Dragon Age is a game all about choice. Choice of class, choice of party members, choice of attitude, it goes on. There are a vast number of different experiences that can be had with this game, simply due to the sheer amount of choice. However, using the achievement tracking system here on Giant Bomb, you can get a general idea of how the 360 community is playing. Check it out.
 

Origin Stories

 Here is the list of most popular Origins in descending order:

1. Human Noble- Over 50% of players chose this, a huge weighting
   
2. Mage- 35%
   
3. City Elf- 22%
4. Dalish Elf >20%
5. Dwarf Noble- 17%
   
6. Dwarf Commoner- 17%

Keep in mind that you can play all the origins stories, so the percentages obviously don't add up to 100. These don't appear to be very difficult, as completing one without having the main character every fall in battle is the most common achievement in the game. Still, a remarkable hatred of dwarves. Little guys are awesome.
 

Classes

All the level 20 achievements are still rare, but they provide a decent enough milestone to look at.

1. Level 20 Warrior- 10%
2. Level 20 Rogue- 7%
3. Level 20 Mage- 5%

I'm thinking those mages are so powerful, people don't even need to take them to 20 before hitting the final boss, but I could be wrong I suppose.
 

Story Choices

These are the most interesting to me- they give a window into how everyone is playing. Spoilers, obviously.
 





 

Romances

Morrigan is the most popular romance, Alister is the rarest. Probably just points to the prevalence of male characters, and Morrigan being the first available romance for a male character. Personally I didn't find this stuff too attractive- I actually made it a whole playthrough without romancing anybody- mostly because Morrigan hated every decision I made and Leilana just chilled at camp for the entire campaign. Looks like that sentiment was somewhat shared by you guys, as getting all romances is the second rarest achievie in the game, behind only discovering all endings. Honestly the romances probably take more work, as you can always just reload a save a few hours prior to the ending, whereas the romances take time and effort.
 

Final Thoughts

Of particular interest to me is that none of the DLC achievements are rare, which indicates a good sellthrough on that and the Collector's Edition. I wonder if that will hold up for Return to Ostagar. Grabbing all companions is also a very rare achievement, but I'd imagine that's due to the easy to miss nature of some companions- Leilana, Sten, and very much due to people
Only 8 people have the full 1100/1100 right now, so clearly people are taking their time, which I fully support. Dragon Age is a great game, and well worth savoring. I just love that there are some man different ways to play it, and find it fascinating that people have been gravitating heavily towards certain choices. I would have expected much more of a 50-50 splits on these. Think it's great that GB makes this stuff so easily accessible too.

Ran across this on a fairly prominent file-download site, found it extremely odd. It just linked to the dedicated servers petition, but you still have to consider that someone out there had to pay a decent sum of actual money to get this ad up where people would see it.
 
Anyways now that the game's out I'm sure everyone is busy playing it, but I thought it was interesting that the boycott people cared enough to do something like this.

Gay Tony is the best thing Rockstar has done with Grand Theft Auto IV, without question in my mind. Having beat it and done most of the side stuff, I feel like I can finally elucidate exactly why I enjoyed it so much.
 

1. 

    Luis doesn't care, man
   Luis Lopez is the most unapologetic protagonist yet. Where Niko stretched my limits when he would complain about killing right before he went on a murderous rampage, Luis simply doesn't care. Johnny suffered from the same sort of reluctant hero syndrome as Niko, although to a lesser degree. Luis, when being told he is sensitive, responds: "Not really bro, I like killing people for money". It's refreshing to have such honestly from a protagonist- Luis' views are more aligned with what the player wants to do.
2. No slogging through slow beginning parts before you get to the good stuff. I enjoyed GTA IV's slow burn at the beginning as much as anyone, but Gay Tony does itself a favor by excising that fat and cutting straight to the meat. Early on you'll steal a military-grade helicopter from an arms dealer's pleasure yacht, and things only get more intense from there.
3. It finds a unique niche within Liberty City. While obviously Gay Tony still deals with crime in the same way the other two Liberty City stories did, the focus on nightclubs and the downtown area really helps differentiate it. Partying in Tony's nightclubs is unlike anything else available in GTA IV.
4. 

