Dragon Age 2

[keg in kc]

Trailer premiered at gamescom a few minutes ago, seems like a good time for its own thread.



(is that Flemeth's voice?)

[Fish]

Holy shit that was cool..........

[Bowser]

All I see is a white screen....

[QuikSsurfer]

That was ****ing awesome...


I believe that is flemeth's voice

[QuikSsurfer]

That was ****ing awesome...


I believe that is flemeth's voice

[NewChief]

So what's the story at the end of the video (I haven't played this game ever, so I don't know), and he has the memories and then pulls some crazy magic out of his ass to defeat the baddie? Is this some kind of new magic being previewed or something that existed in the old game?

[Pants]

Can't be Flemmeth, I slayed that ho for good.

[kaplin42]

white blank boxes don't look like that much fun to play. is there a link to the video perhaps?

[Skyy God]

Originally Posted by NewPhin

So what's the story at the end of the video (I haven't played this game ever, so I don't know), and he has the memories and then pulls some crazy magic out of his ass to defeat the baddie? Is this some kind of new magic being previewed or something that existed in the old game?

DA2 is set 10 years after the original and only one has 1 human protagonist (in the original, you could be a dwarf or elf also).

No idea on the crazy magic, though.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Metrolike

Can't be Flemmeth, I slayed that ho for good.

I just played through that quest again, and Morrigan mentions that she's probably not dead.

I totally missed that the first time.

[keg in kc]

Some info leaking out from gamescom. Most of it's a few days old and there are some spoilers, so read at your own risk....

The Interrogation Room: Dragon Age 2

By Will Tuttle & Ryan Scott | Aug 18, 2010

A new age of dragons.

Welcome to the Interrogation Room, GameSpy's signature pre-release game coverage format. Here, a GameSpy editor (typically one who's relatively in-the-dark about the game in question) grills his peers for information on a hotly anticipated game -- hopefully with more entertaining results than the typical boilerplate preview would provide.

Ryan Scott, Executive Editor: We both played this, and we both didn't play the original Dragon Age. We have so much in common! Do you wanna be my e-pen pal?

Will Tuttle, Editor in Chief: Sorry, I'm more of a real-life pal; I was hoping we could spend some quality time catching up on the original Dragon Age. While it's true that I never completed the game, I played through each of the race-specific origin stories (what can I say -- I wanted the achievements) before finally settling on the character I wanted to play through the rest of the game with. It's actually a bit sad that Dragon Age came out when it did, as I was just so busy with the rest of last year's holiday hits that I never got to give it the time it deserved. Although, I could also look at the other side of the coin: Dragon Age: Origins just didn't give me a good enough reason to dedicate 40 to 60 hours of my life to it. Most BioWare games do that, but not this one.


Ryan Scott: Yeah, I know you're more of a Sonic Chronicles guy, so it's all good. One of the big differences with Dragon Age 2 is that it's a much narrower story -- rather than picking from several races and playing through the origin stories you referred to, you're in the shoes of a single character. You can pick his class, but that's it; it seems a bit more Japanese in that regard, which I admittedly like. I much prefer role-playing games like Final Fantasy, where I am being told the story for these specific characters, rather than creating my own guy. What did you think?

Will Tuttle: You jest, but I actually did really enjoy Sonic Chronicles! As for Dragon Age 2's new focus on storytelling, I'm of two minds. On one hand, something's very liberating about being able to go wherever or do whatever you want in a wide-open RPG like Dragon Age: Origins, as some people get much more invested when they're basically creating the story on the fly. BioWare's approach with Dragon Age 2 is no less valid. Good storytelling will never get old, so if the writers can craft a tale that's worth telling (or, rather, worth hearing), I'll be the first to hop on board.

One of the narrative elements I'm really intrigued by is the story-within-a-story layering that could be really cool if pulled off correctly. After some horrible event changes the Dragon Age universe, a Grey Warden named Cassandra has to track down the only hero that had ever faced the same challenge -- and said hero is the character you play. As your heroic tale is recounted to Cassandra by a dwarf named Varric, the playable action is presented via flashback, occasionally showing different versions of the same event depending on Varric's mood. Ryan, I believe you described the dwarf as "a scumbag Scheherazade."

