Dragon Age: Origins is one of my top five games of all time, in terms of how much I enjoyed playing it, and how much time I spent playing it. Dragon Age 2 I finished, and then never touched again, because I was so disappointed with the idiotic conclusion to the story, among other things.

Yeah, planning on it.

If you haven't played it on PC, you haven't played it.

@slyspider:

The Shale DLC wasnt really DLC at all, it was part of EA's project $10.

Every new copy of the game came with a Shale DLC code to discourage 2nd hand sales. 'Shale' wasn't DLC, it was cut content to recoup some cash from used game sales, which is fair enough I guess.

It just seems strange to me that EA would give the game away for free missing some of it's original ( and important) content.

I wish they'd give away the damn pc specs. One month till release and no one knows what they are yet.

Thanks for the info, downloading now. :)

I cannot believe that there are fanboys for digital distribution systems.

I wouldn't call Shale important, and used game owners got by just fine without it and they still had to pay someone some money

Yeah, don't really have a problem with Origin. I don't really have a problem with U-Play either. (Except that if you buy a U-Play game in steam you are forced to run both the U-Play and Steam clients at the same time >_<)

I think all the hate is coming from the fact that you have to run a different client for EA games and yet another client for Ubisoft games, which I get. I would prefer if we didn't have to run a client at all, but they aren't so bad that you can't play your games. As long as those clients don't require you to have a connection past the first run, I can live with it.

@topfloor: Uplay made playing FC3 with a controller awful. It would lock up my entire computer for a minute multiple times throughout the launch process. Didn't happen when I unplugged my controller and didn't happen when I unhooked it from Uplay.

I've got all these Origin games that I keep forgetting about until the next time a free game is offered.

@corevi: I recently just played Far Cry 3 and Blood Dragon through Uplay, I didn't have any issues with a controller. Strange. Guess I'm lucky?

Blood Dragon worked fine the 4 times I've played through it (god I love that game). It was just a problem with the main game.

Agreed! Thoroughly enjoyed playing them back to back, Blood Dragon was so silly and the perfect length that I found nothing to dislike.

Probably my favorite game of all time.

DA2 was okay, if only because its set in the same universe and I loved origins so much! I replayed it recently, and it held up much better given the distance (I was so excited for it at launch).

Would highly recommend this to anyone who likes RPGs, and could squirrel away 50ish hours to play it

I played this on PC a few months back (also in anticipation of Inquisition), and I though it held up fine.

Are there really that many people actually doing that anymore? There certainly aren't in this specific comment thread.

Even back in the day, there wasn't too much hate about the client itself. Rather the problem is that we were forced to use it for new EA games and who wants to bother with maintaining another login and running another client when we were all already using Steam? Why can't we just buy and play the games through the client we were comfortable with? (Answer: Because Valve and EA had a pissing match about control over selling DLC). Origin isn't bad, but Steam wins simply by nature of being first and entrenched.

That said, while the client is fine, I feel EA has negatively exploited Origin exclusivity for their games more than Valve has exploited Steam exclusivity. Prime example is that because Origin is the only means through which you can buy DLC for newer EA PC games, they rarely or even never discount DLC. Mass Effect 3 DLC for example, has never gone on sale even though the game itself has been on sale multiple times. It still costs you $40 if you want just the the story based DLCs for that game.

this game is so good... hope lots of people get to experience it for the first time due to this.

inquisition looks kinda whack.

@foolishchaos: Is DA2 worth finishing? I have started it easily 5 times but never get beyond 15-20 hours in.

@sweetz: Yeah, my issues with Origin were never so much about technical problems (despite being prevalent in the beginning).

What I really don't like is how redundant it is. I would really like to be able to buy all games through steam and get the associated services around that. Newer games can only be purchased via Origin yet at the same time they don't sell any other product other than EA games (which are fewer and fewer games each year).

These issues are part of the reason Uplay rankles me too. Ubisoft allows purchases via Steam but counteracts that with the crappy (and sometimes game breaking) client.

I've played DA2 twice to completion, while I played DA:O 4 times and have started a 5th. Take that as you will. The Dragon Age Keep website will allow you to essentially create your own playthrough of DA2 in a matter of minutes if you don't want to bother actually playing it through to completion. DAI will no doubt have a little recap at the beginning to bring people up to speed on the past two games anyway, so it shouldn't matter too much.

@finaldasa:

If you are having that much trouble with it, I would say no. The game only gets weaker over a playthrough

If you are interested in the story you can just look it up. If you are going to get DA:I, and want to import your DAO/DA2 world, they are using a save maker so its not a problem if you dont finish 2

Dragon Age the first is a really good game. I broke down in tears at the ending. YMMV as the ending depends on decisions you make in the game.

Snagged my copy already. Never got a chance to play it on Xbox 360, but maybe now I can find the time on PC.

I am cautiously Optimistic about DA:I. Definitely not preordering. Waitin' for dem reviews. If my predictions that stand now end up being true, I would buy DA:I over Witcher 3. Witcher 2 had maybe the best feeling of environment of any fantasy game ever, but was otherwise a mess of a game. Even with the DA2 bungle, I think Bioware/EA has it in them to turn that franchise back into something special. I don't think Witcher 3 will fix many problems its predecessor had. All just an educated guess on my part, of course.

DA:O remains in my top 10 of all time list for games. Its in there with the likes of the Mass Effect series. Maybe even outranks them

DA2 was a disappointment, but it still had a few really good things going for it. Some characters and their interactions I found genuinely interesting. Pretty decent plot twists, mini-plot twists, and global political intrigue towards the end. Even part of the weird half meandering story that was there was pretty good. Seems like a pretty good setup for DA:I if they can make the world and gameplay interesting again.

