Dragon Age: Origins Preview
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Combat in Origins is extremely reminiscent of KotOR, with attacks that are turn-based yet appear to be happening in real time, thanks to hidden dice rolls. All you have to do is highlight the foe you're after and press attack, and the game takes care of the rest. However, you're not the only one who's fighting, so players will be happy to know that the rest of your team is more than capable of handling themselves without you micromanaging every attack, spell and use of items. There are a number of preset AI behaviors that you can assign to each character, and if none of those suit your needs, players may also examine and tweak the parameters themselves, assuring that your friends only do what you want them to do. For the control freak, though, you can take control of any member of the team at any time and give direct orders.
This option for direct control will be critical for players who wish to exploit the game's combo system. In our demo, we saw Morgan freeze a foe with her Cone of Cold attack, and then Sten ran up and bashed him with the Stone Fist move, instantly shattering the icy baddy. Each combo like this is logged once you discover it, so even if you stumble upon an awesome attack completely by accident, all it takes is a quick scan through the menu to figure out exactly how to execute it once more.
