General Introduction
Like many people of my generation, I'm a big-time gamer. Some of my earliest childhood memories revolve around me watching my father playing games on his Intellivision or Commodore 64 computer. I was playing games myself by the time I was 5. When I was around 6 or 7, my parents got my brothers and I a Nintendo Entertainment System, and as the years went by I also played Super Nintendo and the Nintendo 64. Then, in 1998, I got my first computer and made the switch to computer gaming. Aside from the Nintendo DS, I pretty much just play computer games these days, and I have lots of favorites.
This current day I've put together is the second in a series that focuses mainly on games that let you take part in homosexual relationships, among other things. Unlike my other days, which have been mostly textual, these days devoted to computer games I like will consist mostly of visuals (after all, such games are, by their very nature, visual). And by visuals I mean screenshots taken by myself.
Today I look at Dragon Age: Origins, a role playing game (RPG) released by the company known as BioWare in the Fall of 2009. Described in the game’s instruction booklet as “a modern re-imagining of an epic party-based fantasy role-playing game,” this “dark fantasy epic” differs from standard Tolkienesque fantasy in that it contains mature themes such as profanity, intense blood and violence, and partial nudity/sexual content. Set in the mythical kingdom of Ferelden (itself a portion of a larger continent known as Thedas), in Dragon Age: Origins you play the part of a Grey Warden, destined to save the world from an evil foe known as the Archdemon, which is a dragon possessed by a demonic horde known as the Darkspawn. I purchased Dragon Age: Origins in November of 2009 and completed it on April 4th, 2010. All in all, it took me about over 70 hours to complete. The game is very large, with a huge cast of over 200 characters, some major and others very minor.
When you start up a game of Dragon Age: Origins, the first thing you need to do is create your primary player character (PC for short). First you select a gender for your PC. Then you select the race, with three possible choices: human (the most well-rounded of the three races), dwarf (who have an innate resistance to magic, though they can’t use it themselves), and elf (who have stronger magical power). Then you have to pick a class for your character: Warrior, Mage, or Rogue. Then you have to choose a background for your character, which is where the “Origins” aspect of the game comes into play, as the background you choose determines which of the game’s six distinct openings you’ll play through. The race and class you choose determines which background you can select. Finally, you can customize your character’s appearance, from their skin color, facial features, tattoos, and so on, along with selecting a tone of voice and giving them a first name. Once you create your character, the game beings.
For my playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins, I decided to play as a female dwarf rogue who I named Sophia, and for her background I chose the “Dwarf Commoner” origin (which meant that I began the game living out on the streets in the ghettoes of the dwarf empire known as Orzammar, deep in the Frostback Mountains). I decided she should have kind of a glam look going for her so I have her light blue lipstick and eye shadow. I also gave her the “sarcastic” tone of voice for her voice option. During the course of the game, her primary weapon of choice was the bow and arrow, so she could safely snipe enemies from a distance. I also made her skilled at lock picking and spotting (and disarming) enemy traps.
Of course, you control more characters than just your PC. During the course of the game you encounter other characters (known as companions) that can join your party. When on a quest, you can only have a party of four people: your primary character, and up to three companions. The companions not currently being used hang out at the party camp, which you can visit whenever you wish. The camp can be seen in the below screenshot:
You actually spend a great deal of time at the camp because not only is it a place to heal your wounds and buy supplies, it’s also here that you can engage in long conversations with your companions that help you to get to know them better. When speaking to other characters in the game, you often need to choose from a list of possible responses, which can change how that character feels about you (the actions you take over the course of the game will also influence how they feel about you). With each companion there’s an approval rating applied to your primary character, and it’s important to keep that rating high: if a companion grows to hate you, they may permanently leave your party, or even try to kill you. Each companion has a personal side quest that you can help them with, which can help you solidify friendship with them. There are also gifts you can find in the game which, when given to the proper companion, will make them like you even more. With certain companions, if you raise the approval rating high enough you can even enter a romance with them, which can lead to sleeping with them. All in all, there are about nine other companions who can join your party. I’ll talk about a few of them now.
