One of the primary issues of the modern games industry is everyone’s perception of love or hate. Games are either completely trashed and viewed as unworthy or bowed down to as a Golden Calf, clearly unflawed and leaving us unworthy of its presence. I had a lot of negative things to say about Dragon Age: Origins, and if you can believe it there were irritations I forgot to include. If I had remembered those issues and pushed my analysis well past the three page marker, then one can be certain that I would have hated this game.

I absolutely love this game. I’ve replayed the conclusion twice more to see the different endings available to me, have completed all six origin stories and chose a character for a second play through. Even now I want to go through the game as some of the other characters I had developed.

The fact is Dragon Age: Origins is so huge that there’s no way you can truly analyze it in 1200 words or less. Every review you’ve read online is inefficient, whether it covers the console version or PC. There’s just too much to be said of this game, and even if you spend 5000 words on it you are bound to forget something.

And so that is where I begin. The game’s size is so large you could call it obese. It makes me wonder how I could ever justify sixty dollars on a title such as Dead Space or BioShock (which, for those of you not aware, are my favored games of the past two years). Granted it’s not huge in the same way that Elder Scrolls games are huge. You choose locations on the world map and you are transported there, occasionally jumping into a random encounter. You will not be exploring the world for all of its tiniest secrets.

Yet for a gamer like me, that is a boon. It keeps the focus on the current story and objective. Plus, while there are far fewer dungeons to explore than a game such as Oblivion, they are at least designed individually and often with varying objectives. Contrast this to the sheer repetition of Bethesda RPG’s and you’ll find that giant “open world” is basically a prettier version of Halo 1’s infamous “Library”, only now you can choose between being the Master Chief, an Engineer, a Medic or a Demolitions man. Yet no matter what each time you turn a corner you’re pretty much seeing the same sights you did twenty hours ago and using the same methods to dispatch foes.

While you may not go anywhere at any time that you please, each city and dungeon is designed differently. There are side quests everywhere, but you’re easily capable of pushing the plot forward while simultaneously completing these tasks. Puzzles will be scattered about the different missions to place a spin on the world. Most notably is an adventure in the Circle of Magi tower that leads you into a place called the Fade. In order to complete the quest you must gain different shapeshifting abilities, each which is used to get around different puzzles. This sort of flavor keeps every mission from being “enter room, clear it out, search for treasure, move on”.

Flavor is precisely where this game’s universe becomes drab into lush and interesting. Each race has a culture that is unique and thought out. While many common fantasy tropes still exist, such as Dwarves being prideful jerks and Elves hating all humans, the reasons behind them are different from every other rip-off of Tolkien. While I commented previously that the writers could take a hint from Tad Williams, in some ways their game is reminiscent of the very same author.

The characters are all interesting, and just as you might hate some people in real life you’ll certainly hate some of these characters. Yet simultaneously, the more you get to know any of the characters the more attached you become nonetheless. I may hate Morrigan for being such a bitch, but even she has an interesting history to hear.

Yet the aspect of writing that has truly drawn me in was the weight of choices. Sure, most RPG’s of this style focus on dialog options and handling different situations in different manners, but Dragon Age truly attempts to make it impact the world. You will have different dialog options based on your race, as well as different reactions to you. Each origin is somehow tied deeply into the main quest, so no matter who you choose you’ll eventually have a personal stake in the ongoing events. By the very end of the game even some minor choices will turn out to effect the world’s conclusion.

The combination of origins and the conclusion is the sort of dynamic story-telling I’ve been longing to see in video games since Chrono Trigger. Despite all the advances in game design since the seemingly ancient world of 16-bit limitations, the true advances in story-telling being taken here in Dragon Age should have happened long ago. Nonetheless, it’s good to be experiencing them at all.

You’ll love and hate this aspect of combat at the same time.

As for the game design itself, I was most harsh of all to the game’s combat and difficulty in my previous write-up. Yet as flawed as the system was, BioWare managed a terrific job making the game fun on both PC and console systems. As usual most of my friends have been playing it on PC, and despite similar complaints of challenge mechanics from the aforementioned Shamus Young they attribute my issues to the game being “dumbed down for console ‘tards”.

This is a gross misreading of the differences, or even the preferences of the players. Even if the PC variation allows for easier micromanagement and “superior play” due to the mouse and keyboard, I doubt I would have enjoyed the gameplay as much. I would have been a commander of units, not a soldier. While I enjoy my fair share of strategic games (Master of Orion 2 and Ogre Battle 64), I prefer playing the part of the soldier on the battlefield.

In the end, it’s not a matter of “dumbed down for console ‘tards”. Even though, yes, the consoles did have modifications made to enemy A.I. based on the differences between platforms, this doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t persist on the PC version of it. The real question is, what kind of player are you? The armchair general or Pvt. Bad Ass the Third Esquire? I prefer to be the latter, and thus the console version is precisely what I want it to be.

It took some time to learn, but the best approach to combat on console is to spend time customizing character A.I. to do precisely what you want. This way when you get into combat all you have to do is keep an eye on health and occasionally pause with the radial menu to command Alistair to use Holy Smite or have Leliana toss out an Acid Flask. Without all the constant management of my team I can instead focus on who I want to attack, when to use my own abilities and enjoy the combat for what it is. In some ways it may just be aesthetics, but seeing foes like Ogres or Dragons do more than just swing at you repeatedly helps make every fight immersive and enjoyable.

So is the console version inferior? If you have your head shoved up your own ass, then sure. Micro-management is a chore and not as possible. Yet if you are open to a different approach than the traditional western RPG, then it’s just as good. Which is a task that not many developers can say when creating a cross-platform title such as this.

In the end, Dragon Age is one of those games that only has so many problems because it does so many things at all. Considering the large task BioWare had ahead of them with such a title, they did an excellent job. Without a doubt this has been my favorite gaming experience all year, and I look forward to a sequel.

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