Dragon Age II

I've only been playing it for about thirty hours - which isn't a lot for a BioWare game - but I'm a little bored of Dragon Age II already. I'm going to talk about what it got right and what it sadly got wrong. The aim here isn't to discourage anyone, let me say right from the outset I do enjoy this game, I do support game studios that value the importance of good writing and I will absolutely be buying Dragon Age III. I'm just disappointed this game hasn't lived up to the promise of Dragon Age: Origins or the Mass Effect series. It's possible this post will contain some spoilers for DA2 and other BioWare games, but I haven't planned what I'm going to say so I'm not sure yet.

First up, let's talk Moral Choices. This is a key part of BioWare games and they got it just right for the Mass Effect series, but they've taken a step back here with Dragon Age. In their earlier games, like Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire, the game provided you with a number of side quests which always had two possible ways to complete. One where you made a small sacrifice - time, items or money - to help someone out, the other where you selfishly took advantage of someone, teaching them that life is hard and they should be stronger. The choice you made would shift your character towards either the Light Side/Open Palm or Dark Side/Closed Fist. It should be noted that while it often seemed that way, the Light Side or Way of the Open Palm was not always a 'Good' choice and the Dark Side not always the 'Evil' one.

The two ongoing franchises, Mass Effect and Dragon Age, took similar but slightly different routes. In Mass Effect you play a heroic character, there is no doubt about that, and the choices offered represent two paths your hero can follow: a noble Paragon seeking to smooth Humanity's ascent into galactic politics or a ruthless Renegade prepared to do anything to protect Humanity's interests. Yes, making a Renegade choice might mean watching your character shoot an unarmed man in the back but at least it always felt like it was to serve a higher purpose.

Dragon Age is full of moral choices to be made, but most of the time the choice is Be A Hero or Be An Asshole. Your decision affects the plot of the game and affects your companions' opinions of you, but there's no personal scale of Light vs Dark or similar and this is where Dragon Age suffers. In Mass Effect for the most part you are encouraged to pick a side and stick with it, keeping your character consistent throughout the game to unlock Paragon or Renegade rewards - having high levels of Paragon or Renegade would open new conversation options, new chances to shoot that unarmed civilian in a cut scene. It would, and this is important, make the story better.

In Dragon Age you are instead encouraged to pander to the whims of your party members. My character's sister and lover are both mages so when they're around it's best to pretend I care deeply for the freedom of the mages. The two warriors I've encountered in the game so far are both distrustful of mages, so when I'm around them it's best I pretend to support the Templars, an organisation seeking to protect the world from the dangers of magic. I don't want to pretend, I want my character to stick to her own philosophy and not be punished for it. Sure, having a party member really dislike you gives them a benefit just as much as if they really love you, but I want to play a good character and good characters are nice to their friends even when they disagree with them. If I want to get a companion to become, in in-game terms, my Rival I'd have to turn down their side quests, denying me some of the best bits of the game.

So yeah, lets talk quests now. Dragon Age 2 splits quests into Primary, Secondary, Companion and Side. Primary being important to the main plot of the game, secondary being your standard opportunity to run around exploring the world. Companion's quests are, as mentioned, your chance to learn more about your little circle of friends and Side Quests happen when you accidently stumble over an item and can return it to its proper owner. They kinda suck.

I'm a way into the second act of the game and things have only just started to get important to anyone except the main character. In the framing device, cut scenes where a companion character of yours tells your history, you keep being referred to as the Champion but for the entire first act your character is a poor refugee trying to scrape together enough money to go on a treasure hunting expedition. A champion indeed. Jade Empire and Baldur's Gate start with your character attacked by unknown foes, seeking your death for unknown reasons. Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins get a little more epic, with terrible forces threatening entire cultures. Dragon Age II starts you as a refugee from the events of Dragon Age: Origins. There is, sure, an initial need for mere survival, but slowly greed becomes the driving element of the plot. I've always played the Good character, helping others in need wherever I can, but it's only now that being a capital-H Hero is becoming important to the story.

