Oh, definitely. DA2's interior pissed me off - even though they tried to cover some of that with returning to old dungeons to fight new inhabitants. Nevertheless, as a general game, DA2 was a solid B even with that monotonous dungeon recycling; it might have been an A- game if not for that.

DA2 was a much better game, IMO, that DA:O - voice acting, graphics, speed of combat, and even level advancement was much better handled than in the original. For example, in DA:O rogues were squishy and not terribly useful in combat at higher levels, typically getting mobbed by critters while the fighter (meat shield) had enough armor to shrug off all but the worst damage but didn't aggro enough to draw enemies to him like he should. I played all kinds of rogues in DA:O - dwarf, elf, human, noble, duster, whatever - and found them unpleasant to play in melee. Archers were good and the Ranger prestige class was win, but in general Rogue PCs were a waste. In DA2, however, dual-wielding rogues were straight-up murder-your-face-off bad asses; not so good in one-on-one, but wicked wrong (as rogues SHOULD be) in a group. Even mages were more dynamic and menacing in their spell casting - whipping that staff around like you're a damn Shaolin monk rather than DA:O's sway-in-a-breeze or poke-at-you animations.

Is that really acceptable in a AAA game though? I mean if the The First Templar (a budget title) does that, it's one thing, but for a big time AAA that's pretty bad, at least to the level they did it.

Really? I found the Rogue to be an excellent class in DA:O. Once you pumped your Cunning coupled with Lethality, got Momentum and maybe add Assassin for Mark of Death, the Rogue was a blender.

I actually preferred the second game to origins. My feelings toward origins are that they wanted to do a more Baldur's Gate-esque game while still keeping a mainstream appeal, and in my opinion they failed horribly. The story was way more generic than I could possibly imagine, the game itself was just a series of extremely boring dungeon crawls. And to top it off, all the DLCs (except for shale) where horrible attempts at just stealing some extra cash from the players (not that I condone of DLC in the first place, but at least they did a way better job for the ME2 ones).

With DA2 they completely thew out any ambitions of reminiscing of BG, and made a quick development cost effective title. Not very good at all, but I certainly enjoyed playing it more than origins.

If you specced a rogue exactly right in the first game you could regularly do over 500 points of damage per shot. Oddly enough fighters were the weakest class for heavy damage since mages had some of the brutally lehtal spell combinations & an archer rogue could instakill anything lower than a boss most of the time

Yeah, don't bother giving EA the money. Get it if you want for $5 or less.
Thank you EA again for destroying everything I ever loved, since Westwood.

Honestly EA has a lot to answer for, but I don't think DA2 is one of them.

Oh, DA2, how I hate thee, let me count the ways...

-The gaping hole where the plot should be. This game has no story. It tried instead to 'focus' on 'the story of Hawke', but it doesn't work because at the same time it distances the player from the Hawke by only offering bits and snatches from his/her time in Kirkwall. Apparently those few days every three or four years were the only times when anything important happened.

-Hawke as a character. I enjoyed most of the companions, but Hawke is so unlikable. I felt no sense of ownership of the character I played (unlike most RPG's I've played, including Mass Effect).

-The combat. My god. This is really what stopped me enjoying it even the first time around. I started out on normal, and before the end of the first act I'd turned it down to casual. I didn't do it because it was especially difficult, but so that it would be over quicker, so that I would not have to spend as much time stuck in the banal, stupid combat with the f***ing spawning enemies.

-The characters. I know I said I liked the companions, but outside of them there was hardly a single memorable, or even interesting character. By the time the third act comes around, there are so many missions where you go somewhere, someone speaks to you and says words to the equivalent of: 'ah, Hawke, thank you for helping me that one time. Remember me?' I wanted to scream 'No, I don't assh***. I don't remember random character b from subplot 46.'

-So many missions were resolved with a mage freaking out, deciding to use blood magic, and instantly turning into a demon that had to be taken down. I may be rusty on Dragon Age lore, but I'm pretty sure that isn't how it works, and even if it is, that's just lazy, and means that it never makes any sense to side with the mages, as they'll eventually just use blood magic.

-The ending. *SPOILERS* No choice. Kill Anders. Or don't. It doesn't matter. Side with the mages or templars. It doesn't matter. No difference. Whatever you do, you ultimately wipe out both factions and flee the city, with only the character you shacked up with staying with you. No character resolution. No payoff for the story (!) or sub-plots.

