vanilla salt: bloody hell (a love affair with dragon age: origins)

So upon my return, I thought about playing World of Warcraft again.

I THOUGHT ABOUT IT, BUT DID NOT ACTUALLY GO THROUGH WITH IT OKAY? STOP JUDGING ME.

Anyways, I was doing my usual rounds around skullknight.net (one of the world's primary Berserk fansites) when I came across a Dragon Age: Origins thread. I remember the previews for this game, and I also remember not being impressed...at all. In light of recent reviews and a SLEW of screenshots that Aazealh (one of the site's mods) posted, I was utterly convinced otherwise. The primary reason? This game is single player. I had originally thought it to be another failure MMO trying to penetrate an impossible market that is already bloated with night elves. With single player, I can move at my own pace and ignore the bustling about that is required for success in an MMO. So, I downloaded the deluxe edition on Steam, and began playing it. What started as quite an awkward experience trying to adapt to a rather odd "RTS-RPG" quickly turned into adoration. The game was challenging, in some respects, but that's not really its selling point. The true charm of Dragon Age is in the choices and flow of the game. Much like several other popular RPGs (like Knights of the Old Republic and Baldur's Gate), your decisions in the game will ultimately affect multiple facets of your party and the outcome of the story. I find that fact extremely intriguing and worth tons of replay value. Being able to pause the game also means that you are able to make decisions without the stress of a time constraint and at the same time react to certain situations, evaluate, and act accordingly. The freezing also promotes screenshot happy people to break their print screen keys. I know I already have; check it out.

Meet Skuru. She don't fuck around.

Dual Wielding is totally my thing.

Another day in the life of.

Here, let me seal that wound for you.

Right in the nuts!

Meet my awesome team. Yes, all four of them are wearing plate, including Morrigan, my caster.

Alastair, my tank, doing werk.

Do you do dragons?

Not a problem.

This one is for Pat. Winged helms much?

Vanity shot #6794.

Moonlight romance. I totally hooked these two up.

Also, before I close this post out, I must mention a little something about my Berserk collection. By mid-December, my collection will be pretty much complete. I managed to FINALLY find a decently priced Skull Knight on Horse II, after looking for about two years. I don't have it in my possession yet, but both Joa's Headlong kit and my SK should be here before November is over.