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I really enjoyed playing this the first time through, it was much anticipated and delivered on a fine weekend of immersion therapy. But even with the different origin options I was disappointed that the game didn't hold my interest through the replays. It lacks the scope of something like Fallout 3 or Oblivion, as one cannot really do any independent exploration. It just couldn't hold my interest on further replays. Left me wondering, Is that all there is? I tried playing around with the various romance options and other dialogue differences, but since you are limited to exploring only handful of locations with the same scenarios each time there was no freshness in subsequent replays.

This game is simply amazing. Who would have thought that a game would make you laugh so much, cry so much, love so much - I kid you not. I have played it three times through already and am STILL hearing new dialog between the characters that cracks me up. I think I even had an xrated dream about Allistair... lol. I know, I am lame. I have always loved fantasy RPGs, and have NEVER had one that has had me itching my palms in excitement of getting back to playing. Anyway, the voices, the dialog, the massive amounts of customization, the open non-linear play. WOW. The only reason I chose good from excellent on graphics was that there was some armor clipping but the game is so good I didn't notice it until the 2nd time around. I was SCREAMING and crying at my monitor the first time around at the end. You will see why… lol The second time around I made different decisions to get an ending I liked better. The third time around I decided to be a total jerk to see what would happen. I am telling you, make sure your house is clean and the kids have dinner before you sit down to play, because you will NOT want to stop playing once you start. Oh, I originally bought this for my son at Christmas but he was being a jerk so I opened it and played it myself. Needless to say, he didn’t get it back.

My primary problem with this game is the need to either micro-manage your group or to figure out the optimal way to program your NPCs. I always thought it was the game's programmers who were supposed to do that. But in this game, one has the "flexibility" to do it one's self. In practice, that means writing a string of "If-Then" statements about what the NPC should do in various situations. As they gain new skills, it becomes increasingly hard to do that very well. If that's your thing, have fun. If it's not, it's a pain. Veterans of WoW or Oblivion will also notice the severe movement constraints. In WoW and Oblivion, one can move pretty much where ever one wants, even if it kills you. In Dragon Age, one is often stopped by the smallest obstacle. It's frustrating. Many have commented on all the cut scenes. It reminds me of watching a movie more than playing a game. It is especially irritating when it involves a merchant one has visited many times before. The novelty of the game is that actions one takes affects how the game develops and how your NPCs feel about you. Romance can develop. But I don't play games if I want romance. It's not a bad game, but it isn't a good game either.

Having introduced my children, then grandchildren and now great's starting with the powerful Tandy 1000 and ensuing frequent computer updates I found Dragon's to be a happy surprise. As a retired army Colonel I am addicted to strategy games, especially the Total War series. Having served overseas in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, I am not enamoured with combat scenarios from these dates forward. Need I say why?

This is one of the best games I've seen in quite a while. The enjoyment is the searching out the hidden areas on the maps, finding treasures, new quests, lots of battles that can get pretty strategic, and some that are downright difficult. Graphically, it's what I consider "good enough". That is, it doesn't have to look like real people running around on the map to be satisfying to me. My imagination can easily overlook that sort of thing. As a result, the adventure and the story is the most important part, and this games scores A+ in my book. I never experienced any visual anomalies while playing, and I only had one hang that I can recall. Considering I got well over 100 hours of playing time, I really feel like I got my money's worth, and had a memorable experience at the same time.

