Preview

Dragon Age: Origins Preview

By Amanda Rivera
April 08, 2009 15:15 PM PST
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Dragon Age combat looks to be fresh and emotional.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the more I see of Dragon Age: Origins, the more I am convinced that this will be the game to set the RPG bar for years to come. Bioware has already proven they can make the RPG sexy with Mass Effect, but going back to their roots has proven, from what I've seen, to strengthen this development team and push them to do great things.

It makes you FEEL

Everything about Dragon Age: Origins is story driven, and trust me, this is a good thing. We are not talking about the belabored quest you must embark on to get your first sword sort of story-driven. No this is a game that connects the characters together in a complicated web of mistrust, deceit, and loyalty. In a nutshell: Dragon Age has managed to create a gritty, realistic world built around the emotions we deal with every day.

The first sign of this is in the approval system, a simple-yet-powerful game mechanic that makes building your party a challenging and sometimes difficult task. The people you group with have their own opinions about the choices you make in the game, and how happy they are with your leadership skills factors into how long they will stick by you and how well they will perform in combat.

Ain't no party like a Dragon Age party

During the demo at this year's GDC, the Dragon Age team showed us what story-driven combat looks like. When your party members fight, they can use their abilities to great effect. The example they showed was of a battle in the small town of Redcliffe, where the sorceress combined her fire magic with the barbarian's earthquake ability to cause massive area damage to the oncoming horde of skeletons. Using the abilities alone would also damage the enemy, but not nearly as much as the might of their skills combined. This combo system can only work well when you have a tactical pause-and-play system like in Dragon Age, and the flexibility harkens back to some of my favorite turn-based RPGs. Done poorly and you waste a lot of time, but done well, and you can lay a carpet of your enemies' bodies all the way to victory.

Am I excited about Dragon Age: Origins? Definitely. When the game launches this December I know I will be the first in line to get my copy of what I firmly believe will be a fantasy epic for the ages -- no pun intended.