In the module, the player gets to play through the fall of Denerim as a Hurlock Vanguard, who is able to control and recruit genlocks, ogres, and other baddies. Once the module is completed, the downloadable content will also unlock an “epic” Darkspawn item for players to use in the regular campaign and Awakening.

As a total aside, how hilarious would it be if the Hurlock Vanguards just did regular, mundane things. The module begins as you wake up, prepare some coffee, and sit down for breakfast – but you’re out of milk! You finally get into work an hour late, get yelled at by your Hurlock Alpha, and then begin to scrub pots in a twisted minigame. Damn, I can’t wait to play Sim Darkspawn.

The expansion will also include new creatures for players to battle, including an evolved, more intelligent breed of Darkspawn, the menacing Inferno Golem, and in keeping with the game’s namesake, a Spectral Dragon. However, perhaps most exciting are the new ways for players to customize their characters, which include new spells, abilities, specializations, and items, as well as the ability to completely re-spec any existing characters. New spell combos for the win! Additionally, five all-new party members will join the player in their journey to Amaranthine.

“Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening shows BioWare’s commitment to our fans by delivering new story-driven experiences which enrich the dark heroic fantasy universe our fans have come to know and love,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Group General Manager of the RPG/MMO Group, EA, and Co-Founder, BioWare. “The vibrant worldwide community of Dragon Age fans will relish uncovering the secret motivations of the darkspawn, revealing how the darkspawn continue to infest the world despite the defeat of the Archdemon.”

Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening will be available on March 16, 2010 for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Platforms.

I do not dare dive into the expansive story that encompasses this game. It rivals Lord of the Rings (Jrr Tolkien) in scope and scale, A Song of Ice and Fire (George R.R. Martin) in political intrigue, and the original Dragonlance Chronicles (Margaret Weiss, Tracy Hickman) in enjoyment. It was much like an excellent fantasy novel that I just couldn’t put down. The characters are memorable, entertaining, and alive. The ambient dialogue that takes place among your party members while you stroll about town is brilliant in addition to being expository. The player gets to develop relationships with characters that join the party, much like Baldur’s Gate II. You can fall in love, knock boots, or learn class specializations from them. If you piss them off enough, they will leave. They have their own aspirations and desires, and they will often be vocal in the choices you make. There are also six backgrounds to choose from, and aside from each of them having its own opening chapter, will offer different dialogue and affect the game in different ways, which was a really nice and interesting touch.

The voice acting is incredible and sets a new benchmark for videogames. The banter from the playable characters always managed to put a smile on my face, and the villains are appropriately sinister sounding. Even the background NPCs that litter the different towns and cities are well done and have interesting monologues or dialogues. If you’re the type of player that likes to talk to every person in the game, then your task is going to be more pleasant than in the past.

The combat and gameplay will be familiar to those who have played the Baldur’s Gate series or Neverwinter Nights. You assigning actions to a group of up to four characters. In the PC version of the game, you have an entire action bar you can fill up with skills for easy access whereas on the console versions, you map skills to the buttons. You can pause the game at any time in order to strategically plan out your moves. Where Dragon Age differs from its predecessors is the adoption of the Final Fantasy XII tactics system. Each character has tactic slots which you can fill with conditional commands so that your characters can heal anyone below fifty percent health, for example, or attack the target of a party member. This system has its advantages and drawbacks as characters will sometimes not do what you expect, but the use of tactics are entirely optional and in general make combat faster. You can also save presets of tactics so that you can easily change from offense to defense in just a couple of clicks. The camera is quite interesting and provides some variety to the experience. The default third-person camera puts you in a flexible view similar to many games like World of Warcraft, but once you zoom back all the way, you get a strategic isometric view. You can’t see as far in the isometric view though and miss out on a lot of the detail, so I found that I traveled in the third person view but changed to the isometric camera once I was in combat. The one complaint I have about the camera is that it should let you zoom out farther in the third-person mode and have a button to switch to isometric as opposed to automatically switching when it zooms out all the way.  A really minor annoyance as I prefer the wider field of vision.

The graphics in the game are plenty awesome and surprisingly runs at max settings even on my two-year old PC. One little thing that I enjoyed about the graphical presentation is that the blood splatter from combat will make its way into dialogue cutscenes, so your party members are talking with blood all over their faces and armour. The art and graphics has that efficient Bioware style which some people may not like, but the character creator provides sufficient customizability and I enjoyed the presentation.

