Players choose between three races (human, elf or dwarf), each with a choice two separate backgrounds and unique stories. Characters will treat the player differently depending on their class and race, and certain discussion topics heavily impacted by the decisions players make when creating their characters. So, even though Dragon Age is a single player experience, it's one that offers a unique experience with each play through. Decisions are key factors to this game, since player choices can have grave impacts on how things play out. So, even though players have the option to kill anyone that gets in their way while exploiting every opportunity for wealth and power, they have to keep in mind that actions have consequences.

Unlike the morality systems from other BioWare role-playing games like Mass Effect or Jade Empire, there's no actual measurement of being good or bad. Instead, performance is judged by the characters who choose to follow you. If you make a decision that goes against their personal moral code, you will lose favor with them. Some characters will dislike you for doing altruistic things like helping the poor, since it distracts from the goal of stopping the Blight. Having a party comprised of characters of mixed moral perspectives can be very entertaining, since they'll often argue against each other. Players can win back favor by offering gifts or talking to them to gain a deeper understanding of their characters, but if their opinion of you falls too low, they are likely to abandon you. Yet, there's more to keeping followers happy than the threat of them leaving you. Those that have an exceptionally high opinion of you will fight harder at your side and even gain new abilities thanks to your inspired leadership. Their trust in you may also open up extra side quests to go on, and let's not forget a chance at romance, which includes a few different options.

One thing players should keep in mind before jumping into Dragon Age is that the difficulty can be a little unforgiving. Firstly, it's worth mentioning that there's no respec or skill point refund system that we could find. That means players will have to plan their characters well in advance to avoid making bad decisions. Secondly, the combat system very complex. Being able to pause the game mid battle and zooming out to a overhead tactical view (a feature exclusive to the PC version) to issue commands goes a long way towards easing things up, but players will have to make an effort to adjust the AI tactics on each character. Otherwise managing them becomes a complete nightmare. Battlefield tactics takes practically everything into account, including the type of armor each character is wearing, which direction they're attacking from (rogues need to maneuver themselves in for a backstab), to whether they're on high or low ground. Wearing heavy metal armor will offer better protection, but the character will move slower and all that weight will cause fatigue, meaning that special moves will cost more energy. Almost half of the mage spells do friendly fire, especially the elemental ones, although this is disabled in the Easy difficulty setting and reduced in Normal. Some of the spells can be used in combination with each other, which is another thing players can account and plan for. Frozen enemies can be shattered using a high impact spell, but at the same time, your teammates might not appreciate it if you accidentally light a grease slick on fire while they're standing on it. Altogether, it's can be an overwhelming amount of information for new players, and possibly a few experienced ones, to take in. However, we were able to fully understand all the nuances of combat, fighting battles became a thrilling experience.

That's not to say that Dragon Age isn't without flaws. Most of the items found in the game are very warrior and rogue oriented, and there isn't really much besides a few rings and necklaces to hand out to mage characters. Cloth robes, the ideal non-armor outer wear for magical types, are incredibly hard to come by. Even places where one would think there'd be some nice options, like the merchants at the elf camp and mage tower, come up slim on magical goods. In some ways, this almost forces mage players to take up the Arcane Warrior expertise, if for nothing else than to avoid having their characters killed in one hit. Mages aren't the only ones that are overlooked, since finding better crystals to outfit our golem (a character available through the Stone Prisoner DLC) is also seriously hard to come by.

Characters need basic skill in making poisons and traps in order to use them, which completely boggles our minds. Why must a person first need to know how to manufacture a bottle of poison before figuring out how to pour it onto their swords and arrows? It seems like an awful waste of skill points to us. The threat generation on some of the abilities meant to pull enemies away from soft targets are laughably useless half of the time, and almost never works against boss creatures, which is when you need those abilities the most. We didn't appreciate how the rogue is crap at spotting and disarming traps when players don't invest a lot in the Deft Hands ability, even with a relatively high cunning stat. Additionally, even after fine tuning the AI behavior tactics, computer controlled characters have an annoying habit of suddenly switching targets right after they've been ordered to attack something. We also experienced some noticeably long load screens for certain areas and occasionally ran into situations where quest related objects weren't where they were supposed to be. While on the subject of quests, the Dwarven campaign is weirdly written, since it forces you to throw your lot in with one of the people seeking to take the throne without actually letting you meet either candidate to personally judge their personalities.

Still, these complaints are relatively minor when taking into consideration the vast scope of the game. This is the kind of role-playing game hardcore fans have been dreaming about. It has a story that unflinchingly tells an adult, and often unsettling, story that involves many multilayered characters. When first playing through, you can never truly be sure what to expect. Players have the option to be the kind of hero they want to be, the savior of all living kind, or the ruthless power monger. Attaching characters to decisions is a brilliant way to really make the players feel the consequences of making tough decisions. Lastly, there's a staggering number of ways a character can progress through both dialogue and actions. So, really the biggest complaint about Dragon Age is the way it consumes your life once you get into playing.