Dragon Age: Outstanding!

I'm alive.

no really, i've just been a hermit...

as usual.

Its been video game time for me since the release of 2 incredibly awesome video games.

first i was derailed by is Dragon Age: Origins.

i have to say, screenshots or trailers for the game didn't really make it look amazing. they focus more on showing a couple short FMV sequences and some gameplay, which normally would be a good thing, but RPGs dont have the same kind of flashy gameplay as other games.

but trust me the game is awesome. you can definatly play it a few times cause the replay value is amazing. each main quest can have at least 2 ways to go through it, sometimes more, with 2 different outcomes which heavily impacts the game's endings.

and with character creation you can pick one of 3 races, each with a choice of backstory, and without that job select up to 2 unique specializations. my rough math says theres 72 different characters possible counting only combonations of race, backstory, job, and combos of 2 specializations. thats not counting choices of gender, positive or negative alignment, different choices made during the main quests, the side characters you choose to join you, or any of the multiple endings you can get.

i'm not good enough at math to figure that out.

if that doesnt impress you maybe the fact that there is a varitable cornicopia of love instrests, tons of sidequests including character specific sidequests given to you by your companions, and some very challenging optional bosses. not to mention theres already 3 DLC already out one of which includes a fully integrated new character. not to mention blood dragon armor for this and Mass Effect 2 if you bought the game (which you should you pirating ninnies)

if that wasnt enough March brings us Dragon Age: Awakening, a full game expansion with 5 new companions, a new main story line, new areas and an all new origin story.

phheeeewwwww... sorry gotta take a breath there. lol

theres only two things i dont like about the game. first its bloody hard sometimes. i really suggest taking the time to completely reprogram certain characters tactics (its a series of cause and effect senarios for the ai to prioritize during battle) to make them more effective. the spirit healer character you can recruit has such a horrible tactics set its a miracle she gets off a single healing spell. that ones got to go. also any tanking character you leave to AI should also be reprogrammed. doing this makes battles go smoother but there still plenty of frustrating "Your journey ends..." screens. in fact, i actually had to lower the difficulty on some fights after dying 10+ in the same situation.

the other thing is the length of some of the main story missions. im not a 15 yr old kid with hours and hours with which to play games anymore, and i like to usually play a quest or a mission straight through before turning it off, so on some of the missions the length was a little much. the mages circle in particular was a little too long for my taste as that one mission can take a couple hours if you let it. so stock up on potions and get all the extra inventory spaces you can, cause thats a doozy. keep in mind the length of the game itself is actually quite good, its really just the length of certain missions that gets a bit tedious.

all in all i love the game and cannot wait to get Awakening. i'm sure ill talk about that plenty when it comes out.

i give this game a solid fuedal lordship/10