Ryan Scott: Haha, yeah I did. That's totally how he comes off, as Cassandra starts out by questioning whether she can even trust his storytelling. As far as the actual story you play through, one thing I noticed -- mainly because you picked all the evil dialogue responses and I picked all the good responses (and that's mainly because we wanted to see how each way went -- I'm usually a jerk in good-or-evil games too!) -- is that everything kind of led up to the game conclusion. We fought some skeletons and a giant-ass ogre, some people died, we got accosted by a dragon who gave us a FedEx quest, and that was that. I know we saw a pretty thin vertical slice of the game, but I'm hoping the dialogue choices influence the direction of the story.


Will Tuttle: Actually, I generally play as the ultra-heroic nice guy in RPGs, at least the first time through. I'm really not sure how the team is using the dialogue, though it should be noted that it plays a lot like Mass Effect 2. People will react differently to you depending on the types of decisions you make, but it looks like you'll always have a choice between nice, mean, and middle-of-the-road. One thing that BioWare stressed heavily to us during the demo was the fact that the writing team really wants to tell the tale of a major event in the larger Dragon Age world, not just the story of one guy (a la Mass Effect's Commander Shepard). Dragon Age 2 takes place over the course of at least a decade, hopefully providing plenty of context as to why we should care that this presumably bad event happened. I personally like that they're going in this direction; I just hope that they can pull it off.

While some of the core RPG tropes remain unchanged (as you said, dragons give "FedEx quests"), it looks like BioWare's improved the combat system quite a bit. The combat was one of the first game's biggest weaknesses -- so I was happy to see that they really wanted to tighten it up. What did you think? More importantly, what does your Dragon Age-loving dad think about it?

Ryan Scott: Fun fact: My 68-year-old father loves Dragon Age (and Fable II, while we're on the subject). He beat the Xbox 360 version all on his own, multiple times -- so I don't think combat's too much of a problem. I'm not too familiar with how it worked in that game, but I found it fine in Dragon Age 2. What, exactly, are your issues?

Will Tuttle: My first issue is that we're having you chip in on this article when we really should just be paying your dad to ask questions. This would also be a good time to note that you spent the majority of your time playing the PC version of the game, while I played for about a half hour on the Xbox 360 version. A lot of people who played Origins on the consoles felt like it was an old-school PC RPG that had basically been shoehorned onto a platform that is fundamentally different from the PC. The combat was the most glaring example of this; a lot of times, the unresponsive combat controls were more than just a hindrance. Dying because the game didn't register an attack command (presumably because of your distance to the target) was a far-too-common occurrence, so I'm really happy to hear that the dev team wants to move toward a more instantaneous command system for Dragon Age 2's combat.


In a lot of ways, this game felt more like an action-RPG than anything else, as it was really easy to switch between attacks on the fly. Pressing an attack button automatically moved my character into the correct position, allowing me to follow up with a few more button presses that unleashed special attacks. Before I knew it, I was moving quickly around the battlefield, hacking and slashing through waves of foes like butter. It felt a lot more intuitive than the combat in the last game, and I really dug the new tactical view that will hopefully allow you to survey the battlefield from multiple angles while the action's paused. I was also really impressed by how smoothly the game ran at this point, as the first game's slightly dated graphics (let's not forget that Dragon Age: Origins was in development for a long, long time) could be distraction.

Ryan Scott: As you said, I played the PC version -- the real version -- so I have no idea what moon language you're speaking here. You might as well be one of those BUY UGG BOOT $50 spammers in our comments, you heathen. Anyway, I dug the combat, and I really agree about the tactical view -- you can survey the whole battlefield and completely detach the camera from your character's point of view. That, combined with the ability to pause combat at will (another thing I appreciate), is going to result in some beautiful screenshots. One thing I noted was that monsters tended to kind of home in on me quite a bit, even when I switched to the party's mage and stood back a fair bit while my allies beat on them up-close. Stupid aggro mechanics.

