Dragon Age: Origins - First Impressions

So after nearly losing my damn mind yesterday (the game finally arrived at my door step at around 6:30 PM!), I finally got to play Dragon Age: Origins.

First off, there is a little something I am not understanding at this point. During the time I was waiting for this game to be delivered to my apartment, I had been reading comments from other gamers who got this game and had played it. So the graphics looked like shit, the frame rate was also terrible and the damned thing loaded about as fast as a senior citizen crossing the street. Needless to say, reading those comments had me worried that maybe my purchase was a mistake.

Fast forward to later that night...

After playing about 3 hours into the game, I just don't see where these problems are at. The graphics look fine to me. They aren't the most eye catching ever, but considering the amount of game here... who could have expected that? If BioWare had pushed for better graphics, this game would have probably turned out to be like some of those Japanese RPGs (2-3 discs long).

And frame rate being bad? Huh? Where? I admit that I noticed a little hiccup here and there, but nothing ever really that bad. Hell, I've had a four man party in the Wilds and got attacked by a fairly sizable group of Dark Spawns and never missed a beat.

Finally the load times...

I'm playing this on XBox 360 and I was expecting it to be bad (after reading what others had been saying). Yes, that was yet another moment where I cursed my luck of missing out on the PS3 version. But to my surprise, the loading is actually pretty quick and I didn't even install the game to my HDD.

Okay and as for the game itself, I started off as a Human Noble and I just have not found much of anything that I can complain about so far. The story has me interested (hooked), probably much more so then when I started out in Mass Effect. The origin story wasn't all too deep, but it served its purpose in that I gave actually gave a damn when your character's mother and father stay behind to give you a chance to escape. I wanted to stay back there and fight, but alas that was not to be.

My favorite part of the story thus far has got to be the Joining Ritual, which is required of anyone who wishes to join the Gray Wardens. What a brutal way to join the club, in my opinion.

Anyway, time for me to get back in there and carry onward. I am curious to see what comes next...