Dragon Age 2 - Review

I was initially ready to pass over Dragon Age 2, after having not been truly impressed by the original Dragon Age: Origins.  Let's just say that I had a few complaints about the first in the series that I wasn't looking forward to facing in the second.  But Bioware put out a demo, and I tried it, and enjoyed what was there, so I decided to pre-order and try it out.

First off, I understand the game and what kind of story it's trying to tell.  You start off as a refugee and work to make a name for yourself, and then solve two of the city's major problems, deeming yourself to be a hero.  I'm on board with the premise, even if I do feel that there wasn't enough of an overall wrap up to the story.  There was something, but I just didn't think it captured me enough.

Did anybody think Hawke didn't look badass enough?

You play as Hawke, a pre-defined character that has a family history, moods, attitudes, and enough badass to back them up with.  Hawke's tones change as you converse and make decisions, and adds a lot of personality to the character you're playing.  I ended up with a smart ass, but could have easily shifted to either side of the spectrum, and in some cases did.  I was happy to play as him and part of me wants to go back to see what other choices I could have in the game.

The choices are very interesting this time around.  There's very little black and white, but differing shades of gray.  Some of them seemed dull while going through the game, but later on I would see a scene and wonder what would have happened in that scene had I made a different choice before.  For example, without spoiling anything, there's a point where you save the lives of two different mages by making two different decisions.  At one point they're both on the screen, one being the captive of the other.  How would that scene have happened if I had chosen to let one of them die?

Either way, I'm sure there would have been a lot of blood.

Combat is handled differently from Origins, in that it's much more interactive.  Instead of having auto combat, and then turning on abilities, you press a button to swing - every time that you want to swing.  You have to keep focus on the task at hand, which was great for a player like me who was playing for the story, but if you're a traditional Baldur's Gate / Neverwinter Nights (Origin's original market) type of player who likes to micro manage their party, this would make you want to just stop playing and curse them for selling out to the consoles.

Push me over and over to win!

Finally, we come to the level design.  You're going to enjoy it for the first couple hours.  After that it sinks in.  "Didn't we just kill a band of smugglers here?"  "Why is there a door here?  There wasn't last time, and it won't open now."  There's only a handful of actual locations in the game.  Every cave, every warehouse, every house is the exact same, and to try to keep you from noticing it, they block off different areas.  Sorry guys, it didn't work, and it feels horrible to "explore" the same area over and over.  Not only that, but since you stay in the same location, you have to go back and RE-explore the same areas over again because new resources spring up over time.  The whole design of it feels lazy and half assed.

So, was it good?  For the most part, yes.  I enjoyed playing through and had a tough time putting it down.  I'd like to see Bioware clean up some of the problems in this game, namely the level design and lack of world exploration, but I think they're on the right path for console players.  I also think they're going to need to bend back to the PC gamers in their follow ups, or at least offer them some options to play the game like they played the first.  There's no doubt that this is going to be one of their continuing series, so let's see what Bioware has in store next for us in their story.  Until then, Happy Gaming.