Dragon Age: Origins

[temp]

playing this one now. A D&D type of RPG. Graphics are a bit dissappointing, interface is okay...but the strength of this game is character development and storyline. It's like reading a fantasy novel but you get to choose which paths the characters take and who to make your enemies or friends. At every decision you feel like you are influencing the plotline in different ways.

I wonder how they make games like this...my guess is they lay out a tree of ideas and create several different arcs and endings etc. When I finish it, I'll probably play again, but this time start our as a slave instead of a noble, human instead of dwarf, and maybe switch my character to female, and see how the interactions change second time around.

[admin]

What platform is Dragon Age on?

I remember, in ancient times, before video games, they had "Chose your own adventure" books. "If you pick up the stone, turn to page 143, if you leave it alone, turn to page 39." They were cheats -- no matter what you did, there was one main plot line and at most two or three endings, not counting a lot of "The stone explodes. You're dead." endings.

Of course, a computer game can have many paths -- but that's a lot of work, and when you play the game, you must feel like you're missing most of the adventure, unless you play it many times. One of the Tomb Raider adventures, I forget which one, had two different paths through each level, and so I would play each level twice. But if there were a large tree of paths through the game, it would have to be a very, very good game, with a satisfying game on every path.

Let us know how Dragon Age plays the second time through.