The Game Experience:

Dragon Age is a really, really long game. On a single play through expect to spend sixty to a hundred hours depending on how many of the side quests you choose to complete and your general pace. On my second play through going at top speed I cleared the game in just short of fifty hours and I didn’t complete all the side quests or advance my character to the maximum level (twenty five). The game’s main quests are fun and difficult and stray away from the usual fetch quest or “go here, go there, kill that…” many of the side quests are just as fun and provide for unique choices and outcomes. There is however a lot of them that are just fetch quests and can feel a little stale. Dragon Age allows you to complete the main quests in any order you like and the game will accordingly scale the enemies to your character’s level. It is very re playable and you will want to see all the origins and branching paths you may take in the game.

The DLC (downloadable content):

The games downloadable content (DLC) packs add another hour or two to the game each and there are seven of them meaning they add around fifteen hours overall. Each DLC is pretty cool and adds something unique to the game such as more backstory for a character or a new home base (a cool castle) for your party. Two of the DLC stand above the others,The Stone Prisoner and Witch Hunt. The Stone Prisoner adds a new character to the party who is interesting and extremely well integrated into the rest of the game and Witch Hunt acts as an epilogue and while it is extremely easy it does follow up on my favorite character, though it is mostly a big fat teaser for Dragon Age 2. On their own it is hard to recommend the DLC aside from Stone Prisoner, but if you can’t get enough Dragon Age they will satisfy.

The Expansion Set:

The expansion set to Dragon Age; Awakening was released about a year after Origins and for fans of the first game, it is essential. Unlike the DLC packs this is an old school expansion meaning it adds dozens of hours to the game and new gameplay features. In Awakening you may import your character from Origins who has completed the original or play as a new character from a different nation who starts at level eighteen (most players will choose to complete Origins at level eighteen). Awakening is set in the locale of Amaranthine and your character is now the commander of this land and a pseudo lord or baron. The game continues the plot from Origins and goes into discovering the nature of the evil that you fought in the original game. The story is just as intriguing as the original game and has a similar epic feeling. Just as in Origins you must make tough choices but rather than dictating the future of many nations you are simply ruling, your own and trying to keep all the people who you are responsible for safe and happy…. or not.

Your character in Awakening must assemble a new team for his new lands and only one party member from the original will join you, though several others make appearances in cameos. While some of the choices made in Origins will affect the Awakenings campaign they do so in minor ways. I feel it would have been nicer for them to have the mass effect (pun intended) that they did in Origins. While it is sad that more characters from Origins do not appear or join you, the new characters in Awakenings are just as well written and developed, they are unique, heavily ingrained in the story and some carry the same hilarious sense of humor that permeated Origins. They each feature personal quests and preferences just as the ones in the original game. The characters’ fates however are more brushed upon than they were in Origins and are heavily affected by the players’ actions, a nice improvement. Sadly there are no romance options in Awakenings, which was one of Origins best features.