Happy Monday, folks of the Avocado, and welcome to the Weekly Video Games Thread! This is my first Games Thread of the year, and it’s coming one day after my birthday. But alongside the new games I’ve gotten as gifts, I’ve been working my way through one game I bought well over a decade ago: Dragon Age: Origins. It’s for a writing project.

My first four or so days of Origins was… poor. The game’s not particularly accessible, I chose the worst origin and prologue, and a lot of your early start is kinda constrained and unpleasant. To be honest, I hated it, and I was worried I had affixed myself to a terrible idea. I mean, the dang thing’s average length is forty hours. And I said it much at the Thursday Games Thread. I was frustrated and scared and a bit mad.

But, on Tuesday, a few things started to click for me. The city of Denerim was big and overwhelming, but I started to see just how many quests the game was obsessively hiding for anyone with the wherewithal to find them. I got a few really fun moral choices that were so goofy that I couldn’t not enjoy them. One particularly stupid party member charmed me through his silliness and made me reassess the better written sidekicks. And getting through a truly heinous dungeon the day before made me feel good, even if yes, the Fade is truly awful. It wasn’t one thing, just a day where everything kinda all came together. I’m now enjoying it in all its broken, goofy, thoughtful silliness.

This isn’t to say that my issues with Dragon Age: Origins stopped existing, or that I’ve come around on its opening hours. But after four days of struggle, I think you could say that my second act with the game started in earnest. Perhaps calling it a “second impression” isn’t quite the right term, but I managed to build a stronger relationship with this game after one that was on a bed of caltrops. And that is today’s prompt: second impressions, more positive reassessments, and coming around on’s. Was there a time where you played a game, was turned off for whatever reason, only to get a much better experience with it? This could be putting down a game and picking it up a day or month or decade later, or maybe it was getting past a problem point (technically, both are true for me; I first tried Origins over ten years ago and gave up a couple minutes in). But I often love these stories, since they’re positive. We find frustration and build satisfaction out of it. If you have one you like, I’d love to hear about it.

And, of course, what have you been playing this weekend? Plus, our own Lovely Bones has just released her monthly Game News Roundup—make sure to read it!