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82

Generally favorable reviews - based on 45 Critic Reviews What's this?

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4.7

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 5028 Ratings

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  • Summary: EA announced that a new installment in the Dragon Age series will arrive in the first quarter of 2011.
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Dragon Age II: Sir Isaac of Clarke Trailer
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 38 out of 45
  2. Negative: 0 out of 45
  1. Mar 14, 2011
    95
    If you were like me and worried about Dragon Age II, you can relax. It's not quite the same game, but where it's different it is better.
  2. Mar 8, 2011
    91
    It may be difficult for hardcore gamers to ignore the revamped combat system, but once you calm down and excuse some minor flaws, you'll find an amazing game in Dragon Age II.
  3. Mar 21, 2011
    88
    Dragon Age II might stir up a little controversy for the radical changes BioWare implemented in the series, but many of them were done to make the game more accessible. It's still the Dragon Age many of us know and love, it's just growing up a bit. If you're looking for a fantastic adventure with incredible dialogue, vastly improved visuals and visceral combat, this game won't disappoint.
  4. Mar 31, 2011
    82
    I found Dragon Age II to last about 27 hours for my first playthrough, split almost evenly between its three acts (though the last was a bit shorter). This was disappointing compared to Origins, which took more than 50 hours, considering both were fully explored at a fairly leisurely pace...With that said, DA2 is still a pretty darn good game.
  5. Mar 20, 2011
    80
    Ultimately, Dragon Age 2 still manages to be a good game, but it will also be a VERY divisive title among RPG fans.
  6. Mar 8, 2011
    80
    But as a game, its streamlined mechanics and more action-oriented combat should appeal to console players, but hardcore fans of PC RPGs may feel slighted.
  7. Apr 12, 2011
    58
    Despite some advancement in storytelling approach and liberal borrowing from Bioware's Mass Effect approach to gameplay, Dragon Age 2 on the PC has a lot of bugs and is populated with re-used settings that make this feel like a play performed on a stage with two sets.

See all 45 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Mar 8, 2011
    10
    I really enjoyed the new combat. Characterization is fantastic. I love the new dialogue system and improved character development.
    This game
    I really enjoyed the new combat. Characterization is fantastic. I love the new dialogue system and improved character development.
    This game is a lot of fun.
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  2. Mar 15, 2011
    9
    Best RPG of last years.
    As for me - this game much better than DAO.Developers remaked all thigs i hated in DAO:
    1)Story-telling become more
    Best RPG of last years.
    As for me - this game much better than DAO.Developers remaked all thigs i hated in DAO:
    1)Story-telling become more dynamic, and it's not about FATE OF THE WORLD, like others like to do
    2)Graphic is brilliant in DA2
    3)All characters in this game are elaborated
    4)Fights become more spectacular, interesting, dynamic.
    5)This is game for everyone, not only for hardcore gamers.U have no need to spend time on collecting items,equipments, or on learning poisoning,trapping or on choosing the way how to lvl up ur character and etc.
    6)Brilliant sound.Excellent.
    And two things i don't like - same locations whole game and same faces of all npc's in game.I met like 10 mothers of main heroe during the game.
    So i give it 9 saying "Well done" to Bioware.And i also "wildly-furiously" wish to see what will happen in DA3.
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  3. Mar 14, 2011
    7
    Dragon Age 2, isnt something what i expected it to be. Maybe i was hoping for DA:O sequal. The game does have improvment at some points. TheDragon Age 2, isnt something what i expected it to be. Maybe i was hoping for DA:O sequal. The game does have improvment at some points. The combat is more fun now, it isnt clunky and the animations are smooth. It was nice to see my rogue just kill stuff with style. The spells and skills look nice, First time i casted rock armor i was amazed how much better it looked compared to DA:O. The new Qunari look nice, but in the game you dont see any female Qunari's also you dont see any female Dwarfs. The dialogue wheel is something they tried to take over from ME2, but it dosent fit for DA2. In a rpg i wanna be the character and choose what i say like i did in DA:O, but with the new dialogue wheel i often felt like i didnt bother reading any options. Making me pay less attention to the story. I always knew top was good, middle was neutral and bottom was evul. So i always clicked the top one and didnt bother reading anything else. Which was a huge letdown. In DA:O you had so many diffrent choices and you chose the option which felt what you would have said so you were thinking what you would do, you were in the game. Also the dialogue options were sometimes confusing, because i hoped it to say something diffrent and it kept me sometimes wondering if i pressed something wrong or could the other options say what i wanted to say.

