By Sam Coles:
As well as Oblivion, Dragon Age: Origins is a game that is
very personal to me as it got me through a dark and depressing period of my
life. I was 17 years old and my A-levels were getting the better of me when I
picked the game up from my local Blockbuster (Yes they were still a thing back
then), where I saw it sat on the shelf. I picked it up impulsively without
knowing anything about the game at all; I knew it was made by Bioware who made
Mass Effect as there was only one game in that series as the second had yet to
come out. I was enamoured with this world where I was the hero and people
relied on me for help, I felt I was accomplishing something in this game.
Dragon Age: Origins takes place in the kingdom of Ferelden,
where there is a dark force on the horizon known as the Darkspawn. The Grey
Wardens are the only ones who have the knowhow of defeating these creatures,
Duncan the current leader of the Wardens is on the lookout for new members as
the citizens of Ferelden have ignored the warnings of the Grey Wardens. What is
unique is that you have different introductions for each race you pick hence
the “Origins” part in the title, but after that the games story generally stays
the same with some of hand references to your character’s background. The story
is amazing with loveable and very hateable characters as they are well written,
where you loath or really care about certain characters, where you form bonds
or disgust for different characters.
The gameplay is very familiar if you have played Knights of
the Old Republic, where you control a party of warriors which you can switch
between at any time to change their abilities or attacks. Combat is generally sedate
on normal and you don’t have to use too many tactics, as you can generally get
away with just using your character; however when you switch to hard or
nightmare mode you have to be on your toes and start using your brain.
When you journey through the kingdom you’ll find new party
members such as the lustful Morrigan to the charismatic Alistair. They are all
unique with great abilities; my advice is to have at least one mage in your
party as they have some devastating area of effect attacks.
The presentation honestly has not aged well, to be fair this
game came out eight years ago and this was a period where developers were
getting to grasp with the Xbox 360 and PS3 still. The environments can look
nice in some places, but can look bland, blurry and washed out in other areas.
Character models look pretty bad with stiff animations, it looks as if someone
stuck a pole up their backside in some scenes, but they do animate well in
scripted cutscenes rather than in game conversations.
Dragon Age: Origins is a wonderful game and is one of my
favourite games of all time, if you haven’t played it do it! It is super cheap
these days and you can play it on Xbox One via backwards compatibility, but you
can get on PS3 and for the superior controlling version get it on the PC.
Despite the non-numerical title suggesting a complete do-over, God of War is thrillingly different. This is more redemption than reinvention, though there is plenty of that too, as Sony Santa Monica levy the weight of Kratos’ past in one of the most gorgeous, spectacular and impactful blockbusters of the generation.
ReplyDeleteSee more review: Jurassic World Evolution
Smoke and Sacrifice
Moonlighter