Will Tuttle: See, while I think it's pretty obvious that the PC version was the real version of Origins, I don't feel like that's the case here. It's pretty clear that the development team wanted to emphasize the differences between the two versions a lot more this time out, so the console version feels like a completely different animal altogether. It really feels a lot more like a hack-and-slash action-RPG this time out, a fundamental shift that I'm all for -- especially since it means I'll be much more likely to play the game to completion. Dragon Age 2 looks like the game I wanted Dragon Age: Origins to be, and I have a feeling that it'll help to bring a lot of new fans to the table. I'm definitely looking forward to see what hardcore Dragon Age fans think about the changes, though, as I'm sure this game will have a few outspoken opponents.

[Sofa King]

[keg in kc]

Sounds similar to what they said about ME2 in development, I'd imagine there's some unhappiness on the social network about that...

Here's another preview, and again it's spoilery, so read at your own risk:

Dragon Age II Updated Hands-On

* By Shaun McInnis, GameSpot
* Aug 18, 2010 2:53 pm PT
* 257 comments

We learn that seeing isn't always believing when it comes to this sequel's clever storytelling.

At last month’s San Diego Comic-Con, there was a hands-on demo of Dragon Age II available to anyone willing to wait in line under the San Diego sun. With a dual appreciation for delightful weather and slaying evil Darkspawn, we wasted little time queuing up for a turn--the result being this first-look preview of one of our more highly anticipated role-playing games. If you haven’t read that story, the short and sweet of it is that the demo was a brief, bloody look at Dragon Age II’s combat that seemed to suggest a more fast-paced, visceral style than the first game. However, BioWare recently showed us an extended version of that same demo that cast the entire experience in a much different light.

One of the biggest changes moving from Dragon Age: Origins to Dragon Age II is the method of storytelling. You play as a hero of legend named Hawke, and your exploits are relayed by a dwarven storyteller named Varick--a fellow with a penchant for exaggerating your feats. It’s a story-within-a-story scenario in which the bulk of the game--navigating the world and engaging in combat--is the tale being told. But once in a while, you’re taken back to Varick as he tells your story to a lady named Cassandra, who seeks to learn of your adventures.

In short, what we saw at Comic-Con was an example of Varick exaggerating your heroic adventures. That combat-focused demo showed a fast-paced battle with Hawke going up against waves of Darkspawn and essentially making mincemeat of them. Playing as the human warrior class, we had numerous spells and abilities at our disposal and managed to tear through those enemies very quickly. We could practically hear the Darkspawn saying “Thank you sir, may I have another?” after a sword slash.

But fast-forward to the end of the demo, and you see Cassandra confront Varick, asking him if that’s how things really went. Varick flashes a coy smile and then offers to tell her the version of the story that--one would hope--more closely resembles the truth. You’re then sent back in time and forced to do that same battle over again, and the result is something that feels more akin to the combat in Dragon Age: Origins--albeit with a few noticeable differences.

The revised version of the story flashes you back a bit earlier into the scene and showcases the ragtag group of Darkspawn survivors that you have to team up with in order to get by. Far from the one-man army you seem like in Varick’s initial telling, you need to fight as a team in order to make it here. In the first fight, we were able to carve through enemies almost instantly, and the spells and abilities we cast (and we had a lot to choose form) recharged very quickly. In the second telling, it was a much more challenging experience. And while we don’t want to spoil any story elements, let’s just say that a few of your teammates have a pretty rough go of it as well.

In addition to seeing how combat plays out on the battlefield, we got a chance to see the new leveling-up system. If you remember the first Dragon Age, spells and abilities were all leveled up along a linear path. In Dragon Age II, it’s more of a branching tree of upgrades. So, for example, if you’ve gotten to expert combat tactics and you’re not particularly compelled by master combat tactics, you can veer over into a different skill path entirely without having to start over from the beginning of another field of specialization. (That’s not a specific example, but it should hopefully give you a good idea of where BioWare wants to take the leveling system.)

Aside from gaining a more accurate picture of how combat works in Dragon Age II--think quicker and less clunky than the original, but far from Dragon Age: Turbo Mode--we learned a few things about the game’s character-building elements. The one that intrigued us the most is the way the tone of conversations will become affected by the style of character you play as. Essentially, if you’re playing as a pure bastion of light and goodness, your character will tend to sound very genuine. But if you’re playing as a real salty scoundrel, for example, choosing the polite dialogue options will often result in your character saying the nice thing with a hint of sarcasm because it’s not really something that fits with the character you’ve built thus far. You can still choose whatever dialogue options you want, but the way you actually sound during those options will be affected by decisions made far earlier in the game. We’re not sure whether that applies to everything you say or just a few select sound bites, but this nonetheless seems like an intriguing way for BioWare to repurpose Mass Effect’s conversation wheel in Dragon Age and still add a new touch to it.

