You have your standard run of the mill character creation. You can choose to be male or female, human, elf or dwarf and then a warrior, rouge or mage with a background to suit you. There are also subclasses for each like a rouge Ranger or a Warrior Paladin. I played a male human rouge with a background as a former Noble; and my back story? Lord Howle took my land, killed my family and striped me of my title…and by my father’s sword, I will have my vengeance! *ahem* Needless to say I got fully into the swing of my chosen character.

From your origin story, you’re plunged straight into the main storyline with one immediate goal: pass the trials to become a Grey Warden. Who are the Grey Wardens? Well, they’re basically the fantasy equivalent of Jedi’s, just without the lightsabers and force powers. Their role is to stop an invasion of hellish creatures called the Darkspawn who cause a ‘blight’, being lead by an Arch-demon, what looks to be a big black dragon. So, a nice big epic storyline set up, you have to unite the land to defeat a terrible evil, facing overwhelming odds with only a ragtag band of mismatched adventurers to help get you there.

So yeah, this isn’t anything an RPG fan hasn’t seen before, especially in a Bioware game. Some RPG fans expected more from this; fresh ideas that weren’t too similar to their previous work. Dragon Age is not revolutionary, it is not the next stage of the fantasy RPG genre, but it is bloody good! And Dragon Age does enjoy a lot of blood…maybe a little too much.

The storyline may be a standard fare, but it’s the presentation and delivery that make it an enjoyable play.  The world is beautifully created and rendered, on a decent PC at least, 90% of the NPCs are voiced and all the major ones are brought to life with solid voice acting and emotions. Even if they do look a bit plastic at times. While all the PC characters get generally the same storyline, even the slight variations are enough to intrigue the player and get plenty of replay value.

The various companions you pick up, clichéd as they are have interesting and likeable personalities and you do start to get used to having them around.  From Alistair’s wry wit to Stern’s stoic one liners, you want to see what secrets they hide and who they really are. Except Morrigan, she’s just a whore. The gifting system allows you to curry favour with you companions and make up for any…inappropriate decisions you made in their presence.  And yes, you can have sex with the various ladies and gents who fight alongside you. Well, not so much sex as a barely clothed writhing about for 30 seconds. An adult RPG indeed…

The combat is well managed, thanks to the ability to pause the action to issue orders. You can also take a bird’s eye view of the action to better adjust your strategy. That said, it will take you a while to adjust to using the various classes and combat tactics to defeat the various hordes and bosses you come across. At times it can be extremely frustrating   and uneven, especially if you don’t have the right mix of party members to take on your foe. The slimming down of the character classes and specialisation does make it easier for a player to adjust the way they play and the party you use; though you will most likely end up with two warriors a healing mage and a damage mage to cut the Darkspawn into chop seuy.

The lore and history of Fereldan is a nice departure from the Dungeons and Dragons universe in Baulders gate, familiar yet alien. For example there are no dwarf mages due to the lyrium (magic infused rock) that they mine makes them unable to control it. The humans are, of course, despised by the other races for being dicks in the past and having the audacity to have empires and a superiority complex to rival the most egotistical elf.  The Dwarfs live in a strictly Platonic caste society, the humans with their feudal lords and ladies and the Elves in their various tribal societies. Oh and not forgetting the thinly veiled Chantry standing in for Christianity.

So for fans of the old school fantasy genre you have a nice mix of the mostly old with some new features. It won’t make any conversions for the RPG uninitiated, but they are not its target audience so that’s unsurprising. This is a very able and solid game but it will occasionally leave you with frustrations with combat hardness and glitches. The story while solid, is nothing new, but entertaining none the less. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a land to rescue and a family to avenge. For Ferelden!

Garv: Well my main gripe about Dragon Age is that I played the console version, my god it royally sucks on there maybe it’s a translation problem but I didn’t get on with it at all

Beanie: The 360 version I assume?

Garv: Indeed, and the flecks of blood over everything, though it is a nice idea, look cheesy to me.

