I was super excited for this game when it was released November last year, but decided to be sensible and hold off from getting it until my postgrad studies were over and I'd actually have time to play it properly. It took all my willpower but now, nearly a year later, I'm done with uni and have picked up my copy of Dragon Age: Origins. 
I should mention that I got the 360 version. The PC version seemed the way to go but my 2nd gen MacBook can barely run Civ 4.
 
After sailing through the origins story (elf warrior) and fumbling my way through Redcliffe getting Allistair all pissy with me in the process, i was loving Dragon Age and figured I had a reasonable handle on the difficulty. Now 20 hours in, I'm almost ready to take it back. It has to be one of the most frustrating experiences I've had with any game I've played. I remember Diablo and Baldur's Gate being difficult but this is just maddening. Each new encounter is becoming a tedious trial of draw weapons - clusterfuck - die - repeat until I find an exploit or win out of sheer luck. Right up to the wall I've hit now (first fight in Werewolf Lair). I try in vain to work with the AI strategies to have my team remember to heal themselves before dieing but they will invariably snuff it if left to their own computer assisted devices. 
 
I can hear the shouts of "You're playing it wrong!" as i type this but, seriously, fuck that. I'm willing to admit that I suck at it, but sucking at a game has never made me want to stop playing. Super Street Fighter 4 is a perfect example - I'll regularly have my ass handed to me but the times that I do win are that much sweeter for it. In Dragon Age, when I eventually pull a victory out of thin air I just feel drained and angry. I don't feel like I won; I feel like I got away with it.
 
There's obviously an excellent game here that I'm missing and there is something about it that keeps me coming back. Everything was shaping up to be a fantastic and lengthy experience right up to this point. The story is engaging enough to overlook the at times woeful voice work, and the combat (when it works) is genuinely satisfying. What's infuriating me the most is I can't see a way past it to more of the game.
 
Has anyone else had a similar experience at the start of their game? I've decided to start again with a new character build now that I have a better feel for the skill trees. Any tips or suggestions on race/class? It's been a year waiting to play this game, and I'm not ready to give up on it just yet.

To bring you up to speed if you weren't aware, Jerry Lawton, 'journalist' for UK tabloid the Daily Star, has been making himself look like the ignorant fool he so obviously is by picking up on a throwaway photoshop joke that was admittedly not in the best taste, taking it as fact and publishing a story damning the gaming industry and community alike. Then, as if this wasn't infuriating enough, after the inevitable flurry of indignation from the online community, the Daily Star removes the article and Lawton proceeds to turn his nose up at these gamers, branding them as introverted, immature hermits.  
More info here and here.
 
It's a sad fact of our favourite pastime that we have to put up with this crap from mainstream media. It's fine, I can deal with that. If anything it's the medium's rites of passage before gaming is just as accepted as film, radio or television. What really irritates me about this story in particular is that it highlights the popular press' inability to treat issues such as a man snapping and going postal with a modicum of responsibility or professionalism. 
 
Any other unhinged individual staring at their television screen seeing the killer's infamy steadily rise in tandem with sirens blaring and increasing body counts presented in flashy graphics by stern faced presenters is much more likely to see the answer to their own problems. On top of that, the maelstrom of reporters digging up every kernel of information they can find on the killer, their family, some kid he used to play with at school who says "he was always different, that one" etcetera makes the work for the police exponentially more difficult and, by extension, endangers the public. 
 
This is what the mocked up cover art was poking fun at. That these very real, very horrible events get lost in the media circus that surrounds them. It's no longer about a mentally unstable individual who clearly needs to be caught; it may as well be a crime thriller novel, a film or a game. It's a soap opera and everyone's buying.
 
But that it can obviously be nothing more than a joke is apparently lost on Jerry Lawton, and the cycle continues.