Laura Occasionally Blogs

In case the Dragon Age 3 writers are stumped, I think I dreamed a pretty good opening! You start trapped in an DARKSPAWN-INFESTED TOWER with no armor. Your only possession is some sort of COOL INHERITED MAGIC WEAPON (presumably class-specific). Your jailer is an OPPRESSED ELF who will look the other way while you run in exchange for your DA1-STYLE SURFER NECKLACE. In an awesome action/stealth sequence, you defeat and loot various guards, becoming more and more powerful as you descend levels of the tower. Along the way, you meet a COOL MERCENARY TANK, a fellow badass escapee with whom you can ally although he insists that he always works alone. You can flirt with him. Just before you make good your escape, you are captured by the scary EVIL QUEEN, a human wizard with some sort of unholy alliance with the darkspawn. She is more condescending than angry and you get the feeling she was toying with you by letting you get so far. You can hate-flirt with her. You regain consciousness back in your cell with none of your cool stuff. You have the same jailer from before--a short, shaggy-haired elf rogue with a new surfer necklace, a world-weary Irish accent, and the ironic name of "Chipper." You can definitely flirt with him.

That's as far as I got and it's probably only about five minutes into the game (more if you exhaust all the romance dialogue options), but they were five pretty fun minutes! Maybe tomorrow night I'll get the first boss fight.