Exclusive audio clip from the developer Mike Laidlaw chat. My hands-on opinion and a few exclusive pictures.
So we waited in line to get into a 30 minute discussion about Dragon Age II and a short hands-on demo. The other line was to play Dead Space 2. It looked like the same level we saw at E3. Surprisingly nobody was really interested in the Dead Space 2. We waited in line for Dragon Age II for 1 hour.
While waiting in line, you could walk over and play the NEW DLC for Dragon Age Origins. I did. I didn't know what was happening. It was on PC and I had no idea what the controls were. When I came back into to line I was explaining to BatRastered that I had died, it was the PC version. "No wheel for the spells." I said to him, "like on the Xbox." Craziness. Then this handicap kid(who got to cut us in line) in front of me starts calling me out for not knowing what I was talking about. Completely all up in my conversation with BatRastered. Now he must have misunderstood me or not known which version of the game I was talking about. +1, The kids dad was standing there with him the entire time he berated me. I let the kid finish and I tried to explain to him, that the demo over there is on the PC, and I had never played it on the PC before. He continued to rant on about the spell wheel and that I didn't know what I was talking about and that I sucked. I shoulda took that god damn crutch and wrapped it around his grill. I knew if I did that, I probably wouldn't get a chance to see Dragon Age II that day.
Dragon Age II hands-on. After Mike Laidlaw made his speech, which you can listen to below. I got to sit and play Dragon Age II finally. After waiting almost an hour and a half. Anybody who has seen me play Dragon Age Origins know I do not listen to any of the dialogue, I just skip through it all very fast and then select the most rude or violent option. Plus Mike just demo'd the same exact thing I was playing right now, so I already knew what the characters were talking about it. The space for the demo is really just a demo battlefield. You get to see the new graphics, which for the Dragon Age heads, you will know right away that they are enhanced. Better? Not by much, but improved and enhanced. Irrelevant. The Darkspawn comes over the hill and the pwnn begins. Only 2 people in the party, the main Jimmy and a mage. BTW Mages have finishing moves now with magic, like the soldiers and Assassin's had in the first Dragon Age. Darkspawn come over the hill and I'm pwnn like it was Dragon Age Origins. You have to push the A/X button to attack, that doesn't make it a hack and slash that some Jimmys have reported. It's still the same game. A/X ... the button attacks, it makes sense. You still can switch to the mage on the fly and control the other party members that way. When the dialogue wheel pops up the selections also have an emotion attached to them. So when you say you're gonna kill everything by yourself, the "asshole" emotion is shown with like a color or symbol in the selection.
Now I don't know what everyone else in the room was doing, but I railed that demo in less than 2 minutes. Everything the developer just showed and demo'd in front of us was the same exact thing we got to play. So yeah, I just tested out the combat. I didn't need to hear any talking, I never have in Dragon Age. Never will. Afterward I went up and spoke to Mike Laidlaw, told him who I was and that we wanted to be in contact with their PR department. No response.
Here's a video of the TardClan VS the Nubfarm in an inflatable sword death match.
Regardless Dragon Age II looks very promising. I'm sure if you played the first one, picking up part two should not be an issue. Now how about that audio recording I promised of the developer chat. Don't be a Jimmy!
