Dragon Age: Origins Previews
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From GameSpot's article:
The Dalish elf village is a small community of portable dwellings and caravans where elf children play under the watchful eye of the elder elves. Everyone, including you, answers to the keeper--the leader of the tribe and keeper of the tribe's magic. Like with the other origin stories, you can speak to several characters in the village to learn bits and pieces of the game's lore. For instance, you can meet a city elf who has joined your Dalish tribe and is trying to get accustomed to going native. You can also speak with the kindly elf woman who raised you after your parents died, though their death remains a mystery. Or you can speak with the village storyteller and relate the Dalish history to a crowd of bored-looking elf children. However, your task ultimately has you heading back into the forest in search of Tamlen with a keeper-approved fledgling wizard and an eager elf warrior.
Our second time into the cave was a bit different from our first visit. We were attacked by darkspawn warriors armed with swords, bows, and even magic spells, though with our extra muscle, we got along just fine. However, not all the darkspawn corpses were left by us. Several corpses were there already, and when we reached the mirror again, we found out why. The grey warden Duncan had already fought his way into the cave and explained that the mirror used to be a magical portal used by the fallen Tevinter Empire, but it had since fallen out of use and been corrupted by the darkspawn. With a mighty blow of his sword, the grey warden shattered the mirror and then encouraged us to head back to the village to give up on Tamlen who, like us, had become ill as a result of the darkspawn taint in the mirror. Deciding that we were never really big fans of Tamlen, or his haircut, we followed Duncan's advice and skipped back to the village.
And a snip from GamesRadar's article:
We're surprised at the omission of real-time fighting especially when it's plain to see from the wealth of animations and the visceral nature of scraps that Dragon Age would actually make a helluva hack '˜n' slasher. Instead, it's all very much strategic meaning you'll have to look after spellcasters by keeping them well away from the nitty gritty, make sure your elven archer types are peppering foes from afar, while your tanks are topped up with health potions and melee boosting spells. A ring-based system for weapon and biotic selections has been neatly implemented when it comes to managing your wealth of spells, tonics and armaments.
It might sound complex, but within minutes we were swapping loadouts on the fly, sending streaks of electricity at the Ogre while casting a spell of Haste on some other chap all the way across the room. Flicking between party members is a cinch too, accomplished in a flash with a tap of a button. Still, we're not exactly putting our necks on the line when we predict this hands-off approach to combat is going to put off a great many more potential buyers than it attracts and it's all the more puzzling when you recall how well recent genre-mashing games like Fallout 3 have done in terms of sales.
