That's the good thing of generally being several years behind on games as I am - no need to wait. ME3 and DA2 are probably the games I've played the shortest period after their release date for a very long time, with the exception of Age of Wonders 3 (which was rather disappointing, haven't played it much). Not long before ME, I was playing the really rather ancient KotOR, which is also brilliant, both installments, and features one of the best ambivalent, nuanced villains of any video game.

The sad thing about my laptop, though, is that there is no way in hell it'll run DA3. And buying an entirely new computer just for one game is a bit much... so for DA3 I guess it'll be back to the long waits.

Morrigan is definitely one of the most memorable characters in any video game. The others aren't as memorable, but in DA2 I did feel that the whole "three acts" thing added a lot of depth to your party members, whom you saw shaping their lives over time in different ways. Same with the very limited amount of locations - okay, the endless reuse of the same layouts got old fast, but the basic idea of remaining in the same city and the same places, which also changed over time, was pretty cool.

Also, DA is long as hell. I did start a replay once with the goal of trying a Morrigan romance (easier than you might think at first glance, at least if you bought the complete version on Steam like me, with all the approval-boosting gifts added to the game). But I doubt I'll ever finish it - just one of the four main quests of the middle act of the game is, or at least feels like, almost as long as DA2 or ME2 in their entirety.

Yeah, though like I said, even in the relatively short DA2 I did sort of feel like there was a connection that was similar to what you get in the ME trilogy. ME2 was a bit too formulaic in its "unlocking loyalty" missions, though - it could have been more original and with more variation between the characters depending on personal connection, personality, history etc., rather than having to earn the loyalty of old friends in exactly the same way as that of random strangers who don't much like you.

Mind you, I really liked to randomly drive up and down mountains and survive the most impossible sheer drops, as well as softening up enemies with tank fire before jumping out for the kill and the experience... but yeah, there was too much of it, so not a bad thing that they replaced it by the planet scanning thing in the 2 and 3.

Me too.



Hm, not sure... most of the time I do still have the female love interests where possible (DA2 exaggerates by making basically all characters bisexual, that's a bit of overkill and lazy writing), so in that regard I do follow real life. I have an even stronger compulsion against playing evil characters in any game where you have to make a choice along those lines - I just don't do it, ever. Generally on a second play-through I do try to vary some on the moral choices, but never to the extent of really playing "evil". But there at least you can make a real argument that playing the good side is nearly always more interesting in the sense that you talk to people more and see more depth in motivations etc. than if you just rampage around as an evil character. With the female protagonist thing, I'm not sure there's any reason that really makes sense.