It’s looking so-far-so-good with Dragon Age II. With the game’s release set for March 8 of next year, we’re looking to explore some more of this grim fantasy world over the next few months.

[keg in kc]

Moar spoilerz.

Gamescom: Kicking Ass in Dragon Age 2

Those Darkspawn don't stand a chance.
August 17, 2010

I sliced through Darkspawn effortlessly, my blade sliding through the ugly creatures as if they were made of butter. Meanwhile, my mage partner eloquently set the remaining foes aflame. After obliterating enemies with such ease, I realized that this was a much different Dragon Age than I was used to, but it was exactly what I was hoping for.

2009's Dragon Age: Origins was renowned for its storytelling techniques, but it was not without flaws. The tactical combat system designed for PCs didn't translate well to consoles, and the game lacked visual flair. The Bioware team has acknowledged the first game's shortcomings and has worked hard to correct them.

When I first saw details on the game in the Game Informer issue announcing its existence, I had my doubts. However, when I got my hands on the opening chapter last week, all of my fears subsided and I immediately became excited for the second journey into the world of Dragon Age.

Instead of controlling a n00b Grey Warden focused on extinguishing the Blight (basically like Armageddon, but with more Darkspawn and Archdemons), your new protagonist is an upcoming human champion named Hawke. While you can't choose your race (which is a major bummer) you can still pick your character's class, gender and can still customize how he or she looks.

As you assume the role of Hawke, you're immediately thrust into battle with glitzy armor, powerful abilities and a bad-ass female mage. Once you defeat waves of Darkspawn and an ogre, a dragon roars from a cliff above. Just as you think, "Oh crap, I'm screwed," you're jolted out of the battlefield to a cut-scene where a pissed off Cassandra, a raven-haired Chantry member is chastising Varric, a blinged out dwarf recalling his memories of you. Cassandra is searching for information on your character's whereabouts and calls the dwarf out on his embellished story, and it becomes clear that the earlier scene was altered by Varric's imagination.

After some banter Varric reveals that the Chantry, a church group that worships The Maker, is in ruins, the world is on the brink of war and the church needs Hawke to help reassemble the pieces. The entire story is told through these two characters in a framed narrative, so all the events you play have happened in the past, but you're shaping how the legend is told. T he game world is highly reactive to your decisions, so it should be an interesting title to replay and see how it differs as you go along.

Varric begins the tale over again, narrowing in on Hawke and his family's defection from their former home, Lothering, shortly after King Cailan's demise at the battle of Ostagar. Now known as the Blightlands, their once vibrant village has been devastated after the Darkspawn have had their way with it. There's no more fancy armor or strong abilities in this tale – just Hawke along with his younger brother Carver, a warrior, his sister Bethany, an apostate mage and his mother discussing their escape plan. As soon as the conversation options popped up, I immediately recognized Mass Effect's wheel of discourse, but this version has the addition of helpful indicator icons.

Thanks to these images you'll always know what sort of a response your character will give -- there's an olive branch for peaceful approaches, a comedy mask for witty remarks and a fist pump full of aggressive responses. These icons also help you distinguish when you're making a romantic move on someone, because the game of love is hard enough. Dragon Age 2 will also track how you play and model your character's greetings and goodbyes to fit his or her personality, though like in Origins there won't be an obvious "good/evil" meter.

Being the sarcastic person that I am, I chose the middle, comedic response and actually chuckled at Hawke's deadpan dialogue. Then I was on my way to slaughter the masses of Darkspawn standing between me and Kirkwall, where Hawke's remaining family still resides. In Dragon Age 2 the combat system has been stripped of the clunkiness of the original and injected with more awesome. It's much more fluid and feels faster, though people who liked the slower pace of the first game can still pause the and issue commands. Instead of a two- or three-second delay when you select an active ability, your character will instantly perform an attack or spell. Not only is it an immediate occurrence, but the actions themselves are brutal and incredibly satisfying.

