I played Dragon Age Origins

Dungeons and Dragons by any other name.

I played it both on the PC and PS3, and frankly I couldn't do anything on the PC version. The controls just weren't intuitive or adaptable for me. That's my problem to be fair, but it more than bugged me that I couldn't map the controls to a controller on the PC.

PS3 I could get right into the game and was the main character rather than someone helplessly watching everyone else save the day.

I like the balancing of the classes in the game too, each has advantages and disadvantages that really keep one from being too powerful. Except mages. They were so broken. I cleared entire rooms before my team even opened the door. Now, since this was corrected in later installments in the series I'm guessing it was an oversight and not them demonstrating a story element.

So let's get into the story. You get to choose your race, class and origin. Except (again) for Mage which only has one option. I'll get more into that later.

There are so many options that I'll just make it simple. Elf: Raised in human society or among nomadic elven society (Dalish), Dwarf: Highborn or lowborn, Humans: once again Highborn or lowborn.

So ultimately you're living your life, could be good, could be meh. A Gray Warden comes to talk to someone important and you meet. A suspiciously short time later everything goes to pot and you're fighting just to survive. Most often it involves fighting the Darkspawn (twisted variations of the races and creatures in the game.) And you get infected.

Most people die from this infection but you're special. Now I could roll my eyes at that whole "you're special" bit as a trope, but frankly it would be just weird if you got into this to just get a game over on random chance. (I could see doing something like that as a joke, but still ...)

You get conscripted into the Grey Wardens (generally as a do this or die kind of "offer") and it's off to war.

The Darkspawn you've encountered are part of a much larger and more dangerous horde that comes every so often in an attempt to destroy the world. You and the Gray Wardens are the only hope. And of course politics comes into play making things so much worse than they need to be. But I'm not going further into the main story as it's much better experienced for yourself, in part because you have a hand in how things play out.

But one more thing on story. Mages.

I get angry every time I think about how mages are treated in this series. And the worst part about it is that I'm absolutely sure we would have treated them the same way in the real world. It feels too real.

Mages are locked up, chained, and indoctrinated for "their own good." Now some mages can live well in their cages, sometimes gilded cages, and allowed to walk with their handlers when they're needed. They have to give up some blood so they can be tracked at all times. And there's constant fear and suspicion surrounding magic and those who use it. They're constantly told that they're evil, and that if they're not shackled they're going to kill people or worse.

Of course there's also mages that are as bad as the church fears so they quite regularly justify their actions. And a mage's tendency to get possessed also complicates things. But even then you're presented with a mage that's possessed but not a mad monster like the others.

Making a Mage "Tranquil" is another horror all together. Not lying my stomach churned the first time I found out what that was, entailed, and turned them into. And the church doesn't even treat them as bad as the Qunari

There is so much that's complicated and intriguing in this series, things are definitely not black and white. There's tons of lore to find and read so you know more about the setting. But that takes us to a problem. There's so much and you have to stop and read it if you want to know about all of it.

While the lore helps get you into the setting, it really pulls you away from the game. You can enjoy everything just fine without the additional lore because you do get the important information given to you in a story friendly way, but if you want to do a deep dive you're going to have to sacrifice that play through basically.

Speaking of story friendly, the story itself is pretty decent, with a bunch of personal touches from your character's origin. But the best part of this game is by far the characters. You build a motley crew of riffraff around yourself as you seek to unite people and save the world.

The game really comes to life in the down time and interactions with the characters. And not just with your team, there's some big personalities on some NPCs as well.

The Banter between characters is wonderful and really fleshes out the characters. Giving you unexpected little twists, predictable ribbing, and just awesome moments. Not to mention there are some missions you can have teammates do for you (technically).

"Good news lady: You're single."

Two constants in my team are my trusty dog and the drunk surly dwarf Oghren. And yes, the dog gets banter. Kind of like Chewbacca, they bark and everyone just seems to understand them. (There's hours worth of banter, and some people have been kind enough to make compilations of it on youtube. I won't link because spoilers but you can look it up if you're interested.)

Romancing in this game can be fun, but with knowledge of what comes later in the series, be safe and go for Zevran. He's the sanest one of the bunch.

The also did a great job placing Easter Eggs, from their other games, television shows, and even web comics. Penny Arcade in particular, they worked off each other a bit and it's awesome.

"I'm not eating any found cake." and "Barkspawn," being two that I still laugh a bit at.

The drag that the lore places on gameplay may be a low point, but over all the game itself is well worth playing.