Dragon Age: Origins

Got Dragon Age: Origins yesterday, the much touted spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate. Well from my initial impressions, it is kinda like Baldur's Gate. You can zoom out to make it go to the tactical view which is technically the perspective you have in Baldur's gate or you can zoom in and it becomes to the chase cam like in Neverwinter Nights. You only get 3 classes to start out with though (well if you looked at the D&D Baldur's Gate classes, they're basically just 4 anyway) - Fighter, Thief and Mage (there's no cleric/priest class). Character's can then become specialists later like thieves turning to assassins or bards.

The unique thing about Dragon Age is the origin stories. Depending on your race, either Elf, Human or Dwarf, you get 2 different origin stories for the race you pick. So you basically have 6 starting paths and back stories to your hero character. I decided I would be a dwarven commoner who is a thief. So I named him Gunter and thought he would be a thief, not very good one at that but he knows herbalism (a skill in the game which makes potions). He was a cast out dwarf forced to do drugs and steal to live his daily life.

Well I started the game and the game gave me a back story (no more making up stuff like in Mount and Blade). Well it turns out I have a sister and we're both forced to work under some dwarven crime lord to make ends meet. Gunter was technically a casteless dwarf - an outcast in dwarven society. I love that the game is fully voice acted (except for your hero of course) and I decided I'll be a dwarf who did everything for money to get by everyday but he's also a dude who's overprotective of his sister. Well some spoiler (I guess it's the first thing anyway so it's not so spoilery) your sister is being turned into some whore by that mob boss. Gunter got really angry but he couldn't dare strike against his boss.

Well that's my first take on Dragon Age. I'll be probably filling more blog posts on character fanfic again like in Mount and Blade so stay tuned for more Dragon Age stories.