Enemies don't just rush at you from one direction anymore either. Now groups will attack from the front and back, and your AI partners actually kick-ass. In Origins, group members needed to be manually programmed to take potions when they had low health or told to perform spells at certain times, but your squad is now smart enough to figure those things out on their own. You can still specifically program the, but gamers won't be forced to worry about what their AI allies are doing all the time. If anything, the AI might be too intelligent, as I often ran toward enemies only to have them burned to a crisp by my mage Bethany before I got there. Still, it's nice to have battle partners that are an asset instead of a burden.

After making my way through part of the Blightlands, Hawke's family ran into an injured Templar, Wesley and his body builder of a wife, Aveline. Although Wesley is initially aggressive toward Bethany for being an apostate, the dire situation forces the two groups to work together. Shortly after this encounter I leveled up and was able to see if that aspect of the game had changed.

For the most part, leveling up is similar to the first game. You'll receive points to allocate to attributes like Strength, Dexterity, Magic, Cunning, Willpower and Constitution, as well as choosing a new ability. The ability tree is what the team focused on re-constructing and it looks promising. Instead of linear progression, different types of abilities are grouped together in a tree. For example all abilities that involve using a two-handed weapon are bundled together and abilities that require a one-handed weapon and a shield are grouped. Abilities can also be built out further than before, as most active abilities can be upgraded at least once.

Coming full circle and we were once again threatened by an ogre and surrounding Darkspawn. The dragon up above roared and flew down toward the family, drenching the Darkspawn in flames. Once I saw that the scaly beast was helping out, I realized it had to be Flemeth, the shape-shifting witch of the wilds encountered at the beginning of the last game. Sure enough, once all the enemies were down she transformed to her human form, decked out with horn-shaped hair and revealing armor.

As payment for safe passage out of the Blightlands, Flemeth requests that the soon-to-be champion deliver a package for her. I'm sure the task won't be as easy as it seems, but unfortunately that was all I saw. At the end of my time with the game, our group of six had dwindled to four, but I'll leave who fell to the Darkspawn a mystery for you to discover on your own.

In terms of the PC version, BioWare's leaving a lot of the user-interface the same, though they have added a quick command for stamina and health potions on the right side of the action bar. You can still pause the action with the space bar and issue commands to your team, but you should expect to see some changes to how you view fights. Although what we saw wasn't final, it looks like Bioware is developing a new camera for the PC version that's focused less on getting a bird's eye view and more on zooming in around the battlefield and enemy locations. It looks great so far, but expect to hear more about closer to the game's launch.

If you were concerned that Dragon Age was being fed through the Mass Effect sausage grinder, you shouldn't be. Yes, they've adopted the conversation wheel and cinematic, fully-voiced speeches, but that's no cause for alarm – after all if you developed an awesome tool and storytelling technique you'd want to use it in more than one game too. Bioware has made some great alterations -- sharper graphics, satisfying combat and cinematic conversations. I can't wait to spend more time with this game.

[keg in kc]

Some more. The last couple have allayed some fears about the combat being changed too much towards action - apparently people didn't grasp the whole "unreliable narrator" aspect of the initial combat, or else didn't play the demo long enough to get to the real battle.

Dragon Age II - hands-on
PREVIEW: How BioWare is building a better Blight

Words: Tyler Nagata, GamesRadar US

When we like something, we usually don’t take too kindly to change, and if you read our review, you’ll know that we really liked Dragon Age: Origins. But now that BioWare has established its high fantasy world with Origins, it’s time to dive deeper into the stories and conflicts that await players in the sequel – and with that come some big changes.

BioWare wants to shake things up with Dragon Age II. They want to evolve the game’s art style and visual fidelity, making it look worlds better than Origins. They also want combat to feel more fluid, aggressive, and faster paced. But as with most BioWare titles, the quality of the story is the main focus – and the development team is exploring new directions for how to tell the tale of Dragon Age II’s new protagonist, Hawke.

“This time around we wanted to mix up how we were telling the story. We wanted to tell the story of the life of a man who is at the most pivotal moment in the history of Dragon Age, so far. So, the story then becomes about the rise to power of one character, Hawke,” explains lead designer Mike Laidlaw.

Hawke hails from the town of Lothering. You may remember that it was ravaged by darkspawn in the middle of Origins. Hawke was one of one of the few people to survive that attack. He’s travelled north to Kirkwall, a city in Free Marches. “There, Hawke becomes involved in events that essentially bring the world to the brink of war. Now what those events are, we don’t know at the beginning. All we know is that there are two who are digging into Hawke’s past, trying to find out more about him, to learn more,” teases Laidlaw.

Although, you won’t be creating your own custom Grey Warden as you did in Origins, Dragon Age II still lets you customize everything else so that your Hawke is as unique as you want him or her to be. The opening warrior, rogue, and mage classes return along with the ability to tweak your gender and appearance as you see fit.

We leave our Hawke as he is and opt for the warrior class. We quickly find ourselves in the Blight Lands with a powerful mage for a companion. The area is bleak and barren. In the distance, giant plumes of smoke from a nearby town cloud the sky. The ashes from the flames of battle we’ve narrowly escaped float across the screen as we step into our first battle.

The first thing we noticed is that the camera has been pulled back from the console versions of Origins, making combat feel much more graceful. With our skills mapped to our face buttons, we were able to tear through a few weak waves of darkspawn with little difficulty, using a whirlwind and knock back attack to keep enemies at bay. Then the ogres came.

These giant beasts were quite fearsome in Origins. Even though some battles felt frustrating in the original game, we loved the unforgiving difficulty level. So we were actually a little disappointed to see Hawke tear through the towering titans without breaking a sweat. Dragon Age shouldn’t feel like God of War!


But just when we were ready to bemoan the loss of the tough fights we loved from the original, the game cut to a mysterious man and woman bickering over the details of the scene we just played through. What we played through was a tall tale, rife with exaggerations that explain why Hawke felt so overpowered in our first encounter.

These are the strangers Laidlaw hinted at earlier. They’re the ones trying to piece together the real history of the Champion of Kirkwall (aka you). “And this takes us to the structure we’re using, which is called a framed narrative. Now, The Usual Suspects and The Princess Bride and Frankenstein are all good examples of a framed narrative,” says executive producer Mark Darrah before laying out the scope of Dragon Age II’s epic story.

“And what I see as one of the coolest elements of it, is that we have characters telling the story of your character – and you’re advancing across a decade of history, which is how much time we’re covering in Dragon Age II. It’s the longest period BioWare has ever tackled in a single game. You can actually see, not only the story they’re telling, but the world change as you make your decisions. Origins had this awesome epilogue system. But I wanted to see that in a game, rather than read it. So the end result is very reactive, and I think it might be the most reactive game [BioWare] has ever done, in terms of your choice, and what effect it has on the world,” continues Darrah.

We return to a more down-to-earth version of Hawke’s story. He’s weak and the darkspawn are strong. The battles that follow as Hawke presses north feel like they should, requiring us to pause, switch characters, and queue commands as we did in Origins. Everything feels right. “Think like a general, fight like a Spartan,” says executive producer Mark Darrah. That’s the mantra for Dragon Age II’s development team. “This effects the animation and the action speed. Overall, the game is much more punchy and much more responsive,” adds Darrah. We see less shuffling and more action, especially when casting spells. It seems like casting time has been reduced, possibly at the expense of longer cool down, times. But regardless of the math behind the combat system, the battles we experienced do feel more aggressive while retaining the strategic elements of the original.

But as the game cuts away from battles, we noticed that the cinematic dialogue scenes have a lot more flair to them. It’s another way that BioWare is aiming to up the ante with Dragon Age II. “From the art direction perspective, what we want to make sure is that when you see a screenshot for Dragon Age II, you can say ‘Okay. This is Dragon Age II. It’s not Lord of the Rings. It’s not generic fantasy game number 63,” explains Laidlaw.

But even when talking about Dragon Age II’s art style and graphics, everything still comes back to the importance of the story and its cast of characters. “I think that games are going through a sort of Baroque period right now,” says Darrah. “They’re focusing their attention on really highly detailed environments. But at the end of the day, environments don’t tell story. Characters tell story. So what we’re doing with Dragon Age II is focusing on the characters, making sure that they can convey emotion and that they can convey story – and that they are the strongest thing in the game,” continues Darrah.

