Sorry, about the Dwarf origin, yes that’s right. I don’t remember which 1 was which, but what you said is what I liked, it still wasn’t as good as other origins, but it was better than the other Dwarf origin. I think I ended up killing my friend, and that had an interesting consequence later, but I just don’t remember what.

Yeah, I was specced Spirit Healer/Arcane Warrior on my Mage. Very strong combo if not the strongest in the game, but I just ended up falling in love with my AoE more than anything else. And then of course Rogue just completed it for me, I loved it’s speed and the damage output, Normal enemies were dead in about 1 second, yellows were dead in about 4, Oranges in about 8 secs depending on the type, and major Bosses took about 20 -30 secs depending on their type (and of course difficulty, I’m not certain but I think this playthrough I was on Nightmare? 3rd difficulty if I remember rightly.

Looking forward to the Expansion though, should be a nice addition!

The only person hard to bed is Allistair, his gifts are so damn rare and you have to be such a saint. For Leilianna you don’t need to kill the assassin, you can be nice and still get her. Her gifts are easy to find and there’s loads of them. I slept with both her and Morrigan on both my male playthru’s. Somehow I glitched it on the 2nd male playthrough and was given a ring from Morrigan twice.

I switched up my characters in every play through although it wasn’t initially intentional, on the second I didn’t think about the consequences of doing something and Wynn turned on me so I had to off her. Once I’d done that I found myself using a diifferent line up and enjoying the different background interactions and on the 3rd I’ve switched every major mission and made sure not to anger any of them. On the stages I knew I was going to do something a little unpleasant I’d have Morrigan and Sten and get agreement points with them and then when saving the tower I made sure I had do-gooders Wynn and L.

I’ve got FFXIII and Yakuza 3 on pre-order but I’ll probably still get the Awakenings DLC when it comes out. Assuming it comes out on time for the PS3, we still haven’t had return yet… The biggest choice of them all, which of my characters will I use, my original main is joint fav with my third. Arcane warrior was so much fun I may miss its amazing powers of blowing people up and then hacking away at the burning leftovers

Great review though!

I absolutely loved DA:O. It is exactly what I hoped for in an AD&D RPG and they delivered superbly.

In reply to your last msg about Tim Curry, did you recognise anyone else? There were a couple of other known actresses in the game as well. Flemeth is Kate Mulgrew AKA Captain Katherine Janeway from Star Trek Voyager, and Morrigan is Claudia Black AKA Aeryn Sun from Farscape, Varla from Stargate SG1 and was also in Pitch Black. As Morrigan I recognised her straight away.

The origin stories were great apart from the Dwarf ones IMO. I felt them to be a bit rushed and lacked a lot what the others had. My main was an Elf Magi and I kinda liked it, it was exactly how I thought a Mage class should start as, in a Mage Tower, which of course you have a major story quest arc further in the game. I agree with the CIty Elf, that sucked, really badly. Human Noble was really cool this was my 2nd playthrough and my Rogue class so I really enjoyed that story, probably the most unique out of all of them, as well as having a continued quest for this section later in the game.

I haven’t tried the PC version, but I’ve read that although you’d think it would be faster using keyboard and mouse, a lot of people have said that the Controller is actually slightly faster and easier to manage because everything is right there at your fingertips, you don’t have to scroll, commands are quicker than keyboard and mouse. I’ve just read this though and never played it on PC so I can’t personally say for certain, but I am very happy with the game on the Xbox 360. It definitely runs really fast and well, unless you have been playing continuously for several hours, then some of the loading times take a bit longer and looting is a bit delayed… but I remember hearing an update fixed the looting, and I do remember my 3rd playthrough was a lot better than my 1st playthrough, so it maybe fixed now.

Nikobe, yes it was a little annoying that all 3 of my playthroughs I used the same people as well, if a little mixed around depending on who I wanted to bed First playthrough was me as my Mage/Healer, Alistair, Leliana and Wynne. 2nd playthrough was me as my Rogue, Alistair, Morrigan and Wynne. 3rd playthrough was me as my Warrior, Leliana, Morrigan and Wynne. Alistair was the better Warrior, Wynne the better Healer, Leliana the better Rogue IMO. Switched in Morrigan as the 2nd Healer when I wasn’t one. Other than that I only really used the others for their character quests, other than that I never really bothered with them, didn’t need to. To bed Leliana, you have to get her affection up as high as possible, always make good comments with her in quests and chatting in camp, make sure you push her for her character quest and when you reach the assassin in the building make sure you side with Leliana and kill the assassin. From this point onwards there is a high chance to bed her, just keep at it. I think the most disturbing point I had in this game was when my MALE Mage bedded the MALE Rogue, yeah that kinda scarred my mind… A dodgy moment I had in the game was when my FEMALE Rogue bedded Leliana, but before I spoke to her my character was bugged, and she was walking around stuck in a constipated state, well this carried in through to the intimate cutscene, oh dear it was hilarious!.

Unfortunately I am disappointed in the Expansions price, £30 is WAY too much for an expansion, unless of course it’s 3/4 the size of the first game (3/4 of the first games price, would make sense right? I doubt it, but otherwise it’s a stupid overpriced expansion), then I would consider it, but at the moment I won’t be buying it until it drops to at least £20, it’s just too much at the moment. Having bought Collectors Editon of FFXIII and saving for Japan in August I just don’t want to throw my money away atm. The other DLCs are great. I got all available items and DLCs when I bought the game on release day, so I never had to spend a penny more. Warden’s Peak was a great little story for a DLC and a nice reward for completing it, access to a storage hold, a Merchant and a Blacksmith (also gives you the ability to get into a random area as you are moving about on the main map, to a crater with a man and women standing above it, a great reference to Superman, and a piece of meteor rock in the crater, which can be taken to the Blacksmith to create a very nice item of your choice). Shale was cool, but again, it’s a character I don’t use, only used Shale for the quests, but funny character. Return to Ostagar was another great DLC, I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately it’s VERY short, at about 30 mins. But basically you return to Ostagar to fight and defeat the Ogre which killed the King, and retreive his belongings. Nice little story though!

Very easy game to get into, very hard game to get away from! Definitely 1 of the best RPGs I’ve ever played, and looking forward to what else they bring to the game.

Speaking of origins, its a great system to pick your start area and everybody I speak to likes different ones. Of the ones I tried here is mini very brief review.

Dalish Elf – Well written, interesting and fun. One of the only ones which has darkspawn in it.
Human Noble – My fav mainly because it was my main characters origin but it is well done if a little MMO like with you killing rats at the beginning, its almost like a reference to old school Baldurs gate style games in the 90′s.
City elf – Super dull, depressing and annoying quests. Some people love it, I don’t.
Dwarves – I have yet to do either dwarf start zone.

One problem I have (not the game) is that even on different play-throughs I wanted the same people in my group, yes I’m missing out on side stories but I just get the group I want and stick with it. My only regret is not getting Leliana to “have relations” with my character…bought her so many presents as well.