Dragon Age: Origins Review Page 2

03 Nov 2009 at 17:21:37 by Tim McDonald
Systems used to review this title: (PC)

This is a credit both to the stunning level of writing on display in Dragon Age as well as the way your character is interweaved throughout the plot. From going through the game as that elf mage, it's blatantly obvious that what my character's race and class changed the way the game unfolded. My mage was an elf – a race enslaved by humans for hundreds of years and discriminated against in a variety of horrific ways – and a mage – hugely powerful but held in equal parts contempt and terror by the populace at large. I was not well loved, but each of these held other advantages. I was the golden child of the mages, to some extent, and they were falling over themselves to help out at times. Likewise, my encounters with elves, both those in the slums within the game's major city of Denerim and the rare “free” clans who wander the forests, were made slightly easier through my heritage. On the other hand, not many people like mages, and there were further problems with humans due to being something outside of the norm. Playing through the mage opening gave me a degree of knowledge and ideas about the world that I know for a fact I didn't get when playing through the other origins, altering both your perspective of the world and your place within it.

That world itself is a fractured one, with dwarves indifferent to the problems of the topsiders who refuse to assist them with the darkspawn deep underground, elves fuelled by hatred for humans from the centuries of persecution they've faced, and humans arrogant, selfish, and prejudiced towards the rest. Mages are loathed and feared, and assistance from neighbouring countries is rebuffed because of decades of war. Your task – to unite the factions under the banner of the Grey Wardens so that an army to defeat the Blight can be created – is not an easy one.

Despite this, it's not the most original world. While it's lovingly detailed and has a wealth of backstory available, it's a tad disappointing to see BioWare – free to make a fantasy RPG without the Dungeons & Dragons license – drop straight back into a typical fantasy world of humans, elves, dwarves, dragons, undead, and the like. There are a lot of novel takes in there and a few genuine surprises, but it's still sad that the team didn't use their obvious creative abilities to create something genuinely original. Considering how well the world is realised and the quality of the events within it feels a little churlish to write this, but it does leave a lingering bad taste when you consider the possibilities.

Combat is frequent in a world like this and BioWare has thankfully excelled in making that aspect both tactical and entertaining. Battles are most reminiscent of Baldur's Gate, with your four-man team under your direct control at all times. You can pause combat at any time with a tap of the space bar to issue orders, although if you don't fancy doing that there's a well-implemented tactics system that you can set up to essentially customise the AI of your characters when you aren't controlling them. If you want Leliana to use her bow, focusing on firing Shattering Shots at targets with high armour but switching to a sword if two enemies get near to her, then that's easy to do. If you fancy having Alistair stick near to your party with Threaten and Shield Wall turned on so that he can effectively tank enemies, then that, too, is simple to organise with a few clicks. If you can't be arsed going through the Tactics and working out what each ability for each class does, then there are simple profiles – Scrapper, Defender, Archer, Controller – that will automatically set up the abilities. Dropping in an extra Tactic so that the characters will drink potions when low on health or mana is a good idea too, although not if your healer has an annoying habit of going through 20-30 potions in one fight.

What I've neglected to mention is that the combat is bloody hard. On Medium, you can be destroyed in under 20 seconds by a well-equipped group of enemies. To me, this is a good thing – barring one or two truly frustrating boss battles, I rather like having to think through each individual encounter, being very careful not to make stupid mistakes or get involved in a war of attrition I don't have the supplies to win. Others, however, should be warned. The game isn't a pushover even on Easy difficulty. The biggest impact that particular difficulty change has is to remove friendly fire, which makes the game resemble World of Warcraft a little - you're still going through roughly the same actions but you can pretty much use your abilities as soon as the cooldown ends with impunity, rather than taking a moment to work out the risks and benefits of hurling a fireball. On Medium or above that fireball might knock down the three archers that are turning your healer into a pincushion but it's also going to put your tank into critical health. Having your characters knocked out is a serious disadvantage, too: downed characters get Injuries which lower a particular stat and need to be healed with special items. Combat is a careful, intellectual exercise.

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