DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS will probably go down as one of the best games that I've ever played. It's an RPG of a dying breed. Your character is silent, the lore is extensive, and success only comes about after trial, error, and numerous deaths. A game that all but demands that you invest yourself emotionally and fill your character's shoes as much as possible. It follows the classic D&D tradition that few games submit to these days (not even DRAGON AGE II will be in the same vein) and a masterful story that only the good writers at BioWare could deliver.
If you haven't had a chance to play this game, start with this "Ultimate Edition." No question about it. DA:O is certainly good enough as is, but BioWare released a series of add-ons since its release that aren't quite worth the price tag they were given. This collection, on the other hand, is a great deal. Buying DA:O, its "expansion," and every piece of DLC at release would have cost you a grand total of $160. Unacceptable and insulting, especially considering the quality of some of the DLC. On the other hand, the cost for the "Ultimate Edition" is a fine price for you to enjoy the heck out of DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS, and make up your own mind about the add-ons without conflict.
NOTE: The package includes two discs. The first contains only DA:O, while the second is an installation disc for the add-ons. You WILL have to install the DLC from the second disc to play them. They're not terribly big files, but people with limited HD space should take this into account.
-DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS (5/5 Stars): In my old Amazon review, I gave this game 4/5 stars because of its difficulty, but that was nearly a year ago...and I'm still playing. If the sheer amount of content doesn't keep you playing, then maybe the fact that merely playing as a character of a different gender will dramatically change the way the story progresses. You will never play the same game twice. This is fantasy fiction at its best, and one of the best fantasy RPGs in years and years.
The writing is great, the lore is perhaps TOO detailed, and the characters are extremely likable. If you love in-depth or classic RPGs that stay away from modern trappings, this is the game for you. Perhaps one of the LAST games for you.
(The DLC reviews are in the order I think they should be played for full enjoyment. The first three, you should play before you complete the game.)
-THE STONE PRISONER (3/5 Stars): The quest itself is largely uninteresting, but it unlocks a new party member, Shale. It's a well-written character to be sure and is sure handy in a fight, but don't expect to get a ton out of its backstory.
-WARDEN'S KEEP (4/5 Stars): This has a nice little storyline that's only about an hour in length (as is most of the DLC). You are tasked with helping a descendant of a Grey Warden clear his family's name. To do so, you must clear out a place called Soldier's Peak, which, afterward, will grant you a place to store your goods. For the impulsive looter, this is a gift, though I think it should have been a part of the actual game. Having a guy in your camp asking you to buy Xbox Live content doesn't do much for immersion.
-RETURN TO OSTAGAR (5/5 Stars): This one worked so well on account of its emotional significance to me. Ostagar is The Place where your adventure begins, where you become a Grey Warden, and lose quite a bit. To come back to it was a heart-wrenching experience. It won't take you very long to hack through it, but the items that you can find throughout have great meaning, and the ending brings with it a satisfying sense of closure.
-DRAGON AGE: AWAKENING (4/5 Stars): Without the outrageous $40 price tag attached to it, you can now enjoy this in full confidence. This is a 13-15 hour adventure through the Arling of Amaranthine, which will give you new locations, party members, armor, and an opportunity to rule over the land. It's definitely the best out of all the add-ons, but it probably won't sync up very well with your ending from ORIGINS, which is definitely a downer. And the ending was a bit rushed for my taste.
-GOLEMS OF AMGARRAK (3/5 Stars): I liked the idea of my Warden answering a call for help, but I DREADED going back to the Deep Roads again. AGAIN! There are other places to explore in Ferelden, BioWare...Anyway, this wasn't bad, but there just wasn't much to it. You explore an old dwarven thaig, uncover a few ancient secrets and fight a boss. If it takes you more than two hours to complete, I'd be surprised (that goes for most of the DLC).
