Dragon Age 3

[Learn2Eel]

Watching that full video through again, I have to say that as nice as it is - it is a huge visual and technical upgrade over Dragon Age 2 - it is still nowhere near as impressive as the Witcher 3 is in those respects. I wonder how far along that build of the game was though as there was some stuff like rain passing through stuff I noticed. Don't think I'm having a go at Inquisition though, the gameplay footage is incredibly impressive and seems to even have dynamic destruction effects. I just think the Witcher 3 has more "wow factor".

I can't believe we are getting both of them this year though. These two alone will make the early year dearth of games worthwhile.

[eldargal]

Meh, always felt the Witcher series is overrated. Really problematic depictions of women and no female character option makes for a ****ty RPG as far as I'm concerned. Never really got into the story of the first one either.

[Aegwymourn]

Meh, always felt the Witcher series is overrated. Really problematic depictions of women and no female character option makes for a ****ty RPG as far as I'm concerned. Never really got into the story of the first one either.

I will admit, the sex cards was totally perplexing. But other than that I think the female characters did well for themselves (and the obvious tie-ins that apparently everything wants some alone time with Geralt). Triss comes across as a pretty badass caster, that obviously thinks very hard about her choices. She isn't above using Geralt to futher her plans even though he is someone she obviously cares about because she thinks it might be the "right" choice.

I have yet to get far into the second to see if it gets better/worse (they did remove the sex cards though!). The gameplay radically changes from 1 -> 2 so I stopped shortly after importing my witcher 1 game. That and the fact that my super ridiculous awesome gear (bother to take the time getting all the best items in one) was barely better than the starting gear. Sigh.

Thank goodness I stuck through that video though for DA3. For the first 10 minutes or so I was really concerned it was going to be an action game like Kingdom of Amalar. Then they zoomed out and I breathed a sigh of relief. I really like my RPGs old school turn basedish (honestly I still think the BG series is one of the best around just played through it again!).

[Kirsten]

Meh, always felt the Witcher series is overrated. Really problematic depictions of women and no female character option makes for a ****ty RPG as far as I'm concerned. Never really got into the story of the first one either.

I love both Witcher games, and whilst a female character would be cool, I love Geralt. I am not overly bothered about the female characters you meet either, the card thing is odd but I really think they didn't mean it to come out the way it did. I felt it was a nice piece of art that you saw instead of the sex, and wasn't actually meant to be a collectible card thing at all.

[Learn2Eel]

Meh, always felt the Witcher series is overrated. Really problematic depictions of women and no female character option makes for a ****ty RPG as far as I'm concerned. Never really got into the story of the first one either.

The Witcher series has probably the deepest combat system of any of the big-name RPG series at the moment. It is unabashedly adult - something Dragon Age tries but fails to lay claim to - there is absolutely no "good or evil" with an entirely grey world, and some of the choices you make are incredibly disturbing and difficult. Choosing whether to let a friend kill a King at one point (I won't say who) in the Witcher 2 is barely matched by moments like choosing between Ashley and Kaidan in Mass Effect 1, and there are far more of those moments in the Witcher games than in the Dragon Age or Mass Effect games. From a technical stand-point, the Witcher 2 also outclasses other top RPG games aside from maybe Skyrim, at least for when it was released.

As far as the depiction of women, actually, the Witcher 2 does it far better than Bioware does, particularly in the Witcher 2. Triss Merigold, Sile de Tannsarvile, Phillipa Eilhart and Ves alone are some of the most well developed and interesting characters in any RPG. Yes, there are brothels everywhere and there are lots of "scenes", but don't let that fool you. You have to remember, this is a fantasy universe written to depict a history similar to that of the ancient and medieval world where such stuff was commonplace. I don't particularly like that stuff either, but if you ignore it, you get to see that the characters with the biggest effect throughout the game are those ones I mentioned - minus Ves. Letho is the big bad and directly responsible for the main story arc, but the female characters are the ones that do so much.

Triss is strong, independent, kind and you genuinely get the sense she loves Geralt. That she hides so much from Geralt to spare him pain is testament to this.

Sile is also a strong character, one that you can barely even get close to as a damned Witcher. She is legitimately imposing, extremely manipulative and intelligent, and she plays both sides of conflicts secretly with a deft touch.

Phillipa is proud and refuses to be subservient, even in the face of brutal torture. And I don't mean the typical "I didn't want to tell them about you, so they tortured me", I mean she refused to do something as simple as looking a monarch in the eyes. It is moments like these that are so profound; she knows she will get her eyes plucked out (it is sickening to watch by the by) if she doesn't just look at the king, but she still refuses to anyway. It is a reflection of her pride and stubbornness and tells us more about her than anything else. Despite being a woman in a society that mistreats them and laughs at any notion of them having power, she nonetheless flows into the role of leadership when the leader of a certain rebellion is poisoned.

Hell, even the short glimpses we get of Sabrina Glevissig are enough to form a proper character analysis of her. She willingly sacrifices herself to the judgement of mortals by reigning fire from the skies. She alone displays the most incredible feats of destruction in the game, and it wasn't because she was some cackling sorceress either, but out of need. She knew she would be condemned, but that didn't stop her. Her rage at the pain and torture she suffered by the women-hating Henselt gives more than enough reason for the curse, not just because she was dying and thought "he's killing me for what I did, argh, curses!"

