Dragon Age 2

First of all: in my 20 years of C-RPG experience I've never written a game review before, and that's because I've never felt the need to do so. I believe that with Drageon Age 2 a worrying trend is emerging, a trend I would like to address here: short development phases (18 month for DA2), incomplete game world and story, simplistic game play to broaden the audience, demanding full price for a game while preparing DLCs to fill in the remaining gaps. Bioware was once regarded "the bringer of rain" after a drought in the genre of RPGs (for the PC). But now they could play the opposite role: if they are the most prominent agents of the genre (besides Bethesda) and their games are setting trends, then other companies will follow their example, if they haven't already. To be more detailed I'll point out aspects that annoyed me the most:

Game world:
- The most insolent recycling in a state-of-the-art RPG I've seen so far: dozens of times you walk through levels which are IDENTICAL, and I mean identical. Every corner, texture, model, architecture, lighting etc. are exactly the same, just with another label (for example "cave xyz" instead of "cave abc").

- The main game world consists of just 15 to 20 small or very small locations in a city (small means an area which takes 20 seconds to 60 seconds to cross, very small means a simple flat)

- There are no (more or less) diversified regions like snowy mountains, deserts, jungle, forest, real dungeons, castles, other towns etc., just this one city and three outer regions that are not noteworthy

- The few existing places look sterile and somehow empty although there are a few people standing around, but they are just copies doing nothing. There are no animals, no interesting props, no interesting architecture, no waving foliage, no sounds of wind, loud chatter etc.

- Most of the levels are extremely "tubular": just one way, no possibility for exploration. If you use such level design, you should use it for thrilling script events, as seen in COD, to propel the storytelling, but that's not the case with DA2.

A proper game world would have been to expensive...

Game play:

- 90% of game play consists of running and killing: go to place X, kill everyone, talk to person Y to have a reason for killing and then go to place Z and kill everyone. Most of the time there are no alternative ways to solve problems (the only exceptions are found in dialogues with companions). But hey: that's what the world is about, ain't it?

- Interactions with the environment are not possible, just run, fight, talk, (rudimental) barter. No environmental riddles, no forging, no eating, no sleeping, etc. Would be to complex, eh?

Items and Inventory:

- Companions can't be equipped with armour, just with a weapon, a ring, a belt and an amulet. Would be too complex...

- In the inventory and shops items look absolutely uninteresting and the same: each type of item has the SAME grey and white icon, for example the same symbol for a sword. The only differences are the values of the item. Too much effort giving them a distinctive look?

- Most of the time the few items you can purchase out-value the few items you find in your travels

- There are no real item sets or unique items

- Why does a plate armour take exactly the same space / weight in inventory (= 1 Slot) as a ring or an amulet (= 1 Slot)? Too much to think about?

Combat:

- Remember, you have to fight and fight and fight, and sometimes to fight, but don't worry: there isn't much to do, sit back and watch, no tactics needed (you could raise the difficulty but that just means opponents don't take as much damage and hit you harder).

- No overview allowed: forget Dragon Age Origins or Baldur's Gate, not immersive enough, has to be a close look over the shoulder like in Mass Effect 2, or say COD!? Another "advantage": the game world seems to be larger than it actually is.

- In many fights there are up to four or five waves of the same opponents like in good old arcade gaming. That's a challenge RPG-players really enjoy.

- If a fight ends successfully health, mana and stamina of all your companions are restored instantly. No need for rest, healing etc.... Waste of time, there are more interesting fights waiting 10 yards ahead.

- Ammunition is for prigs: arrows and bolts are created the moment they are shot, no buying needed.

Dramaturgy:

- The backgrounds and dialogues preceding and following missions are of high quality, BUT what about a larger conflict, to what end am I killing hordes of idiots? Is there any greater inner or outer threat than a killer whom the player seeks to kill? The Qunari are a threat, for twenty minutes of game play. Templar and Magicians don't like each other and there's a fight, but that's it. No threat and no thread. Calling Hawke "Champion" is an exaggeration to cover that he hasn't achieved much. The whole game is "unepic" and seems to be merely a chapter of an epic game, if that.

This game is a hateful and lazy attempt at cashing in on the success of the brilliant Dragon Age: Origins. By the time you have completed the same dungeon for the 10th time on the pretence of a different quest, you really feel ripped off.

