They’re calling the setting “dark fantasy”, which is mostly like regular fantasy, except people are complete and utter assholes to each other just like they can be in real life. Expect to have to deal with situations involving one or more of the following: slavery, racism, rape, social castes, homosexuality, cooking, prostitution, pet care, death, and poor personal hygiene. Demons and darkspawn ain’t got nothing on the horrors that all the humans, dwarves, and elves seem to enjoy perennially inflicting on each other. (In fact, all the demon archetypes are based on sins, which probably makes it our fault for them, too.) As a result of this new, darker, tone, choices in this game tend to be a bit murkier than in past games. Before, you’d pick the “good guy” choice or the “bad guy” choice. A lot of times now there is no choice that makes everybody happy except Team Evil, and you have to steal from Peter to pay Paul. Somebody gets the shaft, to one degree or another, even if you’re playing a good guy. So, while you will almost certainly love this game dearly, be advised you may want to save up money for a few sessions with a good therapist when it’s all over.

Well, presumably. I have not yet completed the game yet, though I am 40 hours into it already and I never want it to end. Ever. But of the parts I have played, please allow me to list a few of the things I liked (and *gasp* disliked).

Let’s start with the tips o’ the hat.

• TACTICS
  The new Tactics system for your computer-controlled allies is a step up from before, when they would mostly just act stupid and you did all the work. However, it does mean you will probably die if you don’t do this right. You need a good healer in this game, and you need a big brawny warrior-type to keep all the nasty ogres and darkspawn from squishing the mages between their toes. Finding good combinations of tactics is an integral part of this game, so if you’re dying repeatedly, look here first.
• WRITING
  Though you may find some scenarios familiar, the writing in this game has a way of making you look just a little differently at common fantasy stuff. The Elves are either second-class citizens or they’re like you’re used to except they’re always on the run because they’re persecuted like second-class citizens. Dwarves dress like you’re used to, but they’ve clearly been reading way too much Machiavelli and you could try to cut the politics with a knife (but someone would discredit the knife in the eyes of the people first, so nobody would ever pick it up in the first place). And let’s not forget the casteless dwarves, who it’s legal to murder and rape because they’re not real people because they’re not noble. Never thought that kind of stuff about dwarves before. (Not sure I wanted to!)  But it sure as hell breaks the jolly, ale-suckin’ Gimli clones we’ve all become used to over the years. Even so, it’s never stale, and it never seems just like they just changed things to get your attention like “HEY KIDS if you liked elves then you’re gonna love ELVES XTREME: SYLVAN BRONTOSAUROIDS!!!!!!“ This stuff is really well done. And with the absolutely mind-crushingly huge amount of stuff to read in the Codex as you gather information in the game, you’ll be glad they used a large font size because you won’t want to stop anytime soon.

There are a few things about Dragon Age: Origins I’m *gasp* not crazy about too.

• VISIBLE SPELL EFFECTS DURING CONVERSATION
  Is it really necessary to keep glowy spell effects going during conversations? I play a mage, which means I basically light people on fire all day long, which usually includes my party members since I’m playing normal mode where they don’t die when I do that.  The end result of this is that I frequently having myself in pleasant  conversation with all my immolated friends. And if the gatling gun of moral quandaries wasn’t going to put me in therapy, this will.
• WTF DRY HUMPING
  It’s no secret that there’s sex scenes. But when they’re doing it, they strip down only to their underwear. I can understand why this might be done in our weird puritanical society that doesn’t mind a firehose of blood spraying out of a nun’s decapitated corpse but freaks out over seeing a pixellated nipple. What I cannot understand is why said underwear consists of large strips of what appears to be burlap. It is approximately as sexy as a Golden Girls marathon. What’s worse, is that the regular everyday outfits worn by some characters show more and look less like some sort of abstinence-cultist diaper. I guess the good news is there won’t be any storylines about accidentally knocking Leliana up. But I guess my point is that Mass Effect’s nude scenes showed us that this whole business can be done tastefully, without getting too graphic, and with the basic premise intact that your characters are not dry humping. The game is not called Amish Age: Bundlings.

Okay, that’s all the bad stuff I can think of, except for maybe that I don’t like how forehead crinkling facial expressions look on Leliana’s face. In short: run – do not walk - and get yourself a copy of this game. But be ready not to sleep. There’s no time for that! There’s darkspawn to kill, stories to discover, and burlap-clad nubiles to seduce.

My Thoughts

I shared some preliminary thoughts on my game experience after my first weekend of game play, and most of those impressions were accurate through to the end.  My Dalish Rogue Elf was a lot of fun to play; I specialized as a Duelist, which gave me some great, front-line melee attack options.  The graphics throughout the entire game were beautiful, especially the ending sequence.  The story line did have some predictable moments, but there were still some crazy, unpredictable moments.

Advice Without Spoilers

For those of you embarking on your own DOA adventure, I offer this advice, free of spoilers.  Talk to your companions, especially while at camp.  They will periodically give you quests to complete.  If you earn a high enough influence score with a companion, s/he will gain stat bonuses.  If you’re so inclined, you can work your way up to a romantic relationship with some of them; there are even achievements for romantic relationships for the achievement-seekers out there.

Stock up on health potions, lyrium potions, and healing kits.  I recommend maxing out your (or one of your companion’s) Herbalism skill, which allows you to make your own potions.  I found that on occasion, I had bought up all available health potions in a region and couldn’t find any more; being able to craft your own will make things much easier.  Buy recipes when you can find them, even if you don’t have your skill high enough yet; you may not be able to find that recipe again.  Stock up on basic potion-crafting supplies when you can buy them.

Later this week, I’ll share thoughts on my specific game play, which will include some spoilers, but for now, here’s what I think: If you haven’t played Dragon Age: Origins, go now.  Play.  Play through to the end.  And then, play it all over again!

Character Generation

I opted for the Dalish Elf Rogue.  Then I went through the personalization options.  I have to admit, I was a little overwhelmed with all the personalization options.  Eye color, eye distance, eye shape, hair color, hair style, eye brow shape, eye brow color, etc, etc.  But I eventually managed to find a combination of all elements that looked okay to me, and then I was off.

Spoiler-Free Game Conversation

I promise not to ruin it for anyone, so this will be completely spoiler-free.  The game play is exceptional.  While some of the twists were a bit predictable, there were still moments where I sat flabbergasted at the turn of events.  So far, it’s been fun, it’s graphically beautiful, it’s entrancing, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

There were a few little things that took me a bit to adjust to.  First, I was surprised that there wasn’t an option to adjust to amount of blood/gore.  It’s not overwhelming, but I was surprised that there wasn’t an option for it.

Second, it took me a bit to become accustomed to the camera angle.  I think part of this was because I’d been playing Fable 2, and I expected a certain level of camera control.  There really isn’t camera control available beyond the thumb stick control.  I adapted quickly, and it hasn’t been an issue for my experience.

I’m heading back in to the game now.  If you haven’t started playing it yourself, I recommend you get moving.