I liked the city elf origin the best, both the background and the origin specific parts. Rising up from the lowliest of the low to become a champion for the downtrodden was fun. Human noble I liked the quest part, but the rest was boring because I didn't have a whole lot of motivation as a character. I liked the Dalish background, but the quest kinda svcked. I never got very far on either of my dwarves, but the origin quests were both great. The mage was pretty good on both counts, too, but didn't really stand out.

Eh, I wouldn't exactly say that's a case of her being gay if Shep's female. Things like gender identity and sixuality are alien concepts to the Asari, because they've never had to deal with any form of sixual dimorphism before encountering other races, and it's most likely something they never really take into account when seeking out a partner. Liara, and the Asari as a whole, seem more Pansixual than anything.


I asked what DA2 did that was new for the genre. None of that is new. Games like ME, FO3, TES, and Jade Empire have had more action-oriented combat. The conversation system is a copy-paste job of ME's. Character development is just a slightly tweaked version of DAO's, which itself was never anything new. And...interface? Its quality (which I personally hated) notwithstanding, that is not something remotely innovative to RPGs, or to ever use a selling point. There was nothing remotely revolutionary, innovative, or ambitious about DA2. All it did was borrow from DAO, ME, and JE. And Laidlaw says he doesn't want RPGs to stagnate? Everything DA2 did has been done by other companies, and by Bioware itself. What gall!

Er, how do you tell that difference? It's not like they're wearing their orientation on their nametag and scribble over it when you talk to them. Basically, almost anyone you can seduce as one gender, you can seduce as the other. And I'm fairly sure I remember one guy who mentioned a wife still being rapidly seduced by a male character.

In Origins I got to see what my pc would say, regardless of how the npc she was speaking with would understand the tone, joking or serious or whatever. In DA2, you see "I want to be a dragon." as a choice. Hawke doesn't say that though. What is actually said is "You could show me that trick of yours, that looks useful." That isn't allowing me to choose my dialogue, to me. You can't tell what EABioware's Hawke will say based on their hints.

In DA2, I want to make a dual-wielding warrior. um... Okay, I want to make a sword and dagger rogue. um.... Okay, I want to make a dual axe wielding rogue. um...Dual-wielding axe and mace rogue... hmm... I can't seem to be able to make the character I want. That is beside the fact that you can either choose your party, or choose your class. I want to be a mage and have Bethany in my party...drat. Okay, how about a rogue, and fight next to my brother Carver....darn. In my opinion, they took away the ability to customize my character. Yes, for me the not being able to change companion outfits was another issue.

I'm hoping that they will find a happy medium, but going by the interviews with Laidlaw and some of the other devs, I'm not going to hold out that much hope.

I don't understand why they couldn't have kept the best things about Origins (The Story, Non Voiced Protagonist, Interesting Companions), improve on the bad things about Origins (The Shuffling during the battle, certain aspects being too hard, The Combat, etc), and add a couple new things to the game (Like the Skill web). Instead they went Hack and Slash with tactics/Dragon Effect/Press a button something awesome happens. I don't mind the main character being voiced but it does lower the amount of content that you can do because text written lines take up less memory meaning more space for cooler things. I think DA2 went in the wrong direction. I couldn't get into it like I did with Origins and DA2 definitely has less replay value then Origins. DA2 did some good things with the Skill Web and getting rid of Fatigue when wearing Heavy Armor but other then that they made the wrong decisions. Not having Auto Attack is bad. Button mashing is ok but it gets old. The Romances were also terrible, you don't need everybody to be bi. DAO did the Romances pretty well even though the Romance Scenes were horrible I mean the game is rated M you could put something in similar to what happened in ME1.

The DA2 story itself was setup to fail from the beginning because of the 10 year narrative. If you do something like a narrative it limits what you can do story wise. Hawke becomes the champion but how does he/she get there. Basically Hawke is along for the ride in DA2 where as in Origins The Warden had to stop the Blight and the Archdemon but you had choices like who is in my army, who do I put on the throne, Is agreeing with Morrigan a good idea, etc. The Choices didn't really matter in DA2 but they mattered in DAO.

I originally said this was a 9/10 I'm changing that rating to a *7/10 with an Astericks. I'm definitely going to have a hard look at DA3 before I buy it or wait for the price to drop before getting it. DA2 might be a decent game but it fails in my opinion especially when it's compared to Origins. This was suppose to be a AAA title but instead it's a barely AA title from a AAA company.

In DAO is the reapers cugel any good ? I have it, but it sells for over 200 or 300 soverigns... I am only just at ostagar and am rich.

... No idea what to spend it on, need some good warrior equipment.

The item's decent but I would sell it to get the money. Armor wise I'd get Chainmail for the Fatigue reduction.

Varric was was pretty well-written. He is the only character that I always kept in my party. The rest - they weren't written in any compelling manner that would make me want to "hang" with them in game. They were fairly one-dimensional, stereotypical in some cases (Saucy Wench - Isabela, Conflicted Emo Warrior - Fenris, Whiny jealous younger brother - Carver, Stoic warrior - Aveline.... etc.) And they made Anders incredibly... unlikeable. I actually found him irritating, whereas in Awakenings, they had some bit of humor about him. Here he was utterly humorless and uninteresting. They weren't horrible, but I couldn't talk to them during my journeys, so that fun was gone. Hawke him or herself - voicing the character was okay I guess - not needed, but whatever. But in truth, it then makes the player put less into the role. The role becomes defined by the responses. And the writing simply wasn't as good. When I chose a written out unvoiced response in DAO, I knew exactly what my character was saying. Not so much here. I chose a type of response, but half the time, it's not really what I expected or wanted. :shrug:

Ellis should have done the voice for Anders like he did in Awakening, although I think I understood why they switched his voice.

