Dragon Age 2 (spoiler warning)
She came, she saw, she played, and Alexis Hawke, the little woman with the big sword, became Champion of Kirkwall.
And now a moment of recognition for the fact that warriors were fun to play in DA2. I deliberately played one since in Origins I'd done a mage and a rogue, and since I beat it on Normal I often ran around without a healer just to keep the party composition interesting (one rogue or the other was non-negotiable, I'm a chest collector). I'm still going to do a stupidly overpowered mage in 2 because I think there's some replayability in choices and Hawke's personality, but the two-handed warrior, while not super DUPER effective, was stupidly fun and satisfying to play. *blood sprays everywhere* If I redo Alexis' runthrough for completionist-import-to-DA3 purposes (despite my better efforts I missed a couple of things, it looks like, and I'm sure that list will grow as more people discover more stuff) I may make her sword and board just for a change of pace.
It actually took me three sittings to get past the Blight-escaping portion of the program in order to get Alexis’ appearance *just right* -- I’d spend nearly an hour at it, play a bit, and after a couple of cutscenes notice some horrible flaw that I didn’t want to look at for the next 40+ hours (bulbous chin, eyebrows that didn’t match the hair), so I went back... appearance editor not so easy for obsessive perfectionists. At the time I didn’t know I had the Mirror of Transformation. In the end, though, her character art was way more badass than the base female Hawke, who looks prissy to me.
I have to say that my favorite companions in Dragon Age 2 were the ones you can’t romance -- Varric and Aveline (who at first came off as a bit of an uptight square but I grew to really like and respect her over time, perhaps because she reminded me in a good way of Karrin Murphy; as opposed to Isabela, who seemed to be a flighty bitch from the start and indeed remained one throughout the entire game... I admit that Alexis dueled for her, though, just for the bragging rights of defeating the Arishok womano-a-qunari). The rest of the party was pretty uniformly annoying: Anders (obnoxiously emo), Fenris (more so; broody Elf!Cloud cut no ice with me), Merrill (sweet, but dumb as a post), Isabela (see above), Bethany (who did a good job of being an annoying little sister, so that character actually gets a break from me for realism -- and no, you can’t romance her, you sick minded bastard), Sebastian (saint wannabe jerk with a hero complex), and if I’ve forgotten someone, they must have been forgettable. Alexis wound up with Merrill, who she felt protective of, mostly to have someone nice to go home to at night, in the midst of the screwed up world she lived in every day. But it wasn’t something I got into terribly -- the passion wasn’t there. If I hadn’t wanted to see a romance OOCly she probably would have remained celibate, since stroking Varric’s chest hair or bending Aveline over her shield remained woefully out of reach. Alas. Cassandra seems to have become a Hawke fan by the end of 2, and her desire to save the world seems pretty genuine. Even she would have been a better date than any of the available ones.
Alexis might have gotten with Anders if he wasn’t so damn whiny -- I’d loved the character in Awakening, pretty much for the same reason I loved Alistair and for that matter my fiancee -- goofy is adorable. But no, in DA2 he’s too busy being sorry for himself... he's even a downer in the hilarious background conversations between party members, which is an unforgivable sin since those exchanges are the best dialogue in the game. Hawkman Mage, Richard, will be more of a “no compromise” harsh mage guy and get with him out of common ground, but Alexis was more of a wiseass, occasionally nice to people who deserved it (mostly victims) and a hardass to same (templars, blood mages, and especially Meredith, though all three of those categories take themselves so seriously that being a wiseass was often too much fun to pass up). She wound up executing Anders but defending the mages, her morality throughout the game turning out to be an “ends don’t justify the means” sort of character. Actually, when it first happened I let him live, but about five minutes later I just couldn’t bear to betray my character’s integrity that way, I knew that that decision was an OOC one (that I like my companions and don’t want to see them die), but that kind of idiotic murderous terrorism would hold no water with Alexis. So I went back and killed him, felt bad about it (as did Alexis -- it’s not like it was an /easy/ decision, although frankly giving him what he ”wanted” by making him a martyr almost made me spare him a second time out of spite), and then beat the game.
“Cleaning Up After Your Companions’ Stupid Decisions” is actually the main theme of the game -- there’s very little proactivity on the part of Hawke, you’re mostly reacting to the messes they make. It’s probably a compliment to the game that Alexis often didn’t feel entirely sure about where she stood in the complex, no-right-answers world she chose to defend. Often both sides looked pretty reasonable, or pretty awful. But she was a wonderful badass nonetheless, just like the game designed all iterations of Hawke to be, and I already miss being under her skin.
And I still love the qunari to bits, Sten having been my favorite character from the first game (well, and Shale, and Alistair, and Oghren... man, they did a better job of making a likeable party in DA:O, I’m basically very fond of all of them). I wish there had been a “convert to the Qun” option. Maybe in 3...
Speaking of 3, at the very end when Leliana implies that the disappearance of the Champion and the Hero of Ferelden are connected, all I could think was OMG TEAM-UP MADNESS! I very deliberately made Alexis Hawke a very different person than Elethea Cousland, but getting to play both of them? In the same party? I’m not sure how the dialog options would work, but the world of Thedas would explode from the sheer concentrated awesome of the two of them being together, like matter and antimatter igniting due to proximity.
I doubt it’ll happen, but a girl can dream.
Next stop: Portal 2, next month! I need someone to do the hysterical-looking co-op with (Chell's great, but Legs and Fats have caught my imagination); I hope there's some sort of way to do that online since none of my housemates are the type.