The elf pictured in the screenshot above is Zevran. He’s a rogue from an aristocratic foreign land and a member of the Antivan Crows, a secret society of feared assassins. Initially he’s hired to kill your PC, but if you spare his life after beating him you get the option of letting him join your party. Zevran is very promiscuous, and even though he prefers sex with women he’s not adverse to sleeping with men (in fact, he hits on everyone in the party at one point or another). Though it’s easy to get in bed with him, engaging him in a serious relationship takes a certain degree of finesse.
This is BioWare’s official trailer for Zevran’s character:
In the above screenshot, Zevran kisses Sophia prior to their having sex. When you sleep with someone in Dragon Age: Origins, the game cuts to a brief cutscene where you see the two characters making love set to somewhat cheesy music (and only partial nudity: it’s pretty softcore). See the screenshot below to see what I mean:
Here’s a video taken by someone else on Youtube to illustrate what I mean:
Pictured above is Alistair, a fellow Grey Warden and one of the first characters to join your party. He’s a friendly and kind fellow who uses wit and sarcasm to mask his insecurity and sensitiveness. He’s also a total muscle stud, as can be seen in the screenshot below, where he’s just in his underwear:
As you can see from the picture above, I had Sophia get fucked by Alistair also. Generally speaking, you can only have sex with Alistair if you play as a female character, but some people created a mod that lets you have Alistair engage in sex with a male main character, as can be seen in the video below:
In the picture above is Leliana. A former sister of the Chantry (a matriarchal religious group that’s pretty much the game’s version of Christianity), she’s not only a bard but also a former assassin. I spent a great deal of the game flirting with her (as she’s bisexual also), yet I never took it all the way with her… probably because she seemed sensitive and I didn’t want to break her heart. It got to a point where I was in a relationship with her, Zevran, and Alistair. Finally the party got fed up with my promiscuity and forced me to make a choice, so I ultimately chose Zevran, having a soft spot for elves. Though I felt kind of bad dumping Alistair.
The woman in the above screenshot is Morrigan, a witch who also joins your party early on. She has a somewhat abrasive personality and I didn’t bother trying to flirt with her as she’s only interested in men, though we did eventually become friends. The main reason I liked to use her a lot in the various quests I embarked on is that she can use her magical powers to shape shift into various creatures, one of which is a giant spider, as can be seen in the screenshot below:
Another party member you encounter is the dwarf Oghren. You can’t have sex with him, and I don’t have any really good screenshots of him, but I think he’s pretty amusing so here’s his official trailer:
At one point in the game you come across a brothel known as “The Pearl,” where you can choose to have sex with various prostitutes. I decided Sophia should have sex with a woman, so she ended up fucking the prostitute seen below:
In the screenshot above is your pet dog, a Mabari War Hound that you can name (I chose the name “Griffin”). No, you can’t have sex with the dog, you perverts.
For those who are interested in jailbait, there’s Connor, “son of Arl Eamon Guerrin and Arlessa Isolde, nephew of Bann Teagan Guerrin and cousin to King Cailan Theirin.” When you first met him he’s possessed by a demon and you have the option of saving him. You can’t have sex with him though. I think you do have the option of killing him, if you’re into that sort of thing.
What the hell, here’s another screenshot of Connor.
I forget the name of the beefcake in the above screenshot. Wait, I just looked it up now: Oswyn. He’s a pretty minor character who you have the choice of freeing from prison late in the game, but he’s not important to the overall story. Kinda hot though.
At one point in the game you encounter werewolves. You can’t fuck them though. I wonder why the game had no vampires, but maybe BioWare didn’t want to have to dodge accusations of trying to woo the Twilight fan base.
In the screenshot above you can see Sophia encountering a talking tree known as “The Grand Oak.” You can’t fuck him either, sadly.
One of the cool things about Dragon Age: Origins is that while on quests, your party members will often converse amongst each other, as can be seen in the above screenshot. This helps to flesh them out a bit more and makes them seem more like real people with their own identities and personalities.
At one point in the game you’re tasked with retrieving an artifact known as “The Urn of Sacred Ashes.” After going through a number of trials, you encounter one last trial: passing through a wall of flames in nothing but your underwear, as a test of faith. In the above photo we can see Sophia, Alistair, Zevran and Morrigan clad only in their underwear. Alistair and Zevran don’t have chicken pox: they’re just covered in blood from a previous battle. In the picture below, we can see Sophia after she’s crossed the wall of fire:
In the screenshot below, Sophia contemplates a cat, possibly wondering if it’s something she could have sex with.
