Dragon Age Origins is the huge, Dungeons and Dragons-like Role Playing game from Bioware. After the epic futuristic role players like Fallout 3, does this return to a classic fantasy setting mark a high point for the genre?

Dragon Age Origins is graphically impressive, with plenty of epic fantasy cut scenes, and the game has exactly the kind of grand soundtrack that you would expect from such a setting. The game begins with players choosing a character type, like noble, elf and dwarf. There are six in total, and each will give you a slightly changed experience, as other characters in the game will react to you differently.

The plot of Dragon Age Origins is complex, and attempts to be mature, with some adult themes. It's also extremely gory, with exaggerated blood effects throughout. There is tons of speech, although like much of the game it's fairly clichéd and lacking inspiration. The mature themes are unconvincing too, and don't add anything special to the story.

While Dragon Age Origins is anything but an original fantasy story, its execution is excellent, with fantastic controls, excellent combat and lots of choices to be made throughout. Fans of role playing games will absolutely love it, although this world of magic and fantasy will probably not convince newcomers.

Dragon Age Origins is a blood-soaked fantasy RPG on an epic scale, with a mountain of gameplay to discover.