Bringing RPG skeptics to a beautiful realization. The staff at Bioware have left sci-fi to return to their fantasy roots. With an epic soundtrack reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, and game play to bring us back to the Baldur’s Gate days, I don’t see any RPG fan, or gamer for that matter being disappointed with the 59.99 they request of you in this title.

After blasting about 8 hours of this title, I wouldn’t tell the standard Halo gamer to run out and grab it. But I would tell them to keep an open mind, because this game blew me away.

I was skeptical up and through the first origin story. The opening cinematic had a few choppy collisions, primarily when the swords were entering the body. But the world looked so full, and the environments were so pretty, I almost didn’t notice. The orc-like monsters known as “the Darkspawn” were incredibly monstrous and the characters were extremely interesting.

As you begin play your class selection begins Human, Dwarf and Elf. True to the character based RPGs they have your selections limited by race. Humans can be mages, rogues, or warriors. Dwarves are limited to warriors or rogues. Elves, like humans also have the choice of the three classes.

Once you get your hero selection on, you move it along to customization, Male or Female, facial width/height/eye colors, etc. etc. etc. I’ve never been one for character creation in a game but I did enjoy the amount of detail allowed in the opening screen for this game. I’m sure many die-hards will spend a good amount of time building their ultimate character, I however will push random, and continue. And enter the world Tea-bagger, the great elf rogue.

Upon creating characters of different classes and races I was pleased to see a different story between the Elf Mage, Elf Rogue, etc. There are six different origin stories in the game, and an achievement/trophy tied to each one. Instead of playing the same basic story and feel straight through your character has a different motivation each time. (Though it is limited to the different classes giving you at most 6 options).

The combat system of this title links directly in my mind to World of Wacraft. Find opponent, push A, begin generic melee attack on opponent. The cool flow of the combat system is found in the use of X, Y, B, and your right trigger to systematically trigger your special moves. As a rogue I hit X to stun, hold right trigger, and press X again for a low blow. Then press the right trigger and push B to do a fatal stab. Etc, etc, etc,. As a former WoW junkie this style of combat is right up my alley, and once again drops!

The AI assisting you in place of another human player wasn’t too bad, the default settings would just attack anything mercilessly without taking their own health into account. This can be frustrating for those who don’t dig around inside the menu system a bit. Once you do you’ll find a set tactics mode where you can set thresholds for your AI such as pop a potion at 20% health, etc.

Moving into the main story line of betrayal and fear, I was forced to collect vials of Darkspawn blood. These dropped often for me which is a nice feature (comparing my experience to WoW where you usually have a 10% ratio of item drops).  And then on to find a scroll which led to more story-linked quests expanding the story even further.

Another great addition I discovered to my excitement as I talked to more characters in the game I was pleased to watch my quest log expand as well. Bioware has not let their fan base down in any way, and it’s refreshing to see a throwback to dungeon crawlers given to the consoles.

Liked –
• Vast landscapes and an epic soundtrack that kept me enthralled in gameplay.
• Solid story writing with different paths allowed for many players.

Disliked –
• Character models looked alright, but I’d love an RPG with awesome character models.
• Your main character never talks during conversations even though his face is on screen.

Score
• Graphics – 8
• Audio – 9
• Gameplay – 9
• Replay – 9
• Overall – 8.75

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