Video games have indeed come a long way since the early days of Pong. With today’s gaming graphics card having more power than CGI workstations 5 years ago (and also DirectX10 and 11), characters are now looking more and more real.
Of course it is inevitable the natural animal (and human) instincts start to rear their heads in games – sex.
The interesting part of it all is, well aside from the sex itself, is that the games depict what the current worldwide social dynamics are. Back in the 70s for example, the world “gay” meant “happy”. Well it still does mean “happy” today but a new slang has been attached to it – male homosexual activities. Similarly, Dragon Age reflects this in the way it handles sex between the player and the characters. Dragon Age allows straight sex, meaning male and female, gay and lesbian sex, to occur.
Dragon Age Origins is already rated M18, so… you know what to do – if you’re under 18, you aren’t supposed to be here 🙂
Ok this will probably have nothing to do with games. After all, I’m still kinda playing Dragon Age. I’m on my 4th run-through with a 2-handed warrior now, and this time around I’m trying to get in bed with Leliana first, dump her, then hook up with Morrigan. Yeah I’m a playboy 🙂
Anyway!
My previous webhost started to give a lot of problems, what with all the downtimes and such. Sometimes I can’t even log in to FTP to back the site up so I can move to a new host. However, today, I managed to!
So, now this blog is sitting on a new host, with the latest WordPress 2.91, with all new plug-ins and what-nots.
Despite the “Dragon” words in the titles, the 2 games are vastly different. Operation Flashpoint is a combat simulator, where you play a soldier fighting in battles (much like Rainbow 6), and it is a first-person kind of game. Dragon Age, however, is an epic RPG. When I say “epic”, I truly mean “epic”.
Dragon Age, in my opinion, is the best yet from RPG veterans Bioware. Like Mass Effect, I’ve already completed 1 playthrough, and now I’m nearing the end on my second run. On my second run, I discovered many quests I have left out during the first run, and I already thought I was pretty thorough! Well, apparently not.
As with most RPGs I play, I do not use cheats or walkthroughs. To me, it spoils my fun. Only upon completion of at least 1 run-through will I look at walkthroughs to see what I missed the first time around. With Dragon Age, I have yet to use a walkthrough and I’m already discovering things I missed out!
As mentioned earlier, Dragon Age is epic in scope. The main quest will have you recruiting allies to help you to defeat The Blight. In the story, you are told that you have official documents, treaties, with the Elves, Dwarves and Mages. From then on, it’s up to you.
However, you don’t HAVE to recruit them. Yes you do need an army, but you don’t have to stick strictly to Dwarves, Elves and Mages. At each of these groups, when you are doing the quest to recruit them, you can opt to “go the other way” and recruit their adversaries.
During the game, there are many instances where the characters seem to really “come to life”. During one of the quests, when I was back in camp, one of my companions decided to sing a song.
Your travelling companions will soon start to tell you their stories, and you can go on their personal quests to help them. If you get their approvals high enough you can even fall in love and have romances with them!
Dragon Age is also “modern” in a sense. Romance can also happen between a same-sex NPC and player.
I am still wondering when I can get back to ArmA 2, and also to start on Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising. So many games, so little time!
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