The difficulty of the game is unusual and refreshing, especially for the role-playing genre. Even random groups of enemies are usually no cakewalk and require some management. Whereas I could just walk around and defeat groups of enemies without even pressing a button due to the tactics in Final Fantasy XII, I found myself micromanaging many of the battles in Dragon Age. Survival is a bit of an issue since healing spells have cooldowns that prevent you from continuously casting them. There is also basically no way to grind levels on your characters, so the traditional “get more levels” method of overcoming difficulty in role-playing games won’t work. Gold is not easy to make, either, so getting the best items from all the vendors is nigh impossible. The few dragons you encounter in the game are amazing and epic to defeat, and after defeating internet dragons so easily in World of Warcraft, it was a refreshing reminder that dragons should be hurting you in the face area. Needless to say, I am impressed with the difficulty and am playing through on the hardest difficulty this time just to challenge myself even more. One neat little addition to the combat are these little finishing animations that your character performs on an enemy, such as jumping onto an ogre in slow motion and stabbing their eye or spinning to chop off an opponent’s head – similar to God of War.

For a single player game, Dragon Age offers spectacular longevity. In fact, the first thing I wanted to do after completing the game was to go through it again with a different character and a different plan. I wanted to explore the different dialogue and plot paths, try a different character build, a new background, a harder difficulty and even a new group makeup. The game does a very good job of forcing difficult choices upon you and failed attempts at persuasion will sometimes close opportunities forever, so you have to play through the game again a few times in order to see everything it has to offer. There are achievements to collect if you’re a fan of those, but the content out-of-the-box takes 40-plus hours to complete and there’s more to be had in two downloadable content packs.

The content packs are the only gripe I have with the game. Warden’s Keep offers a party chest, an extra vendor, and an extra (albeit amazing) sword. Stone Prisoner offers a new playable character with its own back story, quest, and hilarious voice acting. They cost $7 USD and $15 USD respectively, and neither are really worth the money. They each provide about one to two hours of gameplay, but if you truly can’t get enough of the game there are worse ways to spend fifteen dollars. Hopefully the next content pack, Return to Ostagar, will offer a lot more content considering you can get excellent full games like Torchlight for $20 USD. As with previous Bioware games, the community has taken it upon itself to offer up some free content to spice up the experience. With the release of the toolset, we’re already seeing modifications that allow you to respecialize any character, add a party chest to your camp (which is better than having to travel to Warden’s Keep), and change the faces of characters in the game. There’s even an ambitious project to remake the Baldur’s Gate series with the toolset, which I will personally be keeping an eye on.

In case I haven’t gotten this point across: Dragon Age: Origins is amazing, incredible, and just about every other superlative you can throw at it. In fact, I need to stop writing this review and go play it some more.

Review made possible by

The trailer gives us a glimpse into the Quest of the Sacred Ashes, where danger awaits a band of Grey Wardens on the glacial, jagged edges of a treacherous mountainside. Darkspawn ambush the group, pressing the Grey Wardens into battle, but with a little might and magic, the Grey Wardens prevail. However, something else awaits the Wardens at the top of that mountain. Something much bigger.

Check out the launch trailer for Dragon Age: Origins below, and brace yourself for four minutes of awesome.

Click here to watch the video

So over the remainder of the week, GameNorth will be bringing you hands-on impressions of the games found at the convention, including Dragon Age: Origins, God of War III, and Uncharted 2, as well as panel recaps, an interview with Electric Playground’s own Victor Lucas, and a few stories about our experiences at the Expo.

In the meantime, enjoy these photographs of the sights and sounds of Fan Expo 2009 and it’ll be just like you were there. And if you were there, feel free to share your experiences in the comments below!

To celebrate this announcement, BioWare has sent us a video of the aforementioned thespians in action. While Mulgrew’s character is not specified, it looks as though Curry will be lending his voice to one of the game’s villians, which is only appropriate given his talent for portraying the wicked and the sinister.

Click here to watch the video

In addition to the usual tournaments and competitions, this year’s expo will offer a chance for Canadian gamers to delve into the latest from our beloved BioWare: Dragon Age: Origins. Furthermore, Sony will be on hand to give fans a chance to try several of their upcoming blockbuster titles, such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Buzz Quiz World, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, and I hope you’re sitting down for this one: God of War III.

