With Bioware’s Dragon Age III (aka Dragon Age: Inquisition) due to be released this October (or is it November?), I decided a few days ago to re-load the original game, Dragon Age: Origins, and give it another play-through. It has been a few years now since I have played the original game, I think it has been more than a year since I have even touched the sequel (Dragon Age II). It was easy to forget just how beautiful and immersive of a swords-n-sorcery type game that this is, although how quickly I signed up to pre-order Inquisition should have been all the reminder that I needed!

So, I am wondering; who else has played and enjoyed this game?

This is, to my best recollection, the third time that I have played through this game. The other two times, I played once as a female human noble warrior, and once as a male dwarf noble warrior.

This go-around, I created a male human noble rogue, who I have specialized as a ranger who dual-wields weapons (currently a magic mace and a magic dagger), going by the name of Garrison Cousland.

Garrison’s faithful Marbari war-hound is named Contessa. The game insists that the hound is a male, but anybody who takes the time to pet this creature and watch it roll around on its back in delight can quickly ascertain that it is actually female (despite how it marks its territory).

Garrison has set his sights on romancing Leliana, the Orlais-born warrior-bard of the Chantry who believes she hears directly from the Maker. How she will react, however, when the game nears its end and the witch of the Kocari Wilds, Morrigan, offers Garrison ‘the big choice’...that we shall have to see. Garrison’s other main goal will be to harden Alister and set him on the throne of Ferelden. Oh, and I guess there might be a Darkspawn Blight to end, and an Archdemon to face off with, as well, lol.

Garrison’s main companions, the ones he will travel with and fight beside the most, will be Alister the Templar/Grey Warden, Sten the proud Qunari soldier, and Leliana.

I’ve, this time around, been playing for just a few days so far, but it already takes up far too much of my time to be ‘healthy’ for me, lol. I love a game where you can spend two hours of real time having your character wander around your campfire, talking to characters and asking after back-stories, giving gifts...what other game can you do that in, and be this entertained?

Black Isle’s Baldur’s Gate will always be my favourite game to play, but Bioware’s Dragon Age (and its sequel, soon to be sequels) will be hard to knock out of second place on that list.

For those who need to ask, I play Dragon Age on my pc, rockin’ it old-school (or just “old”, lol), and yes I am a sucker for all of the great Downloadable Content (DLC) as well.

Join the fun discussion, if you are a fan of this great gaming series. Have you played it? How did you find it? Have complaints about it? Any memorable moments, or characters? Have you played the sequel, and are you excited about seeing how Inquisition plays out? Do you enjoy the world of Thedas? If this isn’t your favourite swords-n-sorcery game to play, what is?