BioWare's long awaited follow-up to Baldur's Gate II, one of the most acclaimed and popular fantasy role-playing games ever, will finally arrive next year. However, it won't carry the Baldur's Gate name.

Instead, the game is titled Dragon Age: Origins, and it's unfortunately not based on the Dungeons & Dragons universe. But in virtually every other aspect, Dragon Age will be a Baldur's Gate title. BioWare previewed the game at E3 last month and gave media members a chance to try out Dragon Age's combat system (which I'll touch on later).

Dan Tudge, BioWare executive producer and project director of Dragon Age, provided an overview before showing off some early stages of the game. "We've often referred to this as a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate because it really is a return to our roots," Tudge said. The story centers on a collective of warriors known as the Grey Wardens, who are charged with defending the people against the mysterious Blight. What is the Blight? Details are limited, but according to BioWare, monsters known as Darkspawn led by an "archdemon" invaded human lands four centuries ago, causing the first Blight, and have returned once again.

In Dragon Age: Origins, the Blight has returned to destroy the human race.

So it's up to the player, in the role of a Grey Warden, to prevent another Blight and defeat the Darkspawn. There's some murky mythology that involves old gods, corrupt mages, and some shady royalty. BioWare showed off a few cut scenes that set up the story, one of which involved the playable character chatting with his buddy Duncan and King Cailan, who seems entirely overconfident about the Grey Wardens being able to defeat the Darkspawn. Sure enough, it isn't that easy.

The first thing I noticed about the game is the dialogue tree. Dragon Age employs a familiar system that fans of previous BioWare titles like Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) will recognize. But unlike Mass Effect, the playable character will have no voice actor/actress accompanying his/her dialogue. As a result, your character will be silent like in KOTOR. Personally, I prefer the Mass Effect style as it feels more immersive to hear your character speak, but it's only a minor sticking point.

Like its previous RPG titles, BioWare's new game also emphasizes moral choices that affect the outcome of the game. But instead of using a point system with a morality-alignment scale, players can choose actions that will classify them as either a hero, martyr or tyrant. For example, Tudge demonstrated a scene where the player meets an NPC locked in a cage. The playable character must retrieve a key in the prisoner's possession, and there are a few ways to accomplish this task. Tudge showed the easiest way, which of course was just to stab the poor guy with a sword. That action resulted in the playable character becoming a tyrant, which had implications later in the demo.

Fans of BioWare games will recognize Dragon Age's combat system, which features a party system and interchangeable characters.

The graphics for Dragon Age are powered by a new game engine called Eclipse. The game's visuals were solid but not spectacular. Some of the cut scenes suffered from lag and a few glitches - it is, after all, a pre-beta demo - and while the lighting and environments were strong, some of the orc-like Darkspawn designs were a little stale. Where Eclipse truly shined (no pun intended) was during combat, which delivered impressive character animation and some eye-catching fireworks during massive battles. Luckily, BioWare let me try out the combat system to get a feel for how it works during an epic battle between the human and Darkspawn at a large castle (which was right out of "The Two Towers," frankly).

One of the key features for Dragon Age is BioWare's "pause-and-play" combat system, which allows players to stop the action and not only change weapons and select spells but also use the mouse to rotate the game's camera view. You can zoom in on the action or pull back the view, rotating the camera to what ever angle you desire. It might seem like a frivolous mechanic for a fantasy RPG, but the feature came in handy and gave me an opportunity to soak up and appreciate the scenery.

In Dragon Age, you can stop play and rotate the camera view and zoom in on the action.

BioWare has also brought back the party system, which allows players to select some squad mates and, like KOTOR, switch between the characters during gameplay. At one point during the castle onslaught, I switched over to a female Elven Mage and began wreaking havoc with a variety of spells, alternating between fire and ice-like attacks. Then I fired some electrical attacks and a paralysis spell at the invading foes. Later, during a mini-boss battle with a giant ogre, I switched over to a Grey Warden and unleashed some melee attacks. This turned out to be a huge mistake, since the ogre began hurling large chunks of the castle at me and my party. Hence, my experience with Dragon Age's combat was fairly short.

Sadly, BioWare didn't unveil the character customization elements of Dragon Age. We do know that players will be able to choose from three different character templates: wizard, warrior and rogue. But we'll have to wait for another time to see how players will be able to mold and upgrade their characters in the new title. Given BioWare's track record, it's reasonable to expect good things.

Dragon Age: Origin is expected to launch in early 2009 for the PC only, with console ports planned for a later date.

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