I generally don't replay even my favorite games unless they're really short (Castlevania/Metroid/Etc) I might be able to slog through a 3rd playthrough of DA;O. Don't know if I could do a 2nd run of DA2 though.

Just almost bought this on steam. Glad I did not.

It's cool that PC kinda has the PSN style of monthly free games but without needing to pay an yearly fee

Meant to buy this for ages and just plain forgot each time. And now it's free! Thanks, EA! :)

Electricity thing is exaggeration, but CPU load is real problem. It actually hits ~95% for few minutes and the settles around 40% - meaning that downloading DA:O might take more CPU power than playing it. Also this means that working on a computer and doing something like Photoshopping is made more frustrating by a badly designed program (google "origin cpu usage"). Free stuff is nice, but Origin still sucks.

I completed pretty much everything in the ultimate edition on 360 years ago and will never reach the end of this thing a second time, but I'm looking forward to messing around a bit for nostalgia's sake!

A bit late on the reply, but I downloaded the game earlier and the Shale content is included. Even if it wasn't it can be had for free from the Bioware site along with the rest of the promotional bonuses.

Sweet! I have never actually played a Dragon Age game. So I suppose that this is a better time then ever to actually give it a shot. Now I just have to download Origin, I guess. Bejeweled 3 is also free. I guess thanks EA? Thanks to Mr. Klepek for the heads up!

FREE IS A BIT HIGH FOR THIS GAME, I'LL WAIT UNTIL THE SUMMER SALE WHEN IT'S INEVITABLY -$10.

Considering there have been sales where you can get the whole Origins package -- DLC and all -- for $10-$20, I can't imagine who wouldn't have this already who would want to play a 40 hour RPG.

These days I just log into Origin to grab the current free game, play some Peggle (original) then log out again. When BioWare get around to their Mass Effect sequel I'm sure it'll be Origin exclusive, sadly.

There's nothing overly terrible about Origin these days, it's just its a pointless bit of software. One of the good things was I was able to use some old game discs for things like SimCity 4 to use the game codes to redeem digital versions.

Free*

*with installation of an always on service

Original DA is awesome. Totally worth the new retail $50 i originally paid at release and the $5 I spent for the deluxe edition with all the DLC on steam. Pick it up if you can abide origin.

DA 2 is terribad, borrowed it from a friend and couldn't even get through the intro. Free game and it wasn't worth the time to play it

SUCH a good game. Although literally everyone I know that would've wanted to play this by now, has played it. But if you haven't (and you already have Origin infesting your PC), I'd recommend this to anyone.

Pulling completely fictitious figures out of your butt (95%) in hopes to win people over isn't doing you any favors (in fact in only makes the argument in favor of Origin look weaker). Origin was a nightmare for me to use, mostly because it was doing some extremely disturbing shit while I chose to monitor where all my bandwidth was going (which I had no option to turn off, and was never asked permission if it could read my personal data on my PC). I realize their user agreement does loosely "admit" these creepy behaviors to an extent, but like 95% of people out there (see what I did there?) I didn't read it until it was too late. And Origin's methods of violating privacy far outweigh what Steam is permitted to do. Those who "white knight" for Origin and weren't aware of this, it's fairly easy to research. You'll be better for it.

In addition to my bandwidth, after the fact it was also hogging system resources to an intolerable degree, it felt quite good to completely remove Origin and never look back (fortunately I got a new PC after that as well). Futurstock, good on you for keeping your PC clean.

I can literally see the DA:O disc from where I'm sitting, and this still would have been a tempting offer, even with Origin involved, if it came with Awakenings, which I never played. But looking at the store the expansion is still $19.99, so I'm good. I'll just await Inquisition with hope in my heart.

I have to disagree so much on the usability front. I got around 7-10 games on Origin. Not 1 game that i played didn't require me do those stuff like messing with the gamefiles or start deleting stuff just to get it running. It has been a total nightmare on the scale of GFWL for me.

You can't argue with free shit.

Thanks Patrick! Sadly, I discovered I already own TWO copies of this (on PC). So...this is my third LOL.

I've yet to play this or 2, and not sure if they're connected, if I could get away with playing 2 first...

@assirra: Really? Origin installs have always been buttery-smooth for me. One thing that bugs me about Steam is that it still has to install DirectX and configure a bunch of shit when a game starts up, but Origin rolls all of that into the installation, and you can agree to like 30 EULAs with the click of one button. It's awesome.

Steam does still have faster downloads, though, at least for me.

I think if EA want their platform to be taken seriously they have to withhold content from Steam to get people to start to use Origin. I don't see anything wrong with that, it's entirely up to them. In fact, for those who were there at the grand launch of Half-life 2, that's exactly what Valve did. You could only play Half-life 2 by installing Steam. Not only that, you had to have an Internet connection to register Steam before Half-life 2 would even play (you could put Steam into an offline mode but only after you did the initial registration).

I also don't see an awful lot of Valve games for sale on Origin either so saying EA are using exploitative practices to gain a user-base for their platform while maintaining Valve are innocent of such practices is entirely unfair.

I also can't remember ever getting a game totally free through Steam like this.

Weird how everytime EA is giving away games I already own them.

Weird how there is only like 10 games on origin...

I remember the ql for this game.

Vinny " She is using her ipad." lmao!

Ea must be very desperate to push Origin on to people. Most people are going to download DAO, beat it and remove origin from their PC. That's what I did last time they made me download Mass Effect 2 through Origin.

@lowestformofwit: left 4 dead 2, TF2 and Portal come to mind (but I think portal was only on mac?)