible barriers block the path to seemingly open sections of the map. I can't stand invisible barriers.

Attacks and abilities are varied and come with interesting special effects, and neat little animations. The combat is very satisfying and tactical battles satisfyingly deep. Using smart fighting tactics is important because Dragon Age is a rather difficult game. I played on the Normal difficulty setting, and I was challenged throughout the whole game. I bumped it up to hard, and anything but small skirmishes became challenging to the point of frustration. I may not be the greatest RPG player, but I know what I'm doing enough to realize a major challenge when I'm up against it.

The combat evolves well, and the games difficulty seems to keep a good pace throughout. As you play through you learn little tactics to make battles a great deal easier, or are the most effective. To have an effective party, one mage is important. Mages are a bit like the quarterback of your party. At least one character to take some heavy up front damage, and then the rest is left to personal preference. I liked having a rouge / bard with high lockpick skills to open up locked chests.

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