Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Dragon Age 2: First Impressions

I came home this evening to a beautiful sight: an unopened manilla, padded envelope with a shrink-wrapped copy of Dragon Age 2 nestled inside sitting on my front porch. I picked up the envelope and hurried inside, tearing that envelope open with a speed only matched by the desire to play the game.

I slapped that disc into my XBox and sat down to play a very promising game. Dragon Age 2 opens with one of several cut scenes involving a clean-shaven dwarf and a Seeker of the Chantry. What follows is an engrossing story and a brief interlude of your new character, Hawke, being thrown into the fray following the tale the dwarf is weaving to the Seeker.

Combat is VERY changed from Dragon Age: Origins. Gone is turn-based combat. This game is fast-paced, with your attack button (in this case A on the XBox 360) judging your swing speed, and however fast you can tap your thumb. It is by no means a button-masher, however. You have your switchable list of abilities (your original three set to the X, Y and B on your 360, and an alternate three abilities that can be activated with these buttons and holding the right trigger.) that can be used any time they're not on cooldown. 

The music, as with any BioWare game is top notch, with an engaging, enriching score that will keep your blood pumping and your thumb not far from the attack button. 

Dialogue trees are unchanged from the original and the Mass Effect games. Why fix something that isn't broken? 

The sound effects and visual effects are brutal. Playing as a rogue, I was just flailing away with a pair of daggers, hacking down Darkspawn as if Hawke had a pair of chopsaws for hands. Blood, gore and chunks of Darkspawn littered the landscape (and my character's face). 

Blood, as with the original Dragon Age flies everywhere. Your character, dog, sister, brother and mother are almost always covered in it, and the Darkspawn appear to have fire hoses in place of veins. While this may not be entirely unrealistic, it certainly is over the top, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The voice acting is top-notch, and your character finally has a voice! No longer do we have the silent, dummy expressions for our characters, and we can watch them fully realized on the screen. While it may not be what we personally would say in such situations, the folks over at BioWare have given us a decent interpretation of what could be said in such circumstances.

All in all, I'm really very happy with the way Dragon Age 2 turned out (so far, I've only played for a half hour, and I have a much longer review planned later) and I can't wait to see how the story goes. 

If you haven't gotten your hands on it yet, hop to!

2 comments:

Kater69 said...

Interesting. Is it only available on XBox and (I'm assuming) PS3?

Unknown said...

It's also on PC.