So what am I playing on my Xbox these days? Most recently, I’ve been working my way through Dragon Age: Origins, BioWare’s spiritual follow-up to its Baldur’s Gate roots. Yeah, yeah, I know the game’s be out pretty much forever, but I’m sorta patient like that: wait for a game to be out for a year or two, then pick it up for cheap on eBay.
Anyway, the game’s got me incredibly hooked, reminding me much of my incredibly anti-social habits when I picked up CRPG’s in the first place. Going to bed late. Sneaking in a quick game before heading out for work. Hanging around message board forums to discuss the incredibly similarities between this game and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Actually finishing Eye of the World and finally getting past the prologue to The Great Hunt. Getting disappointed stares from my wife for wasting time on video games and/or bringing a reading light to bed so I can read a paperback.
In other words, great times. Great times.
So, while on this fantasy high, I sought out a fantasy comic steeped deep in the high fantasy of the Tolkien tradition. I’m talking elves, dwarves, epic quests, medieval castles, and the like with traditional comic-style artwork. Stick figures, a la Order of the Stick, and pixel art weren’t going to do it for me. Neither were manga/anime interpretation. I have nothing against them. It’s just that that style, the artwork, plots, mood, and mopey protagonists are almost always lifted from Final Fantasy. When you’re on a Dragon Age/Wheel of Time binge, that ain’t gonna feed my fantasy jones.
Fortunately, I ran into Guilded Age. The webcomic was written by veteran scribe T Campbell (who I interviewed here and who wrote, among many other things, Penny & Aggie, which I reviewed here) and Phil Kahn and illustrated by Erica Henderson and John Waltrip. I imagine that these creators — or T Campbell at least — were inspired by the very same Dragon Age game. After all, it follows a similar plot line: a group of individuals from several different backgrounds band together to form an alliance that will, in the end, save the kingdom.
That, and the fact that some of the characters collect XBox achievement points.