In the screenshot above, we see Sophia heroically posing in front of the corpse of a dragon she helped to slay. Oddly enough, despite the fact that the game is called Dragon Age you don’t actually encounter all that many dragons (though this changed in the sequel).
People who suffer from severe arachnophobia might have a tough time with this game. In the above screenshot, Sophia gazes out at the bloody corpses of eight slain spiders of prodigious size.
I forget what the hell it was that I killed in the above screenshot, but whatever it was, it sure did leave a large bloodstain.
In the above screenshot, Sophia displays a shocking lack of sympathy for a wounded soldier, by somehow managing to get her boots embedded in his torso. And in the screenshot below, we can see her standing on the shoulders of some drunk at a tavern, who doesn’t seem all that phased:
Like all computer games, Dragon Age: Origins has a few bugs and glitches. At one point, while traveling along the world map, my party went through a random monster encounter: they were attacked by an evil bear, which quickly knocked out two of my members. Somehow or other, Sophia got herself stuck in the bear’s posterior, so that it couldn’t attack her but I couldn’t attack it either. So I had my remaining mage blast it from a distance with ice spells until it died. But it looked very silly to see the bear running around with a dwarf stuck in its ass.
In the summer of 2010, I began work on a book called The Marble Index, which was the sequel to a fantasy book I wrote back in the year 2000. In The Marble Index I decided to write Sophia in as a character, so I could continue her adventures outside of Dragon Age (though to be honest, it was playing Dragon Age that inspired me to get back to work on the trilogy after a decade of not working on it).
Next up: Dragon Age II!
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p.s. Hey. This weekend we get a grand prize aka part two of author, recording artist, music label boss, and d.l. Sypha's trilogy of videogame gay-inclined interventions, and it's another greaty so please thoroughly enjoy your visit and speak to its maker re: your reactive stuff, thank you. And, of course, my vast thanks to you, Maker. ** Bill, Hey. I don't think they have Claritin here. Yury gave me some antihistamine pill thing that seemed to help. You should definitely do an installation wherein one can push ghosts around, wow. How would you do that? Wow. Hope everything's moving smoothly on your end. ** Richard Chiem, Hey. You're Richard Chiem! I guess you know that. It's very nice to have you here. It's weird, or at least sort of, 'cos I just two days ago read/saw 'oh no everything is wet now' over at Magic Helicopter and admired it a lot and then hunted down your 'Planet B Boy' and loved it just as much, and then I realized you're a Facebook friend if mine, and I thought that was cool, and now here you are. Kudos from me. Everyone, Richard Chiem, who commented yesterday, is this super awesome writer and maker of the finer things, and, if you don't know his stuff, here are two ways to begin, and you really should. Here's an ebook by him and ana c. that Mike Young published recently on his Magic Helicopter press/site, and here's a really good short fiction piece by Mr. Chiem called 'Planet B Boy' that's newly up at Titular Journal. Seek them out this weekend. I insist. Thanks again! ** Ishmael, Ishmael! Hey, buddy! Oh, I think I remember something about your ghost hunt, so maybe you told me or noted it on FB or something? I did one of those ghost hunts once, of an abandoned movie theater on Hollywood Blvd. Walking through the spookily lit/unlit theater with detectors and those diving rod things and so forth. But nothing happened to/for everyone, and so the host of the hunt suddenly decided she was possessed by the spirit of a dead child and channeled her with lots of crazy faces and a falsetto voice so we wouldn't ask for our money back, I think. It was fun. I'll check out your FB ghost hunt. Everyone, my collaborator and dear friend Ishmael Houston-Jones went on a Ghost Tracking Tour a while back as research for a performance work he's going to appear in, and evidence of it is on Facebook, and maybe you can see it whether you're FB friends with him or not, I'm not sure, but it's here, so try, or else friend Ish first and then try, because a better FB friend you'll never find. Tons o' love, Ish! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. Thanks. It is allergies, I'm almost positive, so luckily I'm mobile if kind of bleah. Yes, thank you for the Day and email! Thanks so much! I'll put it together and get to you very soon. Interesting, as I just put together a Jean-Pierre Leaud Day, so they'll make good company. Great about the Mary Woronov event! I wish I could see that! If you remember, remind me a day or two before so I can alert the folks around here who might be in LA. ** Thomas Moronic, Thanks, T. No, that movement you speak was deliberate probably, and thanks for feeling it. New piece by you, great! I'll read it once I've launched this. Everyone, there's a new piece by the great Thomas Moronic available to us, and here he is to direct you: 'I've put a new piece up on Transductions if you or anyone else fancies a peak. It's a strange one, but I quite like it. It's for something else that I'm working on at the moment, and it's pretty much still a draft, but I thought it'd be cool to stick it up as it is at the moment. It's here.' I can't imagine that I even need to encourage you to click that link, do I? Sounds you had a sweet day ahead. I hope it was. ** FreeFox, Hey. Yeah, I'm even more of a skeptic than you are when it comes to ghosts. Logic is my enemy and friend. The only pix yesterday that gave me the willies a little were the really blurry ones. Blur is the paranormal's friend. Thanks, man! You good? Novel proceeding? I love everything I've read of it. ** Schoolboyerrors, I'm with you on the God stuff. I like the paranormal as a genre of entertainment though, and the kind outsider artist quality of the aspirations to visualize it, and how true the images seem to need to be to the body and to the eerie charisma of fog and mist. Wow, that treatment you're doing sounds intensive. It probably isn't in practice, though? My symptoms seem to be easing but pretty gradually. I'm cool with waiting until the Tati is in-print, sure. I totally know what you mean about typeface and layout and all that. I hope that treatment is doing the trick for you. ** Sypha, Yeah, I guess I would have been surprised if you liked the Duvert. You can probably turn it around and sell it for at least as much if you want. I love 'A Bug's Life', but I was thinking if they'd seen your novel, their bug entry might have been even better. ** Alan, Gracias. Oh, while I have you and before I forget, that lovely thing you sent me will appear here on this coming Wednesday, the 8th. Thanks, Alan! ** A.r., Hey, A! The midget ghost at Stonehenge was amazing, yeah? I got very excited when I found that one. Cool the work arrived. I tried a couple of jalapeno slices last night, and I do feel a bit more myself today. Hunh. ** Paul Curran, Hey, You're back. In London, I mean. Well, back here too. My symptoms are not unlike jetlag's but with a body ache added in. But I'm sure you and I will both be ready to join the inevitable mosh pit at the Five Years opening. Wonderful that you're back at work on the novel! Awesome! ** Steevee, Hey. I don't get nasal stuff with my allergies, which is kind of strange, I guess. Just headaches and aches and pains and deenergizing, fuzzing stuff. That resume was a bit peculiar and forward, yes. I guess it successfully got their attention, poor thing, ha ha. ** Joel Sagiv, Hey. I'm glad you liked it! Oh, awesome about the blog and new music access! The blog looks pretty cool in general. I'll go get your EP this afternoon. Everyone, d.l. Joel Sagiv makes awesome music. I've gotten to hear a little, and now you can hear some and more via his new blog where it and other delights are yours to pore over and/or download. It's great. Check it out. Thanks a lot, man, and have a superb weekend. ** David, Hey. Whatever antihistamine thing Yury gave me seems to have worked at least somewhat sans drowsiness. Maybe the French have figured it out sort of. Thanks about the Day, natch! ** Chris Cochrane, Okay, cool. I'll look for it. While I fully understand the Rico overload temptation, yes. ** Postitbreakup, Thanks, Josh. Oh, I moved your Day a little. Now and firmly, it will appear here on Saturday, the 18th. I don't even know what Dreamweaver is. I've heard of it, and it always brings that horrifying hit song from the 80s to mind, and I always wish they hadn't called it that. How was the first class? I'm very pleased those gentlemen held me in their thoughts. Well, the one on the right. I'm guessing the one on the left is a Madmen actor? I've only seen three episodes, so the show isn't yet much more for me than a vehicle for you-know-who. I'm not feeling all that hot, but I'll try to talk to your last comments. I guess the main answer is I don't know why you put so many obstacles in the way of your writing. I think maybe you think too much about the reception it could have and the judgment you're afraid that would pass on you. I care about whether I'm good enough or whether people will like what I do, but not when I'm writing and certainly not before I start. I just think you should get the world and your life out of your head when you want to make art. It's you and you when make art. You have to really like being completely alone with yourself and only interested in what your imagination is going to reveal to you. You