-WITCH HUNT (4/5 Stars): The infamous Morrigan romance. If you felt it didn't end the way you'd expected in ORIGINS, here's your chance to get that feeling back again. The story takes place a little over two years after the end of ORIGINS, and your Warden is searching for Morrigan (your intentions, good or ill, are up to you). There's quite a bit of lore to be found here, some humor from your party members, and it provides you with enough foreshadowing to make you remember DRAGON AGE II is right around the corner. Beyond that, Witch Hunt is little more than a fine way to kill an hour, but I liked it. NOTE: This DLC will pretty much serve as the end of your Warden's story until DA2, so plan accordingly.
-LELIANA'S SONG (2/5 Stars): This DLC didn't serve much of a purpose to me. Leliana told her story sufficiently enough in ORIGINS; there was just no reason to play through it. It actually made her character all the more confusing because it doesn't really give you a good, meaningful reason as to why she joined the Chantry. It almost makes it sound like she joined "just because." Way to take a neat story and make it boring. Also, the almost French accents were terribly annoying and poorly done here.
-THE DARKSPAWN CHRONICLES (1/5 Stars): Another pointless piece of DLC. It basically shows what would happened if you, the Warden, had never been found. You command a Hurlock and a party of other Darkspawn through the final battle, killing all of the Warden's companions along the way. This would have been a neat little "what-if?" story, but there is absolutely no voice-work here. Not one word, so it just amounts to an hour of killing things with no real purpose. And all the locations are recycled, let's not forget that.
So, in closing, I do want to reiterate my love for this game and how much of a true RPG experience it is. BioWare might have gone a little crazy with the DLC, but this is a truly great package when everything is said and done. This is my second time buying DA:O (my copy was throughly abused and broken after my friend and I were done with it), and it was my first time playing and of the add-ons with the exception of AWAKENING. I had a lot of fun, despite the questionable quality of a few of them.
This really is as good as it gets. And judging by the current "simplified, modern, give-a-voice-to-the-main-character" trend in RPGs, this may very well be one of your last opportunities to enjoy a game inspired by the classics of the genre.
See you at the Joining, Warden.
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I have had a great deal of difficulty getting into any given game recently, and it has often taken some pretty impressive games for me to put in more than a couple of hours. I started by getting the original Dragon Age: Origins preowned, and within a week, I knew that I would be purchasing this copy. It simply offers too much downloadable content and expansions at too great a value to pass up. I will rate the game as a whole, for those of you who don't know about Dragon Age.
Graphics: I have often heard people speak ill of the graphics of Dragon Age. I suppose the graphics are only slightly better than that of Xbox 360 games that came out on release day, but definitely not as poor as PS2 graphics that some people claim it sports.
Considering what they have done with the game, I can't say I would complain about the graphics. Every single piece of armor shows on every character on every cut scene. Cut scenes change based on what you have done and who is in your party, and every dialogue piece changes depending on who is in your party. It is remarkable to see little details such as what boots a character is wearing showing accurately in every scene. I consider this to be an impressive game. And it may not be FF 13 graphics, but it does some far more impressive things than FF13 ever attempted.
Glitches: Yes the game consists of glitches, are any of them game breaking? I haven't run into any as I had with Fallout 3. The glitches are sometimes audio fails to properly trigger, some characters outfits or beards tend to fall into each other, there was one scene where my character performed the killing blow on thin air because the monster had already fallen, so glitches exist, and they can be distracting. Once again, I point to the shear magnitude that this game accomplishes, and can forgive that some dialogue doesn't match up right, or a codex is inaccurate, given how much the game possesses. Compared to shorter games like Gears of War, Halo, and Darksiders, the game has considerably more glitches, and you will run across them. However, other than being minor inconveniences, I haven't experienced anything. Just follow the rule of save frequently, especially since the games autosave feature isn't quite as frequent as you would probably prefer.
Environment: This might be some of the reason people hit so badly on the graphics. The environments are pretty bland. You aren't going to see very much in the ways of surreal, artistic, landscape. Once in a while you might see something pretty cool, like in the deeproads, but for the most part, I have found the landscape to be relatively bland.
