Dragon Age--Sorry, Mario. The Queen is in another castle!

[cyrano]

I got Arl Eamon to take me to Denerim, and we quickly got the 'rescue the queen' quest. Which was mostly a lot of fun. I think I broke the programming outside the castle--we had the guards show up behind us as we were sneaking around, and I went into stealth mode. I figured that, while nobody was attacking anybody, I'd sneak allll the way around to the front of the castle to get that chest I couldn't get to before. On the way, I saw our Orlesian elf spy chick three or four different times. (A helmet? Seriously? All that way I went, and all you had was a helmet?)

And then we dispatched those soldiers and she told us to 'ide in zee booshes. We finally figured out which booshes she meant, using the minimap, but when we hid in them she just stared blankly at us. So we killed the door guards too. So much for stealth.

Actually, we snuck through most of the first floor no problem, but the guy getting a blowjob from the maid called the guard (well technically he didn't the amazing vanishing maid did, disappearing before we had a chance to stop her). And so I shrugged and went back and killed every single guard on the first floor. Because why not?

I had to ask the queen if she wasn't a little short for a guard, and then we went into the Must Lose battle.
Allow me to break into my monologue here just to say how much I hate the Must Lose battle mechanic. The idea is that plot demands that you lose this battle and so they just set you up against overwhelming odds. That's a tease, and it's frustrating and not fun. There's an implied contract in a game, the designer wants to give you a challenge, but one that can be beaten with power, tactics, and not too much bad luck. A battle like that could easily have been run like the massacre at Ostagar, as a cut scene. I'm just sayin'.

Anyway. It was weird watching *both* Leliana and Wynne, who had been killed not fifteen seconds ago, in a cut scene telling Arl Eamon that we'd been captured. Maybe they're moles? We ended up at Fort Dragon, and once again I cannot imagine how to run this game without a rogue--maybe you escape your cell by promising to show the gaoler 'something really cool' and then snapping his neck when he gets too close. I picked the lock and punched him in the face eight or nine times, and we were off. Tearing open a box, we discovered a mace inside. A Mace! we cried, Hallelujah! Because I actually like the bits where they take away all your super powered items and make you play a new strategy. I was sad that we got our stuff back so quickly, but I wasn't about to stuff it back in the box and call shenanigans.

We found new uniforms, picked up our squadron mates, and headed off on our first patrol! Mum would be proud.
...I wonder what happened to those guys. Anyway, I got back to the Arl's estate and saved. So I have no idea what happened with the queen yet.