"Deal with it," Fenris said in a mocking tone.












To be quite honest, I actually enjoyed Dragon Age 2. In fact, I have enjoyed it several times, and would be enjoying it right now if I weren't writing this post.

Not gonna lie, the game was flawed as fuck, and the cliffhanger ending had all the subtlety of a five-hundred pound man doing the worm in your living room while screaming from grits and eggs. We get it Bioware, you're leading up to the super special awesome Dragon Age 3, you don't need to beat us over the head with it. The ending was also rushed and left a sour taste in my mouth. As the credits rolled I spent the entire time thinking, "Is that is? Is that all there really was?"

I was also annoyed by the reuse of levels. Come on Bioware, switch that shit up! After three years you would think that the corpses in Fenris's home would have been puddles of black goo by now. I can accept this from a low budget game, but Dragon Age 2 was supposed to be a triple A game. What did Bioware do with all that money?

So, what did I like about the game? Pretty much everything else. I liked that the action was more fast paced (oh noes, it no longer takes five minutes for the character to swing his sword, however shall we deal???!!!?!1) than it was in Dragon Age: Origin. I was also impressed with the ability to make my Hawke a sarcastic insensitive twit. Many people complained about the dialogue wheel, but I was not vexed by it (guess that makes me the cancer killing the gaming industry).

Another thing that made me happy was the fact that all four love interest were open to romance regardless of Hawke's gender. It was nice being able to romance Anders and Fenris while playing as man!Hawke. I remember a lot of people complaining that they could not form a gay romance with Alistair (which is funny given how many people complain now about all 4 LIs being romance-able regardless of gender. Just a lose-lose situation).

The final battle against the big bad of Dragon Age 2 was epic in its own way. I did not notice until the second playthrough that various character throughout the game (Cullen, Zevran, I also spotted Nathaniel) also help in the final battle.

The big plot event which starts the gears in motion was also epic. I have never been a huge fan of the chantry or the Templar, so I did not shed a single tear. If there had been an option, I would have patted Anders back and given him an ice cream sundae.

The main game gave us three chapters, but I think it would have been better to stretch out those three chapters. Having shit go down with Hawke's mother, and then have him dealing with the Qunari right after that seemed a bit like piling a plate with too much food. The Qunari thing should have been a chapter by itself. The third chapter should have been longer as well. After all of the excitement of the second chapter, it feels like the game peaked a little too soon.

The main problem is that the game was rushed. A lot of people seem to be blaming EA for this. Maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. All that matters is that Bioware rushed the game and made what could have been a straight 10 into a 4 or a 5.