Wouldn't have made a difference, frankly. They wrote a poor "story" for Anders - the idea had potential but it was handled with the delicacy of an anvil dropping. As was much of the character "development."

Eh, I know I sound pissed off, but honestly, it was just mostly really a big disappointment to me. If this was the first game in the series, I would probably be all, hey, this is a fun action RPG, which I would rock through, and then move on. But in relation to a game I loved, which reminded me why I loved RPGs in the first place, that made me happy to see some really terrific game writing... this outing into the IP was poorly done.

You don't need mods to get to 50. Of course there aren't enough enemies in the game to make it to 50, at the moment. My friend used the xp glitch and got to 50.

I liked Varric too, Merril was adorable Bethony was ok, I would have traded her for Carver in my Mage play The rest where so so for me. That includes Seb. I never got past 24 for the most part in both my plays 1st Mage 2nd Rogue)

I pretty much agree with Leydenne on the story part. I also didn't like at all how they did the skills and inventory. How your basicly "locked in" weapon types by class and skill choice. Also how dual weapon was completely restricted to rogue and daggers only. No Sword and axe? Sword and dagger? Or dual axes? Whats also funny is if you don't have the signature edition thus gaining the extra companion Seb, if your not a Rogue the ENTIRE BOW weapon class can't be used by anyone! All cross class armor is worthless. I also didn't like the respawning waves of fodder battles. I didn't like how they cut out the cool death animations for the stupid Full body explosions with neatly ejected limb pieces falling into a pile. Most of the fighting seemed to be way too much "Micheal Bay" 'splosions! in just about every type of attack animation.

I agree with you I'm pretty ticked off about DA2. It was suppose to be a AAA title that was to be the 2nd game in the Dragon Age Series but instead the only thing they keep similar is the Story/Lore and even that's below par. I find this game to be an insult to Origins. Origins had it's own problems too but nothing on the scale of DA2.

I truly regret that I had reflexively pre-ordered Gears of Dragon Duty. I had avoided all the hype and spoilers because I thought Bioware making a steaming pile of **** game was pretty much an impossibility.

Now I have a $70 paperweight. I really can't even call GoDD "dumbed down" because that would be an insult to "streamlined" RPG's that have a kernel of goodness at their core. "Lowest common denominator" suits DA2 more, or "yet another piece of gray, uncreative EA garbage."

Well, then, it's a good thing you didn't get it off Steam. Then you wouldn't even get to use the case as a paperweight.

I pretty much liked all characters except Carver and Bethany. Well I didn't really like Aveline either but I needed a tank. Main reason I liked Isabella was she was in Origins, Merril it was her accent and because of the stupid things she said. Fenris is a stereotypical emo but could you blame him? Look at what he went through, even if he is stereotypical he looks badass. Anders was really different in DA2 but I still liked him mainly because he had Justice in him who is badass. I agree Anders was better in Awakening, but I did like what he did to the Chantry I was laughing when I saw what happened I wish there was a pat on the back and say good job option to that. I really hated the chantry and their stupid views on mages and I wished I could've have done what Anders did in Origins.

Just sold DA:O Ultimate edition and DAII for $61 during a gamestop pro-member promotion and paid for my pre-order of Skyrim in full.

Probably one of my best Dragon Age related experiences... if that counts

DA2 as a game, it is a disaster.

DA2 as a RPG, it is a bottomless well

DA2 as a sequel, it is an anvil on the foot.

DA2 as a fantasy story, it is under 15 bronze at best.

DA2 as hugging out with fantasy freaks, it is pretty good.

About Avelin: you should you did all the quest for her? if anything, her chain of quest really holds well why she can be stoic as well as her girly side.

My ranking for DA2 Companions are:
Avelin
Varric
Isabella (I like razor sharp mono-molecular single dimension characters, its call style people)
Carver (he is way more responsive compare to Beth)
Merrid (I have to admit it is fun to tease her)
Fenris
Anders (whatever, you ain't so different from the other possessed mage)
Bethany (do I have to tell you how little character she have?)

Over 140 hours so far, so money well spent. I wish BioWare paid me to say that like some claim

It is worse than Origins no doubt, and thus i'm glad it's getting pretty scathing reviews. But on it's own it's not a half-bad game. Especially considering in how short timeframe it was developed. Still, if it had had an extra year...

If they had an extra year I probably wouldn't have traded DA2 in because they would've had auto-attack in the game and less bugs.

Can't wait until we get to continue the story of Morrigan, Flemeth, and the Warden. After beating Witch Hunt it seems obvious they are going to continue it since its still not clear what Morrigan is doing. No matter what is said about DA2 or DAO they are still great games. The characters in both games are great and so are the stories. You can tell if a game is good if you feel bad for doing something evil, seriously not to spoil it for anyone but when I did the sad ending for Witch hunt I felt sad and I am one usually the guy who laughs at sad parts in movies. I had to reload a auto save after seeing what I have done I could not bare the thought of Mass Effect has a similar feeling but I usually go all renegade and show no remorse.

I don't know, bad combat, bad control, bad skill balance, bad AI and tactic allocation, bad companion balance.

The the recycling every single "dungeons" including all house in high town.

I burn 70 hours off it no less, but I only get more [censored] the more I played.

Agree and I was only able to get 55 hours before I said enough with the game. I like the Dragon Age series but this game doesn't help it.

Auto attack was a toggable option.

As long as they don't drip-feed it to us in tiny DLCs as seems to be their wont; the way Flemeth just disappeared was another element that left it feeling rather unfinished IMHO.