    Companions:
    Companion customization is dumbed down. You can't change ur companion armor, except rings,necklace, belt and weapon. In a rpg i always want to customize all my characters. Or maybe it was too much to expect. 1,5 years to make a sequal isnt that much, comparing to DA:O and i guess Bioware didnt have the time to make armors for your companions. But not being able to change armors, resulted my main character who was a rogue, have more armor/defence than my tank. Even though you can upgrade your companion armors, by getting some special upgraders or doing companion quests it isnt as effective compared to DA:O, where you could give them your old set.

    Another thing about companions, you cant talk to them everytime you want. Basically if you want to know about them you need to wait for the companion quest to open. I always was checking all my companions, because i wanted to know about them more, but i never was able to talk with them unless they had a quest and that wasnt really what i was looking forward to. In DA:O you could talk with them everywhere, which was great, but now the only chance to talk with them is during companion quests and occasionaly cutscenes. In DA:O, you talked with them everytime gave them gifts, laughed at their jokes and dialogues, but now it feels like they removed it from the game. True the companions to have funny dialogue with eachother from time to time, but here i don't bother listening to them at all, unless its Varrick whos talking. Varrick will probably be the companion i will remeber. Compared to DA:O, where i loved Alistair, Morrigan, Shale, Zevran, Oghren and so on. The companions in DA2 arent that memorable.

    The theme is Kirkwall, you spend all the time in Kirkwall and its surrounding places. Kirkwall is a huge city and you can choose to visit at night and day, which is nice, but the city is empty. I mean there arent npc-s. The huge city seems kinda empty, but that isnt a big problem, the biggest problem is the dungeons and recycled areas. After ACT1 you will spend ur time revisiting the places u visited for several more times. Basically after ACT1 you have seen the whole game. Compared to DA:O, where there were so many diffrent places, citys this seems like they didnt have money or the time to make new dungeons. After revisiting a dungeon the 20-th time you know where the most treasures are and it isnt as rewarding and the game lacks exploration.

    What is the deal with DLC before the game is even released. They are trying to milk too much money out of the gamers who like the Dragon Age universe. There are 2 dlc-s already, which 1 has a new companion and the other has some bonus items. You can play DA2 without dlc-s easily, because those dlc don't add that much depth to the game. Also on hard/nightmare the game is challenging, however some places are unbalanced and make you wanna tear your hair out. To play on nightmare you gotta exploit all the weakness and the stupidness of the enemys ai. The game started feeling like hit and run. The game isnt as tactical as DA:O, yes you can play it tactically, but after waves and waves of enemys ur tactics mostly end up being useless, because enemy's come out of nowhere and just take out ur mage or rogue. So you never can be prepeared.

