Tips and trick game

In Dragon Age Origins, BioWare struck pay dirt; creating an epic fantasy world within which gamers love to play. Ferelden was rife with dangers and stories that made it a treat to play through several times, endearing players to the interesting characters, the weighty history, and the lush, lived-in world. BioWare obviously had a plan: To make an RPG platform, not just a video game. As a result, there's a lot more potential, not only for the franchise, but for the game disc players already own. Taking a cue from Bethesda's Fallout 3, players have already gotten a host of add-on goodies to augment their play experience.
Just four months after the original release, BioWare has raised the stakes significantly by introducing a major 20 hour expansion to the mix. Though you'll have to pay a pretty penny to get access ($39.99 or 3200 Microsoft points), Dragon Age Origins: Awakening will be well worth the price of admission for most players. That's because, in addition to an increased level cap, new enemies, a fresh region of the world, and innovative skills, talents, and specializations, there's an entire new set of compelling stories to discover whether you import one or all of your previous characters or start a new hero from scratch. In retrospect, $40 kind of seems like a deal in light of all the content on offer here.
As it turns out, Dragon Age Origins was really just the beginning of the adventures that await fans of the series. This first major expansion casts us back into the role of Grey Warden, this time in a new part of the world facing off against a new threat. For those of you that haven't played Dragon Age Origins, it's probably best if you just stop reading this review now and go out and get that game first, play it, then pick back up where you left off. For everyone else, know that the Arch Demon and the Blight was just the beginning. The Darkspawn didn't return to the dark roads beneath the earth; they stayed and began to form tribes. They are once again terrorizing the goodly races, but this time they might even be more dangerous. That's because a number of them have evolved - some of these monsters are actually intelligent and even intelligible. That's right; some of them can speak. It will be your responsibility as Commander of the Grey Wardens to rid the world of this new menace by consolidating your kingdom, inspiring your people, and, of course, taking the fight directly to the enemy.
A new element that comes to Dragon Age via Awakening is that of nation-building. Coming from Orlais, you are mistrusted by the local nobles and people used to the Howe family leadership. As such, you will have to quickly quell rebellious nobles and restore trade to the region to ameliorate the lingering starvation and suffering felt by the common people. Of course, you'll also have to eliminate the immediate Darspawn threat by refortifying the infrastructure and recruiting hardy individuals to repopulate the dwindling Grey Warden order. Playing as a well-known leader gives the game a very different characteristic and sets the stage for the higher-tier play. Otherwise, the strategic combat gameplay of the original is fully intact. In fact, no changes have been made to gameplay whatsoever.
What you will find are a few key additions. For starters, you'll now have access to three new skill chains: Runecrafting, Vitality, and Clarity. Runecrafting lets trained party members create runes of power and defense to apply to slotted weapons and armor. Depending on how many trained ranks you put into the skill, the better, more powerful runes you can craft. Vitality is a skill chain you'll want to adopt for your frontline fighters. As you'd expect, dropping points into Vitality will give you passive bonuses to your constitution as well as adding to your health reservoir. Clarity is a skill chain for any character. Putting points into Clarity will beef up your mana pool or give you more stamina from which to draw, depending on whether the character is a magic-user or not.
Awakening also provides players with an increased level cap as well as more than 50 new spells and talents and even two new specializations per class. The new specializations become active at level 22 (when a third specialization point is awarded - they're supposed to unlock at 20 but don't) and include Spirit Warrior and Guardian (Warriors), Keeper and Battlemage (Mages), and Legionnaire Scout and Shadow (Rogues). These new specializations add nice bonuses and open up cool new powers so you'll be able to further customize your PCs to the higher level of play. What's more, weapons have become more powerful too; an additional two tiers of equipment quality have been included. Additionally, there are new consumables, coatings, traps, recipes, grenades, etc. that can be found and fabricated.
In terms of presentation, Awakening is every bit as good as Dragon Age Origins. While one would expect this to be the case graphically (because they use the same engine), it was nice that the care was taken for both the voice acting and the storytelling aspects; I enjoyed the new recruits as well as the new plot as much or more as I did the predecessor's.
When it comes right down to it, you're going to have to decide whether it's worth it to you to extend the Dragon Age experience out another 20+ hours per play-through for $40 and change. After all, you're essentially getting the exact same game you already put 60-80 hours into, with a new story and only a few extra bells and whistles to keep things fresh. For me, I really felt Awakening helped the game come into its own. I've had enough of a pause in between play sessions that my interest was instantly rekindled. Also, the higher tier of play made things feel a bit more epic.
BioWare makes great games; there's no doubt about it. Their games are so compelling, in fact, that gamers are willing to shell out a significant amount of extra cash to extend the experience. I think if BioWare can continually put out expansions of this quality, players will likely buy at least one or two more of them. That being said, I'm not sure how many more expansions we'll see in the near future; a teaser card emblazoned with the now iconic blood dragon was included within the expansion case, hinting at a date of February 1, 2011. Whether this will be Dagon Age 2 or simply another massive expansion remains to be seen, but whatever it is, we're anxious for more.

Jonathan Marx(cheatcc.com)