The Dragon Age comparison: Part 2; The Fans.

Now I can safely say that within a few months after Dragon Age: Origins release, fans across the globe formed like a swarm of fantasy loving hungry flies.

The new world created by BioWare promised RPG gamers an exciting, fresh and enjoyable new world to toy around with and experiment. The result of this led to the game winning many awards and people around the world wanting to contribute to the game in their own way, whether it be making mods, cosplay or even just telling their friends about this step up for BioWare games with a combination of Mass Effect and Baldur's Gate.

Unlike most games, the fan base did not die out but continued to grow. The game continued to sell more copies, merchandise was on high demand and the fan art was through the roof... well it was piled up in my household and the Internet.

The cosplay for this game franchise was quite epic in its quality with in my own opinion some fantastic displays!

Even the legendary women that is Felicia Day expressed openly her love for Dragon Age:Origins quoting "This is my favourite game."
To all those reading this and are thinking ' pfft. I dont care what a silly women says..' Well this is a women that has spent countless amounts of time reading, playing and talking about the fantasy genre and even hosts the sensational Internet series of The Guild.

Felicia Day was then contacted by BioWare to help create a mini web series of the ever growing Dragon Age universe. To this offer she kindly and gladly excepted and the series will be airing come Autumn time this year.

Fans across the USA and everyone who visited the 2010 Comic Con would remember the first annual BioWare brawl. This is basically where all fans were given blow up weapons and assembled into two sides and then when the war cry was given... FIGHTTTT!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4D6rJfcKog

Now I move onto the fans of Dragon Age 2.

The mass of Origins fans all lined up excited for the sequel which promised to be even better than its predecessor, and with all honesty the game began with expectations being met due to faster combat and the chance to meet new characters and explore outside Fereldon.

However, as fans began to play further into the game they began to revolt against the new BioWare and EA partnership ripping into the game's many rushed faults (myself included).

I'ts too early to say just yet whether Dragon Age has lost fans or gained more,but all I know for sure is the people who adored Origins and the whole creation of Dragon Age by David Gaider, and are praying that the wrongs of Dragon Age 2 will be corrected, will go on to love Dragon Age still and even find more pro's in their gaming experience after numerous playthroughs and expansions that I'm sure will spice things up in the near future.

Not only are the fans cosplay costumes more epic. But the fan art seems to have improved with mainly Hawke, Fenris and Flemmith being the hot characters at the moment. I just cant wait to see how BioWare and it's amazing fans can conjure up something to help put those fans in doubt at ease and reignite the once great burning fire of excitement amongst Dragon Age, Fantasy, BioWare and RPG fans around the world.

So for now this is all of Part Two of this section of my blog. I hope you enjoyed it and will follow me to read future additions to this section and more.

Thank You

The Dragon Age comparison: Part 1; The Characters

So in this new rather nerdy section of my blog, I will be comparing the games of Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2. This post today will be my personal comparison of both sets of characters that can be used as party members. Firstly; My personal "key" Origins party members:

The first companion I will be writing about about that stood out to me is Alistair; The "new" Grey Warden as he is first introduced and soon to be King of Ferelden if the option arose and you took it. Alistair to me was the first character in Dragon Age to really make me laugh with lines such as "swooping is bad" and "That's what I'm here for. To deliver unpleasant news and witty one-liners." Which in all fairness to the character is EXACTLY why I had him in my party throughout the entire game. Alistair also was the fan-girls "hunk" as it were mainly due to him being the only heterosexual male within the first game that you could romance besides Loghain late on? The banter between Alistair and Morrigan was also bloody superb! The one quote I remember him saying that has me in stitches for ages was  "Well aside from the fact that she's a complete and utter bitch, no...I don't like her at all. Why? Do you?"

Now this would be a perfect time to move onto my first choice female romance of.. Morrigan; A witch of the wilds.--->
Morrigan came across to me as a powerful, mysterious, stubborn, cocky and rather attractive (compared to the rest of the characters) shapeshifting mage.

