Dragon Age: Origins Launch Day Reviews

After over five years of development, BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins is finally upon us. Let the review bombardment begin.

GameSpot gives the PC version a 9.5/10, the PS3 version a 9.0/10, and the Xbox 360 version an 8.5/10:

Few games are this ambitious, and even fewer can mold these ambitions into such a complete and entertaining experience. You might spend 50 or more hours on your first play-though, but there are so many paths to follow, so many details to uncover, and so many ways to customize your party that you’ll want to play again as soon as you finish the first time. PC owners even get an extra dash of depth via the downloadable toolset, which lets you create new levels, spells, skills, and even cutscenes. But any way you slice it, here’s the fantasy RPG you’ve been waiting for, the one that will keep you up late at night, bleary-eyed, because you have to see what happens next. Like the best fiction, Dragon Age will sweep you up in its world, so much so that when you’re done, you’ll want to experience it all over again.

IGN UK gives the PC version a 9.2/10:

Bioware’s achievements in all this are incredible. It cannot be stressed enough at the depth of the universe they have conjured. Every corner you look, there is a sense of age, of something old. Entire mythologies for multiple cultures have been brewed up, entire religions mapped out in their own belief systems, history that stretches back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Cities look lived in, worn majestic and squalid places that spill with times gone by and a sense of place. The castles look like they have been there for centuries, and truly, there is an uncertain sense that they have been. That Ferelden and its inhabitants were waiting patiently in the wings for all this time, waiting for their chance to shine. Well, like the Grey Wardens, their time has come. Let us unite then, and in the words of an old friend: We shall show those cursed Darkspawn our hearts and then show them theirs.

Eurogamer gives it an 8/10:

In its desperation to infuse this setting with “maturity” – be it of the sober, political kind, or the game’s painfully clumsy gore and sex – BioWare has forgotten the key ingredient of any fantasy: the fantastical. Without it, you’re still left with a competent, often compelling, impressively detailed and immense RPG, but it’s one that casts no spell.

Strategy Informer gives it a 9.3/10:

Dragon Age: Origins is a well-crafted role-playing game for the consoles. The storyline is among the best for this generation making Dragon Age: Origins a must-have RPG. Once gamers meet Shale, the (Stone Prisoner) from the downloadable content, they’ll soon realize how addicting it can be to hold conversations with the characters from the world. Many of the playable characters can quit the party at almost anytime, so gamers need to think about how their decisions impact everyone. Dragon Age: Origins is much more than a game it’s the glorious revisiting of Bioware’s past and a look at where they are going in the future.

Bit-tech gives it an 8/10:

A safe buy and one we can definitely recommend to anyone who wants a decent RPG, Dragon Age is a good game but we’re just not convinced it has the staying power to achieve the same kind of success as its forebears.

PC Gamer via CVG gives it a 9.4/10:

This is the most enormously detailed game world I’ve experienced, its history stretching back thousands of years, its cultures vivid, beautiful and flawed, the battles enormous, the humour superb. Roleplaying games now have a great deal to live up to.

And Giant Bomb gives it a perfect 5/5:

In the end, Dragon Age: Origins feels like a real throwback to the good old days of PC role-playing epics. It also feels like exactly what you expect the makers of Baldur’s Gate to come up with as a follow-up to that classic. While that means you could rightfully fault the game for not being especially innovative, it’s this adherence to a classic style of gameplay that will ensure that it’s welcomed by the legions of nostalgic RPG players that make up this genre’s core audience. That said, this is definitely not the game for those frightened of the idea of micromanaging a game to the point where a large portion of it will be spent in a pause screen. However, as the sort of guy that has lovingly played an Infinity Engine game at least once every year for the past decade, I can think of no higher praise for this throwback than to say that Dragon Age: Origins leaves me feeling fairly confident I won’t need to dig out the classics for this ritual next year.