Unfortunately, one day prior to release, Bioware announced the DLC would be delayed.  The very next day though, they announced a full expansion to the game entitled ‘Awakening’, available for pre-order from Gamestop for $39.99 (wow).

Dragon Age: Origins is set in the fantasy land of Ferelden. There are a variety of races in the land, including but not limited to humans, dwarves, & elves. You play a new recruit to an elite group of soldiers known as the Gray Wardens. The primary role of the Wardens is to fight against the Darkspawn, creatures that suffer an incurable taint. The Wardens are immune to the taint and possess a unique ability to sense this taint in others.

The ‘Origins’ part of the game title comes from the fact that when you start the game you can choose between a variety of backgrounds for your character. You then get to play out the ‘origin’ of your character and how you came to join the Gray Wardens. The origin story you choose alters slightly the way the story plays out throughout the game. The title also refers to the studio returning to it’s own origins in creating fantasy role playing games, such as it did with Baldur’s Gate.

Dragon Age: Origins introduces a whole new fantasy world to us, with it’s own history and mythology. Bioware reveals this universe to the player through character dialogue, storytelling narration, as well as hundreds of little clues throughout the game. As you find items, they are added to the game codex. Players are free at any time to go into the codex and read about things you’ve found. The more you read about Ferelden and the rest of the world Bioware has created, the more you understand it. That style of play gives gamers a a very immersed experience into the fictional world.

The script writing and voice acting in Origins is superb. Steve Valentine and Claudia Black provide great dialogue between two of your main party members. Bioware also did well at not creating such black and white characters as many other RPG games tend to do. It used to be that RPG gamers had only to real options to them in terms of how to play the game – good or evil. Origins provides plenty of gray area in between where players can fit their own personality into their in-game character.

Overall, Dragon Age: Origins is one of the better RPG games I’ve played in a while and cements even more my faith in Bioware’s ability to produce quality games in that genre.

• GAME OF THE YEAR
  UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves (Sony Computer Entertainment / Naughty Dog)
• STUDIO OF THE YEAR
  Rocksteady Studios
• BEST SHOOTER
  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Publishing / Infinity Ward)
• BEST RPG
  Dragon Age: Origins (Electronic Arts / BioWare)
• BEST FIGHTING GAME
  Street Fighter IV (Capcom / Capcom/Dimps)
• BEST INDIVIDUAL SPORTS GAME
  UFC 2009 Undisputed (THQ / Yuke’s Media Creations)
• BEST HANDHELD GAME
  Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Rockstar Games / Rockstar Leeds)
• BEST GRAPHICS
  UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves (Sony Computer Entertainment / Naughty Dog)
• BEST MUSIC GAME
  The Beatles: Rock Band (MTV Games / Harmonix)
• BEST DRIVING GAME
  Forza Motorsport 3 (Microsoft Game Studios / Turn 10)
• BEST ACTION ADVENTURE GAME
  Assassin’s Creed II (Ubisoft / Ubisoft Montreal)
• BEST TEAM SPORTS GAME
  NHL 10 (Electronic Arts / EA Canada)
• BEST SOUNDTRACK
  DJ Hero (Activision Publishing / FreeStyleGames)
• BEST XBOX 360 GAME
  Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve)
• BEST Wii GAME
  New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo)
• BEST PS3 GAME
  UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves (Sony Computer Entertainment / Naughty Dog)
• BEST PC GAME
  Dragon Age: Origins (Electronic Arts / BioWare)
• BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
  Halo 3: ODST (Microsoft Game Studios / Bungie)
• BEST MULTI-PLAYER GAME
  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Publishing / Infinity Ward)
• BEST GAME BASED ON A MOVIE OR TV SHOW
  South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! (Microsoft / DoubleSix)
• BEST CAST
  X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged Edition (Activision Publishing / Raven Software)
• BEST PERFORMANCE BY A HUMAN MALE
  Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged Edition (Activision Publishing)
• BEST PERFORMANCE BY A HUMAN FEMALE
  Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen / Activision Publishing)
• BEST VOICE
  Jack Black as Eddie Riggs (Brutal Legend / Electronic Arts)
• BEST DOWNLOADABLE GAME
  Shadow Complex (Microsoft Game Studios / Chair Entertainment)
• BEST COMEDY GAME
  Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (D3Publisher / Vicious Cycle)
• BEST DLC
  Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Rockstar Games / Rockstar North)
• BEST INDEPENDENT GAME FUELED BY DEW
  Flower (ThatGameCompany)
• MOST ANTICIPATED GAME
  God of War III (Sony Computer Entertainment / SCE Studios Santa Monica)

To me, the video game awards are starting to become more and more like the Oscars are for the film industry–where the awards rarely reflect actual fan preferences and work on a flawed voting system.  With the Oscars the problem is that too few people select the winners.   With the video game awards, it’s the opposite problem–too many.  The voting is done through internet website voting, which as many geek knows is far from impervious to manipulation and spam voting.   When something wins an internet vote, all that tells me is they had the most people spamming votes and/or hacking the website to get extra votes counted.

Some of the awards I agree with, while many others I was surprised won (ex. Left 4 Dead 2, a virtual expansion pack).   I kind of felt this was going to be an off year for the awards show ever since I saw the nominations.  I still can’t believe they didn’t have Halo 3:ODST nominated for the Best Cast or Nathan Fillion nominated for the Best Performance by a Human Male.

My personal preference for what games should have won would have been these:

• Game of the Year: Dragon Age: Origins – Not a ton of pre-release advertising for this game, but because it’s made by BioWare, I went out and bought it.  Wow, this game is awesome.
• Studio of the Year: Gearbox Software – Brought us Borderlands, probably the most innovative RPG-Shooter game ever.  Not only that, but in the short time this game has been out, they’ve released one DLC package and have announced a second one.  How many other game studios take care of their customers like that?
• Best Xbox 360 Game: Borderlands – Great blend of the shooter and role playing genres.  Witty dialogue coupled with fun shooting gameplay.
• Best Shooter: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Probably the most anticipated video game ever.  This will be where I’ll spend most of my multiplayer gaming time at.
• Best RPG: Dragon Age: Origins – see above
• Best Action/Adventure Game: Brütal Legend – Great adventure game that brings the heavy metal music to a new medium – video games.  It’s got Jack Black in it too.
• Best Cast – Halo 3: ODST – A game that has Nathan Fillion (Serenity/Firefly, Castle), Adam Baldwin (Serenity/Firefly, Chuck), Alan Tudyk (Serenity/Firefly, V) and Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica, Burn Notice)?  Yes please.

Congratulations to Marty O’Donnell for winning the Best Original Score for Halo 3: ODST.  That game had some awesome music.  I’d recommend the soundtrack to anyone, even non-video game players.