Dragon Age: Origins awakening

So,

I had 4 days off from school as it's the end of the term. Since it's term one, we didn't have any work to do over the break (enjoy it while it lasts rings in my ears) Anyways, I had a small library of games I wanted to get through and one of them was the Dragon Age expansion.

This expansion is basically explained by the fact that (dun dun duuun) the dark spawn are back, this time though they are smarter and some seem to be able to talk. You, as the commander of the Gray Wardens (I might point out, my character died saving humanity at the end of the original game so...I don't think they thought that through) must once again save humanity. The expansion has some cool features, you have the duty of rebuilding a keep owned by the wardens before the big end battle, to do so you must find metal deposits for the resident whining blacksmith Wade and his companion as well as finding a good stone deposit for rebuilding your walls.

You get some cool companions such as the surly dwarf Ogden, a smart ass mage (who is a very blatant rip off of Alistair in personality) a legion of the dead female dwarf, a possessed gray warden corpse named (Justice) a elf mage and Arl Eamon's son who is originally out for revenge but finds friendship with his fathers murderer...(you) I believe there may be a couple more, but you get the gist of it.

The quest are fun, though usually quite similar to the dragon age ones. Recover this item and return it to it's owner in the main city etc. The story is generally fun albeit a bit confusing at times. and you should get about 8 hours out of the game on normal with your imported dragon age character...who in my case is also some kind of undead super hero.

So, what's wrong with the expansion? well it was pushed out the door too early, play testing and QA are integral to a good game, and this one either was done incredibly half-assed or pushed out the door. I am inclined to believe the latter since origins was relatively bug free. Some of the issues I have come across are a door that was supposed to be blown open, not opening (dark spawn could run in, but I could not run out) after being trapped by it for several minutes I ran my character along the raised wall in an effort to make him fall off to the ground below where i needed to get...at one point he just clipped through the wall and fell to the ground. I believe this was their "fix" for the issue as everywhere else in the wall there was a barrier stopping the player from doing so...I find the fix almost as insulting as the bug.

Several times in cut scenes the screen would zoom in on a character so much that you have no idea who is talking or what's going on. Other times the screen would simply go blank as if your 360 crashed...but pressing the a button to "skip" that portion of the cut scene would return it to normal. I also had several cases where a audio line for a different character, or sometimes just a repeating audio line, would play when a character would reply to part of the conversation. Pretty Amateur bugs, definitely out of character for Bioware. I also had friends who played through this have even more significant bugs, one being the loss of all of their items during a particularly annoying quest where you are taken prisoner and must fight with your bare hands to get out without any of your shiny gear. The game glitched here for him and he never got his gear back. Now, I dunno if this quest was thought of as a good idea, or that it would be fun....it was neither. Taking away "the shinies" people worked many hours to acquire is not something people enjoy...or maybe it's just me?

In conclusion, the expansion is fun, albeit quite buggy. If you can pick it up for cheap on eBay or from a friend and you enjoyed the original Dragon Age I'd recommend it specifically on getting it cheap or free. Bioware is known for released amazing well polished games, this one is far from polished and screams cash grab. Let's hope this is not a regular thing.