I made the mistake of purchasing a digital download of this game from another site. If I had bought the disc I could have at least made an attempt to return it or traded it in at a used game store. As it is I just burned my money. I love RPG games. I've played The Elder Scrolls & I've played Guild Wars (MMO RPG) for years. I was bored & looking for something new. I made the mistake of going by screen shots & customer reviews, when I should have gone to youtube & watched actual game demos. I'm amazed to say I had more fun playing the Dragon Age flash mini-game than I had with the actual game. There are way to many npcs in the game that your character can interact with. Not following a game guide, I talked to them all. As a result I wound up with many quests & I was unclear which quests had to be done to advance the story & which were side quests & there are very many. There were also things I should have done in the first area, but didn't do, as I'd assumed I could back track if I'd missed something- WRONG! I thought I'd set my tactics up incorrectly when my henchmen didn't do what I thought I had them set for. I did spend time watching some good tutorials on youtube & went back & reset my tactics & still had issues with how my henchmen behaved. I could not find any info anywhere about how to change my party members. After only 3 days of game play I'm done with it. I'd rather play their free flash game or go to one of my older games (Heroes IV) than continue slogging through this mess. I am not going to pay more money to get a guide when they should have given clear directions. Even the wiki is a mess. Big disappointment.

The game is as you'd expect from Bioware, well written and well told. Bioware has yet to really fail with this, they do great writing simple as that. The game is large and epic like perhaps Lord of the Rings with all sorts of different races, Elves, Dwarfs and jobs- Humans, mages, warriors, rouges. And like biowares other games you make your character to how you want/like, you pick gender race and job. The game is massive just to get that out there it's anywhere from 40-80 hours depending how good you are at these games. I'm not terribly great at them but it's fun to play and very immersive. Now this part will confuse you, the game looks great but is ugly at times, the characters and such look great, but then you'll see a carriage in the background that looks like it was taken off a early PS2 game with muddy graphics and just ugly. While it's not deal breaking it does sometimes catch your eye in a bad way. But the game isn't about graphics and even less about a carriage, it's about the story and gameplay, which the game does very very well. If you're new to the series save often and save on different slots so you don't back yourself into a corner. I'm going to cut this review short because there's plenty of reviews that go into better depth and discuss just how expansive the game is and how well done it is and say for the price this game is worth it, there's a lot of replay value and with a game this long, it can entertain for a long, long time. My only gripe is you're playing a silent protagonist, while your character has options you pick, he/she does not talk. If you like Mass Effect or KoToR this game has elements from both, so check it out.

This is a great change of pace if you've played MMORPGs. Great game for a strategy type person that likes building characters or if you like roleplaying aspects. COMBAT SYSTEM: Great and challenging combat systems are going to be the most enjoyable and rewarding games. This one is in between good and great. Some people claim you are going to spend a lot of time micromanaging and on the pause screen, I would say you must spend some time doing this not a lot. You have four characters to control, whichever one you have selected only acts on your commands so you must control one. The other of which are controlled in an intelligent character tactic screen. For example, a healer can be set to heal anyone falling below whatever threshold of health, run away from melee or aoe's, use certain spells to debuff elite enemies or buff a tank that is getting hammered. They are set with priority 1 through up to 15 or so commands. I would say the tactic screens are very effective. Where is the challenge then if it plays for you then? These tactics will not be enough. The challenge also comes from building effective characters, geared well, in a diverse group, on the 'nightmare' setting, setting up good tactics in the screen and real time, and going for big damage and surviving. EXPERIENCED GAMEPLAY: There is a good enjoyable challenge there. The game settings are easy,normal,hard,and nightmare. Playing through on normal the first time completely oblivious to game mechanics, spell knowledge, and stats other than a few mouseover hints is about on par with what your ability will be just winging it. Then on to the Nightmare setting, at this point I was really looking forward to it and went to the forums and researched character builds, spells, and mechanics to make the best group I could think of. The Nightmare setting was enjoyable. I would have preferred to be stuck wiping on a boss fight for a few hours to get that real sense of accomplishment of defeating something truly difficult, but that never happened. Though there were wipes, as I learned and developed boss strategies. There is a lot of on-the-go boss strategy correction, because you can pause it and change your strat. Not a fan of reading boss strats, because it's half the fun coming up with your own. Pretty much one or two shot most encounters. //// A note of interest, people are solo'ing the nightmare setting. I'm certain you have to be good and know your mechanics, however part of this is somewhat of a min/max exploit due to the fact that you have so much dex, you pretty much never get hit by melee. STORY??? I HATE STORIES The one thing you can't have online this game does exceptionally well. A very open and versatile storyline that can consume you. I tend to just care about the mechanics of a game and not care about storylines or characters, just click on through, but this one sucks you in. ALL of the vast storyline is actual voices, no matter what paths you choose, and I can say they are very convincing and interesting. The characters are perfectly portrayed and I sometimes found myself laughing, smiling, and crying. It can be a test of your morals, if you truly want to make decisions as you naturaly would. Kinda wierd. BTW just kidding with the crying :p I bought this game due to the many positive reviews and it has delivered with my high expectations. Definetly a five star

