Dragon Age Origins

Dragon Age: Origins


Dragon Age: Origins is a role-playing video game developed by BioWare's Edmonton studio. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in November 2009, and for Mac OS X on December 21, 2009.

Dragon Age: Origins uses a new game engine named Eclipse, for which a toolset for creation of fan-made content is available to owners of the PC version. The game is single-player only. BioWare co-CEO Ray Muzyka described Dragon Age: Origins as a "spiritual successor" to the Baldur's Gate series, though it is not based on Dungeons & Dragons.

The game is set in a fantasy setting with magic and swords, and has multiple downloadable content (DLC) packs available, adding additional content. An expansion, Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, was released on March 16, 2010. The game was received positively by critics, with the average review scores being in the high eighties and low nineties. Dragon Age Origins won a range of awards from multiple sources, ranging from "Best RPG of the Year 2009" to "Best PC game of the Year 2009", and Gamespot named the game as being one of the best gifts to buy for the Christmas season of 2009.

Building upon the games storyline, BioWare has also released two novels, Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne and Dragon Age: The Calling, based within the in-game universe, alongside a three episode series of flash games. A tabletop game was released in January 2010, by Green Ronin Publishing. BioWare also confirmed in an interview with joystiq.com that a sequel was in development.

Gameplay

The game incorporates "origins" for each race and some classes. For example, a dwarf noble begins the game as part of the royal family in one of the dwarven cities, whereas the dwarf commoner origin story begins on the streets of the city. Origin stories determine the background of the player's character prior to the main events of the game's story, forming an introduction to the world while also comprising hours of play. Characters that the player meets during the origin story may reappear throughout the game, some as adversaries.

There is no tracking of moral alignment as in previous BioWare games,but the moral choices of the player will still affect the story throughout the game. The player will accomplish the goal regardless of choosing to be good or evil, but the decisions that the player makes in the process will change the game world accordingly – deciding who will become king, for example, and affecting nations and races and their places in the world. These decisions will also influence the companion NPCs, possibly causing an NPC to leave the party or even attack the player if they disagree strongly with his or her actions.

The game has been described as the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate by BioWare co-CEO Ray Muzyka, as players are able to issue orders to NPCs in real time, but pause the game to queue up actions such as spells and special attacks, a game mechanic from the Baldur's Gate series.. However, the mood can be compared to Planescape: Torment.

There are three base classes to choose from: warrior, mage, and rogue.These classes can be upgraded into a specialized class such as the berserker or templar for the warrior class, shapeshifter or spirit healer for the mage class, and assassin or ranger for the rogue. The game uses a party system similar to that of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, another BioWare roleplaying game, featuring the main character with up to three active party members chosen from a pool of NPCs.

The game features a degree of interactivity between spells, such as a fire spell igniting a grease slick before being put out by a blizzard. The game contains many combinations which can be discovered by the player either by accident, or by finding clues as to which combinations are valid.

this game available on :

- PC Microsoft Windows
- PlayStation 3
- Microsoft Xbox 360
- PC Mac OS X

Dragon Age Origins system requirement for PC

Minimum (XP): Core 2 Duo with 1.4 GHz or Athlon 64 X2 with 1.8 GHz, 1024 MB RAM, Geforce 6600 GT or Radeon X850 with 128 MB, 20 GB disc space

Minimum (Vista): Core 2 duo with 1.6 GHz or Athlon 64 X2 with 2.2 GHz, 1536 MB RAM, Geforce 7600 GT or Radeon X1550 with 256 MB, 20 GB disc space

Recommended: Core 2 Quad with 2.4 GHz (or comparable AMD CPU), 2048 MB RAM (XP), 4096 MB RAM (Vista), Geforce 8800 GTS or Radeon HD 3850 with 512 MB