Dragon Age 2 Demo

Dragon Age 2 PC Demo impressions

Last week Bioware told players to secure 1 million downloads of the Dragon Age 2 demo (1 million different people downloading it) and in return we’d get some shiny gear. Judging by the smoking remains of the server at the time of writing, we didn’t disappoint:
“The site is currently down for maintenance or is experiencing extreme load. Check back again shortly!”

I somehow managed to slip through the cracks of the explosion and got myself some demo. I’d like to say it was due to either fantastic skill in timing or my connection in the gaming world, sadly neither of those exist. So through dumb luck I got my hands on what seems to be a demo for a fantastic game.

I’ll be writing about my impressions on the demo, and how it’s different from Dragon Age Origins.
I’ll be writing whilst trying to keep spoilers to a minimum, but seeing as how the demo consists of the prologue and part of a later mission, excluding spoilers altogether is impossible. If I’m going to reveal anything big, I’ll preface it with a giant red /Spoiler tag. So, introductions are out of the way, let’s start.

The Demo

The Beginning

Starting up the demo means you have to have a EA account, you can make one in-game, but since I already have one, I’ll skip that step.

So at the start there is the character selection. All models are presets, meaning that you cannot customize your character’s looks. This’ll be different from the complete game in which that is possible. One of the first impressions I had was that they discovered the world is made of more colours then brown, dark brown and even more brown. So far so good. You can still choose from three classes, rogue, warrior and mage, but just one race is available, human. Obvious of course, it makes our race look bad if some pointy-eared bastard saved the world right? I decided on a Male Mage, I called him Galago, which is an awesome name I’m sure you’ll agree.

The game runs concurringly with the first one in terms of timeline for the first part of the story. For those who’ve played Dragon Age: Origins, that means that the story starts after Ostagar, and after Lothering is burned to the ground.
Our journey starts in the future, where Varric, a surface dwarf, whose arrogant and condescending behaviour endeared him to me immediately, is being questioned by a Chantry Seeker on the history of the champion (the player). After a false start he starts the true story.
You are running from the blight with your family, brother Carver, sister Bethany, and your mother. Whilst running towards Kirkwall, you come across some new friends and an old one.

Combat

The game’s combat system seems to be improved, but the basics remain the same from DA:O. You can input character behavior in the tactics screen, insuring that your mage keeps healing, and your warriors attacking and use their abilities at the right times. You can also still pause the action at any time and give manual commands to your party. And you’re going to want to. In a game where three extra potions mean life or death, micromanage is your best friend. First three times I attempted the Ogre boss battle I died, then I reloaded the demo and found the extra potions. Needless to say, I took my revenge. Still, tactically pausing, issuing commands, constantly examining your party’s health, this isn’t an easy game. The combat looks a lot more fluid this time around, with mage twirling their staves around, alternating between beating the darkspawn over the head, sending fireballs and opening cracks in the earth, and those are just their normal attacks! The warriors move a lot better as well, not just one animation, but their swords are all over the place.

Dialog

The dialog system has had an overhaul and is now more similar to the Mass Effect wheel. You get a small snippet of your line, and a symbol when you go over it, which represents the tone. It actually works pretty well, better then both the original DA dialog system, being a lot less unwieldy, and the Mass Effect wheel, because you know the tone which you’ll be taking. I especially like the sarcasm option. There’s been a lot of debate on the player character having a voice, and I don’t see that stopping. Personally I liked the voice, with the brittish accent it meant I was playing an Brittish sarcastic bastard, which is awesome. Others will dislike the condescension which automatically comes with the accent. Only time will tell whether the majority of the gamers will embrace or reject it.

Graphics & Sounds

The game looks good. I had my concerns after earlier screens, but they were put to rest after playing the demo. As mentioned before, the world of Dragon Age is now no longer only made of brown. The character animations may not be the prettiest, and my staff somehow found its way through my back without causing any damage, but you hardly notice these things while walking around the world. The most important thing is of course the blood spatter, this is a Dragon Age game, and once more the blood gets everywhere, splattering generously in all directions and all over the characters. Maybe they should buy some towels for on the road?
The sound is there, it does its job, and while not completely overwhelming, the shouts during battle more then play their part.

Story and Levelling

After running around, fleeing from the darkspawn and beating a boss I was treated to a cutscene featuring a familiar character who looks completely, and I mean completely, different who had a task for us in Kirkwall, in exchange for our safe passage. A timeskip was initiated and me and my party found ourselves in Kirkwall. There we had to help Isabella, who was concerned her duel partner wouldn’t play fair. Isabella is one of the characters from DA:O who return in this game, she’s even a companion later on. While I question her attire during combat situations, judging from her leaping stab maneuver she isn’t exactly defenseless.

After finding the location of the coward Isabella wants dead, we proceeded to beat seven kinds of snot out of him, as evidenced in the video below. Warning, spoilers alert. Duh.

The leveling system is one that looks rather different but functions about the same as in DA:O. You still have several branches of powers or abilities that you can unlock by spending ability points. It looks completely different, but as far as I can tell it’s mostly the same. I say mostly because depending on your companion being either your rival or friend, they unlock an extra ability.

The story so far hits all the right notes, from sarcastic to dramatic and to frantic fighting. The graphics may look underwhelming to some, but when you’re walking around the world, or killing bad guys, the game looks great. The new color scheme, and good-looking environment and the story do a good job of drawing you in to the world.

In conclusion, it feels like Dragon Age, better and improved, but still retaining everything that made the original one of my favorite games of 2009. I can only hope the complete game is just as good.

The gallery can be found here: Gallery

And some video content: