Dragon Age: Origins - The Grey Warden of old review
By goukijones —
July 16, 2010
Tags:
review
After an 8 month hiatus of the game I have returned to defeat the Archdemon and his wicked ways.
It was 8 months ago when I slayed my last Darkspawn. I remember the huge dragon waiting high above in the canyon peak. I could see him if I angled myself right. All I have to do is go whack that Chinese gong and I know he'll come down to see who is making all that racket. I know this, because I have been foolish enough to whack that gong before. I got frickin' railed. Anyway that was 8 months ago. I've been Fiending for a new adventure and I remember that Dragon Age Origins - even though Papabear destroys it in Vlog #11 - had some elements of RPG's that I do enjoy. Something about it had me hooked. I just can't remember.
So I popped that disc in the Xbox yesterday, INSTALLED it on the hard drive - That's right I'm serious. It's been so long since I played and the game knew this. Every step of the way when I first started it gave me pop ups for all the controls and how stuff worked. That was cool, that helped me get back into it even faster. It didn't take long for me to start switching up during combat, changing weapons on the fly, making potions and poisons and of course getting weapons augmented. Enchantment? Enchantment!! The retard dwarf child in the game is still something I'm getting used to.
When I stopped playing 8 months ago, I was totally lost. I never used the internet on Dragon Age Origins. That moratorium had been lifted for this second visiting. The thing I couldn't find before, sitting right next to me when I loaded up the game. I didn't even have to fuck with that dragon and that gong. Proper Nuab! So now I'm rolling, I got the ashes, this Jimmys is coming back to life and there mo Darkspawn in Denerim then a muthafucka! I played for 10 hours straight last night. I unlocked 5 achievements (in ya face!) Today when I got up I was ready to go to The Battle of Denerim.
If you've read this far, you should know that Dragon Age Origins is a very deep and tactical dungeon crawling RPG from Bioware. The same Jimmys that make Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic. Two of my favorite games of all time. Dragon Age Origins is a spiritual successor to a game called Baldur's Gate and if you don't know what that is then you're probably screwed with me explaining anymore.
Here's another twist you can freeze the game at any point and give your team - who you get to hand pick before you leave camp - an order to carry out on the battlefield. OR there's a tactics menu where you can program a party member do perform a certain way in a certain situation. The Archer for example could be programmed to switch weapon sets on the fly depending on if he/she is getting hit by ranged attacks or melees. Programmed to use items when he/she is in peril and of course buff themselves with Focus aim and other archer type abilities. You can also program special attacks and moves that require another party members for some serious devistation. Very similar to Final Fantasy XII, which is my favorite Final Fantasy combat system. Well I love Final Fantasy Tactics. Oh no I'm blithering blathering.
Dragon Age Origins doesn't have great graphics, but they aren't bad either. This is a PC type game. It's not really designed to look like a God of War III. DAO is about depth and combat. Besides the final battle and some of the other sequences of the game look really amazing. Don't worry about the graphics Jimmy.
I'm close to 60 hours and now that I have to go backwards a little bit, I'm sure it will be well over 60 hours. Yeah I thought I was a bad ass going up to the Archdemon, turns out I was very ill prepared. First of all it took me like 2 hours to fight my way to him. Then I spent about another 2 hours fighting him, because I died like 4 times. If I only had more magic potion, we'd be talking about the ending of the game right here. So I went back a few saves and I know now to **Pro-Tip** go to the Elf camp and make a shit load of potions. Don't be a Jimmy!
There's tons of DLC for the game, hell there's a whole-notha disc called Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening with new characters and missions to do. It's like $28 and Dragon Age Origins keeps a pretty good MSRP of $38 or so. So it's still popular. I know Estrada loved it. Irrelevant. I definitely think it's worth the $38 bucks. Plus there's other DLC options to choose from too like 3 or 4 different missions. I'm probably gonna pick up Awakening now, just because I need the adventure to continue.
I would say Dragon Age Origins is a buy. If you're into pure tactility and really setting up a whole party very strategically, you have got to at least try this game. Get addicted!
7,018
Views
8
Stories
Editor's Choice
Release Date:
Nov 3, 2009
Trending Video Games