Appropriateness: Most people are curious about the content. A lot of games are labeled M for mature, but that can go in a lot of directions. In general, there is no swearing in the game, the characters rather using the softer words like "Sodding" when they swear. With regards to nudity, there are various enemies that will be fairly bare. Desire Demons typically where nothing but a loin cloth and some "nipple covers". A certain monster shows more boobs, but there was nothing sexual about a broodmother. You can have sex in the game, but it is done fairly tactfully, and every character wears underwear, the loose, unexposing kind. Homosexuality, threesomes, foursomes, and more stuff can occur in this game as well. With regard to violence, the game revels in how it shows blood. Your characters will become covered in blood after fights, and certain items have the unique ability to be "messy" and have more blood. Enemies will have pools of blood around them too, and will quickly decay into skeletons after a kill. So violence is a yes, although you can't just attack and kill anyone like in oblivion... in this game you would have to challenge and threaten to get into fights, and even then it doesn't always work. So yes, a violent, sexual game with surprisingly decent language. The environments are typically OK, I didn't see too many scary environments or inappropriateness like in Fallout 3. In one or two areas, you might see a few people hanged from hooks, but nothing like Fallout 3 does. There was one area that freaked me out and was scary, but that was the only area in the game I found to be that way.
Difficulty: I found the game to be pretty easy, but I suppose that depends on your experience with RPGs in general. I play on normal mode and might crank it up for my second playthrough. There were some challenges, but the more I play and get used to the controls, the easier it gets.
Variety: The game offers a fair variety of gameplay. Most of the time, it is simply clicking A to kill all your enemies, but there are plenty of ways to shake things up. If you are a mage, you will need to balance and run through your spells constantly. You can lure enemies into carefully constructed traps if you would like, causing them to fail miserably as they charge you. A boss or two require unique strategies to kill. So if you want to just hit A until it is dead, you can, or you can use your abilities strategically, the choice is yours.
Other characters:
You have the ability to fully control any member of your party, so don't think you are going to be helpless like in some other games. You can create fairly complex AI controls so that your ally acts exactly how you want him to. Learning to set these up properly is essential to the game. The redial menu is your friend, and while I originally tried to get away without it, I eventual realized it is a necessary part of the game. You will quickly learn that you can't learn everything, so you are going to have to give some of the slack to your allies. One of them will need to learn herbalism/trapmaking/lockpicking ect... you can't depend on the warden to master them all, making teamwork in your party essential, something I have not felt in any game for a while.
Improvements: My only two improvements that I think would have added greatly with the game is 1) allowing a second player to take control of one of the allies, which would have been remarkably easy to set up and 2) Perhaps a few less glitches would have been nice.
Overall: Other than that, I found this game to be the best game I have played in some time. It is fun, giving you an open game feel without the "I have no idea where to go, what to do" feel oblivion sometimes gave. Most of your paths are linear, and I can't say I felt like I missed too much without a strategy guide, but it still gives you options and multiple paths in any given dungeon/city. The additions were all great, and I enjoy awakening just as much. The addons are definitely fun and worth adding on, although I don't expect many of them are worth it to buy individually, they are a great deal within this edition.
Best Deals for Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Edition - Xbox 360
Now before I get into the game im going to state this. To enjoy this game to its fullest there is alot of reading. The game plays like a classic rpg some what similar to that of guildwars and it requires alot of patience and if you dont have any of that you will not enjoy this game.
Now to the main review this game is simply amazing. There is so much depth in it you will spend just as many hours in this as you did in fallout 3. Alot of games you dont know a whole lot about the universe you are put into well thats not the case with dragon age. All around the game there are codex entries that you add to a journal and they describe in great detail of the world around you. You may even get so into it you feel like you are part of the game.
On my first play through I managed to beat the game in 20 to 25 hours and thats only because I didnt even come close to everything there is to do in this game. I mostly focused on the main story and ignored the codex entries. This is definitely a game that requires multiple play throughs to understand it.
The most interesting thing about dragon age is the origin story. There are 6 different origins you can chose from and each one has their own impact on the game and how people around you react to you. Like I said this game is going to take some time and if you want to see all the different ways the game can play out you are at least looking at 6 play throughs.
