My Dragon Age 2 review (warning spoilers and a big nice cup of rage)
From the point, in which Dragon Age 2 was announced, it became obvious that the release would be a big disappointment. The game was obviously rushed, and its attempt to appease "larger market segment" resulted in an ultimate failure of turning a recognized CRPG into an anime-styled slasher.
Plot: In this aspect I'd divide the game into two parts. First is when Hawk tries to earn money to get into expedition and use the profits to buy back the estate. Second half doesn't have any plot at all, simply because there is no actual goal that would motivate the character to keep going further into the story, but for one reason or another he always appears in a middle of things. Characters were not badly written, but some of them were made just to be "badass", which is really annoying, especially if you are not a 12 year old. My favorite character was Anders. And not only because he was from Origins, the last good Bioware game, but because he actually has a personality, and his back story is rather complex and different, as opposed to majority of characters, which were just copies of Origins characters with slight class/race differences. Isabella was a copy of Morrigan, Merill was copy of Leliana, etc. My least favorite character was Fenris. And not only because he looked like a generic anime character with his skinny emokid looks and an oversized two-handed sword, but also because his voice did not fit the appearance at all. Overall, plot was not exceptionally bad, but there were some core mistakes and the game itself was rushed, which negatively affected plot as well.
Gameplay: Well, where do I start here? The gameplay in this game is an absolute garbage. This is no longer "spiritual successor" of Baldurs Gate series. Remember how in Origins you had to plan your battles out? Well, its gone now. Enemies in this game now materialize out of nowhere, usually following "everytime boss loses 25% of life we'll rush another wave" scheme. Tactical isometric screen is gone now as well, I guess so that new Bioware's "target audience", if they accidentally scroll back, won't get scared that they might have to use their brain this one time. Camera is absolutely retarded. I can't even see whats really going on, since all characters just jump around with weapons like generic anime characters, so whole battlefield is turned into a giant blur. Animations are horrible as well. In Origins Bioware attempted to create some pseudo-realistic experience. Here all characters jump around and do tons of pointless moves, which look "badass" for autistic teenagers, and look silly for everyone else. Throw a grenade with hand?now, I'll throw it up in the air first and kick it there. Go into stealth and backstab an enemy boss from there? Just let me get my teleporting machine, so I can disappear and materialize behind his back. As I already have said, this is no longer a CRPG, that people loved Origins for. It is now a slasher/date sim with little RPG elements.
Another big problem of the game is that it is increasingly repetitive. EA's desire to release game as soon as possible has led to lack of locations, which by the second half of games makes further gameplay increasingly painful. For many times you go through same locations, fight same enemies and than do the same thing over and over again.
Overall, this is the worst game that Bioware has ever made. Its plot is underdeveloped, gameplay is primitive and overall its rushed and full of bugs. What added insult to injury was Bioware's and EA's behavior in which they spent tones of money into damage control by buying off almost every major video game reviewers out there and deleting every negative opinion on the game. If only they've spent his amount of effort in the actual game, it might not have been that bad.
Overall, I'd give this game 3/10.
PS Since there are separate Bioware forums, I did not know whether I should have posted this in review section or Bioware Games forums.
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Originally Posted by Soviet
