Dragon Age Origins is compelling, maybe. The problem with Origins is that for every step in storytelling, there is a punch in the ribs that doesn’t really sit right. The game is a series of superfluous interactions, almost none of which get to the heart of the matter. Another reality of the big game industry today, making games needlessly long by extending the space where no actual narration is occurring. The system in the game doesn’t evolve though, rather what would be accurate is to say that all abilities are broken in some situations.
Combat in role-playing genres has generally proceeded from the juvenile to the absurd, and for some reason there’s a chasm that then finds systems that are almost transcendent, teeming with a brilliant life. Origins however, is perhaps in the juvenile category. The interaction is never quite competent, yet manages to serve core functions well, largely those of driving the plot at convenient moments and infinitely more often, wasting your time. This is not the fault, directly, of Origins however. This is an institutional problem within videogames and combat systems in general.
The videogame industry does not comprehend that perhaps much of the distaste for their product comes from the lingering reality of wasted time. Movies are not twenty hours long, and though books can be much longer, they are chunked with the intention of making the material consumable. Videogames miss this, and Origins misses this. While there are lulls within Origins, they are stilted and generally do not delineate a set amount of experience. Certainly, the voracious consumer of these padded entries into the lexicon of games will experience something, but in any good text, the words are carefully chosen.
In Origins, as in most games, the experiences are seemingly random. Indeed, some are entirely contextually lacking, and confusing to anyone not already deeply versed in the insanity of the genre. But perhaps to play a role-playing game with any honesty requires some sanity to be lacking, simply due to their overly complex nature. The mired system often seems to get in the way of what is meaningful, which is a story and a curiosity.
The story in Origins makes sense, but does not carry with it much meaning, as your characters are so quickly ushered from place to place, any memory of a space would only be tangential at best. The last and perhaps most devastating sin of any game is to never have a sense of space. With physical games, the space is easily considered, with videogames, the virtual ether is boundless.
The problems with Origins are representative of a genre and an industry needlessly clinging to anachronisms. The need for length by needless repetition comes entirely from old systems. The need for characters with silly, branching paths relates entirely to improv theater and less substantively, Dungeons and Dragons. But videogames are not these media, and making them in such a manner comes off as silly.
Recommended: No