Dragon Age: Origins – Part I

**BEWARE: POTENTIAL SPOILERS**

So, I recently started playing Dragon Age Origins.

I have to admit, the primary motivation for playing this game was the fact that I am a big fan of ‘The Guild’ (YouTube TV show) and Felicia Day talks about this game and goes onto star in the short screen adaptation they did for Dragon Age II.

Ok, so I chose a Human Noble (Swordsman) and headed off on my proud journey.

I apparently have a pretty tight nit family, with a boss Mum & Dad and a respected older brother (who has his own family). Anyway, long story short, father and brother are off to war, some Grey Warden guy wants to recruit me to their ancient order, and I have an elite war dog as a pet.

After father and brother have headed off to battle, there’s an attack.

It’s ok, doggy and I are fine, Mum. We got this, just ignore all the blood I’m wearing.

Turns out my mother is also a bad-arse and we head out into the streets to locate my father.

Now, one of the things I love in games (this may sound somewhat heartless) is when they create a character that appears humble, generous and kind – obviously getting you to like them and then something like this happens.

Low and behold, they got dad. Sorry bro, tough break.

The reason I like this is because it made me so much more invested in the story and give me the feeling that there might be more interesting twists ahead. It’s not a ‘all main characters or loveable characters automatically live through anything’ type game.

Surging ahead, I leave my parental units behind to die and set off on my journey to become a Grey Warden.
So, apparently the ritual or…test…of joining the squad of the powerful is to head off into the wild with a bunch of other hopefuls and collect things.

This is where I got to learn about the proper mechanics of operating a party during battle.

Note: Didn’t realise these images were auto-resized…that’s a bummer.

Ok, so the left red arrow is the party members, top arrow is the menu shortcuts (like to your active quests, inventory etc), right red is obviously the flippin’ map, bottom green indicating where the EXP and skills hotkey menu is and the center green is little ol’ me!

I actually find it a bit confusing, because you have the ability to pause the game at any time and set actions for each character. When you don’t do this, they have a set of pre-set options (that you can customize) to a set of when/if style rules that say something along the lines of ‘If any other character under attack, then engage’ etc.

So, I go through this whole rigmarole just to find out I have to sip from a poisoned cup and hope to buggery that I didn’t cirrhose my liver in my younger years and it’s up to the task. Spoiler, I lived.

Well, here is me looking all calm upon finding out I about to potentially bleed out internally after sipping from a cup, but luckily, I just tripped out instead.

Charlie Sheen mode engaged.

After this was a tad boring. I was asked to head into a tower, fight some dudes and light a beacon. Yea cool, I got this bro.
Alas, this was after a long cut scene involving the invading army approaching the tower I was entering.

Now, something the world should know about me, is that I fancy myself somewhat of an amateur photographer when it comes to taking screen shots in games – so I like to try to see if I can capture a really good image or moment in battle. Something akin to what you see in the pictures they choose to advertise the game play in magazines. EITHERWAY, here is an example of that.

Needless to say, these two characters lost their shit shortly after posing for their closeups.

Prior to lighting up my beacon, I of course had to prove my worth and had to plow through a building of semi-threatening minions before the big guy rolled in.
I actually found him less of a threat that I initially assumed he would be, and ended up taking him out with trusty Lassy (actually named him Choy, because I was munching on Bok Choy at the moment of his ordaining).

HUZZAH! Suck my enormous…er…curling iron, meat-bag.

And this is where I left it at my last save – sooooo I have no idea what happens next.

Either way, so far I’m actually thoroughly enjoying this game. It’s not so difficult that someone of my inept capabilities is stuck at the first fight, and the story is a little like I’m reading a really good fantasy book. +1 Dragon Age, +1.

Sincerely,
El

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