What can I say? This game is wonderful to play. I have been plying since I bought it. I can play for hours at a time and never tire of it. The only problem is the loading is a bit slow but You can work through it. I have bought this game for all my gaming friends.

I've been playing these kinds of games for over a decade. I've always enjoyed them, and this one blows all of the previous ones away. The storyline is great. The voice acting is great. And you can play the game more than once and enjoy the differences with each new character. I really got my money's worth with this game. Thank you Bioware.

Dragon Age Origins has now made a seat in my heart as the greatest game I ever played. Sinking nearly five weeks and well over one hundred fifty hours of gameplay, the game is worth the money. The production value is top notch thanks Bioware. I would even say it rivals the Mass Effect series. Imagine the addictive loot driven mechanism of World of Warcraft or any other RPG but mixed with a deep story and complex characters. Dragon Age Origins created characters that I cared for. I cared enough that I regretted some decisions while enjoyed other actions. The game is well polished. If only more vast RPG games came out this completed with only a hint of bugs. Dragon Age Origins is a good book, a digital drug, a five week movie fest, an interactive world, and a game I was sad to see the end.

I will just say that this is the best game that I have played in years. If you are wondering which version to buy, I will suggest to go with the PC version because of the "Dragon Age Toolset". If you ever wanted to make your own game, own mod, or want to make Machinima at its best, go for the PC version and download the Toolset for free. Dragon Age is based on a new engine called Eclipse, much better than the Unreal engine used for Mass Effect. The Dragon Age Toolset will allow you to produce your own content including dungeons crawls , full-length campaigns, and even cut-scenes you can share with friends. Create New Adventures, forge your own environments from your imagination, or use the rich set of Dragon Age locations and artwork as starting blocks to build new, original campaigns, quests, or cut-scenes. Stage Massive Battles by fully customizing the combat and creature AI, allowing you to create detailed action sequences full of heart-pounding warfare. Be the Director of your own stories with the powerful cinematics editor that offers full control of the camera, voice and lip syncing tools, and a full character creator. In the BioWare Social Network you can easily find tutorials, share content, chat with other creators, and get content updates for the toolset.

I bought DA: Origins not too long ago and have completed it. The graphics were great, even on my low-end pc and the storyline was good, not great but still appealing. Although you can have 6 different beginnings to the game, the rest was almost all completely the same, which is a big downside to this game. I like games where you can replay it over many times and not get bored. This game was fantastic for a first time run through but afterwards, I was like, "Already did and know what to expect...." and so completed the game a second time on a harder mode in a fraction of the time it took on an easier mode. The game lures the player into a sense of you controlling where you go and in what order to do things. It is true if you are a good enough player to go around the world in whatever order you choose but the game has set up some traps to hinder the player if they go to an area where their character level is not high enough. Where this is alright for games like Call of Duty and other non-RPG games, this game is a RGP and many RPG enthusiasts like myself enjoy the freedom of choosing what to do throughout the game. I rated this game 3-stars overall because of the non-re-playable aspect, which they were trying to achieve, for the short time it took my to complete (only 3 days of light playing) and because it is an RPG that did not seem much like an RPG, it reminds me more of a higher detailed Balder's Gate and Icewind Dale with less room for customizing your characters and with a smaller story-line. Even playing the expansion the overall storyline was much shorter. I would recommend this game for gamers who have enough money to buy the game along with some others, for it is a good game but it gets boring quickly after completing it once.

