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Name: Dragon Age: Origins

Fantasy RPG's have become a sudden rarity. Once so common and a staple of the industry, fewer and fewer of any notable quality have been appearing outside of the MMO space. With The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion being a distant memory, it seems that it's only Dragon Age: Origins that remains to sake the gamers' thirst for this once prominent genre. There may not be an Orc to be seen, but how does BioWare's latest serve to sake our role-playing thirsts?

Dragon Age: Origins is set in Ferelden, a country to the south of the world of Thedas. You take on the mantle of a Grey Warden, an international band of warriors comprised of men of various statuses who are all united in a conquest to repel and guard against attack from the vile Darkspawn. The Darkspawn are known to mount attacks against the land irregularly, and are known as Blights. As it turns out, a new Blight is set to invade Ferelden, and you end up recruiting a band of different warriors to push back the Blight and settle the political conflicts that arise in the kingdom.

That turns out to be a forcibly brief outline of the plot, since going into any further detail will spoil many of the twists that happen early on. As far as its quality is concerned, the story in Dragon Age is the biggest draw on offer. This is an epic fantasy tale that doesn't come along very often, and as only BioWare can create it. You find yourself cooling political strife, searching for lost relics, taking on great monsters in battle and more, all with excellent dialogue and impressive cut-scene presentation. The characters are extremely likeable and human, and often chat humorously amongst themselves as you're travelling about, and include familiar voices such as Claudia Black as the mage Morrigan, and Steve Valentine, also doing Harry Flynn's voice in Uncharted 2, giving personality to the knight Alistair. The game is wide in scope and bulging with fantasy flair, and you'll easily find yourself lost in the rich, deep lore of the world of Thedas.

Of course, a fantasy world should never be without its combat, and Dragon Age gives you plenty of options for chopping up Darkspawn and whatever else decides to pick a fight. Character classes vary between three archetypes – Warrior, Mage and Rogue. The Warrior is all you expect. He'll take a weapon and slice at things until they no longer pose any resistance. The methods in which you go about your trade can vary greatly. Using a sword and shield combination would offer you the most balanced approach, but you could also abandon defence in favour of dual-wielding one-handed weapons or bringing greatswords or war hammers to the melee. Rogues deal in sneakier trades, using items and cunning to dispatch enemies. From stealth abilities that make you invisible, you can get behind enemies and backstab for critical damage. While each blow would pale to the strength of the Warrior's, adding poison to your weapons and using other Survival traits to get a surprise attack on enemies all make the Rogue an interesting playstyle. Added to useful abilities outside of battle, like spotting hidden traps and having the skill to disarm them, as well as being the only class that can lockpick, your party would be incomplete without one. The Mage casts spells, believe it or not, that can be used to damage enemies, heal your party, or have other benefits, such as incurring a state that instantly heals some of your health when it begins to get too low, casting elemental properties on your weapons, or shapeshifting into different forms, like spiders. The abilities offered to each class are set, aside from Specialisations that can be chosen. These are unlocked by recruiting party members who already have these Specialisations, or through story sequences, and offer you the option of extra skills unique to the Specialisation. For example, the Shapeshifter grants you the ability to transform into different monsters, and the Spirit Healer Specialisation is essential for advanced healing techniques.

Combat itself is a very tactical affair. To state it plainly, it's not an action game. You click onto an enemy, and your character will automatically walk in and attack it without further input. The crux of the combat is learning new abilities and knowing when to use them. For example, while the warrior has many powerful abilities, they take a long time to complete and have a long recharge. If an enemy is able to stun you or knock you backwards during its initiation, the attack is cancelled and the stamina it took is lost. Hence, you have to analyse your enemy's attacks and time your abilities accordingly. Rogues have much quicker recharge times, as do mages, where spells have to run a recharge time between uses no matter how much mana you have. At first, the battles seem simple and quaint, but unless you use all the deep systems that are on offer and try to balance out your party, you're likely to suffer multiple defeats. The difficulty level is very steep here, with Normal providing too much of a challenge in the greater battles. Players will find themselves either moving down to Casual permanently or switching between them for the boss encounters. I won't even go into the higher difficulties, which even include friendly fire, that'll certainly pose a challenge to the hardiest of aggressors.