Saturday, March 19, 2011

Dragon Age II Impressions

I'm about 2/3 of the way through Dragon Age Two, and so far, I'd give it the same review I'd give to Dragon Age One: It's a great story with great characters, lamentably tied to a "game" that's annoying, repetitive, and boring.

Dragon Age II might actually be worse for making you fight meaningless battles all the time. Any time you want to do something, you're inevitably jumped by a dozen interchangeable thugs or monsters. The first dozen isn't enough, though, once you're mostly done with the first group, another wave of people emerges from the scenery. This makes combat overly familiar, and the way enemies appear from nowhere makes the tactics mostly irrelevant. Combat should be significant, emotionally and in game terms. If Hawke kills 50 guys just to walk to where the mission starts, how are we supposed to care about a threat, or about someone's death?

If someone made a mod that removed the combat, that'd be great. I'd love to "play" it as a movie with occasional decision points. Dragon Age or Mass Effect could both be a great movie/TV series, but Dragon Age doesn't really work as a game.

Keep the writers, fire the people in charge of gameplay.

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