malko_sundervere said:
"Anyone of any sexuality can enjoy romances in this game." There are two flaws here:
a) "Enjoy romances in this game," fuck, no. Very, very few video game romances in this world are worth *shit*, if you enjoy Bioware's it is entirely likely that you also enjoy shoving your dick in hypodermic needle disposal containers.
b) "Anyone of any sexuality." Look, honey, if the characters need to have man-parts or even be heterosexual for you to enjoy a solidly written romance, you've got deeper problems than video games not catering to you. If a straight romance doesn't catch you, either you are dense, or it's a poorly-written romance, and, subsequently, if a gay romance doesn't catch you... Same thing. I don't enjoy reading a quality romance because it is bisexual (just like me omg omg omg!!111), I read it because it's GOOD. I don't let the Western concept of gender/sexual inequity impact my appreciation for something high-quality and expressive.
There are certain plot devices and character types that a heterosexual romance would be unsuited for, and vice-versa; it's not a matter, to me, of *forcing* a "gay" character in the game, it's creating something cohesive and believable, in the setting and for the characters, and Dragon Age 2 has dramatically failed in that regards.
Gaider's cluelessness on the flaws in the writing shows when he describes Isobelle as a 'sexually confident female character'. I hate to be the one to tell him this, but people who are confident in their sexuality, whether male or female, straight or gay, don't spend half their conversations talking about how much sex they've had, and how much sex they're going to have, and sex sex cock cock cock hitting sex arse leg it's wonderful!
The only people that talk like Isobelle are teenagers who haven't quite got sex and sexuality pinned down yet, but feel like they need to talk themselves up. Hence every second sentence is 'oh, but I have sex all the time! Really, I promise! More sex than you anyway! Did I tell you how much sex I'm going to have tomorrow night? You know, I don't normally go telling people about my private life, but with all the sex I'm having it's just natural for me to talk about sex all the time!'
And Isobelle isn't exactly a first offence by Bioware on that point. If the Bioware's writing team actually put into the script what they have in their heads, rather than producing a sex-obsessed teenager with low self-esteem when they're trying to write a sexually confident and mature woman, their writing would be a lot better than it is.