Dragon Age 2

This weekend I completed this game amidst a curious reception of two years of angry reviews. I enjoyed the original Dragon Age, as I enjoyed the original Baldur's Gate series. Indeed, for me the party-based RPG trumps the action-roleplaying of the Elder Scrolls series (of which Diablo trumps the Elder Scrolls series too.) For me there is a story in Bioware games, and Dragon Age 2 is no exception.

Except, despite PC Gamer's 95% review, it was lambasted by many in the gaming community. Indeed, one popular (console) gaming website simply put "Dragon Age 2? Please" as its summary of the game, as if it was such a terrible inception of a great series that its failure should be apparent to all.

It wasn't to me.



However, having purchased this from Game in the high street, I must admit I did put it down for a year or so on the basis of such ill-feeling. However, having played it through to some completion in the past month or so, I feel well-placed to give some informed commentary on it.

Character interaction is linear. While other party-based RPGs allow you to tinker with the stats and appearance of your characters, this is not the case with DA2. Although initially this may seem limiting, meaningful character interaction requires certain limits to the variation of your characters. Yes, some of your character are inherently 'evil' and some are notoriously pious. Yet when they do or say something that goes against their grain, but for a plausible reason, it seems to mean something. That, too, the game does this through the medium of 2-3 lines of dialogue between each character is impressive. Complaints have been made about the inability to customise the look of each character's armour. I was not too worried.

Speech options are on a wheel of: diplomatic, blunt and witty. It would have admittedly been better to have these options randomised so, like Deus Ex: HR, you were forced to consider what would have been the best option for you at that time. However, like with some of the championship manager series, what you think is a correct tactic (and what might be an effective tactic in real life) may differ from what the designer thought was suitable. So, again, I was not too bothered by the limited speech options. Romancing different characters was controversial, so I'll let you work that out yourselves.

Quests that seemingly had little impact return later in the game. I received on letter in my in-game house from someone who I had saved on a whim earlier in the game on my rush to completing the main quest. It is my most rewarding experience of the quest. Like a teacher, there are many things done that make little to no impact on ourselves, or even to school life as a whole. However, to the person on the receiving end of those actions, it can be entirely significant.

Combat is excellent. I used to find it tedious, and completed the original Dragon Age with minimal use of my special abilities. I used to want to scrap the combat system and have a purely interaction/adventure based RPG. However, now I appreciate the combat for what it is - tactical (rather than strategic) hacking.

Without spoilers, each act has a different rhythm. Criticisms have been made of the pacing of them all, but I enjoyed them for different reasons. Yes, areas are recycled: the same warehouse is used for at least three different evil plots (it must have a really low rent...) But the quest indication bar and fact that there are 15 or so different areas means that, again, this didn't bother me too much.

The game is less gothic than the original Dragon Age. This did bother me somewhat. Near the end of the game, characters start grabbing swords as big as themselves. Speculation is rife was this was: appealing to popular graphical demands is probably one reason.

I got used to my character's fat face by the end of my quest. But the character generation screen only allows you the excellent bearded face of the original Hawke (the main character)or a Nordrick-inspired effort (google him.)

I'll happily defend the game, and give it a score near into the 90s as far as such scores go. It has great replay value. Its failings are, I think, largely political (in that it is console-friendly, and seems less open-ended than the original DA.) Perhaps the PC-Gamer review should have forseen these, but to those who love the RPG genre, it is superb. Now if I could just get this camera off the heads of my characters a little further...