Dragon Age II Previews
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IncGamers kicks things off:
Since fleeing Lothering (which Origins fans will remember was annihilated by the Darkspawn) Hawke made a name for himself as the Champion of Kirkwall, a coastal city located in the Free Marches. How his escape transpired, what paved the way to Hawke's fame, and what truths lie behind the legends of his title, are all left up to the player by BioWare. They're all up to you, based on your decisions and their consequences.
Annoyingly, this makes it difficult to characterise Hawke. We'll be able to play him as anything from a devious manipulator to a diplomatic and honourable man - however we like, really. In many ways the overriding story of Dragon Age 2 is the gradual unveiling of Hawke's identity, and when the title of "champion" can mean so many things depending on how it's said, I'd wager there could be some agonising choices to make.
And Strategy Informer picks up where they left off:
Most of the other improvements we noticed were related in some way to these core three concepts. The dialogue wheel has been tweaked so that it now carries emotional sub-text with the choices. Silverman quoted the popular saying that Email is a poor form of communication due to the fact that you can't read emotions, and he has a point. You don't really know the effect of some of the options (unless they're really obvious) until after the fact. Now, this 'emotional' wheel gives hints in the form of icons that are supposed to represent emotions, or stances, or something that really helps you see what the choice is meant to achieve. A small touch, but one that we think will make the cinematic experience that much more engaging.
Combat is looking more responsive, again to quote Silverman they wanted the action-rpg element to feel like (as soon as you pressed a button, something awesome happened), evidently using the formulate Button Pressing = Awesome. Other minor touches have been improved as well, such as death kills. In Dragon Age, whenever you performed a finishing mêlée attack on a big opponent, you did a special kill move. These were always very nice and gave a satisfying epic finish to touch battles, but they were limited only to mêlée. Now, at least magic attacks have also been given death moves.
