Seven dragons short of a legend
Format: PS3 (version played), Xbox 360, PC Dev: BioWare Pub: EA Out: 11/03/11 Players: 1
A few years ago I heard a few things Dragon Age: Origins, but not a great deal. Turns out a lot of people liked the game and EA wanted a sequel, fast. Enter Dragon Age II. Can BioWare’s hasty follow-up stand shoulder to shoulder with its predecessor or does it deserve to be slain?
Upon beginning, you find yourself encased within a highly confusing and hardly exciting story within a story – I still have no idea what it is all about. Does the game really expect you to keep playing simply to find out who the weird little guy telling the story to the annoying short haired woman is? I don’t think so.
When control is hand over, you are faced with the amusing task of creating your character. My character has the look of a twisted monk with a tattooed face, huge beard and a profanity for a name. Good start. Next, will he be a warrior, rogue or mage? By this point you become resigned to the fact that you are clearly embarking upon some kind of Dungeons & Dragons-inspired mess, easily resisting the role of wizard or weasel my dirty named character was designated as a warrior, with a view to bashing the crap out of everything and everyone.
So, cast out in to the world of Dragon Age II, with no prior experience of Origins or an instruction booklet to aid me, I still had hope that this game might just be awesome. You find yourself in the city of Kirkwall after fleeing the city of Ferelden – keeping up Tolkien fans? Here in Kirkwall, you are reunited with Gandalf, Sam and the other Hobbits. No, wait, sorry, it happened again. It is difficult not to cringe at the overt references to Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons. The representation of class was the next thing that got my goat once my character began to parley with various Kirkwall residents. Any member of my valiant party possessed a voice that sounded as if it belonged to the King of England, whereas any merchant or ‘regular’ person encountered sounds like the most stereotypical cockney imaginable; just another item to add to the list of unbearable clichés offered by this game.
After mingling in Kirkwall for a short while, you’re finally let loose on the world map. At last, I thought, my party can wreak havoc on this damn world and have some fun. Alas, it was not to be as there is no free roaming allowed, as was the case with Origins. In effect, the player has choices on where to go, what to do, what to say, but these choices are limited. A casual observer, while watching me play the game commented that it ‘looked old’ in comparison with modern RPGs. This could perhaps be explained by the fact that Dragon Age II is practically Origins with a new, rushed storyline. So, taking this in to account Dragon Age II is only recommended if you are a fan of the first instalment, wizards, dwarfs, Harry Potter, dragons or Sean Bean.
Andy King
Tags: bioware, dragon age, ea, fantasy, rpg