    Yes, that's a gold helicopter
   The satire and the seriousness are more evenly balanced. GTA has always been an uneasy mixture between a satire of America (ignoring London) and a serious portrayal of the urban crime environment. GTA IV slid way down towards being much more serious, as the guys at Rockstar flexed their storytelling muscles. I wasn't a huge fan myself, but some others were. This episode gives a bit more of the satire and takes itself a little less seriously, and I think that makes it vastly more enjoyable. Simply by having to support gameplay, GTA will never be able to tell a serious, realistic criminal story like The Wire or The Godfather, simply because huge cop-killing rampages simply don't happen in real life. It's nice to see Rockstar not try and have a bit more fun.
5. The missions are simply more creative. A lot of GTA IV's missions simply boiled down to going to point A, shooting some guys, chasing a getaway car to point B, killing those dudes, then losing the cops. Gay Tony does this a few times, but they are the exception rather than the rule here. From train heists to torturing pesky bloggers, Gay Tony mixes things up in a good way. Plus, you know... Base Jumping.

I always enjoy my time with GTA IV, but Gay Tony was my favorite out of three stories. In addition to the things listed above, it was really cool to see all the places the stories crossed over in this final episode. Obviously all three of the stories come together at the diamond deal in the Libertonian, but they cross in other places, and that was really cool to see, especially as Gay Tony closes the only major hanging plot thread from Niko's story while also telling the neat compact tale of Gay Tony and Luis. Pretty much everything else is improved also- the weaponry is fantastic, the new vehicles are great, the side activities have been changed for the better, and you can now easily replay missions. Put simply: it was a great time, well worth my money and yours.

Friends, I am worried about Mass Effect 2. To understand why, we need to take a trip back in time, to the tender year of 2004. 
 
Actually wait we need to stop at 2003 first. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time releases to critical praise and mainstream success off of it's charming storybook atmosphere and tight platforming. A year later, we find ourselves with a sequel, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. It is... different. Tragically different. The rougish charm of the Prince had been discarded for nausea-inducing baditude, the combat became brutal and almost too gory, and the background music became heavy metal- all as if to say: this game is fucking HARDCORE. Only problem: this was a complete tonal 180 from the previous game. No one liked it, and even though it did well enough to generate a sequel, Warrior Within is credited by many as the game that killed the goodwill built up by Sands of Time.
 
I am worried much the same may be happening with Mass Effect 2.
 
The first game was pretty universally loved. Despite being criminally short and possessing the blandest sidequests in the history of sidequests, the roleplaying was pretty solid and it was clear that Bioware had laid the foundations for a great trilogy. It was a good blend of action shooting and interacting with NPCs. The shooting perhaps left a bit to be desired, but aside from that the game was pretty enjoyable. From the get-go we know this is the first in a trilogy, so obviously there's room for improvement.
 
Enter Mass Effect 2. What we've seen pre-release is quite worrying and seems to indicate the same sort of tonal shift that sunk Warrior Within. The first time live gameplay was shown it was an entirely combat-oriented demo. Bioware showcased the ability to blow off enemy limbs and new, more brutal guns. First warning sign. Blowing off enemy limbs isn't even necessary in a game like Mass Effect- it's gratuitous.
 
Next, plot info starts surfacing- talk of suicide missions, recruiting scum and villains from across the galaxy. At E3, the developers show off
Talk from Bioware of this being a darker game, darker times. Warning sign two. Not that darker tones are necessarily bad- Empire Strikes Back would like a word if you think they do- but the talk, compared with what's been shown so far, again points to a WW-like shift in direction.
 
Most recently, I direct your attention to this trailer.
 
 
 Warning bells should be going off all over the place. I don't think this really needs any explanation.
 
Now, Bioware's marketing department isn't exactly renowned for their accuracy. As I'm sure we all know, Dragon Age is not exactly the new shit. However, it is worrying to see both the developers (in dev diaries and press interviews) and the marketing department (in trailers) sync up to deliver this message of a darker, more bad-ass game. It's terrifying corporate cohesion that I don't think would be happening if there wasn't some underlying truth.
 
I really want to like Mass Effect 2. I want it to deliver so hard. I'm quite worried about what we've seen so far though, as it seems to be heading down the tragic road of Warrior Within. I don't want to play an RPG with a tone like WW, nor do I want that sort of bad-ass attitude to pervade the product, but my hopes are significantly lower now than they were when we knew nothing about the game.
 
Also: Grunt <<<<<<<<< Wrex

Back for the third installment in our continuing series I bring you today's Daily Camera headline. Keep in mind today's date.
 

In addition to the great cover story about BRACELETS, I love the secondary headline "College Republicans mark 9/11". Because you know, those dirty democrats aren't going to acknowledge it.
 
I do actually recommend the full story, as it's pretty funny.