Dragon Age II: no avoiding the boobs

Let’s talk about breasts, boobs, and women in video games for a brief moment, shall we? The old gaming message board memes about big breasts and anatomically incorrect armor have been playing out for years. Many people have treated the subject with far more wit and perversity than I am able to in a few paragraphs. My focus is narrow though — the lovely lasses of Dragon Age 2 — and this game is a godsend for you digital boob-watchers out there.

After the jump, she’s not really my sister. So it’s ok to look.

It only takes a few minutes for Dragon Age 2 to introduce you to your sister (presuming you are playing any class other than a mage) Bethany, a companion character early in the game. Bethany is a young apostate mage and has an appropriately antagonistic relationship with your main-character Hawke. In video game standards, Bethany is also smoking hot. No, seriously, it’s like the Bioware art team got together the day after the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition came out and said “let’s make a 3D model of one of these girls, show even more boob, and skin Bethany that way”. Yes, I am aware her boobs are much larger in the exaggerated flashback, but that’s the first impression we are given so I’m running with it.

It’s not just that they made an attractive player model. It’s that the boobs are just so…there. You can’t escape them, and every cutscene treats you to miles of cleavage somehow held upright by the dark magic that must infest Bethany’s tattered mage’s robes. It almost makes you believe in magic, and it certainly makes you think of a good excuse when your fiancee walks in the room to see you staring at carefully taken screenshots of those boobs. For purposes of this diary, people. Come on!

Bethany isn’t the only one or even the best example of a well-endowed woman in inappropriate armor in Dragon Age 2. That prize has to go to Isabela, possibly the most foul, over the top, outrageous character you will meet in Dragon Age 2. I’m fairly confident that whoever wrote her decided they wanted to get away from some of the tired Bioware tropes for female companions, and as a result has created a character that absolutely fits her background yet is uncomfortable to be around.

Then there are the boobs. Isabela wears what I imagine is a pirate blouse corset with the world’s best Victoria’s Secret push-up bra built into it. This thing is truly amazing. Her boobs are basically bursting out of her shirt, and every cutscene is some combination of glossy, shiny boobs, or wet, dripping blood boobs. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be titillated by this, but it sure does leave an impression.

Up next: one of the greatest fights of my long and storied career
(Click here for the previous Dragon Age II game diary.)