And almost every enemy is essentially identical, some are bigger than others. The big spiders are fun. The big dragons chase you around for ages because if you stop, it will kill you, while your rogue with the crossbow does tiny amounts of damage so it takes 10 minutes for the thing to die.

And whether it is EA, Bioware, or both, they need to get a grip of what makes RPG players enjoy RPGs - character customisation for all of the party, making the game as you want it, diverse quests and interest magic items that do more than give you some tiny, inconsequential stat boost.

The story in this game could have been written on the back of a cigarette packet down the pub. I want a great game with a solid story with some interesting twists, not a reasonably boring story interspersed by really tedious combat.

If you read almost every mainstream review of this game, the reviews hark on about the awkward dialogue of the first game, the disappointment of the first game. I don't remember them saying that the first time - it appears that criticising the first game endlessly and talking up this games alleged improvements was considered the best way forward.

I am guessing that those reviewers do not get out much. The dialogue, character interaction and 'adult' themes of this game could have been written by a 13-year old whose sum total of life experience and interaction with the opposite gender is his computer club at school and Loaded magazine. It isn't even as though the 'adult' stuff is that good either.

And because you want to give this game a go, and you are willing it to be better than it is, you keep on playing it until you realise that it really is as bad as you suspected it would be from the opening half an hour, and it has just sucked 30 hours of your life away that you will never, ever get back.

I have given it 2 stars because it I did play it for a considerable number of hours, so it deserves a star for value for money, and I cannot exactly get those wasted hours of my life back.

Dragon Age: Origins was a bit of a moving back to the glory days of Baldur's Gate for Bioware. Sure, it didn't have the D&D rule set and it had some questionable mechanics (like cool down periods for spells) but it did have a strong story, engaging characters, many many different and colourful locations and so much to do.

And then Dragon Age 2 came along a week ago, and Bioware must have hated how good Dragon Age: Origins really was because they decided to get rid of almost everything that made Dragon Age: Origins so popular. The combat has moved from being reasonably tactical, to button mashing/clicking. Gone is the overhead camera, spamming of abilities increased, people jump all over the place, combat now sees enemies respawn in mid air in the middle of combat, and to make it all even less forgiving: all the cool locations are replaced with a single big dull city for the huge majority of the game, crafting has been kicked out and replaced with something far less agreeable, the characters you meet feel far more clichéd and uninteresting and the story is pretty yawn worthy not to mention it has quite a lot of cracks in its pacing.

To make matters worse, the game feels like it was badly rushed, with almost no area of the game receiving much attention to detail. From the music to the voices to the graphics, it all makes you feel as a cheap sequel. The city fails to convince (the guards eagerly tells you that it's overcrowded and full, yet the streets are almost deserted in the game - this is one of the many immersion-breaking things you'll find) and it really feels a great deal more like a game and less like a world to explore. Bioware didn't find this to be enough, so they ended up re-using the exact same locations a dozen times over in the game with minute differences. They already did this for certain ambushes in Dragon Age: Origins, but it's a great deal worse here, more evidence of how rushes this game was.

And there's soooo much more to mention - the user interface that barely has any flair anymore (compared to the beautiful hand-drawn graphics of the first game) and feels as flat and dull as the game itself. And what about how you can no longer outfit your team members? And standard icons for all items you pick up meaning you can't tell the difference between them. Or what about spending half the time running across the city doing errant after errant, backtracking a great deal through the same areas (I think Bioware were confusing their upcoming MMO with DA2) or how selecting an enemy is a nightmare - half the time if I want to cast a spell, I have to rotate the (very annoying) camera several times before my cursor will finally light up to confirm a target. And then there's the totally unbelievable characters - like how the death of your brother doesn't evoke any reaction from you, or how characters behave totally unrealistically, entire scenes that feel like they came right out of a B-movie (especially the first hour or so before you enter the city). And of course, the terrible AI of your party members which is completely turned on by default (in the first game it was advised to turn it off as well) but turning it off means making the game even less enjoyable. And did I mention it's way too easy on "normal"?

In the end, if you enjoy button mashing buttons and just seeing flashy effects, you might enjoy this. IF you're a fan of the old Bioware RPGs like Baldur's Gate, be prepared to be very disappointed. This is far more Mass Effect: Fantasy Edition with far worse combat than Baldur's Gate. All I can say is: don't buy this. Don't send EA and Bioware a signal that they can neglect the PC community like this. Dragon Age: Origins sold millions on the PC - there was no reason to focus on consoles for the sequel and yet they did. So don't support them.