Dragon Age II Released 168
Today marks the US launch of Dragon Age II, the sequel to BioWare's popular 2009 RPG Dragon Age: Origins. Like its predecessor and other BioWare RPGs, Dragon Age II is non-linear and has extensive dialog, though this time the story focuses on a particular character, Hawke, whose race and identity you can't change. A demo of the game is available, and early opinions noted both the impressive art direction and less punishing difficulty settings. BioWare has also released an optional ~1GB texture pack for the PC version that bumps up the level of detail for owners of high end computers. They explained some of the technological changes they made in a couple of blog posts. It's available for Windows, OS X, the PS3, and the Xbox 360.
Re:Dragon Age I's Choices (Score:4, Informative)
The death of the cRPG (Score:4, Informative)
This news story sounds like it what was submitted by an EA publicist.
A lot of people have taken issue with the dumbed down combat, limited customization options, extremely linear story, bad graphics and a dialogue wheel that is essentially broken into compassionate, obnoxious or humourous responses. This game is a pale impression of it's predecessor. It seems kind of ironic that the series designed to resurrect the cRPG may be the very thing that destroys it. Before buying this game, read this article [hookedgamers.com] and save yourself some money.