Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age: Origins pretends to be a classic fantasy at first meeting. There are elves running, there are gnomes splitting ore, people in large quantities have flooded everything. A terrible threat looms over the world, and only a small number of the Chosen are able to cope with it.

But then the game turns into dark realism. The world that has to be saved is such a disgusting place that more than once you will think: “Maybe it should all burn with a blue flame, and let the creatures of darkness consume it?”.

Being chosen is not a calling, but a function

Those who have watched one of the sequels to "The Matrix" remember the disappointment when the Architect tells Neo that he is not at all the Chosen One, and so, there is an error in the code, an incorrect value of a variable, and the virtual world has quite adapted itself to existence with this "bug".

In the world of Dragon Age: Origins, there are no Chosen as such either. Local residents are quite aware of the threat looming over them and have even learned to coexist with it at the very least. They acquired the Order of the Gray Wardens, whose task is to get rid of the creatures of darkness, when the rest of the powerful of this world will do what they love: geopolitics.

The Order of the Gray Wardens is very similar to the Witchers from The Witcher. Not only that, all sorts of terrible and unpleasant rituals are performed over the novices, almost completely depriving them of their human nature. So also the Gray Wardens are clearly not friendly and hospitable.

In general, in this wonderful world, the kingdom of Ferelden, they do not treat anyone hospitably. Here "racism", xenophobia, discrimination, lawlessness, social inequality and everything else flourish here, for which we love the times of the Late Middle Ages so much. Even the sharp-eared elves, who are usually represented in fantasy stories as a sort of "higher civilization", are here driven into the ghetto and equated with slaves.

The game is so not shy about demonstrating the horrors of late medieval life that sometimes it almost savor them. For example, it begins with a chapter, from the plot of which even Leonid Kanevsky would nervously light a cigarette. If you choose a human character of noble origin, then he will lose his entire family as a result of the massacre perpetrated by the traitor. If you start playing as an elf, then a representative of the local "golden youth" will try to rape her along with her friends. If you try to choose a gnome, it turns out that his mother is a prostitute, and he himself is forced to work as an "errand boy" with her pimp.

And so constantly! The local world is cruel, there is no unequivocal good and evil, but everything around is by no means d'Artagnan. In the process of passing Dragon Age: Origins, you will have to constantly make controversial decisions. Helping one group will harm another.

There is a simple example. Short. Literally at the very beginning, the player learns that one village suffers under the yoke of bandits who rob the caravans arriving in this settlement. Driven by a noble impulse, the player can deal with these criminal elements. And the village will become even worse - it will drown under the flow of immigrants from neighboring villages, who are even less fortunate.

Role Model in Dragon Age: Origins

To get a complete picture of the role-playing model of Dragon Age: Origins, it is enough to know one single fact - this game was developed by the BioWare studio. If you have gone through any other project of the company - even Mass Effect, even Jade Empire, even the ancient Baldur's Gate - then you have a rough idea of ​​what this is about. Dragon Age: Origins is the same party RPG with an incredibly branchy and varied character model.

There are three races available here (and they really differ among themselves), three classes and four specializations for each of them. True, the options for roles are not 27, as it might seem at first glance. The fact is that each character can "wear" two specializations, and in the version of Awakening - already three.

In addition, you do not need to try to make your character a Shvets, a reaper, and a gamer on the pipe. Dragon Age: Origins is a party role-playing game, so several more creatures will run with the main character at the same time. Each of them has its own class and specialization, so the skills of the characters complement each other quite well.

The combat system in Dragon Age: Origins

With a well-developed role-playing model, Dragon Age: Origins has a classic combat system to the bone. There is no need to memorize dozens of techniques or skills, you just need to click on the enemy - and he will hasten to turn into ash or a pile of bones.

Occasionally it is also required to activate special character traits. However, in most cases, these skills are passive. They affect the gameplay, but not too much. Still, Dragon Age: Origins focuses on story rather than combat.