The Microsoft and Nintendo camps have been mum about their offerings at the show, but they’ve always been present in recent years. However, it’s going to take one heck of a presentation to pull us away from Sony’s booth. That’s right, the staff of GameNorth, or those that live in Toronto anyhow, will be on-hand, and hands-on, at Fan Expo 2009 to give you our impressions of the games available at the show. If you’d like to find us, I’ll no doubt the the gentleman that’s hogging Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Don will be the gentleman hogging God of War III, and Brad will be the robot scaring the children away from the latest Xbox LIVE Arcade titles. Ahh, good times.

Are you planning on going to Fan Expo 2009? If so, gives us a shout in the comments below, we’d love to meet you!

Update: We’ve been informed by Microsoft that they’ll have Madden 10, Forza 3, and Batman: Arkham Asylum at the event.

In this week’s installment, we will venture into the Dwarven realm of Orzammar. Used as a starting point for players that choose the role of a Dwarven Noble or a Dwarven Commoner, Orzammar is a city of stone that harbors many mysteries. To the eyes of an outsider, Orzammar is labyrinth, a maze of stone where discovery, reward, and treachery lurk around every corner.

The Land of Orzammar

History tells us that the Dwarven kingdoms once spread across all of Thedas, and that the underground city-fortresses called thaigs were almost beyond counting. Kal-Sharok was the capital then, home to all the noble houses, and Orzammar was simply the home of the miner and smith castes. Upon encountering this ancient city, many are struck in awe by the sight of the great city of stone. Orzammar stands within a vast cavern, poised over a sea of molten lava. There, the sounds of the forges ring loudest as the finest smiths craft works that are the envy of all races. Countless thaigs were lost in the first Blight, when the darkspawn poured out of the Deep Roads of Orzammar like smoke. With each generation, due to the threat of the darkspawn, more of the Deep Roads have had to be sealed and more thaigs are lost forever. Now only Orzammar stands – the last bastion of the dwarven race and its finest creation.

• A cloth map
• Tin case
• A making of documentary
• soundtrack
• wallpapers
• 3 pieces of exclusive in-game content: Bergens Honor, Grimoire of the Frozen Wastes, and Final Reason
• An unlockable bonus quest, The Stone Prisoner, and an unlockable character, Shale
• An unlockable item for Mass Effect 2

The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions will cost $75 USD and the PC version will cost $65 USD. A cloth map – aside from being really cool – is a strong indicator of quality from Bioware, who included a cloth map with some of the greatest games of all time.

Checking the Best Buy site, it looks like the regular edition of the game for all platforms will cost $70, so expect the Collector’s Edition to be around $90.

Source: Destructoid

Here are the system specs released by BioWare this morning:

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

A 20GB install? Those must be some big dragons. Makes me wonder how the console versions will hold up.

Grey Warden hopefuls can begin tracking the evil dark fiends when Dragon Age: Origins arrives at the following events:

• San Diego Comic-Con, July 22nd-26th, San Diego, California.
• Gen Con, August 13th-16th, Indianapolis, Indiana.
• GamesCom, August 19th-23rd, Cologne, Germany.
• Fan Expo Canada, August 28th-30th, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• Penny Arcade Expo, September 4th-6th, Seattle, Washington.

“Dragon Age: Origins is the biggest, most ambitious BioWare game to date, and we will be delivering that great experience simultaneously on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, CEO and co-founder of BioWare and General Manager and Vice President, Electronic Arts. “Whether you’re a PC or console gamer, Dragon Age: Origins reinvents the fantasy experience, combining a great story with raw emotion and brutal action. We’re excited to share it with gamers before it ships this fall.”

GameNorth will be on hand at Fan Expo Canada to play Dragon Age: Origins and whatever else the exhibition has in store for us. If you’d like to meet up, feel free to drop us a line!

Dragon Age: Origins will be available on October 23^rd, 2009 for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms.

The trailer also features the song The New Shit by Marilyn Manson, proving once and for all that he is in fact a Dark Spawn.

Click here to watch the video

“We’re delighted to be working with Green Ronin to explore more of the Dragon Age universe through a pen and paper role-playing game. We’re excited to deliver Dragon Age’s unique dark, heroic fantasy to our audience in a brand new way – a perfect complement to the landmark game we’re launching on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 this fall,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, General Manager and CEO, BioWare and General Manager and Vice President, EA. “Our development teams craft rich, deep worlds, and this is an excellent way to expand the franchise.”

For years, BioWare has created critically acclaimed video games based on the pen and paper role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. With the roles now reverse, the student has become the master – the Dungeon Master, that is.