Dragon Age: Origins Review - Xbox Gaming in South Africa

"The spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate!", went the pre-release PR ticker tape. "Dark fantasy!" "No clichés!" "Loads of blood!" "Sex!" "Gay sex!"

So, okay. It's the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate because it's almost exactly like Neverwinter Nights which kinda followed on from Baldur's Gate. Oh, and they've abandoned the D&D ruleset in favour of some sort of new ruleset that's almost exactly like D&D, but not actually D&D because they didn't license it. But hey, it's a break from all those laser guns and overgrown anthropomorphic reptiles in Mass Effect, right? Now it's back to swords and overgrown anthropomorphic reptiles.

Dark fantasy and no clichés? Well, it's got all the bland fantasy-by-numbers stuff – you know, a kingdom that was previously beset by some monstrous, infernal invaders has been once again beset by the same monstrous, infernal invaders, and only you and a motley gang of idiosyncratic hangers-on can save the world. Of course, there's also a bad, bad dragon involved somehow (surprise!), although elves being grotty second-class citizens is a daring departure from prescribed canon. Nonetheless, fantasy (high, low, dark, biscuity) is always going to be the place where clichés go to die and rot. Then reanimate and shamble on some hapless village in the middle of Lothlondorianlyriarimlithlindir at some local wizard's black behest. It's just not exactly a genre known for its innovation or ingenuity, best intentions be damned, and second-class citizen elves aren't enough to drag this one from the muck of every single fantasy game that's gone before (except Planescape Torment, which was awesome). You want ill-tempered gold-grubbing dwarves in squarish, utilitarian subterranean cities cut and pasted from The Lord of the Rings? You got ill-tempered gold-grubbing dwarves in squarish, utilitarian subterranean cities cut and pasted from the Lord of the Rings. I'm cynical, of course, but there's something so ponderous and predictable about fantasy settings that no massive amount of lore, prophesied heroes, and ordinary people talking like career orators can mitigate - it's always just the same stuff with slightly different names.

Yes, there's a lot of blood in the game. After any sort of violent encounter, all your characters idle about reciting imperious, bloated bits of dialogue while (hilariously) streaked with gore. Because nothing says gravitas quite like people spattered in chunks of other people? I'm all about gore in games, but there's something really quite absurd about it. Not even the ladies break out a wet wipe.

So there's sex in the game too. It's also about as clumsy, contrived, and pointless as a pig on a tricycle. You can court party members by basically plying them with compliments and gifts, and eventually they'll give in and play kiss-kiss with you. Where have I seen that before? Oh, the Sims.

Still, all this might've made a fine game regardless (eh, I played the Baldur's Gates and Neverwinter Nights, anyway), so what a shame then that Bioware has made a total shambles of the console port. First up, it's ugly. The old school overhead view of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights and the PC version of Dragon Age was chucked for the console versions, putting players into a close third person view. But the game wasn't really designed with a close third person view in mind, obviously, because the textures are blurry, the animations are almost corpselike, and the colour palette looks like a grimy, drab leftover from Gears of War 2's bin. Lacking subtler control functions, combat is a sort of lunging, blundering mess with tactical character swapping (or any other sort of complex manoeuvring beyond waving a sword around, for that matter) rendered almost entirely useless because you can't even see them most of the time. Elsewhere, the game is packed full of inexplicably impassable terrain, shunting you and your goons through tedious long ways around everything including bits of grass.

It's not an abominable game at all, and people who lick up David Eddings-class fantasy will probably love it despite its faults. But if you enjoyed Mass Effect and were thinking of trying on some elf stuff for a while... rather wait on Mass Effect 2.

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