We’ll get into the features of Dragon Age: Origins on the next page, and if you are eager you can skip, the internet is cool that way. But for now, a bit of BioWare history:
When gamers, especially RPG gamers, hear BioWare, their pointy ears (the fake cos-play ones, anyway) perk up. Baldur’s Gate is near and dear to many hearts, to an even greater extent than the still very successful Neverwinter Nights series. What blew people away though, was a twist on RPGs that has resulted in some of the decades best games. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, almost always referred to as KOTOR, had RPG mechanics in a slick pausable-action wrapper.
The story, an original tale taking place in the Star Wars universe, was also excellent, but the previously unseen advance in gameplay was the RPG-action mechanic. You would level, choose skills, manage a party and its inventory. You would then run around in what looked a lot like a third-person action game. But, when combat broke out, you could pause as often and for as long as you wanted, selecting targets and skills with which to attack enemies.
As you got better at it, you could pause less and less, and choose how combat was paced. The combination, along with a vast story of Jedi Knights, proved irresistible to legions of pausing lightsaber wielders.
The formula was refined through Jade Empire and Mass Effect, where not just the gaming but the Intellectual Property were BioWare’s. This showed the gaming public that the Western Canadian outfit could not only make a great game in an existing universe, but build the universe as well.