have to make nobody else exist when you're making art. If your world is full of problems, you retreat there and make something with the real world crap that doesn't depend on it, but I don't know one does that. I like doing it a lot and always have, so I do it. You're plenty young and have plenty of time to figure this out if you really want to make art. But I don't know how to suggest you start doing that. You need to get rid of the worrying about doing it. You need to not care what anyone else is going to think when you're making something. You have to do it only to test yourself, give yourself pleasure, improve yourself, etc., etc. I don't know. That's the best I can do this morning. ** MANCY, Thanks, man! I grew up in a kind of modest mansion wherein the original owner had died, and I spent ages looking for his ghost and for the secret passages I was so sure he must have built into the place, alas. ** Statictick, Yep, RIP Mr. Kervorkian indeed. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hey! Gisele seems to like the texts a lot, so maybe they're in. The art show, if it happens, would be one show including works by all the artists. The internet is a little better, still with dead zones, but less of them. I hate when depressing thoughts gnarl and mutate and take over. Ugh. It's cool that you managed to fall asleep in the middle of that though. It does seem like 'The Brady Kids Meet Wonder Woman' would change something drastically. I haven't ever seen it, of course, but ... Okay, I watched that clip and, if I'm not cured now, I'll never be cured. Yikes. Everyone, feeling sad or sick? Courtesy of Itmpw, this will either cure you or finish you off. Well, you seemed like you might have been less unhappy by the end of your day. I hope you see the guy again. Why wouldn't you? My day: First, I tried to make myself feel better with a shower and tea, and it worked a little. Then I called my visiting friends Casey, Robin, and their kiddo, although I didn't technically call the kiddo 'cos I'd never met him and he's only just over 1 year old. They started walking here from their hotel to hang out and meet Kiddiepunk and Oscar. They got lost, but they finally made it. We had coffees and stuff at the cafe here for a while, and that was nice, and the kiddo is cool, until the shade went away the sun started frying us, 'cos it's kind of hot here in Paris, and then we all parted ways for a while and did stuff separately. Then I met up with the visiting trio again, and we went to see the Anish Kapoor installation at the Grand Palais. I think it's supposed to be the largest work of art ever made, and it's pretty amazing, actually. Here's a short video that shows you what it's like, if you want to see. Then we decided to eat, and they were weirdly into my idea of eating at Hard Rock Cafe, wow, but it was kind of late, and I knew it would be too crowded, so we ate at this French chain restaurant near the Recollets called Indiana where you can get nachos, but they're kind of really weak. Then we parted ways, and I came home and visited with Yury. But it turned out Robin left her iPhone at the restaurant, so I put my shoes back on and went over there, and, miraculously, they still had it, so that was good. Then I just did this and that until I fell asleep. I didn't make the day sound so good because I'm still sort of allergied out and bleah, but it was nice. Today, we'll see, How was yours? ** Bollo, Hey. Gee, that' a pretty good music festival thing you've got going on there. I hope you get in. Surely, you know the museum's secret entrances, if need be? ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, I do like ghost stories, yeah. Campfire and bedtime stuff. I think nobody could have done what you or I or anyone wants to do thirty years ago. I don't they even really would have known how to try. That's a fuzzy thought. You have a question about 'Phoner?' Hit me up with it, if you like. One of these days I need to find a way to post or whatever the video of Thurston Moore reading 'Phoner'. It's totally amazing, but it's owned by NYU, and I don't think it's been signed off on vis-a-vis the public. Good weekend! ** Armando, Hey, man! Great to see you! Other than being kind of sick at the moment, I've been good. No, I don't know that PJ Harvey album. I don't know if I've ever actually heard an entire album by her. 'The Shining': the best ghost movie ever? Mm, I would need to think about that with a clearer head. No, I don't believe in ghosts. I'm too logical a person. It makes no sense. Yeah, I saw 'Tree of Life'. Changed my world, it did. ** Misanthrope, Ha ha, your mom's understanding. You'll have big fun! For sure, man, I mean, yeah. ** Okay, my mind has totally given out on me now. Good timing. Get with Sypha this weekend, okay? See you on Monday.
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