So, as soon as I complete my three-hour rant about all the things in Dragon Age II that piss me off, I download this week's War Rocket Ajax podcast, which features Chris Sims and Colleen Coover raving about how much they love the game. Of course, neither of them appears to have played all the way through it when the show was recorded last Thursday. I'd be interested to hear their impressions upon completing the game.
Still, it did remind me that there was a reason I devoted as much time to this game over the past 2 weeks as I would have to a full-time job. For all my carping, I really did enjoy it, and I may even play through it again someday. I still haven't fully explored all of the skill tree options for the various classes. I think, in the end, my dissatisfaction with the game springs from a phenomenon I've noted in other media, which I call the 'Uncanny Valley of Quality'. The standard definition of the Uncanny Valley is the phenomenon where the closer a depiction of a human being gets to realism, the creepier it looks. So, cartoons can be cute despite being extremely warped depictions of humanity, but audiences ran screaming from showings of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The Uncanny Valley of Quality is similar, in that the closer something comes to your personal definition of perfection, the more disappointing the inevitable shortfalls seem. Or, to borrow a phrase from Jeremy Clarkson: "It would be better... If it was worse."
I felt the same way about Robert Rodriguez' adaptation of Sin City. And about Edgar Wright's adaptation of Scott Pilgrim. And even about Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. All three films are, in their own ways, brilliantly ambitious (and nearly successful) attempts to translate the unique aesthetic of a classic novel (whether graphic or prose) into another medium. And all are fundamentally flawed in ways that ultimately undermined my enjoyment of the movie. I walked out of each of those films wishing that the director had aimed just a little lower, at a target he might actually have been able to hit. Which doesn't make them bad films, or mean that I didn't enjoy watching them. But that enjoyment will always be bittersweet. And, if I've learned anything from playing DA2 three times in two weeks, it's that repeated exposure tends to emphasize the bitter over the sweet.
All of the things which Sims, Coover and other reviewers I've read enjoyed about DA2 (the addition of a third set of conversational options, the more personal focus of the story, the urban setting, the fast-paced combat, the increased emphasis on the setting and world-building) were things that I enjoyed. Many of them represent legitimate improvements over the first Dragon Age game. But the best things about Dragon Age: Origins (the 'Origins' themselves which allowed you some choice about who your character was and how they came to be thrust into the epic struggle, the ability to at least control the order of the scripted events, the possibility of alternate outcomes based on your choices at key points in the game, the sheer length and scope of the story) were small details forgotten in the developers' race for power and glory.
The problem is not that Dragon Age II is a bad game. It's actually quite a good game on its own merits. The problem is that it's not really a sequel to Dragon Age: Origins. It's a series of checked-off boxes on a list of 'elements that gamers expect of a modern fantasy action RPG'. Honestly, any company could have churned out exactly the same game, with a few name changes, and I wouldn't have associated it with Dragon Age at all. The most I would have thought would be, "Clearly someone's trying to cash in on the success of BioWare's Mass Effect franchise."
To me, that's a huge missed opportunity.
Still, they'll inevitably release an expansion for the game, along with various downloadable content packs. Perhaps one of them will include some provision for alternate endings or other meaningful choices you can make. A man can dream...
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