Posts Tagged ‘Dragon Age 2’

I’m a big fan of Dragon Age Origins and an even bigger fan of Bioware. The first game wasn’t perfect, but it was still a great game that had far more excellent qualities than flaws. So nothing would make me happier than to tell you that Dragon Age 2 keeps everything that was great and improves on the flaws making it an even better game. Sadly I can’t do that. It’s not all bad news though because I also can’t tell you that Dragon Age 2 is worse than it’s predecessor. In fact In my humble opinion Dragon Age 2 is of equal quality to the first game and that’s both good and bad.

Dragon Age Origins was a little outdated on it’s graphics and that was one of the negatives toward it by most gamers and reviewers. I’m not some one who is to concerned by graphics at all, but if you are you can rest a little easier knowing that Dragon Age 2 does have some improved graphics. They are not as amazing as Mass effect 2’s graphics but they are still good and comparable to most modern RPG’s. Sadly while the graphics are improved you spend most of your time looking at the same place. I don’t mind that most of the game is in Kirkwall , but I do mind that all the caves and coverns share pretty much the exact same map/layout with out any deviation. Once you have entered one cave you’ve entered them all. That’s sadly not an exaggeration. Kirkwall  however is very unique in each area and is beautifully rendered and a pleasure to be around.

Conversations have improved vastly and it’s very nice to have a voiced character like in Mass Effect it’s much better. I like the dialogue system it works well. Only minor confusion is the symbols I suggest looking in the manual because most of them you’d never guess what they actually meant. Bioware has always bragged about how it’s games allow you to make choices that change the story and yet while it’s always been cool and interesting it’s never had as big an impact as they claim. Dragon Age 2 is not very different and the difference that it does have is actually negative. I played twice and in my first play through I was impressed with the choice system it really made me feel that I had big choices to make and that the entire story would change based on my choices. It wasn’t until my second time around that I realized that my choices don’t have hardly any change at all. For a single play through it seems amazing how much choice you have, but a second time around you realize you really don’t have any at all. If you choose one thing ‘this outcome will happen’ if you choose another the same outcome and if you go with door number 3 it’s a slightly modified version of the same outcome. At best what you can hope for as a ‘big change’ is that one line of dialogue from an NPC will be altered and you’ll have a slightly different cut scene. That’s at best though usually it’s just a dialogue change. It’s the least amount of change I’ve seen from a Bioware game that’s come out in the last 6 years. Don’t expect to alter the story at all. Read on for more…

Read more: Geeky Game Review: Dragon Age 2