So as most of you know, I am fully addicted to the gaming crack that is Dragon Age Origins.... last night i had a dream about dwarves and i slept in for work this morning LOL.

It is an amazing, captivating game - everything about it is stellar; i have NO complaints so far. There are difficult spots but they just force you to get good at tactics so you can get through. What i love the most is its realism - unlike most games where your choices make you either good/evil, there is no black or white in this game; no matter what you do you could be helping or hurting someone and the opposite for someone else... and sometimes your party members have their own opinions on what you do, even if you THINK you were doing the "right thing". It forces you to think about every decision, and the consequences thereof.

It's probably because of this that I feel so in tune with my character - her emotions are my emotions, and I feel them vividly. Where she's experienced loss, i feel sorrow; where she's experienced betrayal, i feel rage and the need for vengeance.

I will be writing a review as soon as i'm done my first playthrough, but unfortunately, work has to take priority so it might be a little bit

I have been more or less MIA for almost a week because of two things: work has been hellishly busy, and i've been devilishly sick; the former only aggravating the latter because it means i cannot take time off to recover. I've literally been so exhausted i can't even game, haven't touched a game since last Friday as a matter of fact.

I seem to be slowly recovering but it's still busy at work, so i may be here less than usual - bear with me, i'll be back; i always am

So yesterday i got the call... my game was finally in! I eagerly rushed to EB after work and picked it up.... it was beautiful! When i got home I looked through the art book, the guide, then made sure my apartment was tidy, and there was nothing distracting me, and finally put the game of my dreams into the PS3.

Now some of you have heard that this game is difficult. It isn't. It's INSANE. There are no save points. There is no way to manually save; the game autosaves for you at the beginning of a level. If you die, you return to the hub area or the Nexus, as a phantom, with a max of half your HP as a living body. And you WILL die... you will die before you even finish the tutorial. You will die a LOT. There are no checkpoints so if you die mid-level, it's back to the beginning for you, even if you've made it all the way to the end boss.

The comforting thing is that you can see bloodstains where other players have died and you can leave messages for eachother to help eachother out (though be wary of people who will leave messages to harm you instead) What's comforting about it is knowing you're not the only one dying shamelessly over and over again, and just the fact that you're still playing makes you hardcore

This is a difficult game, but it's refreshingly different, and the fact it's so insanely hard without being cheap makes it that much more fun, to me. I know it will be consuming a LOT of my time ^__^