Dragon Age: Origins (PC)

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Dragon Age: Origins - the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate.

Dragon Age: Origins is nothing like Mass Effect. It's an RPG, yes, with stop and start combat and lines and lines of dialogue, but the similarities stop there. For Bioware fans who have been sitting in front of their PC monitors praying for the developer to follow up on the Baldur's Gate series, this is undoubtedly a good thing. Indeed Dan Tudge, the game's executive producer and project director, begins our behind closed doors demo at Leipzig Games Convention 2008 with a bullish proclamation: this is the "spiritual successor" to Baldur's Gate.

So, if you're looking for Mass Effect with a fantasy skin, then look away now. Dragon Age is more like Baldur's Gate with a Lord of the Rings skin. At least that's the overriding feeling we get from the demo.

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The game's set up - you choose a character class and battle against the evil Blight as you rise through the ranks of the elite Grey Wardens warrior group - is classic fantasy fare and will be instantly familiar to the genre's fans. The pseudo real-time combat, which can be paused at the players' whim, allows you to seamlessly switch between members of your party, dish out commands and cast spells - just like you did in Baldur's Gate back in the day. It all feels, well, a little old.

Perhaps we're doing the game a disservice, because Tudge does point out a number of features that we find quite interesting and refreshing. Chief among these is the way your choice of class will affect the overall story. The Origins bit of Dragon Age refers to the first two or three hours of play, during which the choices you make have a real impact on how the world reacts to you. The bulk of our time with the game is centred on showing how this will work in action.

Dragon Age will be instantly familiar to anyone who's played any of Bioware's non sci-fi RPGs

As a Human Noble Warrior we begin in the Ruins of Ostagar. Here the armies of Fereldan have gathered together to make their final stand against the Blight. As a young Grey Order recruit, we're sworn to protect the people of Fereldan against the Blight, so we're here to lend a helping hand.

In a cut scene we're introduced via our mentor Duncan to the young King Cailan, who's delighted to have us fight by his side. During dialogue we get a nice cinematic view, ala Mass Effect, but without the radial conversation wheel. You'll instead be picking from lines of dialogue displayed at the bottom of the screen. These lines don't trigger voice over, like in Mass Effect, either. Your character remains silent throughout all the chatting.

With the pleasantries over we're left alone with Duncan to chat about the upcoming battle. Every recruit, we're told, must go through a secret ritual called the Joining in order to become a fully fledged Grey Warden. But there's no need to rush, we have until nightfall to perform it. Until then, we're free to explore the camp, but we're not allowed to leave it.

We approach the local quartermaster. Turns out he doesn't have a lot of respect for elves. But then most don't. In the Dragon Age universe elves are often mistreated and are considered second class citizens. We approach a caged prisoner, banged up because he stole a wizard's key he's since swallowed to hide from his captors. He desperately wants food and water, he says, and is willing to trade the key (recently crapped out) for some grub. Since we're role-playing as a warrior though, we decide to kill the unlucky wretch and just take our prize. Unsurprisingly he's not happy about this and screams bloody murder as he meets his doom. A nearby guard gives us a ticking off. We basically tell him to sod off and mind his own business.

"The moral choices you make within Dragon Age: Origins will actually have ramifications down the road," explains Tudge. "I think a stunt like killing this prisoner just might catch up with us later on."

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