arts // no. & In retrospect: ‘Dragon Age II’ > Seven years after its release, ‘Dragon Age II’ remains one of BioWare’s most polarizing titles Bex Peterson Editor-in-Chief feel like it’s necessary to preface this article with my personal bias: I love Dragon Age II. I love the characters, the story, the setting, the music—I even love that it’s set in the same city for seven years instead of an open-world map. I’m comfortable saying that Dragon Age II is probably my all-time favourite game. However, it’s been (forcibly) brought to my attention (multiple times) that not everyone feels this way about it. Don't get me wrong, I understand a lot of the criticisms. People often cite the recycled maps and various glitches as reasons for disliking the game ona technical level, and I can’t argue with that. If you’ve seen one mansion layout, you've literally seen them all. Clearly the architects of Kirkwall were sleeping on the job. However, people have also criticized many of the fundamental narrative elements of the game, often simply for not following the precedent set by the sprawling world-exploration RPG Dragon Age: Origins in 2009. In place of a warden for whom you can pick one of six different backstories, you have Hawke: A refugee fleeing their country of origin to a single city state. The decisions you make throughout the game simply don’t have the same world-changing impact of Origins, and many often lead to the same—usually tragic—results. “It’s a good game,” I’ve heard some people concede, “but it’s not Dragon Age.” I could go into a whole deep-dive as to what constitutes a Dragon Age game, but with an eye on the word count I'll try to keep things simple. For many people, BioWare games are about consequences. Because the decisions you make as Hawke largely do not C ¢ The focus shifted from the impact one person's decisions and actions could have on the whole world, towards the impact that one person's decisions and actions could have on other people. result in any vast consequences for the whole of Thedas, and the actions Hawke takes that do impact the rest of Thedas are somewhat pre-set, the assumption seems to be that consequence doesn’t exist in the world of DAz. That wasn’t my experience with the game. What I found was in the stricter narrative of DA2, the focus shifted from the impact one person’s decisions and actions could have on the whole world, towards the impact that one person’s decisions and actions could have on other people. It’s a far more personal story in this way, and one that has stuck with me since I first played it in 2015. If you haven't played Dragon Age IT yet, I'd highly recommend stopping here because there are spoilers ahead! The first thing to understand about DAz2 is that the development time was insanely limited. Where Origins began initial development in 2002 and was released in 2009, DA2 was given only 12 to 14 months from beginning to end for production time. Within these limitations, the developers came up with an ingenious framing device: Dragon Age II is a story being told by an unreliable narrator, Varric Tethras, your best friend. It’s a champion’s tale in three acts, taking place in the same city over seven years. This allowed the developers to make amazing narrative use of limited worldbuild, where instead of seeing new people and places, you come to know your companions and the people of the city as well as you might know your own friends and neighbours. The way your companions grow and change over the course of the game is largely dictated by how you treat them. Unlike the largely supportive companions of Mass Effect, with their loyalty in Mass Effect 2 a simple on/off switch dictated by a single character mission and one or two dialogue trees, your friends in DA2 are very clearly living their own lives with or without your approval. In my first playthrough, I lost Isabela halfway through the game because her approval just wasn’t high enough (by five points!) for her to return to the city to defend me from the Arishok after stealing the Tome of Koslun. Every companion you take into the Fade with you during the “Night Terrors” quest will betray you, no matter how high their approval (except Anders, but only because he has Justice’s protection). You can lose nearly every single one of your friends and family in this game depending on your choices. Will the world of Thedas end because of this? No, but having to battle and kill companions who've fought by your side for six years is a potentially devastating personal consequence for not taking the time to get to know them better. The use of unreliable narration as a framing device is also fascinatingly creative. Varric sometimes hijacks the story from you, in one memorable quest taking out an entire mansion of mercenaries single-handed to come face- theotherpress.ca to-face with his treacherous brother, weeping and begging for forgiveness, only to reveal that that particular venture ended far less triumphantly than Varric initially lets on. You're never entirely sure if what you're playing through happened exactly as Varric seems to be describing it, or if he’s simply dressing up what is on the whole a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. This is the crux of my defence of DAz, when it comes to the impact of your decisions. The criticism that your decisions throughout the game largely have no effect on either the ending or the implications it has for the rest of the Thedas is, in my opinion, somewhat missing the point. Many fans have pointed out that Dragon Age II is ultimately a tragic story. No matter the decisions your Hawke makes throughout the game, they cannot stop Varric’s brother from bringing red lyrium to the surface in Act I. They cannot save the Viscount or his son in Act II, and try as they might, they cannot stop the Mage-Templar war from breaking out in Act II. Hawke is a tragic hero, perceived as wielding a mythic amount of world-changing power and ultimately changing very little. If anything, it’s a subversion of classic RPG narratives, which is a pretty ambitious thing to try to pull off in a relatively small game that was given only a year to complete. If you don't like Dragon Age II, that’s honestly fine—I don’t see the