Dragon Age: Origins/Corona Extra

Game: Dragon Age: Origins, Bioware, 2009, PC
Beer: Corona Extra, 12 fl.oz., 4.6% abv
# of beers consumed during play: 6
Level Reached: 8th level
Level of Intoxication: Woozy

Game
Dragon Age: Origins occupies a very rarefied territory, it is a game that is designed from the ground up to literally simulate another world, one that exists not to be won or lost-not expressly anyways-but to be explored. This emphasis on exploration and interaction in a large, rich world with many varied non-player-characters (NPCs) is in stark contrast to most of the other modern games occupying retail shelves. Many gamers are content to voluntarily limiting their interaction with the other critters and people in games to weighing them down with high-velocity pieces of lead, and while this has a noble place in its own right, it should not be the only recourse in a virtual world. Perhaps this is my lone dissent in a sea of popular opinion, but while I like busting a cap in an ass as a form of communication as much as the next guy, there are times at which I would like to use wit, charm and cunning to solve conflict instead. Thankfully, there is someone who feels as I do and has invested a great deal of time and money to see that my niche is fulfilled. The most recent example of this is Bioware's Dragon Age: Origins.

Gameplay
Dragon Age: Origins (referred to as Dragon Age or just DA from here on out), is an interesting mix. It's made by the same guys who cranked out Mass Effect, and uses many of the same gameplay conventions. Returning in spectacular form are the rich, meaningful dialogue trees, the character creator, the branching sidequests, and the romantic options. Also returning from Mass Effect, but not quite as spectacular is the slightly clunky pseudo-realtime combat, a labored control scheme, and very limited world interaction. As I started playing DA, trying to settle comfortably into the game world and trying to fit into the character I had created, I mistakenly likened the game to Oblivion, since both shared a few small elements of similarity. The setting was familiar, as was the character creation process, and the fighting, while quite a bit less realtime than Oblivion, was also reminiscent. My erroneous comparison began to nag at me and before I had even gotten out of the origin story, I was getting a full-on hankering for Oblivion, and promptly installed it and forgot all about Dragon Age. Sounds like a problem with Dragon Age doesn't it? Well, it isn't. It was a problem with me. Once I had played a bit of Oblivion, I allowed myself to reflect on the true differences between the two games, and found that the games were very different from one another, and even if they did have some small facets that mirrored one another, DA was most definitely not an Oblivion clone, and stood quite well on its own merits. With this personal revelation now in hand, I gave myself a couple quiet nights to get back into Dragon Age, and before long, much like a careless fighter pilot around his jet's intakes, I was sucked in.

Once you finish the origin story portion of the game, which will take between one and three hours, depending on how deliberate/attentive/obtuse you are, the game proper starts, at which point you realize shit just got real and in the blink of an eye, you actually start to care about this universe and your place in it. I found my preferred method of dealing with situations was talking, followed by a healthy dose of sword sandwich when civil discourse proved fruitless. The nice thing about DA (and Mass Effect for anyone who hasn't played that yet), is that if you properly gear your character as such, talking is actually a great way to resolve conflict, in some cases earning you greater rewards than simply hacking everyone to bits and raiding their corpses. Of course, the game isn't going to just let you sweet talk your way through everything, so it's best to have a backup plan which involves being skilled with steel or magic. When all else fails, the best course of action is still to deadify bitches, a useful and important life lesson.
Speaking of bitches, as you continue on your quest, you will invariably pick up fellow adventurers, whether through your own choice or because the game forces them on you. One such adventurer is a witch who goes by the name Morrigan, but who my wife and I instantly began referring to as "Boobs". Boobs will prove to be a constant thorn in just about any player's side, with the possible exception of Hitler, because if you try to do anything even remotely noble, she will belt out a snide remark and you will lose favor with her. The problem with losing favor with her is that favor determines how strong in combat she is, and if it dips low enough, she may actually even abandon you. This is a problem if you've spent half the game building Boobs up to be this terrifying, unstoppable mage and all of a sudden you rescue one too many kittens out of a tree and she deserts you. Every character in your party has this favor meter, and it goes up and down depending on your actions and that particular character's personality. Most of the time doing good things will keep people happy and in your party, but this angers Boobs, and lest you think you will just balance it out with doing a bad thing here or there, no luck, since she also seems to hate being bad, and will still give you shit about it. The few good reasons to try and keep her happy is she is quite powerful, and the snarky back-and-forth dialogue between her and Alistair is absolutely hilarious. That and she wears skimpy clothes.

You can have four people in your party, including you, and you can take control of any one of them at any time and level them up or outfit them as you wish. Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, and part of the deeper appeal of this game is the ability to recognize those attributes and build a strong party around them. The game does a very nice job of making working with stats and other data easy, while not dumbing it down too far. When you look at your inventory, weapons and armor will pop-up with their attributes as well as a pop-up right next to it showing the attributes of what you have equipped, making it easy to tell at a glance if a particular item will help or hinder your character. The game is full of little touches like this, making it stand out among its competitors as one that has been carefully thought through.

