OXCGN’s Dragon Age II Review:

A Hack ‘n’ Slash RPG Spectacular: It’s ‘Bloody’ good entertainment

by: Allegionary

©2011 Alex Hilton

The blight is over. The Hero of Fereldon saved the kingdom from the terrors of the darkspawn, but while that heroic adventure was taking place a refugee named Hawke, who is one of the survivors from the terrible day at Lothering, has taken refuge in the city of political struggles, Kirkwall.

Dragon Age II is an epic Role-Playing Game (RPG) made by the truly great RPG creators, Bioware.

Bioware and their publisher EA (Electronic Arts) have given us many great RPGs like Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect and this game sits alongside them as one of the greats of the genre, in most ways.

You play Hawke, who, as you get towards the end of the almost-linear story, becomes the Champion of Kirkwall.

First you must perform menial tasks to gain fame and fortune and it isn’t until you enter the dreaded Deep Roads that you become notorious enough for you to play a big part in the events of Kirkwall.

This story is told to a Chantry Seeker named Cassandra who interrogates your dwarf companion, Varric, in the future. Your companions are much more involved in the story of this game as compared to Dragon Age: Origins.

They have companion missions that don’t just help you gain influence with them but they interact with the main story to make them enjoyable. Also your companions chat between each other in the background while you are running around.

• Dragon Age II Trailer

These chats make the trips between sections of Kirkwall more interesting. Dragon Age II’s story is consistent with the lore of Dragon Age and at the end of the game there is a cliff hanger which should lead on to Dragon Age III.

The story of Hawke does have slow sections where you are doing missions just to gain gold or to be a gap between story missions and this is not helped by the fact that you are locked up in one city for most of the game.

The architecture gets repetitive as you are going to the same place multiple times. Even having one more city to change the scenery would have been nice. The combat in the game is perfect in my opinion; well the way you control it is anyway.

People who enjoy simplicity (like me) can just button-mash their way through the lower difficulties but people who enjoy pausing and organising their companions must do that on the higher difficulties to succeed.

• Dragons Age II Screenshots Slideshow

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The controlling of Hawke is great as well. Movement is simple and the camera compensates for you if you don’t use the right stick (which means you can play one-handed and still see where you’re going).

The looting does have some troubles occasionally but not enough to be a problem.

As I mentioned before the environment is repetitive and  in particular the buildings are serviceable without being stunning.

However the characters are detailed very well and they almost look life like.

During combat blood splatters all over your armour and if you don’t notice it during battle, you sure do notice the blood splatter in the cutscenes. (Although the way that armour gets cleaned during the twenty-second wait between maps baffles me).

Speaking of cutscenes, they were well choreographed and the animations made the character seem real but sometimes they would get distorted and that ruined the realistic effect.

Bioware sure has perfected the art of dialogue choices as Dragon Age has been upgraded from the mute, text-based dialogue choices which were in Dragon Age: Origins to the new fully voiced conversation wheel like the one that was a success in the Mass Effect series.

This means that you choose a line of thought rather than the exact words. Hawke can be aggressive, romantic, cheerful or a peace keeper etc. and the different paths are shown through icons in the centre of the wheel, but unlike the Mass Effect series there is no meter to measure how good or evil you are, which means it has no real effect on the story.

Overall Dragon Age II is a brilliant RPG worthy of Bioware’s reputation. However it is not without its faults as the story telling is a little disappointing and the selection of environments isn’t diverse enough.

Still, the combat is enjoyable and the game immerses you into the world of Dragon Age much better than it did in the original.

OXCGN’s Golden Award

“9/10

©2011 Alex Hilton

xxxxxx

• Dragons Age II Screenshots gallery

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