Dragon Age II Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

Dragon Age II Free Download GAMESPACK.NET There are a few things I’m certain of in life: Darkspawn must die, dragons must die, and, from a technical perspective, Dragon Age II is the best game in BioWare’s fantasy role-playing franchise. The gameplay, user interfaces, and conversation system have all been modified to the point where the game is much more functional and fun than before. Yet despite all these improvements, there are still some issues with the story and setting in the sequel. To kick things off, the plot is told through a framed narrative, much like the movie The Princess Bride. It’s known that your character, Hawke — a male or female human mage, rogue, or warrior — will eventually become the Champion of Kirkwall. It’s also clear that the world is on the cusp of war, and the Chantry, the main religious faction in the Dragon Age universe, is coming apart at the seams. What isn’t known is your amount of involvement in the chaos, and why a Chantry seeker named Cassandra is interrogating a former friend of yours, a dwarf named Varric. It turns out that your part in this play is major, and you’ll figure it out as you go along. Varric dutifully recites the tale from start to finish, complemented by stunning water-color cutscenes to add an interesting visual element to the dwarf’s clever storytelling.TOP/BEST ADULT VIDEO GAMES IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA)

Dragon Age II Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

It’s easy to forget that what you’re doing is technically in the past, so it’s fun to discover Varric’s embellishments when they pop up, such as Bethany’s giant rack at the start of the game, which later goes down to a normal size. Most role-playing games depict a prevailing evil presence that only your hero can defeat after an epic journey across the world. You can imagine my surprise, then, when Dragon Age II threw most of those ideas out the window and instead opted to document the political struggles of the city of Kirkwall. It’s a gutsy move to say the least – this is a 30-hour game and most of it is spent in and around the city looking at similar architecture. I appreciate that there are distinct parts of Kirkwall like Hightown (a bright, clean spot for nobles to hang out) and Darktown (a dingy, underground area), but there’s so much to explore in the Dragon Age universe that it’s rather puzzling to set an entire adventure in just one area. I thought the narrative style was to allow for branching storylines, but aside from a few impactful choices, it’s actually fairly linear, which is disappointing. Another problem is that the ending is a cliffhanger, which makes it feel more like a prologue rather than a standalone title. The plot is very entertaining though and chockfull of crazy moments that will make you go “OMG” and “WTF.” Occasional slow spots can make what you’re doing feel pointless.

Cinematic storytelling.

But the ending makes it clear that Hawke’s time in Kirkwall is incredibly important to the Dragon Age canon. Although Origins featured a silent Hero of Ferelden, Dragon Age II offers a fully-voiced Champion. I prefer chatty main characters, so I’m pleased that Hawke was given a voice in the sequel. Talking to folks will cause a wheel of dialogue options to appear that looks similar to what BioWare uses in Mass Effect. The difference is that Dragon Age II sports icons that help guide your decision making. Hawke can be aggressive, peaceful, sarcastic, romantic etc., but there are almost too many varying icons to represent all the different feelings you can express. Who would assume that a purple gem would mean charming? If you don’t check out the manual, you may get confused by odd choices like that. A nice addition is that Hawke will spout off different one-liners in cutscenes that you have no control over depending on your conversation tendencies. It’s a cool feature, as it really makes your character seem like a unique individual. One of the best things about Dragon Age is stopping and listening to what your companions have to say. That remains true in the sequel, where the background chatter between party members is often hilarious and sometimes heartwarming.Red Orchestra 2 Heroes Of Stalingrad

Dragon Age II Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

It adds authenticity to their personalities despite their occasionally stiff movements. Assembling a team isn’t a light decision in Dragon Age II as your companions aren’t just there to aid you in battle. They can also partake in conversations, opening up new dialogue options. Anders might be able to tell if someone is possessed by peeking into the Fade (the spirit realm), Varric can sweet-talk you out of sticky situations, and Aveline can threaten like nobody’s business when the terms are right. Of course, you do need to consider their combat abilities as well, because a team full of mages probably isn’t going to get very far. The appeal of the combat system in Dragon Age II is its versatility. You can easily play it like an action title and mash buttons on lower difficulty levels, but if you prefer to think about what you’re doing, you can crank up the difficulty, pause the game, and issue commands for individual team members. It’s more difficult to direct complex strategies on consoles due to imprecise movements with the analog sticks, but it’s easy with a keyboard and mouse, though PC users will need to get used to the new camera that doesn’t zoom out quite as far as the one in Origins. Still, taking on foes in any version of Dragon Age is really entertaining – attack animations have been sped and spiffed up and slicing through an enemy with a sword feels satisfying.

Customize your fight.

