Dragon Age 2!? Oh Em Gee.

For those who don't know, I am not a fan of the Dragon Age series. In fact, I bought DA:Origins and quickly returned it the next day.

I'll let that sink in for a little bit.

Dragon Age was one of the few games I have bought without reading ANYTHING about it. My basis on the type of game it was and the quality was from the commercials and the hype of friends talking about it. So when I bought it, I expected Demon's Souls-like combat with awesome spells and abilities. Instead, I was given this:

Video Author: XISIL3NTIX

Now don't get me wrong, some people LOVE this kind of gameplay. In fact, I used to be a big fan of this style of combat on PC games. Which brings me to what I always say about Dragon Age, that it is a PC game, ported to consoles. What does that mean? Well, think about console games and PC games. On the console side you have a game like God of War, on the PC side you have a game like Baldur's Gate. That is not to say that all console games are beat-em ups and all PC games a dungeon crawling mini-games(incoming hate emails). Computer games are known for micro-management, and the combat fits that style. Meaning physics and reactions are kept to a minimal while paying attention to numbers are the fun of the game(aka micro-management.) Console games are all about physics. Since most of the time you are controlling 1 character, and games want you to feel like you're part of what is going on. With PC games, you are instead the "master" of your "game"(emails!) and instead of you being on the front line, you are just a presence that orchestrates how the battle unfolds. This is exactly how Dragon Age plays (in my opnion.)

Tomorrow, Dragon Age 2 will be released. They did fiddle with the combat in the game to encourages console players like myself to give it another try. But is it enough to make me want to get into it?

The character models have always looked great. Unfortunately, in the demo, you aren't allowed to make any changes to your character. But just going from the default character, it already looks better than Dragon Age: Origins(DA:O).

The combat has taken a turn for the better though. I find it funny because when I read the Playstation Blog Interview with Bioware all of their thoughts are my same thoughts when I tried the demo. The physics are still designed for micro-management, but the feel of the game is much more reactive and impressive. You put in a command and you can see the results. Shield Bashes aren't just little taps with your shield, the character does a full lunge and bashes heads with his(or her) shield. You do still have a menu you can select actions from, but the time you spend outside of the menu in combat is much more fluid(and satisfying).

So will I pick up the game? Probably not. But this time, it isn't because it is bad. There are many games out there I would love to have, but since I'm playing so many already, they are pushed to my wishlist. Dragon Age 2 has the privilege of being on my game wish list! Congratulations. The changes to the combat, and visually quality are leaps and bounds better than DA:O, it feels like a console game and not a terrible port. Kudos to EA and Bioware. It is only March and this year's game lineup is looking to be incredible.