2011 is going to be one great year for RPG fans! A variety of block buster titles will be released this year. Starting from Dragon Age 2, The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, Fable 3 to the highly anticipated TESV: Skyrim. So far, several less famous RPG have already been released, such as Arcania Gothic 4 and Two Worlds 2. The 8th March marks the release date for the successor to the epic game Dragon Age: Origins from 2009, Dragon Age 2.
The developer Bioware has created the fantasy fictional world of Dragon Age, a traditional Tolkein styled fantasy world with a twist. It is a dark fantasy world filled with problems such as: greed, prejudice, racial discrimination and bigotry (much like our own), and don't forget the dark spawns (similar to the orcs) who are a constant threat to the already shaken human world and their alliances. In Dragon Age 1, Bioware did not utilise this fantasy world quite well, and although Dragon Age 1 was a good game it suffered from a lot of problems.
2 years later, Bioware is releasing Dragon Age 2, and the information makes Dragon Age 2 sound promising. I downloaded the demo of Dragon Age 2 from Bioware a few days ago. The first thing I noticed is that Bioware has totally renovated the combat system in Dragon Age 2. Now the combat feels more fluidic, faster and a lot more action oriented. Most of the attacks consist of combos, and the attack animations look awesome. In Dragon Age 2, the player gets to play the game as Hawke, a refugee from a destroyed village called "Lothering". Hawke fleed with his family to the kingdom of Kirkwall from their doomed village. In the game the player will take control of Hawke and rise to the status of champion of Kirkwall through a 10 year period. Where the decisions the player makes during the game will have surprising consequences that will show up as the story progresses. This is quite interesting, and I can't wait to see how this new concept will play out in Dragon Age 2. The player will have three choices of character class: warrior, assassin, and mage. Furthermore the player will get the choice to be either male or female, with options to customize facial appearance. The new addition is that in Dragon Age 2, both male and female characters are fully voiced like in Mass Effect 2. The levelling system has been changed, and now the player will strength their characters according to skill trees and adding points to character attributions.
Watch the trailer of Dragon Age 2 (video credit to www.ign.com)
The dialogue system has been changed as well, in Dragon Age 2 the dialogue options are presented around a wheel, similar to Mass Effect 2. From the demo I can already tell that one of the strengths for this game is going to be in the story telling and the in game character development.
The graphics of Dragon Age 2 has been slightly updated, although it is not going to be comparable to Witcher 2 or Skyrim, but it is still well designed and beautiful to look at.
From the demo experience, Dragon Age 2 looks promising, and the developer has promised between 30-40 hours of gameplay. I have pre-ordered it from Steam and got a huge discount (But I don't think the discount is still valid because the pre-order period has expired). Now I am just waiting for Steam to unlock the game for Australia release which will be tomorrow.
Stay tuned for a more in-depth review coming soon! (well, I have to finish the game first to review it..)
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