Dragon Age 2
Dragon Age 2 comes out today. And I have no time to play it! Frustrating.
I liked Dragon Age Origins immensely (as I’ve written before) – it was triumph of interactive multimedia storytelling. In fact, it’s time to wax pompous and quote myself:
A game like “Dragon Age”, I think, isn’t merely a game. It is art, a form of truly interactive storytelling. A new medium, created by blending voice acting, graphic design, artwork, music, and superb writing & world-building, fusing them together in a way that would not have been technologically possible until a few years ago. “Dragon Age” represents a new form of art, a new medium, come at last it into its own.
I hadn’t finished Dragon Age Origins when I wrote that, but the ending of the game did not revise my opinion – it’s a truly nasty moral choice. In fact, Dragon Age Origins is now my favorite computer RPG, replacing Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment. It’s not that Dragon Age Origins was necessarily a better game that Baldur’s Gate or Torment (all three games have excellent writing and plots), but that Dragon Age Origins superseded them in terms of technological advancement, and the storytelling possibilities opened up by that advancement, in much the same way that radio superseded the telegraph.
So I hope Dragon Age 2 lives up to its predecessor’s excellent example. Once I have time to play it, of course.
-JM
Bought it the day it came out! It was great!!!
(Granted this is many months after you originally posted it, but I was not aware of your blog at that time)
So have you had time to play it yet? If you have not, let me let you in on something…while alot of people liked the sequel, many of the Dragon Age’s most ardant fans did not 🙁 Alot is different in the new game, but I still enjoy it very much, still the same good storytelling, most of the changes were in the combat for example. Where as DA:O was classic CRPG combat, DA2 is more action oriented, less tactical. This is one of the major gripes of some. DA2 is bit of a funny story actually…it garned great reviews from critics, sold huge (2 million copies in about a month), but gave Bioware (the game’s developer) it’s biggest fan backlash yet.
However I still thought it was excellent! That said, it had it’s faults (no more ‘camp’ to rest at, companions can only have full bodied suits of armor-no more mixing and matching, and the story is good but its more centered around one guys legend, and thus looses the same ‘epic’ feel of the ‘save the world’ story of DA:O) and of course the same world building problems continue over from the first one, namely the blatant sexual libertinism (homosexuality included) of some of your characters…puhlease! Tell me, exactly what year the ‘sex revolution’ hit Thedas? It’s the Middle ages folks, can we actually start acting like it is…(roll eyes)
That is an excellent point – it’s astonishing how no one in these settings ever seems to become pregnant, despite the lack of birth control technology.
“That is an excellent point – it’s astonishing how no one in these settings ever seems to become pregnant, despite the lack of birth control technology.”
lol! I know, right? Maybe they have a magic abortion spell or something, these days, I’d never put it past them. 🙁
Then again….Morrigan WAS pregnant….but you would have had to play the “Witch Hunt” DLC to know that.
Also: thanks for responding to my commments!
One last thing…have you had a chance to play “Dragon Age 2” yet? It would be interesting to here your thoughts on it, especially given your love of the first.
Not extensively – I’ve only gotten Hawke back from the Deep Roads expedition, so far. But basically, I think Dragon Age 2 has the plot of “Scarface”, but with less cocaine – immigrant comes to Kirkwall and makes it big.
“But basically, I think Dragon Age 2 has the plot of “Scarface”, but with less cocaine”
rofl, that was a good line! Not sure I would have described it like that myself though.
When you do actually finish the game, could you post about it, your thoughts on it I mean?
I will do so. Might take a while, though. 🙂