Dragon Age: Awakening Review

Last November, BioWare treated RPG fans to Dragon Age: Origins, a game I will happily put down as one of my all time favorites, thanks to the fantastic characters, the cliché but well told story, the voice acting and many more elements. After some questionable DLC additions to Origins, we have it's first full expansion, Awakening. The question is, is it a worthy addition to the Dragon Age series?

When you start Awakening, you will be given the option of either importing a character from Origins, which if under level 18 will start there, or you can opt to create an entirely new character using the same character creation system found in the original; this option will also start you at level 18. Once you have created your character, you are thrown immediately into battle with the Darkspawn, your enemies from Origins. My first impression here was that the 60+ hours it took me to complete Origins were worthless; my quest there was to get rid of the Darkspawn, which I was under the impression I had succeeded in doing, yet here they are, just as big and ugly as ever. Thankfully they are no ordinary Darkspawn. They should be in shambles, retreating back to the Deep Roads, but they are launching sneak attacks, a very uncharacteristic move, and as the new Grey Warden commander it's your job to find out why and resolve it.

The game begins with your new or imported character as the new commander of the Grey Wardens, en route to a place called Vigil's Keep, near the town of Amaranthine. This will be a familiar name to players of the original, especially those who chose to do the human Origin story. Vigil's Keep has been given to the Wardens but on your way you are ambushed by the Darkspawn. Once you've fought them off, you make your way into Vigil's Keep itself and dispose of yet more Darkspawn; this is heavy on the action. In contrast the original game took a good few hours to really get started.

You're introduced to one of your party's characters fairly early on - a rather witty mage named Anders. While he is a likeable enough fellow, he doesn't come close to being as memorable as the Origins cast, and that's a common problem with the new characters. They're all acceptable, but I would rather spend the time with the characters I've shed blood with for 60+ hours instead of the replacements we get here. Not long after meeting up with Anders, I was introduced to another party member, the gruff ale-swilling Dwarf Oghren from Origins. Fantastic, the only member from the original game I get in my party is the one I truly did not like. He is just as obnoxious and annoying as I found him the last time, but this is a personal thing and I know many fans loved Oghren.

After a lengthy opening sequence within The Keep, you're given the freedom to pick and choose quests. You can choose from side-quests in the surrounding areas, or main quest business in the city of Amaranthine (where the game opens up). By this point I had collected another party member, Nathaniel, a Rogue with ties to Origins. He fared a bit better on the likeability scale and I found myself actually interested in his character, much like my favourites from Origins.

One major improvement in this game, is the way side quests play out. They're more varied than before; sure you still get your go here, kill that quests, but the writing holding them together is that much stronger. The side quests can feel like proper missions and you'll find yourself wanting to do them because you want to, not because you feel you have to for the experience points.

As before, you'll gain experience from completing quests and killing enemies, which leads to a level up. In Awakening, new abilities, specialisations and talents have been added. For instance, instead of continuing on with my dual-weilding warrior from Origins, I opted to start anew as a Mage starting from level 18. From here I had all the skill points and talent points to distribute as I saw fit including new spells and talents, such as Rune crafting. Much like Herbalism, Rune Crafting is where you use different pieces to craft runes, which are harder to come by as loot in this game.

The gameplay itself is identical to Origins, where you'll manage your party by pausing the action, dishing out orders then unpausing to see the actions take place. You can either play it that way, or play the whole game in real time; although as before, if you play on one of the harder difficulties, pausing is essential to progress. The new spells and attacks add variation. They complement the new Level 30 cap the expansion offers, but there are some attacks present I'd have thought should be included in Origins, for example, something as simple as a sweeping attack with a two-handed sword, which isn't in Origins, is one of the added skills here.

While the game doesn't quite reach the heights the original did, in terms of overall story and characters there's enough here to keep fans more than happy with their purchase. It costs £19.99/$39.99/€29.99 on Steam and is worth every penny to series fans. You won't get the same amount of playtime as you did with Origins, but you'll still get about 30 hours worth including side-quests, which is more than most single player games of late. Despite the drawbacks, the gameplay is as solid as ever and just as tactical. The characters, while I personally didn't like them as much as my old gang, are likeable with good back stories, and the story itself is told well enough. Heartily recommended to series fans, maybe a wary purchase for newcomers.