An ordered list of unordered thoughts about Dragon Age: Origins, now that I've played through all the backgrounds (and haven't started the game proper).

Mostly I'm going on about the City Elf background, since it's the one I only just finished.
  1. There's a moment where someone is handing a coin to a merchant. It makes that stereotype coin clink noise, even though it's the only bit of metal in the person's hand. I chuckled.
  2. My City Elf's hair clipped through his ears. Very distracting.
  3. The origin stories are good, and mostly pretty well told. The Magi one is very slow; don't do that first or it might give you an unfair impression of the game.
  4. The City Elf one turns out OK, of course, but I really don't know how the NPCs expected to get away with that.
  5. There's a skippable conversation at the end of the City Elf one that really got to me. Top marks for emotional content. I won't spoil it: those of you who've seen it should know which it is (and those of you who skipped it can probably realise you did. You're cold...).
  6. The game needs more weapons. Duncan has on his back the same dagger that everyone else is carrying, and there seems to be only one low-level mace (as evidenced by a conversation cutscene where almost everyone had its distinctive haft sticking over their shoulder. Uniforms are uniforms*, sure, but why would a Grey Warden have the same dagger as each of my rogues?
  7. I noticed my City Elf's idiot cousin call an enemy 'human', as a racist insult. The enemy in question was a dog.
  8. The dialogue is mostly pretty good, but often I want an option that isn't there. For example, when my human noble takes an ear-bashing from the cook, the main options were to cave in and make penance or to petulantly proclaim that we need a new cook: I was hoping for 'I'm sorry about the situation but I'd appreciate it if you didn't address that way' or perhaps 'I don't care if you were my nanny, I'll take this crap from my mother but I'm not going to stand for it from you!'. Neither was available.

That'll do for now. Some day I'll actually play the game, but for now I need to become a Lieutenant Commander and get my science vessel. And maybe I ought to try and do something constructive this weekend.

* That's except in Star Trek Online, of course, where character customisation > uniformity even for naval officers. I understand that needs to be the case, but it's a great shame.