Storytime: Dragon Age: Origins "Ultimate Edition"

I was up late on Black Friday, searching online for anything that might pass for a Christmas gift for friends or family, but wasn't having much luck. It was closing in on 3 AM (don't quote me on that) when I made one more pass at Amazon and discovered this "Ultimate Edition" of Dragon Age: Origins was on sale for $35, normally $59. Immediately, I was like "Hey, that's a pretty good deal! What's in this Ultimate Edition anyway?" It was essentially everything BioWare ever created for DA:O - the main game, the "expansion," and every single piece of DLC with the exception of some weapon that came with the Collector's Edition.

I sat there for a second and remembered that my copy of DA:O was broken and well on its way to not working at all. This was on account of a shoddy case, since you had to really force the disc out of there, and also on account of how much it was used. I had personally put around 60 hours into the game (counting main character, time lost from deaths, and new characters) before I handed it off to a friend of mine, who had some kind of religious experience when he started playing it. He's a BIG fan of RPGs, mostly the classics (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights) and tabletop D&D. I clearly remember him calling me the night after he started playing and he was as excited as I've ever heard him.

Long story short: He put about 200 hours into that game, and nearly beat it with every class by the time I took it back from him. After Awakening I went back to DA:O and discovered a crack forming in the spindle hole of the disc that was working its way outward into the aluminum coating. The disc stopped playing well, so I installed the game on my Xbox hard drive and hoped that would take care of it. Pretty much did, but I questioned how long I could keep it on there.

So, seeing this Ultimate Edition on sale, I figured this would not only be my chance to get a new copy, but an opportunity to play the Dragon Age DLC without giving money to Microsoft through Xbox Live. I did the math in my head (not really) and figured out that buying all of the DLC separately right now would cost exactly $55. Any way I looked at it, I was getting a pretty good deal. Plus I was able to give Awakening to a friend of mine, since I'd have two copies. Win-Win.

All that, and it sort of touched on a sensitive subject for me: that Bethesda is now the only maker of RPGs that are TRUE to the spirit of D&D. Dragon Age II will probably be a ton of fun, but it won't be a proper RPG no matter how your spin it; someone else will do the talking for you, someone else will be naming your character for you, and someone decided you should play a human character no matter what. That's not an RPG, that's a Hawke Simulator, just like the Mass Effect series is a Shepard Simulator. Dragon Age: Origins will likely represent the end of an era, so I wanted to own it entirely. Like I was building some really cool Video Game Ark.

So, I bought it, and it arrived a couple days later in my mailbox. The first thing I did was install all of the DLC, which was probably the biggest downside to this package. When Lionhead put out their Platinum Edition of Fable II, they integrated the DLC into the actual game. Not so with DA:O. They weren't really big files, but there were quite a few of them. My hard drive probably isn't too fond of my by now, after all of the games I've installed/uninstalled. After figuring out how to access everything, I booted up Witch Hunt, eager to see the Morrigan Romance (one of my favorite parts of the game) come to a close.

Playing through it, it really felt like the twilight of my Warden's role in Ferelden. It was cool to be able to import him from Awakening, so it felt like the proper ending that he never got in the "expansion." The more I interacted with people, the more I was able to throw around my title as Grey Warden, the more my excitement grew. When the DLC brought my story to a satisfying close, by not only bringing my Warden back together with Morrigan, but hinting so heavily that my adventures weren't over...I was hooked again. Well, maybe not hooked, I guess. I think the proper word would be "obsessed."

Over the next day, I played through the rest of the DLC. Some of them were really touching in places, heart-breaking in others, and some were so fucking bad I wanted to complain to BioWare. The Darkspawn Chronicles was an interesting concept at first, but the minutes went by and nothing really happened. You just run around and kill guards and the Warden's party members - and there's absolutely no dialogue. I finished it in 45 minutes and just sat there for a few minutes, my mind repeating "That's it?" over into infinity.

Leliana's Song was another that had me glaring at my television for a bit, as if it had been the one that had wronged me. See, I like the idea of playing through some party members' backstories. I think that would actually be a neat idea. But not if BioWare won't take it seriously. They managed to tell Leliana's entire story in one and a half hours and fuck it up somewhere along the way. The French (Orlesian) accents are terrible and faked so badly it made me wince. And the ending pretty much says, "And then she joined the Chantry...because...just because..." It was lame.

Those were the two that had me grumbling, but the rest were actually quite good. But I had to judge their quality on emotional response and writing because, more often than not, most of the environments and creatures were recycled from the main game. It kind of sucked though, getting that storage chest in Warden's Keep, but not having any reason to use it, since I had already beaten the game. So...that's when I started a new file!

I'm having so much fun playing through this again, and now that the DLC is all installed and ready to go, it feels like a more complete experience. As if someone had taken out parts of the game and then gave them back...but no, that can't be right. Huh, BioWare!

Like my friend before me, I think I've had a religious experience with this game. I just can't get it out of my head, I just love everything about it. I'll be adding it to the list of the best games that I've ever played:

1) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

2) World of Warcraft

3) Dragon Age: Origins

It's that good. To me, at least. Get that Ultimate Edition if you haven't played the game yet. Or if you HAVE played the game, buy this if you ever see it on sale. This is just a great value and a great package.

P.S. That wasn't my proper review of it. I know, I talk a lot. xD