RPG Tourist

Inquisition did provoke me to contemplate my failings as a player. Origins provided a rich tactical system that I appreciated but I exploited it rather than apply battle tactics. I wasn’t tempted to replay the game just to experiment with the system. In fact, I rarely replay games. Once I have explored the map and finished the main story, I am usually done with the game. I don’t even care if I got all the collectibles and achievements. Even so I like games that have replay value. If I think I got my money’s worth on one play through that’s fine I guess. To be fair, the tactical system had to be adapted for consoles but I still think Inquisition forced me to engage with the system. Origins allowed me to be lazy. RPG’s in general seem less constrained than other genres and that’s what draws me to them. I don’t think I understand what role playing means in any traditional sense. I tend to play an aspirational version of me. It took me a long time to get bored with that but Inquis...

The following story contains spoilers.  I am Kaaras Adaar, a Vasoth Qunari which means I know beans about the Qun. I have gone from a mercenary to a potential messiah thanks to a magic ability gifted during a disaster I miraculously survived. Whatever suspicions of me linger have been overshadowed by my ability to close “Rifts”. I don’t have much choice but to join the Inquisition but I think I’ll make the most of it. I have recruited several companions. I ignore anyone I can't flirt with and flatter the daylights out of the rest. Except Cullen. There’s no way I am getting rejected by that guy. Cassandra seems to like my hard ass approach to problems. I don't have to intimidate all that much. Everyone seems scared of Qunari already. I have been staying coy about the whole Herald of Andraste thing. It wasn’t long before I had to make a big decision. Allying with the mages took everyone including me by surprise. Hardly anyone approved but criticism has been muted. I have this...

I’ll be going on a bit about the Dragon Age series now. I had a phase where I wouldn’t buy games on Steam unless there was a Linux version. My obsolete Radeon video card made this even more limiting. I was happy until the AMD proprietary driver broke Ubuntu forcing me to give up Opengl 4.x for the open driver. I started buying Windows games again and picked up Origins on sale. What a terrific blend of adventure, role playing and strategy. For whatever reason, I wasn’t expecting much from it. It’s an older game after all. The characters are so engaging. I accidentally fell into a romance with the delightful Alistair simply by being nice to him and couldn’t bring myself to break it off. Typically he ditched me in the end. How was I supposed to know I had to “harden” him as wrong as that sounds. The second Dragon Age is not available on Steam but I was able to play a demo. I debated buying the PS3 version but I got the PS4 version of Inquisition with DLC on sale instead. ...