-The recycling of areas. Ok, Mass Effect did this a little bit, but the big difference is that in Mass Effect, it was a bunch of optional side quests that were set in identical locations. In DA2, both main and sidequests take place in the same areas. Protip developers, just because you closed off a few doors, or started us off at the other end, doesn't mean we won't notice.

- Am I the only who was bothered by the almost universal greyness of the game? I realise that alot of that is down to Kirkwall being grey, but even the outdoor areas were grey, the underground was grey. A sea of grey.

-Vendor trash. Thanks for creating junk we can't use, wasting our time making us think it might be of some use, then giving us a button to sell it all. As a developer, they surely must have reached rock bottom when that is their solution to a problem that they themselves created.

-No way of customising companions gear. I get it, it was supposed to give the characters a more unique feel, but the trade off was not even close to being worth it. Oh and of course, it meant most of what you picked up that did not automatically go to the junk section had to be sold manually. If you're going down that road, why not just have a 'sell all wrong class equipment'?

I played on Normal so... What I meant about combat system was that it was nice that you could taylor your character to specific needs so if you needed a tank you could make Aveline into a real tank with the right specs or if you wanted a dps fighter you could do that. In Origins the skills were much more generic and there really wasn't that much difference between a 2H fighter and a sword & shield fighter. In DA2 the skills were much more unique and that was good. Combat was also faster than DAO and tha was also good.

Apart from that I really didn't enjoy DA2 that much. I did one playthrough and I have no desire to ever do another one and I did 2 for DAO and 3 for ME2. So I don't like it at all but I do want to say that the game is more disappointing than bad. It's just a very shallow RPG from a company that is known for their outstanding work. But I do agree with you that if we enjoy a game then that's all the really matters.

Now.. I'm not any kind of mastermind of strategy.. But I always like to think how to kill or accomplish certain goals (I like stealth games). In DA:O, there was plenty of room and that camera let you see something. Mostly I positioned the characters myself. Didn't like to tinker with that AI much. So there was some point in combat and you could see your enemies and battle felt like battle, random finishing moves and all (enemies falling, not exploding), it was slow but you did know what the hell is happening in the screen, because you issued those commands. Pause often? Yes I did.

In DA2 just wasn't any room to do anything and even if you would had space, still you couldn't anyway because the enemies just jumped trough the roof. So, what's the point.
It was fun occasionally but just kirkwall (freaking square) and couple of caves mirrored.
"much better looking than origins" Right. I have never seen more boring environments.
You couldn't even talk to your friends mostly anywhere.
When I was playing, it was alright but it just left a bad taste.
Why did everything stay the same 10 years.. In ten years I didn't get my profit from mine protecting. All I got was some big ass spider. I at least expected to see some snow at some point.
I know the game came so soon but that was just wrong.

Origins had same plot that every rpg has.. to stop some evil ruining the world.
DA2: I don't really remember there being anything. Well, couple good moment's it had.

Game was decent overall if you didn't wan't to think how inferior it's compared to origins.
Origins wasn't perfect but it was a hell of a lot better experience than this.

I refuse to blame EA, it was Bioware's decision and don't forget Laidlaw and Hepler were actually promoted because of the good work they did on Dragon Age 2. EA are also publishing Kingdoms of Amalur.

I'm not sure what to think. EA has mentioned that they'll leave Bioware alone after the acquisition, as much as I would like to believe that, I think EA is shifting most of the focus to TOR and Mass Effect. Dragon Age Origins was already in development at least 3 years before EA bought Bioware. But yeah I agree Laidlaw is a dick.

I'm trying to boycott most if not all of EA's games progressively. Not even sure if I wanna get TOR. My hatred of them for destroying my favourite game companies and franchises for nearly 10 years now has to come to fruition someday.

I liked Origins. But I've yet to play 2

Still.. Didn't they develop origins about six or seven years? And DA2 one and half.. So there's bound to be quality loss.

Is it acceptable; No. Does it make a hot mess disaster on a turd casserole as some people seem to feel? No. They definitely should have put extra content on a second disk (a la ME2) but it was still a solid, if not excellent, game.
Yeah, I tried and tried with a rogue in DA:O but it was just....meh; there was too much working up to become deadly for my tastes. In DA2, however, they were blenders pretty much from the get-go.


*All opinions expressed by VetMichael are the author's own and do not reflect the feelings or opinions of Good Old Gamers, Electronic Arts, Bioware, or the Internet at large. All characters contained in this opinion are fictional, and resemblance to real characters, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Your mileage may vary. Refrigerate after opening. Do not taunt happyfunball.