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I guess here is where I write about Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening: The Expansion to Dragon Age: Origins: Additional Colon.

I was shocked at how much I liked the original Dragon Age: Origins. I assumed it would be very standard fantasy fare, but Bioware brought some real characters to it, and I was pretty connected and involved in the story.

On top of previously mentioned stupid design decisions, Awakening totally failed to do any of that.

I mean, there was nothing offensive about Awakening or anything, but I was basically given a bunch of characters I didn’t know (I never really used Oghren in the main game) and not given time to get to know them. Unlike the characters in Origins, which were given time to break out of their cliche status, all my party members in Awakening stayed right in there. Flirty mage? Sure. Elf who hates humans? Why not. You just didn’t get any time to know these people. They were much more “roles to fill your party with” than characters.
The only one who stood out, simply because he was from the main game, was Oghren. Although, yes, he didn’t have much dialog in this either, you could see his depth even in what they had there. I had to admit, he was pretty awesome. Obviously comic relief, but pretty funny comic relief at times, and he has some depth to him. But again, he’s comic relief. There was nobody like Alistair, Leliana, or Morrigan to be both really seriously deep and really awesome.

The missions and combat were basically the same as before? Thankfully they didn’t do anything to really piss me off for “variety” like the fade puzzle bullshit from the main game. They added some more skills and stuff, including some options that made my Bow user less shitty, which I appreciated, but it didn’t really change my main strategy any. The boss at the end looked suitably bad-ass and boobful, of course, but fighting her wasn’t really a big deal. It was just a thing. (Granted, I was playing on easy… or so I assumed. I imported my save and it never asked, but that save was on easy, so…)
The most interesting parts of the whole thing just didn’t have enough time to work properly. Stealing the upgrade mechanic from Mass Effect 2 for Vigil’s Keep was a great idea, but I didn’t play the game long enough to think of it as “home,” so I didn’t give much of a shit if it got destroyed or not. Similarly, the plot points about stealing Grey Warden blood to give the Darkspawn free will could have been cool, but it just kind of gets thrown in there without much setup or payoff. It’s just a thing.

I don’t know. I’m pretty glad I didn’t buy this expansion. Playing through it wasn’t a bad experience, as I said, but it’s nothing at all like the awesome of the main game. I also don’t think there’s anything in this that anyone worried about not having the whole story for Dragon Age 2 will need to play, though I guess we’ll find out. Maybe the free Darkspawn thing will pay off in that game somehow? I have no idea. We’ll see what Shepar…. Hawk has to deal with when I get around to the game. The final word on Awakening, though? I’m unimpressed.