So I got Dragon Age: Origins this week, and while I'm not saying it's not entertaining, I also don't feel all that pumped about it. I bought the X360 version, which might have been a bad idea to begin with - the graphics leave to be desired, and so do the controls, but, you know, achievements. Thing is, I kinda hoped that it would be a dark fantasy Mass Effect, and it's actually advertised along these lines on the back of the box. Guess what, it's not. Some parts definitely look similar, but the game just doesn't captivate me as much as Mass Effect did. 
 
And I'm not even sure why. The story is interesting enough, and the dialogue boosts the trademark Bioware charme, with outstanding voice work even in the German version, but it just doesn't manage to hook me. While the first part - my human mage's origin story and the Grey Warden initiation - was quite a bit of fun, it was quickly diminished by - minor spoilers - the godawful "dream sequence" inside the Mage Tower. It just doesn't make any sense to me why Bioware had to include it. The whole game seems to be about a bunch of adventurers traveling and fighting together, and that's how the game functions well. But forcing me to play my mage, alone, without any of the other people, just totally threw me off track. 
 
Not to mention that "dream sequence" wasn't too well designed in the first place, but it was certainly worse with the absence of the constant banter and bickering of my fellow adventurers. Once I got out of there, I felt extremely relieved, but also directionless. Of course, I got plenty of tasks left in my quest log, but the next quest I attempted led me straight into a dead end in person of a dude trying to sell me DLC. While I actually do have a code to download that content for free, it just feels damn uncomfortable to get cheated like that (the original quest could have told me, and I wouldn't have bothered at that point in time, but that's probably the reason it didn't).
 
I'm not entirely ready to give it up yet, either. I'm pretty sure somewhere in that uncomfortable feeling there's a decent game I'd miss out on, I'm just having a hard time to get into it. Maybe it'll go the fate of Bioshock, which I really didn't like at first, and absolutely loved a bit later, playing through it within a few days time. I certainly hope so, for I feel like I'd be missing out, but can't exactly tell why that would be.