I bought this game on release two years ago, and I have to admit that initially I found it to be lacking. I can't quite put my finger on why this game didn't immediately resonate with me, although I think it had something to do with Bioware's move towards a more cinematic approach to game making. Having cut my teeth on games such as Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, in which much of the gameplay is played out in one's imagination, I found the constant use of cutscenes as plot devices in Dragon Age to be jarring.

However, I recently decided to give this game another try and I have to admit that some of the old magic is there. For example, it is refreshing to come across a modern game that has a decent difficulty level throughout, and some of the combat encounters really did require tactical use of my party's abilities and spells. The storyline falls prey to some genre clichés, it's true, but there are also some genuinely original plot lines that forced me to make meaningful decisions. I can see that multiple playthroughs would be rewarding and subtly different in how they pan out.

Another welcome feature of the game is that it actively encourages modding, with a well established community having produced a number of quality mods over the past couple of years. These range from graphical upgrades to minor gameplay fixes and tweaks, similar in many ways to the modding scene for the Infinity Engine games if you are familiar with those.

So, in conclusion, if you are not put off by the occasional interruption that cutscenes and forced conversations sometimes bring to the game then anyone who enjoys the older Bioware RPGs will find value with Dragon Age: Origins. I can certainly see myself enjoying another playthrough with a different character.

Great game that plays decently also on a mainstream PC. Only downside is the fact that you need to be online and logged in if you want to play using premium content. it took me a while to find out how to set the security settings of Win7 to allow communication with the game.

From a gameplay point of view the game is really worth to be played more than once - preferably with a human and a non-human race and different backgrounds. This allows to best profit from the different story plots.

The graphics in the game greatly support the story and create a nice atmosphere.

4.5 stars for this great RPG

I bought dragon age under the promise that it would be in the words of one of one person “a love letter to baldur's gate fans” and to a degree that's what the game is, allowing players of the earlier series to easily figure out how to play the game with its top down view, tactical play and general game progression. Also welcome is the way the main character (despite being given one of many origin stories) is very much the players own creation, allowing you to take many different paths depending on how you think your character should behave.

Dragon age is also an attempt from Bioware at making a more mature game but the sad reality is this often seems to involve as much blood and sex as they could fit on screen at once. sometimes as you get to a particularly important scene your characters will be covered from head to toe in blood, which can be slightly amusing but in my opinion comes across as being more of a fifteen year old boys idea of mature most of the times this sort of thing happens.

Two other slightly negative points are that the game is poor in the graphics department but I have heard that many people have worked on ways to improve the way characters look, although I don't know if there are any mods to improve the environments it should be worth checking out. Second negative point is that on release and as I played it the game was very unbalanced but I hear this has been fixed by recent patches so those last two points shouldn't be much of an issue now I think.

I generally avoid buying RPG games, felt that i out grew them a long time ago, but i decided to go for this one as these guys produced Baldur's Gate, which was the last RPG game i played and truly enjoyed (we are talking 12+ years ago now).

I am really surprised with the depth in this one, i like how characters talk while you move around and the graphics are very good. If anything it is maybe a little too deep and i need to press Esc to move allot some of the long speeches, then again i guess that is what you expect from a detailed RPG game (allot of AI characters and communication).

I have played around 20 hours on the game already, which is huge considering i spend just 3-4 hours on most games i buy, i recommend this game for any RPG fanatics for sure.