Whatever you do, don't turn around.

Beanie: I’ll grant you, the gore is a bit over excessive. Looks like someone got a bit slap happy with the paint tool

Garv: Too true, I mean, after a battle my character looked like a DIY decorating accident

Beanie: Heh heh

Garv: Personally, I found the game play clunky and glitchy at times, NPC’s get in your way during battle, and I kept swapping between me and my dog for no good reason, and as much as I like Maralin Manson and  His song ‘This is the new shit’, it feels really out of place in a medieval setting, and also, I didn’t see a single dragon.

Beanie: Wow, I feel as though we were playing totally different games, or at the very least versions of the game. Now, I’ll back you on the hate for the 360 version, because, if you’re gonna make a next gen RPG for the 360, you need to spend a lot of time to make it work.

Garv: Agreed, To make an RPG work on any console you don’t port it from the PC, you build it from scratch; this is blatantly a ported PC game, and it has gone pretty damn wrong.

Beanie: So we agree on that side of the debate. Now, what about the plot and characters?

Garv: Now remember I didn’t play the whole game when I got my hands on it at Eurogamer, but the characters I found were pretty RPG generic. I was the soldier/sword man, with my trusty fable II dog on acid.

Beanie: Oh no, you didn’t like the dog?

Garv: Fable II did the dog awesomely; somehow Dragon Age didn’t hit the mark.

Beanie: But you didn’t find the Fable dog a bit too gimmicky?

Garv: What? Hell no! He was the awesome, he found you stuff alerted you when enemies were near by. He also, led the way to treasure and you could teach him tricks. He was with you from the start, his personality changed with yours and he was your trusted friend through out the game. My heart literally sank when he got a bullet to the face.

If all else fails, use fire!

Beanie: Fair enough, do you think they relied too much on a similar Knights Of The Old Republic (KOTOR) setup and character types then?

Garv: Yeah it stank of KOTOR to be honest, just set like a billion years in the past, and I know my mentality is if it isn’t broke don’t fix it but seriously? You have to have a little innovation.

Beanie: You didn’t find any of the lore interesting? What little you saw of it?

Garv: I saw very little really so I didn’t get into the story much, the demo I played was more game play orientated. Which all things were at Eurogamer to be honest because you only have a set time.

Beanie: Ok, it’s a real pity that on first impressions that you see all the various clichés and worst parts of the game.

Garv: Yeah it is a shame because to be honest, I was kind of psyched about this game. I downloaded trailers from Xbox LIVE and was like oooh!

Beanie: Yeah, unfortunately it suffers from being over hyped, but I think you’d feel different if you played the PC version.

Garv: hmmmmm maybe, thing is I’m more of a console gamer as you know
Mind you, CAD did a hilarious comic on one of the trailers

Beanie: Yeah that was pretty funny. For me, I’d seen relatively little of Dragon Age so I didn’t have a large expectation for the game. It’s pretty (but only on the PC and PS3) and well voice acted and written, though I’m not a big fan of the silent protagonist.

Hey, we're here for Steves' Stag do.

Garv: Only GTA III nailed the silent protagonist well

Beanie: Yes, some of the character archetypes are a bit clichéd, but this is a genre that is pretty much saturated at this point. Most of the good ideas have already been used up.

You know what I’ve come to see Dragon Age as? A parody of the RPG genre, not in a bad way though. It’s still entertaining and fun but if you allow yourself to laugh at it, it really comes into its own.

Garv: Oh I see what you mean actually, if you look at it from that aspect and not take it seriously you’re probably gonna enjoy it more.

Beanie: I’ll bet once you get a few hours with the PC version you’ll warm to it or at least be a wee less critical. But I can understand and condone your views about the 360 version and the plot, combat and character types

You got a final word?

Garv: Indeed I have. To be honest, I really did have a bad experience with Dragon Age. But in heindsight, if I take a little time to actually take in the story more and not take it so seriously, I could end up enjoying it….Just get it away from my 360!

Beanie: Ha ha, true that!