Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

I had little to no expectations when I headed off to BioWare Edmonton to check out Dragon Age II. I did enjoy the first game, don't get me wrong, but I've never been one for dragging on something that has reached its logical conclusion. Frankly, I didn't see where else the Dragon Age: Origins game and universe could go without feeling forced. I was pleasantly wrong. As it turns out, there is a ton that BioWare could do differently with Dragon Age: Origins, and they're doing it all in Dragon Age II.

Aside from Dragon Age II's sleek new UI, which we'll get to in a bit, one of the most alluring aspects of the game is how the story is conveyed. Instead of a third (or arguably first) person recount of the tale, BioWare has opted to tell the story through another story. The game opens with two characters recounting their memory of world-changing events, and the actual game portion takes place in the characters' portrayals of the story. Confused? Don't be. Just think of the movie The Princess Bride and you'll understand what I mean. Better yet, your character gets voice-overs this time around, so the story really is much more involving.

After playing the game for a few hours, I could see why this method was quite a bit more powerful than the direct story telling of Origins, but I wanted to get word from BioWare as to the specifics of why they chose this route. So, I asked Mark Darrah, Executive Producer how he hoped this technique would impact the game.

"One of the main advantages of the framed narrative technique is the passing of time. Because there is a fixed narrator, you can jump forward in time. That lets us build a more reactive story," Darrah began. "In Origins you could do a lot of things--side with the elves, try to become king-- so you ended up with a large 'decision backlog' and at the end of the game the epilogue tried to sort all of that out, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

"But having the time passage in Dragon Age II, it allows us to do it right away, right in the middle of the story. So going from Act I to Act II, several years go by, and you can actually see the consequences of what you did in Act I."

But how far can you change the game world? It would, at least in theory, be impossible to have a story so completely open that it writes itself. How constricted is the game, and how do you steer the player in a certain direction, but still allow them to make choices that will affect the world? I asked Darrah this too.

"We do know where we need to get to," Darrah explained. "There are certain events that need to happen. Player interaction with those events can be different, but ultimately the subplots are designed to support that central narrative. So you're pushing the story down a certain path, and the side quests are presented in reaction to that."

Fair enough! The story is told well, and the impact you can have on the way the story shapes is notable. So, how does the game actually play?

As a MMOG player at the core, it usually takes me a little while to adjust to single player games. Dragon Age II was no different, even though I had played through the first one. After I had the controls figured out though, I was good to go, and that's when the combat started becoming fun. The combat system, at least on a somewhat easy setting, is similar to an action combat MMOG that you can pause for tactics. Your character will auto-attack your target, and a hotbar at the bottom allows you to perform your spells and abilities. In fact, despite some minor bumps from initial unfamiliarity, the combat wasn't all that different from what we see in some major action-based MMO games today. This was a good thing, as it meant less time trying to figure out how to fight, and more time lobbing off heads and uncovering the story. It was clean, and it was fun.