I have played this game through once with a mage, and am now piddling away with a warrior (PC version only). I had very high hopes for this game - one of my fav games of all time is BGII - and I was hoping this could compete toe for toe. Some aspects do - but there are a few that do not. Overall, the story/quests of the game is portrayed is very similar to BGII (2D vs. 3D) in that you have points of interest in a broad overland map that bring you to quest locations. The quests themselves and their varying locations are very good, with some on par with what was offered in BGII. There is a similar darkness to the theme, the quests portraying a steady dose of demonic possession, dark beasts, and magic gone foul. You also have the origins story for each toon you make, such as if you make a dwarf (my current toon), you can start as one from the royal house and get a nice 30 minute starting story for your character, or you can start as one of the poverty stricken classless sods and get a similar story. Each that I have played through are well done and give you some nice background for your character. The cut scenes are overall pretty well done and (best of all with a second playthrough) you can just skip through them by hitting escape. The quest zones are well done, the PC graphics very sharp if you have the machine to portray them. There are some aspects, however, which I feel do not really meet the standards set by BG II. The first of these is the character and class system. You gain levels and with each you gain attribute (3) and skill points (1). The attribute points are similar to many a RPG (put a point in strength, magic, etc.), but the skill points are where this shines. You can make a rogue, mage, or warrior. There are many skill sets - each grouped in a similar area of specialty (two handed weapons, dual wield, death magic, elemental magic, etc.) and each group is four deep (first tier nub skills up to the fourth tier uber skills). It is fun to level up and get a new talent or spell, one which you can access immediately and put to good use. It makes you strategize how you will create a build for your toon, which is always fun to do. Each talent is either use upon clicking on your tool bar when you click the icon, can be a passive talent, or can be a sustained use talent that takes a permanent chunk of your mana/stamina to keep it active. The only issue with this is that some of the talents - specifically some of the mage talents - seem kinda of crappy up at the higher levels and not worth the experience and leveling to get up to them. Additionally, there are spell combos that are very powerful, but if you put points in the wrong trees you will not have access to them. This also makes some trees seem to be inherently less powerful than others. The melee trees seem fairly decent, but you run out of stamina very fast as you use your abilities. Additionally, your melee fighters / tanks seem to be much weaker overall than a comparably leveled mage. As you level up, you also gain access to specialties for your class, such as blood mage, assassin, or champion, etc. You have to discover them as you go. Some are very very powerful - the blood mage is very nice - and some seem pretty lame - the templar for warriors is junk. The second main issue I have with dragon age is this - it crashes, and crashes, and crashes some more. You literally need to save every 5 minutes, without fail. I don't know what the issues are with the code, but it seems to be whenever a new cut scene is played or a loading screen comes up and BAM! blank screen than the ever so familiar 'dragon age: origins has stopped working' appears. Ho hum, load again and hope you remembered the save. The third main issue I have deals with combat. You have to build a strategy for on how you deal with each fight (some on the PC can be very challenging - especially if the elite mobs resist your cc spells over and over), but I tended to do the same set of combos over and over. As the environments changed, the battles tended to stay the same. I found the more I played the game, the more it stayed the same. The only freshness was on some of the boss battles. Dragons and some of the large mass battles can be very challenging. Another nit pick is this: if you live at an APO/FPO address, you cannot put the address in the billing section to buy DLC content. This is rather ridiculous since most companies automatically include these, but alas, dragon age does not. I do not know if they plan to fix this in the future, but as of right now you cannot purchase the DLC content from these addresses. Overall, I would rate the game as *** Story **** Combat *** (***** for boss battles) Character generation / leveling *** Stability *

Best RPG I've played in years. It's not too long, like Neverwinter Nights, but it's not too short. I've played through twice so far (restarted a few more times than that) and my play time averages about 50 hours per game to completion, none of which is boring or tedious. The only thing the game is missing is randomization in the dungeons. They are all fixed, so you will be able to memorize them pretty quickly, but they are still fun.