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Dragon Age: Origins is a dark fantasy RPG made by Bioware that’s said to be the spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate. The long-awaited game features an epic tale that will have you hooked before your first hour has passed. Dragon Age: Origins does just about everything you’d want in an RPG. It has a fantastic story, believable characters, great style, and much more that makes this one of the best games this holiday season.

In the country of Ferelden, the Blight is spreading and killing innocent people and destroying towns. You’ve been chosen by the Grey Wardens to fight beside them to stop the Blight once and for all. Along the way, your custom tailored character will encounter many difficult choices that will affect the outcome of many situations. The beautifully crafted story lasts more than 30 hours, and with a plethora of side stuff to keep you busy, that can easily double or triple your total play time.

If anything, Dragon Age: Origins is most similar to Knights of the Old Republic in terms of how the gameplay is structured. You’ll control a party of up to four people and they’ll act the way you want them to, if you’ve tweaked their tactics slots.  At any time, you can directly control any member of your party, but it’s not always necessary since the AI is pretty good.

The combat is simple, but at the same time beautifully complex. Swords are drawn once an enemy is spotted. Depending on your party’s tactics, they’ll automatically start attacking and casting spells, while the character you’re controlling needs to be told what to do. Pressing the attack button will have your character engage in combat and start attacking, similar to an MMO, and of course, you’ll have to activate skills whenever you feel the need. Mages are the most complex in battle since they can combine traps and spells together for a very damaging effect. Difficulty is definitely a factor in Dragon Age. Fights are not won by running into a battle without strategy. Even simple fights can be lost if you’re not paying attention.

Each individual character is made very well, so it’s easy to like and care about them all. Throughout the game you’ll be gathering more and more party members to help fight against the Blight. Each character is unique and has their own back-story. It’s worth talking to every character in camp since they are all so interesting. While running with your party, members will talk to each other and this random babbling is often humorous. On top of learning back-stories, every character has an approval rating towards you. This rating can go up or down depending on your actions, but every character will have a different opinion so one may like that you killed a person, while another may not.

Taking on every side quest can take longer than completing the main story. Every town not only has people who are in need to help, but quest boards provide plenty of things to do. Aside from quests, crafting is always an option. Gathering plants and other items allows you to create potions, traps, poisons etc.

A lot of things about this game are top notch, but not everything is as high of quality. The UI works well enough to get things done, but you can only have a total of six skills or items hot keyed, as the PC version can have more than 20 slots. The console versions have three skills mapped to three buttons on the controller, pressing the right trigger or R2 will show the other three skills. Having to map six skills can sometimes be a pain in big fights since a wide range of skills is needed. You can bring up a radial menu at any time by pressing the left trigger or L2. This will pause the game and you’ll be able to choose skills, advanced combat options such as holding position, and here is where you’ll also craft items.

The console versions don’t look nearly as good as their PC counterpart. On the consoles, graphics look muddy in spots and not as detailed as they would be on the PC. A few glitches rear their ugly head every now and then; most are combat based. Mainly, sometimes when you click on a skill for someone to use it’ll go away almost instantly, making you go back into the radial menu and choose the skill all over again. Another glitch that occurred often was when the characters would get ready for combat, but wouldn’t do anything even though their tactics were set for them to fight.

Everything in Dragon Age: Origins is exactly what you’d want from this type of role-playing game. A heavy and lengthy story provides entertainment on all fronts. All of the characters are great and the voice acting is wonderful. BioWare’s epic RPG is one that should not be missed.

Dragon Age: Origins is currently available on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC