Hills and valleys – The Dragon Age 2 Demo
Dragon Age 2, the hotly anticipated sequel to the ‘Back-to-the-roots’ RPG Dragon Age now has a demo available from your favorite download outlets. I figured I’d have a poke around with it and see what has changed, see if it’s all hills and valleys, or a bloody mess. Turns out it’s a bit of both.
Before we really get down to business, I come from the perspective of someone that hasn’t finished Dragon Age. However, I did get to see the merits of the game, as well as some of it’s flaws (and yes, I am gearing up again to make a full playthrough, so you can put away your torches and pitchforks), and kinda liked it. The story was great, the characters was cool and I got a great feeling from it. The combat on the other hand was one sided and balls hard until my party snagged a healer, after which I almost wondered if someone had screwed down the difficulty.
Combat is still, in core, the same. You can control anyone in the party, pause and so forth. However, like every other part of the game, it’s been slightly ‘Mass Effected’. It’s now a more close, personal deal. Wielding a sword and shield and bashing it straight in an ugly persons face feels very satisfying, and it’s still bloody as hell. They do seem to have turned down how long the blood effects actually stay, but you’ll still get more than your fill of cinematics where your characters looks like they had the most vicious combination of a nose bleed and a sneeze attack ever.
The dialogue mechanics is also almost a carbon copy of Mass Effect’s, now with a little nice spinwheel with all the options. It’s very blatant that the development saw how well Mass Effect 2 did, and decided to try to capture a bit of the magic. I can’t really comment on things such as inventory management and character customization as this wasn’t available, but at least the previous item system could use a polish up, so let’s hope. Also, maybe it’s just my impression, but just as you’re now a lot closer to your character than before, everything in the game including UI, text of the item and quests and such is way bigger, almost like it’s all crawled closer to you for a snuggle.
Speaking of things that has changed, Flemeth is back, once again helping you to start out. However, she’s got a makeover too. While still styling herself as the Witch of the Wilds, she now looks like a diabolical-mastermind-nemesis. Also, she together with your mom is the reason why old people in this game scare me. Just look at her! She’s an old hag (the game actually states this, I’m not being a douche here), and sure enough, she’s got grey hair and looks old. But look at that body! Look at those breasts! Trying to avoid the impending ‘your mom’ gags here, but she suffers the same fate of having a body way too firm and sexualised for her age. Bioware, you scare me at times. And not in the ways you intended.
What’s amusing however, is your sister. The intro of the demo is basically a silver-tongued dwarf telling a story of your heroic beginnings, and then having to tell them again after he’s caught up on, shall we say, glossing up the story a bit? Your sister in this first version of the story gains…okay, let’s be straight here. The females in this game has boobs. Okay? And not just boobs, but BOOBS. The standard size overall seems to be at least a D. And yes, that goes for your mom too. Interpret that however you want.
Now where was I…oh yes, in the more glossed up version, your sister has bigger breasts. In the re-told story, she’s then graced with smaller (but still large, do not mistake me) set on her. The game is still beating you over the head with it however. The fact that they’re big. Not the boobs. You perv.
Now really, I don’t mind. I’m the first to raise my hand and say I love me some bodacious knockers. I like the hills and valleys of the female form, the funbags, the…right, let’s get away from the topic. Hills and valleys. Right. The terrain around you in the beginning of the demo also leaves a lot to be desired, most being such a mix of grey and brown at times to be point where I thought Steam had pulled the rug under my feet and swapped it out with a military shooter. It’s still however very pleasant and frantic to play, the story and voiceacting feels fairly spot on as we’ve come to expect from Bioware. Towards the end of the demo we get to board a ship and meet a new compan…
…you gotta be…gotta stay focused…Isabela. That’s her name. Yes! In the advertisement for some reason they turned her white. Apparently that makes her look better or something (not really). At this point you’ll end up getting to play around a bit with the revamped and cleaned up talent trees and try out some more of the fancy moves. I chose to have my sister specialize in a firestorm move (if you manage to even make that sexual somehow, I salute you), and fire and flares started popping up everywhere. It felt very hectic, chaotic and also fluid, at times to the point where it almost was too uncontrolled. However, I never found myself wanting to pause because I really, really liked it.
This can however be combated by setting up strategies just as before. However, I preferred to plow through it with all the planning of a fridge full of lemons and a chaos worthy of a group of 100 middleschoolers all trying to access the one swimming pool in a 50 km radius on a hot summer day. I think I made a collective of tactical-minded RPG fanatics cry somewhere.
In the end of the day, the demo convinced me. My main complaint with Dragon Age was always the combat, and they made it seem more accessible, frantic and fluid while still keeping the great story, characters and boobage. I mean lineage. I do think that, despite it being blatant that they’ve stolen ideas from Mass Effect, it’s all for the breast…best of the game, and will end up in a more enjoyable experience. I sure am looking forward to trying out this experience, and see more of what this game has to offer in terms of boobs…story. Goddamnit Bioware!
As you might see I’ve decided to set up a Flickr instead of bothering trying to create my own gallery. There’s a couple of more pictures available from the demo there, and there’ll be more going up. Since they’re actually taken by myself, should you want to use or repost them, I’d be happy if you just poked me about it beforehand. That way, I know someone actually appreciates them. Or ran short of personal-time material.
