Fantasy role-playing games are a staple of the gaming world. Between the Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Dungeons & Dragons games, it's not hard to find a long, intricate story featuring wizards, warriors and dragons.

Dragon Age: Origins, the latest fantasy RPG from the studio that relaunched science-fiction RPGs with Mass Effect, delivers a dark, bloody tale of a world under siege by unspeakable evil and the brave heroes who stand as candles against the encroaching shadow.

Unlike Bioware's previous fantasy games, Dragon Age is not based on a D&D setting. The world of Ferelden was created expressly for this game in an obvious attempt at establishing a new dark fantasy franchise.

As one would expect from a fantasy title, players enter a world populated with humans, elves and dwarves. But very quickly, Dragon Age turns typical Tolkien-based assumptions on their heads.

Elves are slaves of the humans, the noble dwarves live in a Machiavellian society, and humanity is its usual mess of nobility fighting for power and glory in willful disregard of the larger global threats.

Keeping with its name, Dragon Age players begin by working through one of six detailed origin stories before launching into the sprawling plot.

The choice of character race, class and background determines how they are drawn into the larger fight as a member of an organization called the Grey Wardens. These Wardens are tasked with rallying all the peoples of the world to defeat the growing menace of the evil darkspawn and their archdemon leader.

Regardless of the characters' path to the conflict, they are soon joined by and surrounded with some of the most developed and well-written characters in any game.

Playing Dragon Age is an interesting task. Controlling the four members of your adventuring party is a tactical challenge, while the interface developed for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 plays to the limitations of the console controller.

Graphically, Dragon Age looks best on the PC. The console versions are passable, but they're subject to visual pop-in and stuttering during dialogue scenes.

Fans of dramatic storytelling should definitely pick up Dragon Age: Origins, but be prepared to sink over a hundred hours into the title before completing all the primary and secondary content.

The game is a single-player-only experience, but already the creators are releasing downloadable expansion packs to keep players adventuring.

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