point in trying to force people to enjoy something just because I do. However, I do think the game receives far more criticism and a few more eye-rolls than it really deserves. It’s a game that truly means something to a lot of people, despite its flaws. And honestly, I dare you to listen to the Dragon Age II end credits version of Florence + The Machine's “I’m Not Calling You a Liar” without feeling something. I double-dare you. It just can’t be done. Image via Bioware Beyond meat > How does A&W’s new meatless burger stack up? Duncan Fingarson Senior Columnist Rn A&W launched a big advertising campaign for their new vegetarian offering, the Beyond Meat burger. The patty is made from an assortment of fruits and vegetables, according to A&W’s website, including beets, apples, pomegranates, and yellow peas. The marketing campaign claims it tastes “exactly like meat” and is consistent with A&W’s increased focus on the environment in its recent marketing. ButYet, how does it really stack up compared to one of the chain's standard burgers? The Beyond Meat burger comes with lettuce and tomato on it. So to make my taste test as even as possible, | also ordered A&W’s Mama burger with added lettuce and tomato. In terms of outward appearance, both burgers looked about the same. In terms of nutrition, based on the information on A&W’s website, the Beyond Meat burger has more sodium, less cholesterol, and a much greater percentage of daily iron. The Beyond Meat burger also has 100 extra calories and 9 extra grams of fat (though no trans-fat), for its extra 60 grams of total serving size. Getting down to the experience of eating, the Beyond Meat burger is (¥ The real cost of avocado toast (¥ Anexamination of modern street fashion Y Great Inclinations And more! definitely one of the better veggie burgers I’ve tried. It’s got a good flavour, but that flavour isn’t meat. I also had difficulties with the texture. The Beyond Meat patty lacks the weight and resistance of true meat, Photo by Analyn Cuarto The real cost of avocado toast > Acrime that extends further than robbing Millennials’ meager bank accounts CJ Sommerfeld Contributor Ae’ toast is a defining characteristic of the millennial portfolio, and it is seriously jeopardizing some people’s lives. If Generation X had been told that their younger siblings would be spending $12 on two pieces of bread slathered in green butter, they would not have believed it. “We sell over 140 organic avocados a day,” Micah, produce lead at Be Fresh market tells said to the Other Press. The cheapest avocados—and therefore the most popular for mass purchase by restaurants—avocados are not locally grown. Like most other budget fruits and vegetables, they are imported from faraway countries speckled around the planet; places like California, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, South Africa, and so forth. Over the last few years we have heard about the cartels which have been capitalizing on the avocado farms in Mexico. These fortunately seemed to have ceased. Sadly however, avocado farms in Peru—the second largest avocado exporter—are experiencing havoc of a different sort. Trujillo is a northwestern city on the coast of Peru with a semi-desert climate that makes it ideal for avocado farming. Similarly, its geographical location makes it susceptible to natural disasters. In January 2017 the Peruvian coast received a warm welcome from Mr. E] Nifio—warm wind currents from the Pacific which greatly interrupt climate on land. When E] Nifio hit, the heat and Illustration by Cara Seccafien humidity in the coast of Peru skyrocketed. Above-average temperatures spanned into February, but when March arrived, the accumulating heat and humidity transformed into torrential rainfall, flash floods, and landslides. This was bad news for avocado and it’s difficult to tell what part of the burger you're currently chewing on. As far as veggie burgers go, it’s not going to convince me to switch any time soon, but it’s certainly a step in the direction of making them more palatable to people who prefer meat. The Mama burger, in comparison, is instantly recognizable as meat. It doesn’t blend together while you're eating it, and it has that good burger flavour you want from your fast food. It is still fast food, of course, and while good, it did not blow me away. However, I would still take it over the Beyond Meat burger. From a vegetarian perspective, the Beyond Meat burger is probably a good choice, though. It’s not cooked on a different grill, so it can’t be counted as vegan, but for vegetarian fare it was pretty tasty, and it’s a good reason to head to the A&W if you’e trying to decide what to get in the local mall food court. Having more options for people with dietary restrictions is always a good thing, and the chain’s effort to provide is laudable, even if their offering doesn’t quite satisfy the omnivores among us. farmers! Not only do avocado trees have shallow root systems, making swampy soil an unfortunate recipe for rotting roots, a city that is not used to high amounts of rain is not equipped with drainage systems nor is its infrastructure prepared for so much water. This concoction resulted in an unsafe swamp of a work environment which forced avocado farmers to refrain from workingtending to their crops. “Nobody worked any farms or distributed because it was all flooded,” Brian, resident of Trujillo and avocado distributer, said in an online interview with the Other Press. “Tt affected everything—the rain destroyed what had been harvested and flooded the crops. We could no longer use them because the floods were carrying everything away.” According to Brian, “It was the worst tragedy that could happen to Peru.” We seldom think about the tribulations which international farmers undergo to keep up with the demands from the western world. It is easy to purchase fruit and vegetables without thinking about the processes which have culminated in produce ending up in our reusable shopping bags—yet for countries whose economies benefit greatly from the export of their farmed resources, events which disrupt their production can greatly affect their industries. Now doesn’t that $12 plate of avocado toast taste a little better?