It's that time of the month! And by that I mean it's time for my game of the month for March! *queue applause and cheers*
Anyway, this month one game has basically dominated my time, both because it is a fun game, and because there are so many different way to go about doing things. What is this game you ask? Why it is none other than Dragon Age 2!!
There were a lot of changes from Dragon Age: Origins over to Dragon Age 2 and unfortunately not all of them were great changes. Don't get me wrong, it is still a great game, but it wasn't as much of a *BANG* game as Origins was. First let me explain why the game IS a good game and what the good changes that were made to it were.
First item on our list is the inventory system. One of the things that made a console copy of Origins phenomenally better than a pc copy was that in the inventory system you could put items into a 'junk' category and when you went to a shop you just needed to click 'Sell All Junk' and bam, the junk is gone. On the pc you had to go through each and every item and ask yourself if you needed it or not, and it took forever to successfully empty your inventory to a shopkeeper without accidentally getting rid of something you might have needed. Well Bioware realized that all us pc gamers wanted that option for our copy so they threw it in with Dragon Age 2. I must say though....the random junk items you pick up constantly get incredibly annoying. I mean at least in Origins when they didn't have a junk classification you at least believed they did something. Now you KNOW they don't do anything and do nothing more than clog up inventory space....
The combat in Origins, while it did make you have to think strategically (unless you figured out the ultra can't beat me combo of 3 mages + Alistar) it took forever from start to finish. After a while the combat in Origins felt like a chore, something you didn't really want to do yet you would just so you could get to the good result, which was the games priceless storyline. In Dragon Age 2 the combat is more stream-lined and fun so that instead of being a chore, it is something you look forward to. Abilities are flashier, and enemies die quicker, not to mention your characters also die quicker so the whole speed of everything is just a lot better. Where in Origins it could take five to ten minutes for a fight against around fifteen enemies, in Dragon Age 2 it takes three to five minutes. Also the ability trees for each class has been improved so that everything looks more organized and cool, instead of the fun filled chart you had to pick from before.
I need to make this very clear to everyone who has played Origins and understand its workings; IN DRAGON AGE 2 ROGUES DON'T SUCK ASS!!! It's true! In Origins rogues were so incredibly terrible there were like fighting an extra enemy, one that drinks your potions and takes up the 4th slot in your party. Rogues brought no real damage to the table, in fact the only bit of usefulness behind them was that they were the only class that could pick locked chests (which by the way in Origins, EVERY CHEST IS A GOD DAMN LOCKED CHEST IT'S SO INFURIATING!!). In Dragon Age 2 rogues actually have some stuff to bring to the table. Their abilities are actually useful, and built more towards a character that needs to jump in, beat the crap out of people, and then jump back out. Also, for lockpicking you no longer have to waste skill points on lockpicking. Instead your lockpicking skill is directly related to how high your Cunning is. And Cunning actually adds to defences so that's actually not too bad a deal!
Now onto the graphics of Dragon Age 2. I won't lie, in Origins the graphics weren't fantastic. But you know what, you could put that aside because of how amazing the game as a whole was when you considered its story line, character development, and everything else. As for Dragon Age 2 however the graphics are simply amazing. There were a couple times where I say textures bug, like when suddenly Isabella's 'shirt' disappeared into her ass...which was kind of weird to be honest but it fixed itself up when I loaded into the next area. All in all the textures and graphics in dragon Age 2 are a HUGE advantage from Origins which is good to see and just gives the game an extra added boom.
Well that is all the good stuff that the game has. Luckily there aren't as many things that I have deemed terrible. In fact there is only one thing in the game that I deem to be 'terrible' and it's more just because it's something that you can't prevent from happening in the game, and in the interest of not giving away game spoilers I am unfortunately not going to tell you what it is. All I can say is that it involves something horrible that happens to a member of your characters family. Now then...onto the flaws of Dragon Age 2....
First and foremost is character creation. In Origins you were given three races, three classes, and six backgrounds to chose from when making your character. In Dragon Age 2 you get to pick whether you want your character to be male or female, and what class you want them to be. You get stuck with the same background every time and you play as a character with the surname Hawke. Now why is a lot of your character prebuilt? Well it's so that you can have a voice actor for your character, and so people in the game can call you by name. I don't know about the rest of you, but I would rather have the option to make the character more of what I want them to be than having at least 60% of the character premade so I can hear people say my name. I mean would it have been that hard to just get another four voice actors in? One to do the male and female voice of both dwarf and elven characters? Well I guess if they did that the storyline wouldn't have made as much sense, which bring me to point #2....
The storyline in Dragon Age 2 is severely lacking when you compare it to Origins. In Origins you are playing as a Grey Warden who needs to unite Ferelden and save it from the danger of the Dawkspawn Blight. In Dragon Age 2...you play as a refuge escaping the Blight who is tasked with babysitting his family, and later doing menial tasks so that either; a. You can escape the templars (if you are a mage) or b. Your sister can escape the templars (if you are not a mage). All in all the story went from an epic tale of a hero saving the world against all odds...to some dude who got lucky and survived a disaster doing stuff in a city. All in all I was hoping for a continuation of where Dragon Age 2 left off, perhaps letting you travel to the lustrous Orlias or the ever villainous Antiva. Nope, both those places remain foreign and ignored. Instead you go to Kirkwall, a city no one has heard of or cares about, made of so much beige rock that they must have destroyed an entire mountain range in order to build the damn place.
In the end Dragon Age 2 is a game that has both its merits and flaws and while there is a lot that could have been done I still think it is a game worth playing. I hope for Dragon Age 3 (because there will be a dragon Age 3...god damn cliff hanger ending GARUNTEES it) that Bioware learns the good that was in both games and combines them into what I can only hope will be some sort of 'Super Dragon Age'.
I give Dragon Age 2 a 7/10 and a Geek of the Week seal of approval.
Until next month, keep gaming and have fun!
-Adam