And now a moment of recognition for the fact that warriors were fun to play in DA2. I deliberately played one since in Origins I'd done a mage and a rogue, and since I beat it on Normal I often ran around without a healer just to keep the party composition interesting (one rogue or the other was non-negotiable, I'm a chest collector). I'm still going to do a stupidly overpowered mage in 2 because I think there's some replayability in choices and Hawke's personality, but the two-handed warrior, while not super DUPER effective, was stupidly fun and satisfying to play. *blood sprays everywhere* If I redo Alexis' runthrough for completionist-import-to-DA3 purposes (despite my better efforts I missed a couple of things, it looks like, and I'm sure that list will grow as more people discover more stuff) I may make her sword and board just for a change of pace.
It actually took me three sittings to get past the Blight-escaping portion of the program in order to get Alexis’ appearance *just right* -- I’d spend nearly an hour at it, play a bit, and after a couple of cutscenes notice some horrible flaw that I didn’t want to look at for the next 40+ hours (bulbous chin, eyebrows that didn’t match the hair), so I went back... appearance editor not so easy for obsessive perfectionists. At the time I didn’t know I had the Mirror of Transformation. In the end, though, her character art was way more badass than the base female Hawke, who looks prissy to me.
I have to say that my favorite companions in Dragon Age 2 were the ones you can’t romance -- Varric and Aveline (who at first came off as a bit of an uptight square but I grew to really like and respect her over time, perhaps because she reminded me in a good way of Karrin Murphy; as opposed to Isabela, who seemed to be a flighty bitch from the start and indeed remained one throughout the entire game... I admit that Alexis dueled for her, though, just for the bragging rights of defeating the Arishok womano-a-qunari). The rest of the party was pretty uniformly annoying: Anders (obnoxiously emo), Fenris (more so; broody Elf!Cloud cut no ice with me), Merrill (sweet, but dumb as a post), Isabela (see above), Bethany (who did a good job of being an annoying little sister, so that character actually gets a break from me for realism -- and no, you can’t romance her, you sick minded bastard), Sebastian (saint wannabe jerk with a hero complex), and if I’ve forgotten someone, they must have been forgettable. Alexis wound up with Merrill, who she felt protective of, mostly to have someone nice to go home to at night, in the midst of the screwed up world she lived in every day. But it wasn’t something I got into terribly -- the passion wasn’t there. If I hadn’t wanted to see a romance OOCly she probably would have remained celibate, since stroking Varric’s chest hair or bending Aveline over her shield remained woefully out of reach. Alas. Cassandra seems to have become a Hawke fan by the end of 2, and her desire to save the world seems pretty genuine. Even she would have been a better date than any of the available ones.
Alexis might have gotten with Anders if he wasn’t so damn whiny -- I’d loved the character in Awakening, pretty much for the same reason I loved Alistair and for that matter my fiancee -- goofy is adorable. But no, in DA2 he’s too busy being sorry for himself... he's even a downer in the hilarious background conversations between party members, which is an unforgivable sin since those exchanges are the best dialogue in the game. Hawkman Mage, Richard, will be more of a “no compromise” harsh mage guy and get with him out of common ground, but Alexis was more of a wiseass, occasionally nice to people who deserved it (mostly victims) and a hardass to same (templars, blood mages, and especially Meredith, though all three of those categories take themselves so seriously that being a wiseass was often too much fun to pass up). She wound up executing Anders but defending the mages, her morality throughout the game turning out to be an “ends don’t justify the means” sort of character. Actually, when it first happened I let him live, but about five minutes later I just couldn’t bear to betray my character’s integrity that way, I knew that that decision was an OOC one (that I like my companions and don’t want to see them die), but that kind of idiotic murderous terrorism would hold no water with Alexis. So I went back and killed him, felt bad about it (as did Alexis -- it’s not like it was an /easy/ decision, although frankly giving him what he ”wanted” by making him a martyr almost made me spare him a second time out of spite), and then beat the game.
“Cleaning Up After Your Companions’ Stupid Decisions” is actually the main theme of the game -- there’s very little proactivity on the part of Hawke, you’re mostly reacting to the messes they make. It’s probably a compliment to the game that Alexis often didn’t feel entirely sure about where she stood in the complex, no-right-answers world she chose to defend. Often both sides looked pretty reasonable, or pretty awful. But she was a wonderful badass nonetheless, just like the game designed all iterations of Hawke to be, and I already miss being under her skin.
And I still love the qunari to bits, Sten having been my favorite character from the first game (well, and Shale, and Alistair, and Oghren... man, they did a better job of making a likeable party in DA:O, I’m basically very fond of all of them). I wish there had been a “convert to the Qun” option. Maybe in 3...
Speaking of 3, at the very end when Leliana implies that the disappearance of the Champion and the Hero of Ferelden are connected, all I could think was OMG TEAM-UP MADNESS! I very deliberately made Alexis Hawke a very different person than Elethea Cousland, but getting to play both of them? In the same party? I’m not sure how the dialog options would work, but the world of Thedas would explode from the sheer concentrated awesome of the two of them being together, like matter and antimatter igniting due to proximity.
I doubt it’ll happen, but a girl can dream.
Next stop: Portal 2, next month! I need someone to do the hysterical-looking co-op with (Chell's great, but Legs and Fats have caught my imagination); I hope there's some sort of way to do that online since none of my housemates are the type.