Secondary Quests add depth to the world. Help the elves with this ritual, help the mages escape that imprisonment, help the guard stop those criminals. There's no thought required for any of these. I can't say I remember that many problem-solving skills required for other BioWare games but it seems far too obvious to me here. A good example of this is a quest given to you by a templar investigating a series of murders he believes are connected. The guard won't help him so it's down to you. He gives you all the information he's uncovered so far, including a note telling you basically to check out a building in the foundry district. From there you're led to a house in the noble district which if you choose to explore rather than heading straight to where the minimap is telling you the plot will happen you will find to be full of clues. Only, the clues aren't for you the player, they're for your character. You don't have to work anything out at all, it'll all be explained to you. BioWare have seriously missed a trick here. An actual murder mystery to solve? A house full of clues, a serial killer on the loose and a suspect with questionable excuses? I would break out a bottle of scotch, complain about dames, put on my detective hat and spend all night chasing down that thing. There's three or four hours of gameplay there totally unrelated to the main plot that would add so much to my immersion into the game and connection to my character. Instead I get a new quest marker to follow.

Actually, they don't all kinda suck. I like the Companion quests. I don't like that they drive your moral choices, but I do like the companions. In Dragon Age and Jade Empire they sat around in your camp waiting for attention. In Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect they waited for you on your spaceship. In all these cases it really worked for the gameplay, giving a place to chat to characters if you wanted more dialogue and depth. In Dragon Age 2 they don't all clump together, instead they've got houses, homes and hovels to live in. I love that, it adds a lot to the world. Merrill has a cosy little house with the other elves in a poor part of town. Anders spends his time at a clinic healing the sick. Fenris squats in a mansion belonging to his former master, waiting for revenge. I love it. Companion quests are where I really feel a lot of thought and design has gone into the world. The companions each have fully fleshed out personalities and are more than just spare Warriors, Rogues or Mages for the party.

Finally, those fucking 'Side Quests'. Really? I'm exploring a cave (more on that in a second) and in a chest I find a scroll about some long forgotten religion. Instantly the character knows who it belongs to and where to find them so I can return it for a little bit of cash. Things like this happen all the fucking time. Fetch quests as a standard were annoying, sure, but taking out half the journey does not solve the problem. These don't add anything to the game in terms of plot development, background depth or gameplay enjoyment. BioWare phoned this one in and that's disappointing.

So yeah, I'm exploring a cave and in a chest I find a scroll. I know where to look for the chest because All The Caves Are Exactly The Same. Dragon Age: Origins took up about twenty gigs on my computer. Dragon Age 2 takes up about five because they reuse the same locations over and over and over. I completed one quest with the climactic fight taking place in the deepest heart of a cave on the Wounded Coast. Exploring the area after the battle I found a little room off to the side with a beautiful ceiling of glowing blue lights. A spiritual retreat for the evil mage I'd just defeated, perhaps? I felt slightly betrayed by the game when a later quest led me to the exact same place in a completely different cave, with the same hidden room of mystic glow-wormy light. This same betrayal of meaning occurs in the noble mansions dotted around the city of Kirkwall, the Warehouses on its docks and its many back alleys where secret meetings, ambushes and oh hey, main plot events take place.

Whenever Pixar announce a new film I get so worried that it won't be a work of art. I was absolutely sure that Toy Story 3 would be just okay. They'd had a string of increasingly good, Oscar winning hits with Ratatouille, WALL-E and the absolutely wonderful Up (at some point I might write a post about just why I love Pixar so much), it seemed impossible they could live up to their own standards. This was even the best time for them to fail since no-one expects a sequel to be as good as its predecessors. I mean, sure Toy Story II was arguably better than Toy Story I, but a second sequel? No chance. Well, I feel the same way about BioWare games. (I'm ignoring The Old Republic because it's Massively Multiplayer just like I'm ignoring Cars 2 because it's, well, Cars.)

Pixar came through for us, BioWare didn't. Dragon Age II is the Toy Story I expected, not the one I got. I like the game, I really do, but I don't love it. I'm not the hero of the story, just the protagonist. I'm not taking apart a gang of thieves to make the city safer, I'm doing it so the captain of the guard likes me a little more. I'm not exploring a world, I'm following quest markers around a single - albeit quite characterful - city. And they had better be leading somewhere good BioWare, because you haven't wowed me yet.