Ya know, it's great that Dragon Age Origins has 6 unique player characters you can start with. That means potentially six playthroughs, adding up to a shitload of hours. That's all well and good but uh... I find myself feeling quite bad about this. See, I don't think I'm ever gonna choose to play a dwarf character. Like, maybe just to see his origin at the beginning, but never a full playthrough.

Now, you're probably asking, why would I do a silly thing like that? Why such a dislike for playing the humble dwarf? Well, it pretty much boils down to one issue:

The thought of actually watching my dwarf character kissing and making love to Morrigan/Leliana is frankly horrifying. Absolutely appalling.

Ya know, there's this one thing that's always bothered me about Mass Effect and now DA...

People treated Specters in ME as supermen of a sort. But really, you're visually just another soldier in battlearmor and carrying a gun. Not that remarkable, right? Same issue here in DA. I come up on some wounded soldier and he somehow knows that I'm a Grey Warden. But uh, how would he know that? I look just like any conscripted bum with a suit of armor and a shield and sword. How does my appearance look like a Grey Warden? Not to mention, I wasn't technically a Grey Warden yet. Shouldn't a Grey Warden look like some uber knight with shiny bling or something? I just, I dunno what to think here. There's absolutely nothing to distinguish a Grey Warden from any regular soldier. Why would any NPC talk about Wardens in hushed tones of reverence, when there's no visual indicator that a Warden is among them? I don't get it.

KOTOR was a different matter cause it's obviously easy to tell a Jedi with a lightsaber from any regular soldier wielding some vibroblade.

 Now, here's a ginger thought. And as a disclaimer, I haven't played Dragon Age: Origins yet. But uh... just throwing this out there... here's my question to cast to the wind. Why aren't the game's AI tactics set up properly by default? Why does the player have to take time to fidget around and set them up? Couldn't a lot of complaining and griping have been wholly avoided if BioWare had delivered their RPG with the AI set up already? Then the OP would be able to play the game in a satisfactory manner from the outset, and this thread never would've been created. Everybody's happy. Why didn't BioWare take this route I've just laid out? Why did they inflict needless torment on innocents? Couldn't they have foreseen that not having any sort of AI set up by default would prove problematic?
 
This I pose.

Did anyone notice this? Or am I the only one?
 


Apparently cranes are just an optical illusion.

From the moment the intro movie with the Clan Wolf Timber Wolf kicks in, you know you're in for an incredible ride. The loud thumping of the mechanical titans' feet, the blasts of azure PPC fire... it just comes together in a wonderful symphony of destruction. The two different factions, Clan Wolf and Clan Jade Falcon really give weight to the narrative of the Refusal War and let you know that you're getting your money's worth. What sorta game, outside of RTSs, actually has two campaigns these days, one for each faction? All in beautiful 1024x768 resolution for those of us with rigs powerful enough to use it. It's pretty amazing that this was possible for a DOS game when most other games at the time were still using 320xsomethingIcan'tevenrememberanymore! 
 
I gotta be honest here. BattleTech is my favorite fictional universe, bar none. While I am also a huge Star Trek fan, my first love has always been BattleTech. I can still remember walking into a game store in my wee youth and stumbling into the back, where I laid eyes on a 3025 Technical Readout, the one with the Marauder on the front. Sure didn't know it at the time, but I would end up collecting a large part of that universe's books over the years. I actually paid 144 dollars for a vinyl model of a Timber Wolf and have it sitting on my shelf. This universe obviously means a great deal to me. And the closest gaming portrayal of the BattleTech universe is the classic MW2. The Clans are my favorite faction in BattleTech, so to be able to immerse myself in Clan Jade Falcon or Clan Wolf was incredibly enjoyable. Plus, the completely open weapon loadout customization and just well-thought out gameplay mechanics make the actual game a joy to pilot. The fluff of the universe is simply icing on the cake for a simulation which portrays 20-100 ton walking machines of warfare.
 
And for those of you wondering, the lack of dedicated servers for multiplayer was completely fine with me. Sure, it's expected of most PC games these days, but you gotta remember, MW2 was made way back in the scary DOS days, later ported over to Windows. There was Kali, and NetMech, and that was fine for us old timers. In fact, you might not be aware, but the entire term of "Clans" for online gaming groups came about because of MW2, it was that influential in helping to establish online gaming into what it is today. The More You Know!
 
Sure there are a few problems. The PPCs are slow moving blue balls instead of beams of lightning. And the darn right arm always seemed to be the first location to be destroyed. But despite those shortcomings, MW2 is fondly remembered by myself, and many other old timers, as the best Mech Sim ever, and undoubtedly one of the greatest games ever created.