The only trouble is your buddies aren’t smart enough to play Dragon Age II like a straight action game, despite BioWare’s claim that you can. Unless you set up specific instructions in individual characters’ tactics menus, they won’t take healing potions (and even then they might not do it). Tactics are fairly easy to set up, so that’s not the end of the world, but you’ll still need to keep a careful eye on your party’s health to make sure they don’t go kamikaze on you. At first glance it’s easy to see that Dragon Age II is, for the most part, a beautiful game, especially on the PC. The trade-off is that the assets are reused a lot. As I mentioned earlier, you’re in the same city and surrounding areas for the entire game and it can get tiresome to see the same sights. Dungeons often look identical and even the mini-map doesn’t change – the only variable is which pathways are blocked off. It’s a major bummer that every time you try to explore, the places you discover feel familiar. Marian Hawke — refugee of Lothering, Champion of Kirkwall — is a liar, a thief, and a murderer, a political sellsword for the powerbrokers of the Free Marches. Most Kirkwallers assume she is a lesbian after a brief affair with Isabella, a Rivaini pirate, but they do not know that she tried (and failed) to seduce a Tevinter slave elf named Fenris.Hellsign

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As a rogue, Hawke’s particularly gruesome specialty is stabbing enemies in the back so hard they explode. While Marian Hawke’s body count is staggering, she is decidedly non-violent when circumstances allow it, which is unfortunately rare. And despite her sordid (and rightfully deserved) reputation, she has something of moral code, however flimsy — she doesn’t tolerate slavery and is sympathetic to mages. She is also a compulsive hoarder, stashing away rare and valuable weapons and armor like a bloodthirsty magpie. In normal circumstances, she would lend this equipment to her colorful friends — a dwarven businessman, the captain of the City Guard, several apostate mages and maleficar — but they choose not to accept her generosity. This is Marian Hawke, the sultry protagonist of my playthrough of BioWare’s Dragon Age II. Hawke-as-political-assassin is a fun role to play, undoubtedly, but Dragon Age II‘s scope is narrow — without a Blight from which Thedas needs saving, Hawke needs an excuse to kill people and professional ne’er-do-well is as good a choice as any. Given its frame narrative — you play the story as told by Varric, a dwarven merchant being interrogated by a Chantry seeker — DAII seems obsessed with player choice even while it stifles it at most major plot points. The dialogue in the game is notably heavy on phrases like, “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

Make bigger moves.

A fourth-wall-breaking question for any game protagonist. There’s the temptation to interpret Hawke’s trials as one version of events that no one in Thedas seems clear on, to imagine that there is an externally “true” version of Hawke that may or may have done the things I did, but Dragon Age II never feels cheap or disingenuous. Abrupt and unfocused are better adjectives, but I never felt like I’d been lied to or manipulated. And despite the frame narrative and the premise — Hawke’s mysterious rise to power — she is rarely the agent of change in Kirkwall. She is simply in the right place at the right time and knows how to stab people until they explode, a useful skill in a town beset by religious fanaticism, terrorism, minority oppression, poverty, racism, and xenophobia. Lead writer David Gaider treats his subjects with the respect they deserve, giving Hawke the freedom to be as hard-nosed or relativistic as she needs, a useful outlet for my own helpless liberalism. While Gaider tips his hand in a few situations, Hawke is generally free to make her own choices, most often in response to — as opposed to as the agent of — change in her city.

But because she doesn’t drive the narrative forward, the player is left to fill in her motivations. In Origins, finding a reason to act was easy — because if you didn’t, everyone would die — but DAII demands a more actively engaged role-player, and the payoff is generous indeed. Hawke’s companions have their own lives and motivations and generally act independently of our hero. Each companion is relatively well-drawn, and Hawke is often left with the unenviable task of picking up the pieces and protecting her friends from their foibles and pitfalls. The companion quests are by far the most engaging of the game, in terms of both quest structure and their contribution to that character’s growth or the overall narrative. Merrill’s is particularly harrowing, the result of which is an act that, more than any other in Dragon Age II, will define my experience with it; Aveline’s, on the other hand, is heart-warming in equal measure. It is unfortunate, then, that the game doesn’t allow for more interaction. The extensive back-and-forth conversations that so richly complimented Origins are only available during specific quests, the party’s camp having been replaced by individual houses and apartments scattered throughout Kirkwall. Fewer opportunities for interaction means that relationships are less subtle, less nuanced — companions are drawn to overblown extremes in order to push their sub-plot forward.

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And that’s too bad: Hawke’s companions are weak, frail people with obvious moral blind spots and their own ways of coping with their lives in Kirkwall, and they are a joy to talk to. That I often sought out chances to excoriate Anders or protect Merrill are credit to David Gaider’s characterization and the role-playing he encourages; that I wasn’t allowed to do so is a black spot on Dragon Age II. Dragon Age 2 was released ten years ago today, and even now, you can’t even bring up the name of the game without someone saying this was the “death of BioWare” or that the sequel “sucked.” Due to a rushed development timeline and a lack of resources, Dragon Age 2 was a hodgepodge of glitches, a short narrative, and repetitive environments. But even with those factors working against it, Dragon Age 2 managed to tell an incredible tale in a short amount of time, and that’s largely because this game has some of the best characters and character development in gaming history. Still with me? Let me explain. RPG fans fell in love with everything BioWare had to offer with Dragon Age Origins. The world, the intriguing characters, the plot twists? It was an incredible experience still very much celebrated to this day. When its sequel, Dragon Age 2, came out, it was almost like a completely different game, and that jarring comparison initially made it confusing to weigh in on the experience.Blair Witch

ADD ONS/PATCHES AND DLC’S: Dragon Age II Legacy