I've recently completed DA:O and am on my second playthrough. I'm very impressed with the game and have done an extensive review which you can find here: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/dragonage/player_review.html?id=690173&tag=all-about;review2

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Cinematography & Scale in Dragon Age: The Evolution of RPG Cinematics

As a long time aficionado of Bioware's fantasy RPGs (most notably Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn & Neverwinter Nights) and Mass Effect which delivered a much-needed RPG space opera, what I found most visually impressive about DA:O was the epic aesthetic which was imparted through A) great characters and dialogue, B) the sense of visual scale which Bioware hadn't previously been able to achieve, and C) the fantastic camera work and cinematography, specifically during cut scenes.

Those of you who sharpened your teeth on Baldur's Gate will recognize that DA:O achieves an deeper player immersion, not because BG didn't have epic environments, but because BG couldn't graphically represent those environments. Thus the top-down gameplay of the old-school D&D RPG as shown here:

While you can play that way (if you have a pc) if you like, I find the camera view of the console version fantastic in that it really gives you a sense of scale that was largely absent from Bioware's previous fantasy RPG iterations. This sense of scale, however, is due largely to the camera position, and marks DA:O as a cinematic revelation for the RPG.

Compare Oblivion or Fallout 3, two absolutely fantastic games in their own right, in terms to cinematography to DA:O and there is really no comparison. Bethesda has won successes in its recent work through building believable and beautiful landscapes ripe for exploration – and those games have succeeded in that the "point" of those games IS exploration. While they certainly distribute quests and their "main quests" are solid for sure (especially Morrowind I think), what separates DA:O from these games is its story-telling.

DA:O is really all about telling a story – and it does so in an incredibly compelling manner, better than any of Bioware's previous story's to date. In fact, one could go so far as to opine that DA:O is really a choose-your-own-adventure story (remember those, kids?) dressed up in an adult RPG. While DA:O does offer some variety of side-missions, its really all about one story, and while you are compelled down its path, you'll delight in the decision-making ability you've been handed.

Now, Final Fantasy fans may balk at my assertion about DA:O's cinematography, thinking that cut scenes are nothing new – especially as the FF series has taken increasing liberties with cut scenes – to the point that some folks like myself find them too intrusive (because of their inanity). FF cut scenes, however, are vastly antiquated in comparison – the camera switches dumbly between cartoon-drawn characters as they engage in mindlessly childish dialogue concerning adolescent themes with mind-numbing idiocy. This may be a cut-scene, but its poor cinema.

DA:O's cinematography is vastly superior. The camera doesn't just sit there and record the characters as they talk to each other – it zooms in and out, it catches the eyes of characters not in the conversation, characters closer to the camera are blurred out of focus if the camera is focused on what's before them, it uses angles and stages that were developed in cinema (lens focus, wide takes, angles from above and below) -- in essence it uses the camera to tell as much of the story as it does the facial expressions of the characters. The Mages Origin Story is the best example of this (though I can't find a good pic of it). For sure, the character facial expressions aren't quite as good Mass Effect, but the voice acting is spot on across the board – the actors really dig into their scripts, turning phrase after phrase into expressions that are clearly compelling to the character speaking, thus likely much more compelling to you.

We've come quite a way in storytelling in video games over the past couple of years. Readers may note the great contributions from games like Silent Hill 2 or Bioshock, or reference Omikron or other games that portend a purer and more consistent cinematography or gameworld storytelling, and these would be worthy comments. What is obvious to me, however, is that Bioware has made a significant contribution to storytelling with DA:O due to its sense of scale, the depth of character acting, and the best use of camera in a long time.