E3 2009: Dragon Age: Origins impressions

by: John - posted: 6/4/2009 1:25:00 AM

BioWare doesn’t disappoint when it comes to RPG and Dragon Age: Origins looks to be like another big hit for the RPG studio. EA was showing the game behind closed doors and I got to see how it’s coming along.

You play a member of the Grey Wardens, a group of guardians. The main antagonist is the Arch Demon Dragon and it’s your job to take out the evil forces. The game features a pretty free floating camera with the demo being mostly done over the character’s shoulder.

The demo’s first part showed how choices can affect the game. The main character had two love interests at this point of the game. The sequence showed the main character sleeping with one of the women and then showed how that action caused the other woman to confront you. You can then make a choice on how you want to proceed in dealing with your love triangle. The choices you make will affect more than a small part of the game and this should give you more replayability for the game to try different actions.

It was pretty cool to watch the group battle a dragon though in the demo. One of the attacks the dragon does is snatch a party member in her jaws and shake the warrior around before eventually throwing him down. The action was fast and violent as it seemed the player switched between the characters in the party to take down the dragon. Yes, there’s plenty of blood during battles just like in the trailer.

The demo was brief but showed off how the dialogue worked, which let you make choices at the bottom of the screen. It also showed the ripple effect your actions can have on the game. Finally, the battle was fast with many effects from both the dragon breathing fire and the spells being cast by the party members.

While the demo didn’t go into the features of the game that deeply, I’m still excited by what I saw partly because I’m a fan of BioWare’s RPGs and partly because it feels like Neverwinter Nights which I love. I’m looking forward to get up and close with the game to see how well it plays as it’s being released on October 20th of this year.