Perpetual Burnout

Dragon Age 2 is a stark contrast to the epic saga of Dragon Age: Origins. Origins followed the saga of the last Grey Warden as he gathered an army to stop the darkspawn Blight. The story culminated with an epic battle against the Archdemon itself. While the story is formulaic, the implementation was top-notch. The overarching plot was epic in scope, and within that were 3 fleshed-out subplots where you had to win the allegiance of the factions which pledged their aid to the Grey Wardens during a darkspawn Blight. Add a large number of side-quests and some interesting companions, and you have DA:O. DA2 eschewed the traditional fantasy epic to follow Hawke, a refugee, as he arrives in the city of Kirkwall and ascends to power over the course of a decade. The game focuses on a single city and the politics within that city, rather than the broad view of many factions and cultures that DA:O provided. This is not a bad thing! Not every person can be a world-saving hero, and I'd ...

Dragon Age 2 is an enjoyable, if deeply flawed, successor to Dragon Age: Origins. To paraphrase Ron Case (my brother-in-law) "Even if it's one of Bioware's weakest offerings, it's still much better than many other games out there." I whole-heartedly agree. I am personally torn between rating on its own merits and comparing it to its predecessor. As the game is part of a franchise, one most examine both aspects to give the game a balanced review. As I have a lot of ground to cover, I'll review the mechanics and plot separately. I played DA:O and DA2 on Nightmare difficulty on the PC, so my review will be coming from that perspective. And when I say "review", I mean "list of things I found notable". Platform: PC Difficulty: Nightmare Combat is faster paced-- I'm not entirely sure how to quantify pacing in combat, but it certainly feels like things happen quickly. This is a good thing, although it barely affected my experience as I...