Dragon Age: Origins is the best RPG since Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, and due to technological advances, is indeed a far better game even than that venerable classic.

With that sweeping statement out of the way, I want try to put the statement in perspective. I'm not a "dabbler" in RPGs. If I were to write up a list of top-10 games, they'd all be RPGs. No shooters, platformers, Mario games, sports games, or anything but ... RPGs. Ultima IV is considered the first game (or one of the first games) to move from "hack and slash" focused play into the realm of moral choices and such - and is still revered for doing so. Dragon Age takes that light years ahead!

So when I say it's the best RPG since Ultima IV... that's not something I say lightly! But... it is.

I've had the game for 3 days now, and ever since the first night, I've been wondering how to write up a blog post about it, without spoiling anything. I accidentally read a spoiler about one of the origin opening stories, while I was trying to decide if I was going to buy the game or not - and regret having done so. So I wanted to be able to post about the game, yet not have any spoilers! Not easy to do!

I can say the "M" (Mature) rating is 100% deserved, and then some. And don't go thinking it's just for profanity - actually I don't think I've even heard the word "damn" yet. There's no profanity; the "M" rating is all in themes and content. When you play the game, you will see what I mean... :D

The voice acting gives new meaning to the term "Hollywood quality" in video games. I'm a huge critic of voice acting in games. Two Worlds? Yeah, couldn't play it - the voice acting was beyond horrible and I just couldn't get past it. I'd rather have a game with text only, than one with jarringly bad voice acting. Dragon Age's voice acting is incredible.

Another thing I liked was that they took some interesting twists on the "standard" fantasy races of Dwarves and Elves. They're in there - and recognizable as Dwarves and Elves - but the cultural twists the writers made are very cool. The only other race is Human, leaving only 3 race choices, which makes things pretty manageable as far as make your character creation decision.

The class and skill system is pretty well done. There's 3 classes: Warrior, Rogue, and Mage. What would be done in other games via more class choices is done here as skill/talent choices as you level. If you want to be a sword-and-board Warrior you pick things that support that. If you want to use 2-handers instead, you pick things to make that happen. It works very well.

I really can't say enough good about this game. I don't buy many games, because I mainly play MMOs, and it's hard to justify the cost of non-MMO games since an MMO can be played for years, while non-MMOs, generally not... But Dragon Age... yeah. Just buy it!

Speaking of MMOs - once a year, I usually re-up my Ultima Online subscription for a month, just to see how my old home fares. I haven't in a couple years, but I recently did, and I'm actually staying for a while this time. The game is still going strong, and actually is gaining players again! It's pretty much the only MMO left with any "sandbox" style gameplay. It's certainly not for everyone. You have to not be graphics-focused; the graphics are, well, terrible. You have to want the sandbox play, because there's no funneling or direction or guiding...at all. You decide what to do, and that's that! Do you worry about building a "gimped" character? Well, that's pretty easy to do in UO. ;) Sure, you can fix it, but it takes time.

But the rewards are great! Tired of feeling like you're just "along for the ride", being carried through a game as if "on rails"? None of that here. You make every choice, from every skill your character learns, all the way to what you want to do. Other than pre-NGE SWG, there's never been a more "open" MMO.

We're still considering ourselves EQ2 players as well, but she's been working on getting some xmas gifts made early, since some of them can take a while, so we haven't got any EQ2 time in, but I'm sure we'll be back in Norrath before too long... ;)