    Dont get me wrong Dragon Age 2 is a good game, but i always kept comparing it to DA:O. DA2 was rushed out, it wasnt polished like DA:O. If there wasnt DA:O i would give DA2 a score of 8, but it felt for me that it isnt as good as DA;O and i always compared to it. So imma give it a 7.
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  4. Mar 10, 2011
    3
    It would be nice to say that Dragon Age II fell short of lofty promises and unrealistic expectations for a sequel to a quite successful game.It would be nice to say that Dragon Age II fell short of lofty promises and unrealistic expectations for a sequel to a quite successful game. It would be nice to say that, but DA2 is in every sense of the word rushed, and oozing focus-group driven development. DA2 is to RPGs what a mockup of Avatar done in Poser would be to film: an anaemic, shallow, mass-market appeal piece of shlock that also happens to look like crap. The same four (count em, four!) different dungeons will be trawled through the entire game, with some minor variations in which doors are hard-locked. The enemies are similarly monotonous and repetitive, coming in three types: basic, auto-attacking warriors and archers, and spellcasters that will hang back. No difference in behaviour or special abilities seem to exist between the different species of monsters. Fighting the same endless waves of spider-people and dwarf-orc "run up and attack" monsters with no variation quickly dulls the mind, which is almost comforting given the writing, setting, and level design. The encounters in which these brilliant tactical AIs are presented consist of copy-pasted waves of monsters spawning from nothing, ad nauseaum. The levels are incredibly linear, and one quickly realizes anything resembling an open area will probably just mean lots of spawns of identical mobs before trundling down the next corridor. Despite being a triple-A title from a star studio, the game manages to look like Poser models battered in jaggies and fried in tones of brownish-red low-res textures. The "Push button; receive Awesome", fun-finds-you game design leaves little or nothing to the player's imagination or skill. The dialogue is offensively cheesy, even by generous RPG standards, and the ridiculousness and awkwardness of the romances and massive out-of-place gazongas on ancient crones and tiny elf women speak to state of mind of the writers and who they were writing for. Maybe Bioware is too high on a decade's success to realize they too are capable of producing trash when churning out the most tepid, repetitive, cash-in sequel imaginable in as little time as possible. Maybe the blog posts by senior designers about the old staff not being on the project and the design going entirely another way tell the story. Either way, leaving aside the questions of developing for consoles and DLC, leaving aside expectations from old-school RPGs: Dragon Age II does not stand on its own as an RPG. It is a dull slog and a massive failure of a game. Save your money and please, vote with your wallet. Keep your hopes up for the Witcher 2 and Deus Ex 3 for quality franchise RPGs in 2011, but give DA2 the widest possible berth. Expand
  5. Mar 16, 2011
    2
    The PC gaming market is disappearing and we are becoming more and more of a console based world. The PC had its prime but is is diminishingThe PC gaming market is disappearing and we are becoming more and more of a console based world. The PC had its prime but is is diminishing faster and faster with each passing year. When I bought this game, I did it with the trust that Bioware would not disappoint, but instead a worthy successor to the first game in the series. What I got for my $60.00 is a rushed game that has been stripped of immersible storyline, graphically simplified for idiots, a combat system that is cool for about 10 minutes, and in short a
    game that I am having trouble finding the motivation to even finish. The game lacks an interesting story, interesting characters, interesting quests, interesting tech trees, interesting equipment. This game at best should have been an expansion on the first game simply following a certain character, much like Awakenings, but instead they have already tarnished this series with this deplorable piece of garbage. I had a lot of respect for Bioware until now and the only thing I have to look forward to on the horizon is Mass Effect 3, which I am now worried may have the same fate of Dragon Age 2 in being a rush job. Pasta save Shepherd.
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  6. Mar 26, 2011
    1
    Dragon Age 2, sequel to the successful predecessor Dragon Age: Origins does almost everything wrong what made the series great. I could writeDragon Age 2, sequel to the successful predecessor Dragon Age: Origins does almost everything wrong what made the series great. I could write a long review pointing out all the negative aspects, but I figure I should just sum up the positive ones and spare you the time: well-written companions, good music, stylistic loading screens.

    If you need to buy it, I recommend the console version as it is clearly designed with consoles in mind.
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  7. Nov 2, 2022
    0
    really this game really bad dont look critic reviews buy it and game score sit 85 but real score 30 i play this game right now my play hour 40really this game really bad dont look critic reviews buy it and game score sit 85 but real score 30 i play this game right now my play hour 40 this 40 hour not solid gameplay 10 hour loading screen and 500 time same place quest DONT BUY IT OR START THIS GAME GO PLAY DRAGON AGE ORIGINS AND JUMP TO dragon age ınq if u want garbage trash game Expand

See all 1716 User Reviews