You’ll notice the difference whenever the game cuts to dialogue. Each shot is framed like a photograph and looks balanced with lots of soft focus on background characters and environments to draw your attention towards the person speaking in the foreground.

“It’s like a Kurosawa film. What you see in those films are very established and carefully structured shots that are about something. And we want to make sure that when you pause the game and look at the game, you can see that it’s about something… it’s about these characters struggling for their lives in the foreground. So part of doing that - and you see it in Kurosawa films - is about stripping some of the background away, making it about something. It’s not about the background. It’s about the foreground.”

The dialogue system also feels more like Mass Effect this time around. There’s an icon next to each response, representing Hawke’s tone, along with a brief hint at what he’s about to say. You see a jester mask for the sarcastic responses, an olive branch for a more chivalrous approach, and a clenched fist for hardened action hero one liners.

Dragon Age II will also track your responses. So if you tend to opt for more humorous responses to situations, future cutscenes will find Hawke making light of the situations with more punchy one liners. Choose more chivalrous responses and Hawke will take note and take the high road, choosing his words with care, like the noble warrior you want him to be.

PC vs Console

In our opinion, the PC version of Dragon Age: Origins was by far, the better version, mostly because of its combat camera system. We loved the freedom offered by the camera system in the PC version, which allowed you to zoom out for a bird’s eye view of the battlefield. But you could also zoom in for extreme close-ups of your character planting a battleaxe in a darkspawn’s forehead, for example. The tactical camera system made combat so much fun, allowing you to pan around the battlefield as you scrolled through your strategic options.

Above: A shot from Dragon Age: Origins, showing the tactical combat camera pulled back as far as it will go. You won't be able to do this anymore in the PC version of Dragon Age II, but it's not as bad as you think

So we were worried when we heard that the tactical Baldur’s Gate-style combat camera from the PC version wouldn’t be returning in Dragon Age II. Well, it will and it won’t. BioWare is focusing on the third-person camera view for the console versions, but is also working with the PC version’s camera to keep the key elements of the tactical experience in the game.

We got to see an early prototype of the camera system that will appear in the PC version, and we have the feeling that fans concerned about the camera changes won’t be disappointed.

“The engine is redesigned from the ground up to basically work better with consoles. So if you played it on the Xbox or PS3 [version], you see that it looks much better. But that doesn’t mean that the PC can’t play to its own strengths – it just means that we understand how the engine works better. For the most part, we wanted to reach a parity, in terms of design,” explains Laidlaw as he boots up an early build of the PC version of Dragon Age II.

He zooms in and out to demonstrate how certain camera angles with the old system could complicate matters for some of the encounters featured in Dragon Age II. “So we basically said, ‘Okay. That is a problem.’ I don’t want to end up playing a game where I could not know there are archers shooting me because I’m looking the wrong way. So the camera doesn’t do quite the same thing it did, but still what’s very, very important, is that element of being able to maneuver around the battlefield,” says Laidlaw.

Laidlaw pauses the battle he booted up and pulls the camera back. Way back. The camera is no longer locked to a unit on the battle, so we didn’t see any panning about in this build, but all the functionality of the old camera system remains intact. You can pause and resume battle at will, queuing orders as you sweep across the battlefield as you did in the original.

Then Laidlaw starts adjusting the height of the camera as he floats across the battlefield. From what we saw, the only significant difference with the new camera system for the PC version is that it no longer snaps to that extreme top-down view, that made the game look like an RTS. It also doesn’t let you angle your camera upward as sharply for those extreme views from the ground. “It’s not only identical, but it actually gives me a better view of what’s happening,” adds Laidlaw.

“I understand why people are like, ‘Oh my god! It’s going to be simpler and dumb!’ But the tactical camera is just changing. It’s still there and I think it’s very effective. I totally get why there would be concerns, but we’re still working on it,” explains Laidlaw.

Dragon Age II is scheduled to release on March 8, 2011 in North America and on March 11 in the UK and Europe. Expect more news as Dragon Age II’s release date draws nearer. In the meantime, check out the latest teaser for the game.