Dragon Age 2 - Just finished

Well, at long last I have completed my initial play through of Dragon Age 2. It came out to be a little over 40 hours. On casual mode I wasn't too annoyed with the combat tedium which was my biggest complaint about the first game.

When I finally got to the final cinematic, I was ultimately left wondering if I missed something. Probably because I never bothered to finish the original game. The story of Dragon Age 2 is about the journey, and not the ending. Ultimately, both Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall (the player character in DA2) as well as the Hero of Ferelden (the player character of the first Dragon Age game) disappear, which has everybody worried about... something. Presumably to be explained in a later installment of the franchise.

Having just now typed that, I can't help but be reminded of the Knights of the Old Republic series, which Bioware started. That franchise also ends with its two protagonists missing, presumably lost in deep space fighting a greater evil. It would seem the Champion and the Warden are also presumed to be in some dangerous hnterland, fighting a greater evil. I guess that's a roundabout way of saying "it's all kind of been done before."

At the end of the day, Bioware is good at RPGs. It is what they do. Dragon Age 2 is a solid fantasy role playing game. That being said, I would rent it or pick it up pre-owned, especially if you did not play, or did not like, Dragon Age Origins

Dragon Age 2 - First Impression

Man have I been busy. I've been trying to find time to dig into Bioware's latest epic, but have found myself pulled in a lot of directions lately. I did however manage to get a few hours with Dragon Age 2 over the last few days and I'm ready to talk about some of my early impressions.

First, the combat is, well, I'm not really sure. I'm playing on casual difficulty and it doesn't seem too hard or too annoying. However from what I've heard, the harder difficulty settings will increasingly require the insanely micromanaged combat experience I found so frustrating in the first game. A similar form of pseudo-programming for establishing party AI is back, which while I've tinkered with it a little still seems labyrinthine and frustrating to me.

Second, this game surprisingly feels kind of like Fable. The cartoonish antics and animations may not be present, but the story telling techniques seem very Lionhead-esque. The story focuses on the hero, and the hero's relationships with their family and party members. The use of time lapse events (like the year of indentured servitude your hero endures as the game opens, or the 3 year gap that occurs between the end of the games first and second acts) reminds me very much of the sequences in Fable where the hero is sent to prison, or a citadel, only to return to see the impact their previous decisions had on the world in their absence. The similarity of the animations used to depict the events of these time when they are narrated will also probably look very familiar with anybody who has played the Fable franchise.

Anyways, I'm not sure if I'll have it in me to finish this title, but I am anxious to get back to it and see what happens in the second act.

Dragon Age 2 - Coming Soon

I want to be perfectly clear right now, I would not put any time into either playing, or reviewing, Dragon Age 2 if not for Mass Effect 2. What do I mean by that? Well, as much as I loved the first Mass Effect when it came out, the sequel was so much better than it's predecessor that I was astounded. What does that have to do with Dragon Age? Well, Bioware is the company behind both titles, and while I found the first Dragon Age... lacking, I'm willing to give the second a chance based on the accomplishment of their other current major franchise.

What was it about the first Dragon Age I did not like? Mainly, it was the combat. I played the PC version of the game and was frustrated at how frequently I had to pause the game to micromanage my party in combat. Especially since I could only queue up one action at a time. While Dragon Age Origins did have an AI system that theoretically could have made that easier, it would have required way to much time to really customize and tweak. I appreciate that the developers essentially made it possible to self program the AI of your party. I did not appreciate having to play programmer while trying to engage in an immersive fantasy RPG.

Bioware did succeed in telling an interesting story, with solid characters and as usual a dialog tree so complex it would be almost impossible to see all the possible interactions without cracking open the code and looking them all up. My first play through stalled just before the start of the big End Game content. I was just tired, my party felt somewhat underpowered (common for first RPG run throughs for me) and frankly, I had no desire to go through the tedium of managing my party in a massive battle in an effort to save the world. Some hero I turned out to be.

Anyways, so, the sequel, which follows more expansions than I could be bothered to keep track of, released earlier this week. Hopefully I can get some time in with the game and get at least a early review with first impressions up in the next few days.