With Dragon Age: Origins releasing this week I was reading up on the game’s features and details when I came across Dragon Age Journeys: The Deep Road. To quote the site, “Dragon Age Journeys, a free to play browser based game set in the Dragon Age world, will be available Oct 22nd. Dragon Age Journeys puts players in the role of a hero exploring the underground dwarven kingdom of Orzammar. Players will uncover a dastardly plot that threatens to unleash a great evil that wont stop until it destroys all living things. Based on BioWares upcoming dark fantasy epic Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age Journeys sets a new standard of quality for browser-based games with addictive combat mechanics and fluid gameplay. Players of Dragon Age Journeys will have the chance to earn exclusive in game content for Dragon Age: Origins on the day of its release.”

The part that got my attention in there was the ability to earn in game content for Dragon Age Origins. So, I logged in with my EA Account created a knight type fighter. I started playing and after about 90 minutes I had two of the three items unlocked for when I play Dragon Age Origins.  The three pieces you get are an amulet, a belt, and a helmet.  From the looks of their stats they are not that great, but they probably are a bit better than your starting equipment.If you’re playing just for the unlocks be sure to read the details of how to get each one because one of them has multiple components and you can miss parts of it if you are not careful.

After I unlocked the first two items I actually wanted to keep playing.  My knight/soldier was just starting to get some good weapons, attacks, and squad mates. The Deep Roads is just the first portion of the Dragon Age Journeys story and it was about 3 and a half hours before I made it to the end. I’m sure I could do it much faster if I were to play again or play on an easier difficulty but where is the fun in that. I found the story pretty interesting and I’m looking forward to when they release the next portion of Dragon Age Journeys so I can pick up where things left off.

For a flash game it is surprisingly deep.  They have almost all of the normal RPG elements you would expect from a a full game and a couple nice little extra they could add because it is web based.  Like the quick travel option, which came in handy more than once when I wanted to go back to town to get more potions sell unwanted equipment. I would just quick travel to town, do my shopping, and then quick travel back to the area I was at before.  It takes you to the entrance of the area and not to the exact spot you left but the areas are not so big that it was an issue.  The side bar is also a useful addition. You can use it to pull up statistics in the left frame of the screen without interrupting the game. They have that portion set aside for achievement details, slain statistics, and quest info. Overall the interface is nicely down and it is laid out just like the screen shots I’ve seen for Dragon Age Origins.

The one thing I found annoying about the Dragon Age Journeys was the movement. You click the mouse where you want to move on the screen and your characters move there automatically. Hold down the mouse and it keeps moving. Pretty standard stuff, but because of how the levels are laid out there are not a lot of strait paths. Combine this with the speed of the movement and I seemed to always be running my characters into walls if I tried to move by holding down the mouse.  Part of that could be because I was playing on a laptop screen so it is possible if I had been playing on my normal desktop monitor I would not have had this issue since I would have more screen real estate to work with.

If you’re into RPGs and bored one day, or if you’re planning to play Dragon Age Origins I’d recommend checking out Dragon Age Journeys. It was a fun little diversion and unlocking in game items is a nice bonus.