As a long-time RPG player, I’ve sunk countless hours of my life into games like Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Icewind Dale. I’ve been looking forward to dropping all my other games and devoting myself to Dragon Age: Origins, the “spiritual successor” to Baldur’s Gate from Bioware.

I was lucky enough to get a chance to review both the PC and XBox 360 versions of the game, so I will try and give a few comparisons between the two. However, right from the start I should make one thing clear: This is a GREAT game.

One of the things that sets Dragon Age: Origins apart is the fact that you cannot simply talk about how the story goes. Depending on which race and class you choose for your character, you will play through one of six different introductions. Regardless of which intro you play, you’ll end up as a Grey Warden, a powerful warrior who is sworn to combat the spread of the Darkspawn blight.

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This is the set of utilities used to create modifications to the game Dragon Age Origins. Build your own challenges for players to overcome, and create your own fantasy world for your friends to explore. Many thanks to Bioware for providing these!

http://www.filefront.com/14872891/Dragon-Age-Origins-Toolset-v1.0/

This trailer reveals the power that BioWare is giving to the public at large to create their own animations, environments and dialogue, and share it with others on the BioWare Social Network!

This trailer shows off the rendering and animation required to bring opponents to life in the upcoming RPG, Dragon Age Origins.

Get a first look at the City of Haven and the evil it harbors in this trailer for Biowares upcoming RPG Dragon Age Origins.

Download and check out some new files hosted on FileFront.com:

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Last week we saw the id/Bethesda merger under parent company ZeniMax Media and there was much rejoicing, but what if Electronic Arts merged its two online game developers into one giant super developer wouldn’t that raise some eyebrows and be general cause for mass excitement?

Well that actually happened as the publishing giant reorganized a bit putting RPG mavens Bioware and long time MMO developers Mythic in the same division. While the two studios will remain mostly autonomous for the time being, they now both have a single reporting line up the chain to the big bosses and money men. That single leader? Bioware’s Dr. Ray Muzyka.

Dr. Muzyka’s ascencion to the head of the organization basically also points to the exit of Mythic’s longtime leader Mark Jacobs. According to Jacob’s blog the MMO pioneer is taking a sabatical for awhile and he leaves with a classy ‘I’m not going to dish on anything, I’m just going to thank folks and peacefully step aside’ sort of announcement – a classy response that we don’t get to see so often these days.

Regarding the future path of the now combined studio’s efforts, Dr. Muzyka indicated in an official response over on IGN that:

Anything’s possible. We can’t say it wouldn’t happen. There’s no active plans, currently to do that, but the teams at Mythic and BioWare I know from talking to all of them, they’re really excited about working together, so I think that fuels a lot of cool things.

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is still holding strong in the WoW dominated MMO market while Bioware’s first effort – the much anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic is still a ways off. Mythic has a lot of experience that could help the minds at Bioware pull off their vision of Star Wars and maybe even put a dent in the Warcraft numbers but only time will tell if this pairing will be all it seems.

dragon age origins

Bioware, long the favorites of PC RPG fans are firing up the information train to release new trailer and new screens for its upcoming magnum opus – Dragon Age: Origins. While the movies all make folks drool and the screens look exciting one key question every PC gamer asks is: “Will I have to upgrade to play this beast?”

Well as of today we have the final system requirments for the game, and its likely that anyone who owns a moderately powerful modern PC will be able to play it in at least Neverwinter Nights 1, 1995 style graphic mode. As expected the requirements for Vista are a bit higher than their XP counterpart but both have a sizable hard drive footprint – 20GB! Wow! The game will also be released on the Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 console this October.

Here are the Specs:

Windows XP Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP with SP3
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.4Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8Ghz or greater
RAM: 1GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X850 128MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Windows Vista Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows Vista with SP1
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 2.2GHZ or greater
RAM: 1.5 GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Recommended Specifications
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent
RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP)
Video: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater
NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Would a Neverwinter Nights be a viable MMO? Sources at Variety say Atari is betting on it. Supposedly it’s the whole reason Atari bought out Cryptic Studios.

I question whether porting NwN into the massively multiplayer realm is really a sure thing. The most obvious obstacle is taking BioWare and Obsidian out of the equation. However, I believe that taking the modding out of the game which has already spawned many persistent worlds which are essentially mini MMO themselves will take away one of the elements that makes NwN such a fascinating setting.

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The Star Wars SAGA RPG is officially one of my favorite games to read lining right up there next to the old West End Star Wars D6 RPG, Pinnacles’ Deadlands and Kenzer’s Aces & Eights. While I’m currently buried in fantasy mayhem in my two ongoing RPG games every new SAGA release not only entertains me and enriches my Star Wars fanboyish knowledge of the galaxy far, far away, but it also demonstrates that if I ever get the opportunity to play in a game rather than run it I’m going to insist it be Star Wars SAGA.

Every time I begin a discussion of Star Wars with a game group I seem to have the same frustrating results.. “Star Wars would be great if I didn’t already know how it ended.” Is the most common response I get.

It seems a lot of gamers have their impressions of what adventuring in Star Wars can be locked into the films they enjoyed. I’ve even had the “Star wars is a generational saga about the Skywalker family and their impact on the universe” George Lucas paraphrase thrown back a few times.

Well guess what folks, that may be true of the George Lucas story and his cinematic campaign, but this is an entire galaxy full of folks. Lots of planets to explore, many cultures to experience and lately even, thanks to Dark Horse Comics and Bioware/Obsidian lots of time to play within. I professed my love of the Knights of the Old Republic setting in a previous column, and with the reveal trailer for the upcoming Bioware Old Republic MMO making fanboys lose it, I think the resistance to playing in that setting may start waning.

Getting away from the 800lb. Gorilla in Star Wars: The Rebellion, Darth Vader and even the later Expanded Universe canon of the Yuuzhan Vong and New Republic can be a challenge.

How do you tell your own tale in a world so universally loved?
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Following the revelations of earlier today with the Microsoft E3 2009 kickoff events Electronic Arts hits the stage in California at 2PM California time (yes that’s an official time zone… California is more important than the rest of the Pacific time zone… just ask them). We’ve included the embed link to G4TVs JustinTV feed for the event.

I’ll attempt to do a liveblog of the event in the same post as well if you’re interested in my insight into the whole thing.

You can see the embed and the liveblog after the jump. Read the full article