14 DAY TRIAL // AbleGamers, a videogaming site that aims to cater to those gamers who are playing with a disability, has awarded its Mainstream Accessibility Award for 2009 to the PC version of Dragon Age: Origins, the role playing experience developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts, released late in the year.
Dragon Age: Origins received a 9.8 score from the AbleGamers site, meaning that it can offer a wide array of helpful options for those gamers who have a disability. Players are able to enjoy the experience only using a mouse with one hand, controls can be remapped, ambient noises can be delivered via the subtitles, fonts are easy to see while the pause option allows those with cognitive issues to get through the game at their own pace.
The statement from AbleGamers reads, “One video game stood out from the rest with accessibility options far beyond what most companies are willing to include. [...] Dragon Age: Origins offers some of the most astounding accessibility options seen in any games this year.”
Mark Darrah, who is the executive producer for Dragon Age: Origins responded to the award by saying that “The Dragon Age team is honored to win this award. We try to appeal to as broad of an audience as we can and accessibility is certainly part of this effort. It makes me proud to have the game this well received by this community.” Dragon Age: Origins also got the Game of the Year Award from Softpedia but for slightly different reasons. We praised the complex world that BioWare created, with a lot of fantasy tropes used and subverted in a lot of ways, the combat mechanics, which are both straightforward and deep, and the interesting writing. The game is set to get a DLC pack soon, called Return to Ostagar, and an expansion is rumored for March, called The Awakening.