Throw in Saskia who, in a world where women are very much seen as the stereotypical "stay at home" people and much worse mostly, is the female leader of a rebellion against an army she knows she cannot best without aid. People flock to her - humans and non-humans alike - because she is a proud leader, even if she isn't really one for speeches. She is an icon of justice suing for peace, she isn't the charismatic speech-giver that most rebellious leaders are. Even though she is something far greater than a mere rebel-leader (I don't want to spoil it just in case) she still lends herself to what most others consider a lost cause because she cannot abide by the injustice.

I've played every Mass Effect and Dragon Age game and, between the constant butt-shots of Miranda, the over-sexualisation of nearly every character in the games (see Ashley in Mass Effect 3) and the one-note romances where it is equivalent to "you did something for me, you pressed option A three times, I love you!" the Witcher instead throws in characters that require an actual grasp of their character for them to really like you.

I'm still a Bioware die-hard to this day and the Mass Effect series will always be my favourite RPG series. But seriously, even despite all that sexy stuff, the Witcher 2 easily had the better female characters IMO.

Oh, and as far as choosing a male or female character is concerned, Geralt is one of the few men in the game that actively detests anyone who impoverishes or otherwise slanders women. Between punching people who disrespect women, allowing men's deaths because of the horrible crimes they've committed against women (that king I spoke of) and actually talking to them normally instead of trying to charm them, I don't really see it as an issue. Even if you side with a non-human killer, Geralt himself still doesn't abide by criminal acts or discrimination against non-humans. He's got a firm moral code and he doesn't back down, even to a king or a sorceress. He's easily one of the best developed main characters in any RPG, something that comes from the Witcher series being based on actual literature. Not being able to choose to, for example, play an elf or a dwarf of your choosing isn't even something I lament, unlike Mass Effect where I was always thinking "huh, I really want to be a Turian or a Krogan" for example. The Witcher universe is a horrible place, and Geralt is one that stands tall in it. He isn't the archetypal "light at the end of the road" for this world, but he nonetheless makes a difference. I'm invested in Geralt's story, especially now that he is the target for the Wild Hunt. I want to see how the story ends. Very few games have me legitimately saying that about their main characters alone.

[Learn2Eel]

Back on topic though, I refreshed my memory of confirmed Inquisition details and was pleasantly surprised - I've been waiting for new details for this game for ages and thus have forgotten a lot of stuff.
I'm really eager to see that, again, you can choose your race, but you can also be a Qunari! That is going to be so interesting, but also methinks controversial if they don't do it just right. Qunari are basically aliens without a spaceship. They have to have unique dialogue for a Qunari main character in the vast majority of conversations once you look at Qunari in the other two games. Really intrigued to see if the different racial choices are expanded upon even further than they were in Origins.

Sad to see it isn't truly open world though, but each level being unique *cough* Kirkwall *cough* will be ace. Nine playable characters is about the average for a Dragon Age games, so that's good. The levels are massive and mounts (probably just horses) will make that manageable, another great addition. I like the idea of it being like a strategy game where you have to try and "conquer" many locations on the map.

More intrigued now than I was last night....

On the side, I noticed this in a recent article about Inquisition;

Dragon Age 3 looks set to take romance to a whole new level in the game and the actors should be prepared for it.

I'm curious to see what that means. If it is a deep system where instead of just picking the "be nice" option, you have to actually get a grasp of the character to determine the right dialogue options, that would be much better. If it just means they have full "scenes" like the Witcher 2 then I will shake my head and laugh in disappointment. I don't play games for that sh*t. Moments like Tali and Shepard singing, not moments like....you get the picture.

[eldargal]

Throw in Saskia who, in a world where women are very much seen as the stereotypical "stay at home" people and much worse mostly,

See, that's one thing I really don't care for though. Another setting where the situation of women is just copying from what happened in the real world is just tedious and so, so overdone. Dragon Age at least moves away from that with a female dominated Chantry, common female rules and so forth. I know I'm cherry picking a small thing out of your post but it's something that bugs me a lot with medieval fantasy settings. Blandly copying the misogyny of the past and then throwing in a few exceptions to the rule really just isn't satisfactory anymore as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not saying Witcher is a bad series or anything, I'm just so over being forced to play a male when 90% of games do that and as I said above I have some issues with the world as well. Plus I never really got into it.

[Learn2Eel]

See, that's one thing I really don't care for though. Another setting where the situation of women is just copying from what happened in the real world is just tedious and so, so overdone. Dragon Age at least moves away from that with a female dominated Chantry, common female rules and so forth. I know I'm cherry picking a small thing out of your post but it's something that bugs me a lot with medieval fantasy settings. Blandly copying the misogyny of the past and then throwing in a few exceptions to the rule really just isn't satisfactory anymore as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not saying Witcher is a bad series or anything, I'm just so over being forced to play a male when 90% of games do that and as I said above I have some issues with the world as well. Plus I never really got into it.

Fair enough, but I will say that the Witcher 2 at the very least did still have IMO the more fleshed out and moving female characters than any Bioware game I can recall playing. That they are the way they are - particularly in Sile's case, for example - in a world that is so harsh on women speaks volumes about their strength of character.

[angrybear]

I am really excited for dragonage 3. I loved the first one and the second one was alright. The second was a bit to blank, and forced to be a human didn't help either. I hope they return to the more dark story of the first one. Gameplay wise dragonage 3 really seems to have a good mix between 1 and 2. Can't wait to play a dwarf commander.

[eldargal]

I'm looking forward to female Qunari personally, though I'm hoping she doesn't have to be a follower of the Qun given she is working for the Chantry.><