Review by: Todd Brakke

As much as it does have a lot to offer, Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening, does feel like something of a misstep for Bioware. It’s a $40 expansion that offers upwards of 20 hours of gameplay –less than Origins, but more than most other full single-player games- and yet it doesn’t feel like a tremendous value. It has a satisfying story and a new cadre of interesting characters, but the whole of the experience made me feel like this expansion was rushed out the door without being given the usual Bioware polish.

At the same time, if you like the first game and you want more then you really do have to play this. It extends on the end of the original game in a meaningful way while offering plenty of additional gameplay to justify your investment of time and dollars.

In Awakening you can either reprise your role from the original game as the hero of the Grey Wardens or start a new character, an Orleasian Grey Warden whom you can immediately level up to 18. (You can also bring in a beginning-level character from the main game and immediately level her up.) Considering it’s possible your main character didn’t survive the end of the original game, it’s nice to have these options at your disposal.

What makes less sense, however, is that you cannot preserve your original ending if you do elect to leave your character taking a dirt nap and instead choose to create a new one. Consequently, characters who sacrificed themselves at the end of Origins may lose some of their choices unless they let the game revive their fallen hero (which is done by pretending he didn’t die in the first place). This is just the first of the cut corners that await.