Dragon Age II Rise to Power

O Dragon age how I loathe the, with your uncanny ability to give the player the life changing decisions five minutes into the game. Oh how I enjoyed walking out of the first town only to realize that I had missed two party members that could not be reclaimed. It was as if Bioware came from the sky and backhanded me for not being the ever vigilant rpg junky that talks to every person in the town before leaving. It was as if they actually wanted to player to read all the script they spent years writing and not simply run through the game loping off the head of every man, monster and unsuspecting nun you saw. Well Bioware if you wanted me to waste my dull life on that you should have made it prettier.

Clearly some on in pc gaming must have been sleeping with the developers because it was simply better in every way on that platform. On the console Dragon Age Origins had spotty graphics, awkward sentence structures and dialogue options that caused your auto fit screen to widen. The overall inadequacy of facial animations was so bad and laggy at parts it actually made me wish for the day when characters talked telepathically and their lips didn’t move. Not to mention the seamless combat sequences that flowed about as well as 1950 stop motion film. I mean every fight felt so real with the constant pausing and cueing of single abilities was as if the gamer were playing on a disk that had been dragged over asphalt. The game pretty much had the feel that Bioware had half heartedly put out console version’s for this original game. Sort of like the degenerate step son you keep lock in the closet for fear he’d rip off your head in the night...what you never had one of those? So it is here that I will begin to warm my “Like Mass Effect But Not As Good” branding Iron and discuss what is new in this hastily created sequel.

A few of the more notable updates in this game are the character models, the combat platform and the skills upgrade system. The fighting has been amped up considerably with more fluid animations and combating sequences that have the feel of real time almost to the point of a hack and slash. Though, if you desire to pause and que your skills ONE at a time you can do that as well. Next, impact physics has finally been corrected in the game the game. You can finally say good bye to mister archer turning you in to a nice piece of slightly melted Swiss cheese with his flaming arrows as you beat him with a megaton hammer! Now people and characters actually move when hit, they stagger and even fall over with some crushing blows!

Some other good news is the skills system! No more will you have to suffer under the wretched regime of statically placed points in a linear bar graph esq tree. The new system is very much of the Dead Space and Final Fantasy Variety with trees that have six branches coming off from every which way that offer a variety of skills and perks so as to not rabbit hole you. Though, to be fair this is more like a rabbit hole with multiple rooms! You still have to pick your starting class which limits your set of skills. No matter how you dress it up if you pick a melee class you really on have two choices tank or hack and slash dps (physical skills only) but again its more than you had so be grateful after all this isn’t Mass Effect! I mean do you really want to see some magic wielding warriors around here that can sort of heal themselves or throw a fire ball. Nope that’s only Final Fantasy crap and we care too much about the story here at Bioware to hop on that band wagon of epic fails…I mean come on In-Media- Res poppy cock. (Insert developer’s grumble at a cheap way to cut out and important back story and plot to get to the action here)

Another great innovation made by this game is the Dialogue wheel. No more will your tv screen act like its in a horror film switching picture sizes as you switch between unbelievably long and awkward dialogue choices. They have taken the mass effect route and simply put the basic idea of the responses on the wheel. Thank god for that, if I wanted to read a short novel every time I talked to some one I would have played a jrpg. Plus…isn’t that what the voice actors are for? Which brings me to my next point, your hero will now be fully voiced by an actor. No more are you the strong silent type that depicts his choices and emotions with amazing clarity through only his stiff nod and shiver inducing stare.

Now some of you may be wondering with all these new bells and whistles you how does the old game play into this. Well in the spirit of trying to rip off as much as mass effect as they could Bioware has made it possible to import your data from Dragon Age Origins. Much like mass effect the choices you made in the previous game will go into shaping the world your playing in along with deciding some the familiar faces you see in game. So original I know but at least they are stealing from themselves and taking something worth using. Poor team ninja never quite got that concept….

So all in all Dragon Age II has had a major facelift both graphically and content wise. The combat has been smoothed out, the skill trees embellished, dialogue revamped and “replay ability added”. Not to mention a subtle push for you to go back and play the original half backed blue berry muffin they gave you to get a more in-depth experience…..clever bioware (IT’S A TRAP!). However one huge thing is still missing from this massive list of updates. Dragon Age II is still rumored to lack an auto save function. For games like this it is pretty much like saying that it’s a computer that lacks a back space or delete key. It is by all means possible to do what you have to do but it sure makes your life as frustrating as hell. I mean you already have a save option would it kill you to add auto save…I mean it’s like handing us a condom with the tip cut off. One moment were cruising along having the time of our lives and then we make one mistake…frantically look to see if we are covered…only to realize that once more Dragon Age has effectively boned us....

Without further adieu I brand this game with probably “LIKE MASS EFFECT BUT NOT AS GOOD”

P.S. For those of you who care about the validity of the story….its Bioware…good writing is a requirement.