One of the most interesting and useful aspects of DA is the fact that you can pause combat at any time, zoom out to an overhead perspective, and assign tasks to each party member at your leisure, which they will gleefully (or in the case of Boobs, begrudgingly) carry out as soon as you unpause the game. This has appeared in older party-based RPGs and seeing it make a comeback is quite welcome, particularly in later levels where the enemies are more powerful and force the player to find and exploit the minuscule cracks in their defense. On the higher difficulty levels, this feature is absolutely essential since area-of-effect spells can and will do damage to everyone, including friends, so devising a coherent battlefield strategy is paramount. This feature also brings to light (and partially addresses) one of the game's shortcomings, the ally's AI. While you can set default ally behavior through tactical slots, most of the time when a battle starts the AI will seem to fall back upon the instruction set called "Everyone fight willy-nilly." and before you know it, the screen looks like a Roman orgy with arms, legs and splintmail armor all flailing about wildly. This behavior can be corralled with judicious use of tactical slots and the RTS-like ability to pause and assign tasks at will, but still, when Boobs stands back and blasts you and Alistair with an AOE spell for the hundredth time, you'll start to suspect it isn't accidental.
Graphics/Sound
The graphics are quite wonderful, making very nice use of all the latest tricks and techniques. Shaders factor heavily into all things, and can make a rock or sword look positively captivating. The character designs are quite good and it's readily apparent that the graphics artists put a lot of time and effort into the armor and weapons of the game.

Facial expressions of characters have a great deal of nuance and subtlety, making the snide comments Boobs delivers even more potent. Lips match spoken dialogue pretty well, even though there is the occasional moment where I suddenly feel as if I'm playing a poorly dubbed Chinese Kung-fu flick. Lighting effects and shadows are very well done, but for some reason, I feel like I've seen better particle effects elsewhere. Not that they don't get the job done, it's just that they seem a bit hurried and flat, and with so many other pretty things going on, the lackadaisical particle effects stand out a bit more than they normally would.

Character animation is quite good, making many motions seem natural. Animation tweening is used to great effect, making sure that your character transitions smoothly from sword strike to shield bash to get hit by Boobs's frost spell and die animations.

One thing that kind of bothers me is that the artists for Bioware seem like they are hired right out of middle school since many of the female character meshes were built from the ground up to be as scantily dressed as possible. I submit this next picture not to offend or try to garner undue attention, but only in the interest of full disclosure...Okay, moving right along.

The sound in this game is well done, keeping pace with the graphics quite well. Spoken dialogue is well acted and clear, particularly Alistair's dialogue. Subtle, witty and perfectly inflected, his speech makes me feel as though I truly have a wiseacre sidekick with whom I'm going to save the world. In a similar vein, clash of steel and magical effects are nicely suited to the action, helping to immerse the player in the situation at hand. Even the menu effects and incidental game sounds are such that they subtly contribute to the game as a whole, making the entire experience seem that much more cohesive.

The music quickly and unequivocally recalls the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, complete with sinister horns and deep pounding drums. The score is flat and heavy, and when paired with many of the game's visual horrors, particularly dirty, battle ready demons clamoring out of the dirt, fits the game like a glove.

One thing that stood out to me most of all about the sound was the ambient noise. The background chatter was so rich, detailed and well mixed that as I played with headphones on, more than a few times I tore my headphones off, sure that I had heard someone asking me something when it was merely background chatter among the villagers ingame. Similarly, in battle sequences, tortured screams and warcries from elsewhere on the map would drift to me and chill my bones. I'm not sure if the ambient stuff was done outside or in a sound studio, but how ever the effect was achieved, it's sublime. Hats off to the game's foley artists.

Story
Well firstly, considering there is a different sub-plot depending on which of the numerous origins you chose during character creation, and the fact that the outcome of countless story elements depend on what you do and say in the game, I have to just go ahead and say such hard work blows my skirt up. Like, way up...we're talking Marilyn Monroe standing over a solid fuel rocket booster.
To summarize the story, an evil army known as the Darkspawn gets their hackles up every few hundred years and decide the bowels of the earth are a bit too confining. Led by someone called the Archdemon, they surface and start tearing the land of the living apart en masse in an occurance known as The Blight (I'm glossing over some important details here, to save on spoilers...who says I can't be nice?). You happen to get snared into fighting this bunch of ragamuffins, and before you know it, not only are you busting undead skulls, but you find yourself entrenched in a socio-political war amongst many different factions. Basically Tom Clancy meets J.R.R. Tolkien. Not too shabby in my humble estimation.

The real excitement comes when you beat the game and realize you can do it all over again, only this time...evil.

Beer
In my last review I mentioned Corona with salt and lime, the mention of which has haunted me all week with a naked desire to indulge my senses in what is one of my favorite beers. Interestingly enough, I've never taken the time to really analyze what it is about a cold Corona that vaults it into my fave five and so this particular review is as much a journey of discovery as any of my experiences with something I've only tried for the first time. I can't bring myself to recall the first time I ever had a Corona, but I doubt it was so good that I suddenly swore off gambling, women, and other beers in deference to its superior body and flavor. Instead, I think this beer snuck into my upper echelon through a combination of wide availability and the fact that it has been present during some truly good times, gatherings of good friends, and all around personally enriching experiences. Of course-and this might be the placebo effect talking-but it ain't a bad beer to boot. Perhaps it's important to mention that nearly everyone I've ever had along to drink with has been familiar with Corona, and very few shun it out of distaste. As far as the pantheon of Mexican imports go, it is a virtually uncontested king of the hill, el Budweiser de México as it were. So if nothing else, it has pure omnipresence working for it, which isn't a bad way to start.

Omnipresence notwithstanding, this isn't a bad beer by any means, and when combined with judicious applications of fresh limes and salt, this beer goes from "pretty good" to "oh-my-deity-of-choice-I've-died-and-woke-up-as-a-millionaire-pornstar-astronaut." Okay, so maybe not everyone will have that precise experience, but that's really only a yardstick by which to measure one's own personal preference. The point being that Corona is one of those beers that lend itself to an almost alchemical doctoring, and whether straight up or impregnated with one or more flavorful additives, is a beer that lends itself to a wide range of tastes and functions. Serve Corona at your next wedding/Bar Mitzvah/AA meeting and you'll be the talk of the town, I guarantee it. In its pure form, the taste is very bold, with a slight edge of bitterness that goes beyond being an aftertaste and helps it to stand out against other brews of its ilk. The nice thing about this beer's taste is that it finishes cleanly, making it easy and worthwhile to pair it with food, particularly in the burrito or pizza camps.

The smell is actually shocking if you aren't prepared for it, it's very, very sharp, much like Steven Hawking if he were an olfactory trigger (and depending on how many times a week his caregiver gives him a spongebath, he may already be one.) The odor is so prevalent in fact, that some may think their beer is tainted, or otherwise be turned off from the drink. Fortunately, the smell, while stronger than a Robocop/Lou Ferrigno cocktail, is not indicative of the beer's taste, and much like the above-mentioned Robocop/Lou Ferrigno combination is simply there because it has nowhere else to go. Don't be afraid of it, it won't hurt you, unless you mention it never had a chance against Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1974 Mr. Olympia competition.

Interestingly, this beer is pretty damn bubbly, but unlike other champagne beers, I can chug this stuff down with carefree impunity. It doesn't explode in the mouth nor does it expand in the stomach and while I do get a fairly intense burp session afterward, they aren't the acrid, nosehair-singeing, nuclear fallout burps I typically get from slamming a few beers. In a similar vein, the intoxication Corona offers isn't the stumbling, ridiculous, painful drunk that I've experienced with other alcohols. The 4.6% alcohol content helps keep things on an even keel while still delivering the desired buzz. The fact I only reached Woozy status is as much a comment on the beer's ability as it was at my playtime. I spread my six beers out over roughly four hours of game, meaning even though I would pause the game periodically to drink greedily from the chilled bottle in front of me, the extended period of time in which this occurred all but guaranteed I wouldn't be breaching the vomit threshold. One thing that is notable however is that the following day, I noticed my morning sabbatical was...less than ideal. In that regard then, Corona is pure Mexico through and through, no other beer has the ability to turn my body into a machine which dispenses concentrated evil at such a magnitude. I'm not slandering the quality of the ingredients at all mind you, it's not as if we're talking about bad water or anything like that. It's just something about the beer lends itself sublimely to the well known and much feared beer shits, markedly more so than other beers. Not that I'm trying to gross a reader out or anything, I'm just giving fair warning to anyone interested in trying Corona. In short: beer good but make poopie bad.

The Matchup
Well, this long-ass review has finally drawn close to its conclusion. Thank God. What have we learned in the meantime? Well, the game and beer here went surprisingly well together, and I enjoyed both greatly. Dragon Age: Origins requires a significant investment of time and self in order to truly appreciate, and due to its nature will not appeal to everyone. But for those so inclined, this game offers a rich and hearty stew of gameplay, sure to nourish. Corona Extra on the other hand is much easier on the user, it is accessible, broadly appealing, and rewards in swift fashion. The fact that these two items are so fundamentally different, and yet are both so good, stands as proof that variety may truly be the spice of life.

Cheers/Game on.