My enjoyment of this game has come in phases. First 20 hours, the game was spectacular and I was enjoying every minute of it. Then for some reason the graphics starting looking horrible once I got to Redcliff and from about 20-38 hrs game play time, I was just slogging through it staring at horrible ground and building textures. Then I made it to the Dwarf city and the graphics looked much better (they look much better indoors than outside), the RPG experience found in the Dwarf city played out better and the story improved. I'm now at about 60 hours and am still having fun, even though the graphics have once again taken a hit since I'm back outside. Oh well. Still a great game though, and somewhat challenging in parts, but in a good way that pushes you to experiment with your party as well as your abilities.

A very good RPG developed by BioWare with very interesting character background choices. Plays a bit like Neverwinter Nights in a new setting. The graphics are good, the skill trees are well developed and the combat is often thought provoking if you play on higher difficulties and in turn based mode. The deluxe has a few extra additions such as side missions and armor and helps bring out the full experience of the game.

On one hand, I enjoyed the story. On the other hand, this game (and similar) is the reason why RPGs are getting dumber every year. With a better combat system, with real options, and some real consequences for your actions (like Baldur's Gate, for example) this game could have been a classic. As it is, I enjoyed it, yes, but it will probably be completely forgotten in a few months. The deluxe edition is not worthy either. It adds almost nothing. Wait until it is just a few dollars before buying it.

I have a confession. I am an RPG snob.

Or rather, I was. As someone who loved the "old school" RPGs of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale etc. Dragon Age: Origins was at first a slap in the face. But like moss, it grew one, and it was in no small way the cast of characters who sucked me in.

Perhaps like me that is what will eventually suck you into this game. I had not touched it for a while, but with the upcoming release of Dragon Age 2, I re-visited it to prepare a save game for import. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that I still enjoyed the characters every bit as much. I will not spoil things for you, but keeping Morrigan and Alistair within the party will give you a good chuckle on more than one occasion.

The gameplay... Well, you can tell that this game was also designed to be played on a console. It doesn't ruin the game as some purists will surely claim, but it does mean you have to take a step back and re-evaluate what you expect from the game. As I had previously played Jade Empire, which is even more "action RPG'ey" than this, I was well prepared.

I suggest you buy this game, and play this game, but do so with the knowledge that you are not getting a traditional cRPG. These are new times for BioWare, and they are cranking out babies that are not at all like their previous creations.

I did not appreciate Dragon Age. It felt like a lot of RPGs that are functionally similar, such as Neverwinter nights(Take your pick).

Playing on both the PC and the console, I can seriously tell you that the AI is poorly imlemented for your allies, and them alone. While Enemies will avoid going through instant death fields caused by mages, your party will be blind to them and walk through both your and your enemies unless you specifically tell them not to move a muscle. You can code them to be a little smarter, but I never found a 'do not walk into AOE spell' option in there.

I do however have to say that the AI teaching was implemented fairly decently, if every AI was an animal. You may only teach your followers so many tricks based off how many points in the leadership talent tree you have. With enough slots you can teach your followers how to heal each other and guzzle your health potions without having to micromanage them like they were toddlers. Without training in specific instructions, your AI controlled characters will never use any items, and their power usage will be sporadic and occaisonally poorly used. The strategy panel does help allow for more then one build.

Another interesting effect is that a handful of spells can combine for different effects, most of which increase the hurt of the two spells marginally, while keeping the hurt of them both going.

I also had an issue with magic, mainly with the cast times for some of the combat spells being just long enough for most neemies I fought to come and punch me in the nose before I finished. As previously mentioned, AOEs felt a little nerfed on anything other then easy unless you like spending you pathetically little money on health potions and the like.

There also is a lack of randomness, as there is no chance of finding random enounters, since they are all not random. You'll ineitably enounter the same exact settings no matter how many times you play. Once you've played through once with a full speech character and figured out how to make the third option appear in some cases, you have finished everything the game has to offer in about two playthroughs if your not lucky.

Furthermore, everything scales with you except for a few end-game creatures who's only purpose is to die when you look angrily at them. This leads to the annoying point where you realize there is no point in doing the side-quests, since the enemies are just going to get tougher to compensate for your sligtly better abilities.

It is a good game worth playing, but it feels misleading with a claimed eighty hours of gameplay I couldn't find, a lack of deep moral choices that I was expecting, since most of it boils down to good decision/evil decision. The lack of a morality slider was replaced by having to juggle your party members feelings. Because apparently they are all teenagers who can't handle people not agreeing with them al the time. Most of your choices involve one of your allies decrying or applauding your decisions, whic is plenty annoying, since unlike mass effect two the only upside is a slight stat bonus if they like you. Not to mention that in the universe of dragon age, if you are nice to people, they imediately assume you want to be their boyfriend or girlfriend, which can fall into a love triangle type situation where your trying to keep everyone happy, and two NPCs assume that you want to get in bed and start talking to you about making a choice between them, leading to a lot of unhappyness points from somebody or everybody.

Combat involves blood spraying everywhere until you or your opponent loses too much blood. This blood seems tobe movie blood, in that it disappears between loading screens like your character takes a bath between them. Either that or you can talk to a certain paty member to hae them clean your character up, not that it has any effect for the game, as characters in ferelden seem oblivious to blood.

Overall, I rate this game four blood splatters out of five.

I would definitely recommend this game to all fans of the old Black Isle games. This is what Baldur's Gate 2 should have been, and almost was (if you went the massive fan-modification route). Unlike more recent RPG games like the Witcher, you have the option of (almost) full customization of character. The only flaw is that the character has no voice acting - traditional, of course, but following Mass Effect (which had almost as much customization and still managed to give every character, including your own, a voice) it seemed a bit jarring.

This game is simply phenomenal. While I am a big fan of violence and monster-killing action, which there is no shortage of, I found myself quite taken by the romance and relationship building part of this game. With the ability to play a range of character classes, races and eiter sex, I find myself continually playing this game over and over, each time discovering a new tidbit. Beware, if you do have a life, it may be hard to maintain once you start playing this game.