Whats great about this package is all the dlc you get with it. Theres probably around $80 worth of dlc that I paid and you get for free with the game. Now there are a few DLC's you that you really shouldnt touch until after you play the game. As they could spoil the main plot for you.
If you like old style Rpg's and a vast story you will fall in love with this game, it's simply a master piece. There is just so much with in this game I really dont know where to begin to sum it all up in a review but its deffinatly worthy of being in your collection.
Honest reviews on Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Edition - Xbox 360
I hope to eventually write a real review, but for now I just need to warn you: I think it is a very bad idea to install the "feastday" DLC pack. Install all the others, but this one is game-wrecking.
One of the great things about Dragon Age is the approval system -your game choices and your dialog options and you use of various "gifts" will influence how much esteem your party members hold you in. Earn their loyalty and you'll unlock special skills, and maybe even romance. Alienate someone too much and they might outright leave.
This nuanced system replaces the literally one-dimensional morality mechanic in games like Mass Effect, Fable, KOTOR and others. I find it so much more realistic.
Here's what the feastday DLC pack does: it takes this innovative game mechanic, and completely destroys it. It gives you abundant access to cheap gifts that *hugely* pump up the loyalty ratings of everyone in your party. If you want to keep everyone at max approval, it's just too easy. It'd be really hard not to.
For each character there is one special gift that gives +50 approval, and one "prank" gift that gives -50. Here's how it went down for me. I had a character who I'd worked hard to get up to, say, 80. Not knowing what the gifts do, I gave her the "good" gift. Her approval maxed out at 100. Then I gave the prank gift. It went down to 50. I thought, "hey, I got robbed! I should get it back to 80 again." Well, this is easy: you just buy three copies of "Thoughtful Gift" from your local merchant. (I'm serious.) That's it. Only once I'd done that, I was drunk on the whole idea, long story short, five minutes later everyone in my party had max approval. Yeah, I'm weak.
Ergo, the whole interesting and motivating game mechanic of the approval system was just tossed out the window. I've never had a DLC actually ruin part of the core gameplay experience of a game before.
I cannot fathom why BioWare made and released this DLC. I say: just don't install it. If, halfway through the game, you decide that you hate the approval system and you wish the game didn't have that aspect to it at all, then go for it; this DLC pack will wipe it off the face of the map for you handily.
Sorry that this wasn't a real review. The core game is 47 kinds of awesome.
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First off, probably the only RPG I've played where I didn't want to viciously murder at least one of my companions by the end of the game (I'm talking about you, Neeshka and Qara of Neverwinter Nights 2). Every character has a great personality, and your companions will engage one another in (often hilarious) dialogue. The graphics look great, and there is a good sense of the benefits and shortcomings of each weapon style and type. Item creation is much easier than in Neverwinter Nights 2, where you have to go all over the continent to search for the required materials. Sometimes you will have to make decisions on whose word to trust without knowing who is being honest with you (ieMorrigan or her mother)
Now for the bad part. Visibility and targeting make absolutely no sense. Enemies would at time appear out of thin air. This could make sense if the enemies were being stealthy, but they're not. I once stood on a hilltop and could not even see the army of Undead that the villagers were fighting. Keep in mind that higher elevation should IMPROVE your visibility. At other times, I could clearly see an enemy but the game wouldn't let me target him until I moved the character slightly forward or to the side.
Additionally, I didn't feel like the mage class contributed enough to the game. All of the spells that end up doing damage to a large number of opponents end up screwing over your melee characters via friendly fire. Some spells such as mind blast and mass paralysis are useful, but you can stun multiple enemies simply by having an archer with scattershot or a bard use Song of Fascination.
Also, merchant stores were kind of limited in some areas, such as health potions. Although you can also get healing via spells, random health potions by looting carcasses, or making your own health potions, it was still rather irritating that I managed to buy out every health poultice on the continent.
I was kinda disappointed to find out that some of the battles prior to the final boss were tougher than the archdemon himself.
