My sister’s ex-husband visited the family for Thanksgiving holiday to see his kids, and I saw him play the PC version of Dragon Age. It was already on my must buy list for the 360, but now I’m certain it’s the type of experience every lover of RPGs should not miss. Bioware is the reason that most JRPGs just don’t cut it with me anymore, and it looks like they’ve crafted their finest experience yet. The voice acting is extremely well done and conveys a depth of emotion. A few hams have managed to sneak in, but it seems most of the voice work was done by veterans of Shakespeare. The game is heavily influence by Lord of the Rings, so if you hated the movies, odds are good you probably wouldn’t like the game. However the game gives a convincing illusion of living out your own fantasy epic, even more so than the official Lord of the Rings games. The characters are fascinating and the battles are gripping. The morality choices are layered and complex and put to shame the black or white system of Knights of the Old Republic. While there are good and evil choices, they’re cleverly disguised with shades of ambiguity, and all the choices seem to please at least one party member while displeasing others, so there’s a lot of give and take. This is definitely the RPG of the year, and I hope more installments of the world in this game will come out soon. I don’t see anybody else topping this any time soon except for Bioware themselves.