The Return Of The Dragons

So I finally got Dragon Age the second and let me start off by saying I really enjoyed this game.

Now that that is out of the way...

DA2 is in no way able to live up to DA1. It should have been a stand alone game and not a sequel, if it had held any other title it would have had no problems and most likely have received much better reviews.

The story, and the way it is told is brilliant (As of writing this I am about halfway through and loving the story and side missions.) and very unique. I quite enjoy the way there are sometimes silly interludes where the storyteller embellishes the actual tale. All of the characters, even ones you can't recruit seem to have well developed backgrounds. Even if it is just an impression of depth, it shows that the creators put a lot of thought into each character as they created them.

The combat seems very reactive, flows very nicely and looks fantastic. That is one thing that has definitely improved since the first game. It used to look very jerky and disjointed, but now the characters do leaps and spins as would be the case were it reality. Mages don't just stand around poking a stick in the vague direction of the enemies but now look like they are actually participating.

The talent trees have changed dramatically, you still get the standard, two-hand, shield, etc talents but now the trees have been broken down quite a lot more and it is harder to specialise in one type of combat. Another thing is that the talents are less interesting, there seem to be less abilities to use actively in combat and more stances or modes.
However there is a very nice addition, in most games you try to make all the characters love you instead of disagreeing with you, but in this instance you get a special ability if they love you or if they hate you. This means you can play the game the way you wish and whatever way it impacts upon the characters you will benefit somehow.

One thing that bothered me about the NPCs though was the distinct lack of customisability. Their talents are pretty much pre-determined as well as their equipment and of course their appearances. Appearance makes sense as they are a defined character, I can also understand the custom equipment as it makes sense for characters to already have their own weapons and armour. However if a game gives you the option to level up a characters abilities it should allow you complete control or have a specific tree that can't be customised.

My one major qualm about the entire game is the voice acting. The main characters all have great voice acting but the background characters have some dreadful acting and accents. For instance the Elves are (all of a sudden) Scottish and Irish, but the voice actors are not Scottish or Irish so a lot of the voices sound really fake.

Aside from this I am really enjoying this game and would advise playing it, but try not to compare it to the original game. You will really enjoy the story and there are some really neat features worth playing for.

Lets not even mention the PS2 version...

I decided today i would talk about one of my favourite games of all time.

Baldur's Gate.

This to me is one of the greatest RPGs ever. It works off the old AD&D system and follows the same conventions and is in my opinion the best translation from the pen and paper version to date.

Rather than being a pure "hack and slash" or "press this button to kill" game it involves a large amount of strategy. Some fights are impossible to win (even with the best gear and at the highest level) if you do not micro manage each character and have a defined strategy to beat the enemy and you can often find yourself in a lot of trouble without doing so, whether its a gigantic dragon or a horde of tiny spiders...

As with most RPGs there are several ways to go about the game and hundreds of side quests to compliment the main storyline. There is a massive range of items, armour and weapons that add huge flavour to the gameplay too. You can get some really cool looking sets of armour with good situational stats (such as the dagonslayer set) that you might find yourself giving up "better" gear in order to keep.

The character NPCs that you can recruit all have indepth stories and backgrounds (and quests that relate to them), some more interesting than others. You will find yourself picking some characters over others as you develop favourites amongst them (such as the brain damaged ranger with a miniature giant space hamster or the depressive suicidal half elf mage)

The locations you go through are fairly varied and unique (i mean how unique can a forest be...?) bringing you through cities, forests, mines, deserts, ruins and island villages. As well as several dungeons that aren't just duplicates of one another and have been created individually.

The entire game has been balanced nicely so that you do not have to grind for hours in order to progress through the storyline and even if you do complete the side quests and kill a lot of enemies you will not overpower all the enemies easily.

The storyline in this series is fantastic and there are a lot of twists that you would not expect however there are times where you will think one way but the story makes you go another way (often contrary to what you want) but as the story continues it becomes less of an issue as it is scripted together so well.

I have a couple of issues with the game one being that you are somewhat expected to play in a specific way. If you decide you hate someone and kill them it will usually result in not being able to proceed as every character in a hundred mile radius hates/fears you and will attack on sight.
Another being that some of the characters are somewhat story critical and even if you decide not to bring them along through the game they will pop up as if they were there all along.
My final issue is that a lot of the time some areas cannot be accessed until you complete a certain quest or reach a certain point in the story. In a game called "Baldur's Gate" where Baldur's Gate is the main city in the continent and is on your map at all times you would expect to be able to reach it as soon as you set out...

Despite these hindering issues this is still a fantastic game and i would advise Everyone, not matter what your preferred type of game is, to play it (at least the main storyline) because you will enjoy it.


There Was a PS2 game with the name "Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance" which should have just been called "Pile of Shit Dark Alliance" as it has NOTHING to do with the original title other than being an RPG. It has more in common with Diablo than Baldur's Gate. It barely had a story, terrible controls, no character development of any kind and i would advise never playing it unless you enjoy brain damage...

Dragon Age?

Despite the lack of dragons this is an awesome game. The story is really good and I like how they give you a different beginning story depending on your race and such.

As i got into the game it was fairly quickly I picked up a magic weapon, I was quite surprised by this, but as the game went on I was less impressed. It wasn't until about the last stretch that I picked up a magic weapon that was in any way better than the beginner weapon I had gotten. I spent most of the game using standard weapons and armour.

I was a tad disgruntled that there was no class crossing over or dual classing but the classes and sub classes make up for it quite well, I played the majority of the game as a rogue/ranger and eventually chose duelist over assassin late game, only to realize that I had no points to put into any of its skills...

The way the party would resurrect after a battle if some members survived was a very good feature (I appreciate not having to go through a massive battle and gaining a small amount of loot just to have to spend it all on a raise dead spell) and one that often caught me out when relied on it to get me through a battle no problem (thank god for quicksave)

I would say that my favourite part was probably the circle of the magi, in the fade due to the sloth demon. I thoroughly enjoyed that part and actually loaded a save in order to go back and play it again.

One of my least favourite parts was the bridge puzzle, I'm really bad at puzzles like that and spent a good half hour trying to figure it out before I caved and searched online, and then found out that it is much more difficult on PC than on any other platform...

Overall it has a fantastic story, great character depth and background stories. The side missions are very interesting (strangely enough)and the ability to actually talk people out of things rather than having to fight everyone is a fantastic addition.

A couple of bad things about it were the lack of magic weapons and armour, the small number of classes and lack of dual classing and that ONE DAMN bridge puzzle.