Every few years, I actually like to do something really fucking crazy like buy a NEW game instead of one that's a year or two old and, therefore, cheap. I had many weiner-hardening choices when I left home yesterday.

I could have picked Modern Warfare II, but after reading Jason's review and various message board/blog entries, I think the last thing the world needs is my opinion of No Russian (if you do want it, I completely advocate terrorists mowing down the unwashed populace and would have probably killed more than any of the actual bad guys if I was playing it).

I could have picked Borderlands, but there's this really lame song playing during the commercials for it that I see on TV. It's not Kid Rock, but it sounds enough like him to just make me irrationally angry about this game.

So I went with Dragon Age: Origin. Here are my opening opinions.

It took about an hour to figure out how to get my FREE unlockable content (a big-ass golem and his storyline quests). You have to start the game, access downloadable contest there and input the EA code.....not the Microsoft code redeeming. It took me forever to figure out why I was trying to fit a 16-figure code into a 25-figure code bar and why it was failing repeatedly.

Anyhow, I then created my character — a human noble rogue. I made him look like me.....if I was a really fit and athletic medival stud, instead of me. While doing this, I was wondering how exactly this bright, shining star of a royal family could be a rogue. Do his aristocratic parents simply not care that he spent his youth picking locks and stealing purses instead of exhibiting noble traits?

I got a quicky introductory quest that involved killing rats in the kitchen's larder. The best part was after the fight when the knight I was made a joke about how big heroic quests always seem to start with rat-killing.

And then my family got betrayed by the vaguely sinister friend of my hero's father. Which led to me and the bad-ass hero Grey Warden being the only known survivors. My parents, that rat battle-ally knight, random other folk.....all victims. No wait....that's right, my pet battle dog survived too. I like him. He'll rip YOUR leg off as soon as look at you, but if I pet him, he'll roll on the ground in pure ecstacy.

Grey Warden Duncan takes me to the camp where the king's army is preparing to fight Darkspawn. I get to take an initiation test to become a full-fledged Warden. Unfortunately, my battle dog can't come along for the ride. Instead, I and two other potential Wardens travel under the tutelage of Alistair, another Warden. One of the other two is a pickpocket who has no idea why Duncan picked him. Neither do I. The other constantly goes on and on about his wife and soon-to-be-born kid. I hope we get to string him up and use him as bait to catch some really big monster.

Right now, the four of us are having fun walking around and killing all sorts of wolves and goblin-like Darkspawn. I'm digging the game and its atmosphere. I'll probably be digging it more when the more on-rails intro parts are done and things get a bit more open-ended. Big challenge is just learning the interface and stuff, as this game is a bit more complicated than the normal RPG.