Not only was her banter between Alistair extremely amusing but with all party members, however her infamous line of  "And now we have a dog. And Alistair is still the stupidest member of the party." to Alistair can not go amiss in this post!

Morrigan was my first romance option in Origins, nearly every decision I made was in her favour (typical me really)
However, I am rather disturbed still, a year after the event of my first sex cut scene...purely because I was talking to Zevren the rogue elf at the party camp and he invited me back to his tent. I gladly excepted not knowing what was actually going to happen ( innocently I thought "yay! I can finally see inside these tents") but oh no.. THE ELF TOUCHED ME IN PLACES I HAVE PREVIOUSLY NEVER BEEN TOUCHED! D=
Thankfully however after coping with  the traumatising event I had just witnessed I now knew how to romance and continued with Morrigan ( keeping well clear from Zevren).

The final party member that I used was Oghren; The banished drunken dwarf.
This guy was personally the funniest guy and possibly my favourite character from Origins and I was over the moon when he came walking down that corridor in Awakening and offered to be in my party.
I cant actaully describe the hilarity of this little guy any more than showing you a few of my fave quotes:

-One of the first things he says to you is "If you've ever heard of me before, it's probably all been about how I piss ale and murder little boys who look at me wrong. And that's mostly true..."

-At the party camp Oghren (drunk as an Irishman) says "Hey, Warden! You gotta hear this one! This human walks into a tavern! Eh heh. And there's an elf there. Ah ha ha ha! And she says, Ha ha ah ah ha! She says." (Snorts) "Ah ha!" (Falls down)

-By far the best thing about Oghren was his crudeness;

• (Snorts and laughs) "Ass Chaps!"  
• (At Lake Calenhad Docks) "Ooh, that's huge. (Giggles) I wonder how long it took to erect it. (Giggles) Get it, erect it!"
• "Aye. I've tried twenty-seven different types of ale and learned I'm just the right height to give a human girl a good time. That doesn't make me a good man."

Now I move onto my chosen three characters from Dragon Age 2:

Firstly lets talk about Aveline; The least attractive female warrior in the entire two games and an expansion. Before I began Dragon Age 2 and before I played the demo I said to myself that I wasnt going to use this women because in the concept art for her character she looked like a manly barbarian..
However, Out of all the playable characters in Dragon Age 2, Aveline was the only one in which I actually felt drawn to in the sense of the raw emotion she displayed to me which made me like her as a character a million times more than what I expected. To me the game seems to have made this so by making Hawke and Aveline both lose someone they love in the escape from Ferelden which gives the duo a common ground in which to form a long and lasting friendship on.

Now I know that EVERYONE who has played Dragon Age 2 is "in love" with either Merrill or Fenris who are both the only elves available as playable characters. On the Dragon Age Podcast which I have listened to since episode 13 they mention how believable and in awe they are towards the character of Merrill due to her huge eyes and facial expressions.. So near the end of the game I decided to see if this was true and decided to add her to my party and complete her personal side quests.. and you know what?...they were right! Merrill is a really special character and in my next playthrough I shall try to romance her however I didn't like how she was so against her blood magic and yet still used it like all the time.
Fenris on the other hand if you read my previous post, I instantly took a dislike to after he open that damned mouth of his. Fenris does seem to however be the new Alistair in the way of being the fan-girl's number one in this game with his suave voice and mysteriousness about him..

I have already stated how I really enjoyed the character of Sebastian and how although I think his character is rather brilliant I do not however think he is anywhere near the quality of Shale the Origins downloadable party member..

Overall, Even though I did enjoy the new characters of Dragon Age 2 and learned the back-story of each character alot easier, I fell in love with the characters of Origins whether they be the same characters as who ever is reading this and has understood everything I've said I do not know but I cant help but feel disappointed with Dragon Age 2 and would have maybe accepted the game more if it was entitled something like Dragon Age: Rise of Hawk or was promoted more along the lines as more of an expansion like Awakening rather than the sequel to what is still THE SINGLE MOST enjoyable RPG experience I have ever had..

On that note I wish anyone who would like to comment with their views or own opinions to do so and I shall leave you with this..