Our very last E3 2008 appointment was, ironically, not at the Los Angeles Convention Center but at a nearby hotel. Deep underneath the hotel's meeting room was host to BioWare's long awaited next fantasy RPG Dragon Age Origins. The game was first announced and shown in a very early form over four years ago at E3 2004 (when it was called simply Dragon Age) so we were expecting to be wowed by this new version.

Dragon Age Origins represents a bit of a return to BioWare's PC gaming roots. After releasing the first Neverwinter Nights title BioWare went in a console direction creating the Xbox RPG games Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire and more recently the Xbox 360 game Mass Effect (all three games were eventually ported to the PC). Bioware also got a new owner in Electronic Arts. So its good that for at least this title (and perhaps the rumored Star Wars MMO that BioWare Austin is making) the developer will return to making PC games as their first platform of choice.As the live demo started we almost were fooled into thinking that BioWare was making a game based on the movie version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. There was the overview of a drawn map that detailed the fantasy kingdom of Fenelden and there was narration by a person who hinted of grave threats to the people of the land. The demo began with a male player character that is basically a warrior who is just about to come out of his apprenticeship; he is joining his mentor to help in a battle against an army of demons who have been making raids against the land.

The demo first showed off the branching dialog tree that's become a standard on BioWare developed games. Every answer you deliver influences the game to a small degree and even sometimes to a larger degree. At one point the male character is walking around the fantasy land's stronghold where he comes across a man in an elevated cage. The man said he has hidden a key to a secret and that he will share that secret if the player character sets them free. However, as demonstrated in the demo, you can go all violent and stab the prisoner dead and take his key. He gets a quick scolding from one of the local guards and we get the feeling that a lot of issues might come up with that decision.

The demo then jumped ahead to night and the actual siege by the demon horde. Our player character's mission was to light up a beacon in the castle to help the friendly armies out. After the battle began in an in-game cinematic (complete with fire arrows and charges by hounds against the demons) the actual game portion of the demo began with your character and three others charging to make the light beacon mission a success.

Our demo operator then switches the player character to a female mage who has access to a number of special powers. Fighting off enemies with a massive blizzard spell and turning all of her parties weapons on fire is just some of the game's magical abilities. The game's battles take place in a third person top down perspective and as with other BioWare games you can pause the game in order to select attacks on your own as well as give order to your teammates.

The final part of the demo showed the part facing up against a huge orc like creature who had multiple attacks against our parting (including one in which he hits his opponents multiple times). However our party managed to defeat the creature and after that it went to a brief cut-scene showing more of the main battle.

We were told that a character's beginning would be a huge influence on gameplay but that part of the game which detailed the origins of your playable character was not really detailed. Nor were items like how skills are used in the game. One thing we do know is that Bioware is preparing for downloadable content after its release and that there will be at least some kind of world editor for the title as well. Visually the game is more akin to the Lord of the Rings movies; that is to say, highly realistic, dark and gritty. Character models are highly detailed and the visual effects for things like powers and spells are impressive in the in-house graphics engine.

There's still a lot we don't know about Dragon Age: Origins and to be honest its fantasy setting and storyline is fairly generic and not at all unique. However this is Bioware we are talking about; they know how to create fantasy characters and settings that contain great gameplay so perhaps that can rise above the typical fantasy storyline. Currently Bioware and EA plans to release the game sometime in 2009