Dragon Age 2 [Download]

by Electronic Arts

Product Details

Game Manual: English [PDF]

• Downloading: Currently, this item is available only to customers located in the United States and who have a U.S. billing address.
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• ASIN: B004PGNJG2
• Release Date: March 8, 2011
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (101 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,059 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #14 in Video Games > Digital Games > PC Game Downloads > Role-Playing
  • #33 in Video Games > PC Games > Games > Role-Playing

Product Description

Platform: PC Download | Edition: Standard

From the Manufacturer

Dragon Age II is a single player role-playing game (RPG) for play on the PC. Epic sequel to the BioWare developed 2009 Game of the Year, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II continues the adventure with a new hero, Hawke, and utilizes the choices made by the player to affect a story that spans ten years worth of time in-game. Additional game features include: the ability to choose your character's class and sex, a new cinematic in-game experience, a nonlinear narrative and the ability to import saved information from earlier Dragon Age games.

About Dragon Age II

Embark on an all-new adventure spread across a ten-year span of years with an all-new hero in the multiple award-winning Dragon Age saga. In Dragon Age II you are Hawke, said to have been one of the few to survive the destruction of your homeland. Forced to fight for survival, you gathered the deadliest of allies, amassed fame and fortune and sealed your place in history, eventually becoming in effect a legend in your own time. But legends are all in the telling.

Revel in the epic sequel to the 2009 Game of the Year, Dragon Age: Origins.
View larger.

Dragon Age II utilizes a nonlinear narrative, taking the form of a story-within-a-story that hinges upon your exploits as told by the storyteller, Varick. Yet like any good storyteller, Varick tends to exaggerate from time to time. When questioned on events related to Hawke, Varick may present a different scenario in which Hawke's exploits play out. It is within these replays that the decisions of the players hold sway, as their particular versions of Hawke relive these events. Is the player's particular version of Hawke, male or female? A warrior, a rogue, or a mage? Is Hawke good-natured or something less than a salt-of-the-Earth type? Is romance in the air amongst characters he/she associates with? These choices are all the player's to make and each affect the the outcome of the story at all levels.

Game Features

• Embark upon an all-new adventure that takes place across an entire decade and shapes itself around every decision you make
• Determine your rise to power from a destitute refugee to the revered champion of the land
• Think like a general and fight like a Spartan with dynamic new combat mechanics that put you right in the heart of battle whether you are a mage, rogue, or warrior
• Go deeper into the world of Dragon Age with an entirely new cinematic experience that grabs hold of you from the beginning and never lets go
• Discover a whole realm rendered in stunning detail with updated graphics and a new visual style
• Story-within-a-story nonlinear narrative style

Additional Screenshots

Nonlinear narrative. View larger.

10 years of gameplay. View larger.

Cinematic quality experience. View larger.

Completely updated graphics. View larger.

System Requirements

	Minimum Specifications:	Recommended Specifications:
OS:	Windows XP with SP3, Windows Vista with SP2, or Windows 7
Processor:	Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz	Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz
RAM:	1 GB (1.5 GB Vista and 7)	2 GB (4 GB Vista and 7)
Hard Drive:	7 GB
Video Card:	ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB OR NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS 256 MB	ATI 3850 512 MB OR NVIDIA 8800GTS 512MB

EA ACCOUNT, REGISTRATION WITH ENCLOSED SINGLE-USE SERIAL CODE, INTERNET CONNECTION AND ACCEPTANCE OF END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT REQUIRED TO PLAY AND TO ACCESS BONUS CONTENT (IF ANY) AND ONLINE FEATURES AND/OR SERVICES.  SERIAL CODE IS NON-TRANSFERABLE ONCE USED.  EA ONLINE PRIVACY POLICY AND TERMS OF SERVICE CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.EA.COM.  YOU MUST BE 13+ TO ACTIVATE SOFTWARE.  EA MAY RETIRE ONLINE FEATURES AFTER 30 DAYS NOTICE POSTED ON  WWW.EA.COM/2/SERVICE-UPDATES.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 73 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Dragon Age 2,...A below average game from a usually above average developer March 16, 2011

By James Roberts

Platform for Display:PC Download|Edition:Standard

Introduction

Let me start by saying that I play both PC and Console games so don't have a bias in that regard. I purchased the PC version with the free collector's edition upgrade. This means that I received most if not all of the DLC available at launch for no extra charge. I chose to purchase the PC version over the PS3 or Xbox360 versions simply because there are no mods for console versions and I personally like mods. Unfortunately, Bioware has announced that they have no intention of releasing any Mod tools for DA:II although they did say they would consider updating the tools from DA:O to make them compatible. We shall see if that actually happens.

The DLC really did not affect my ratings as the equipment was not enough of a factor in the game to matter, and I very rarely used the extra companion. If I had failed to preorder and actually purchased the game and the DLC separately, I would have given the overall game package 2 stars instead of 3. This is because I already feel that I overpaid, even with the bonus content I have already received.

During gameplay I experienced a 20-45 second lockup about every 20-30 minutes. This required me to alt/tab to my desktop to resume play. I also found a few quest continuity errors, graphical glitches and other random issues. I did not deduct points for the games overall somewhat buggy feel as BioWare has already acknowledged these issues and I expect them to provide a patch fairly quickly.

Purpose
My goal is to explain why this game succeeded or failed on its own merits rather than comparing it to Dragon Age: Origins.

Rating

Fun
When it comes to "fun", I have given this game two stars.... This game suffers greatly from a lack of variety in the questing locations, a lack of flexibility in the talent trees, generic and unfinished itemization, and an overall unfinished and unpolished feel. This all combines to make playing this game seem more like a chore I'm plodding though than an epic gameplay experience I'm participating in. Near the end I found myself actually becoming somewhat angry when I would get what seemed to be yet another pointless side quest as I just wanted the game to finally be over. I actually considered not finishing the game; but I felt that since I had already invested so much time, that I would go ahead and grind my way through to the end.

Overall Gameplay
I bumped the game overall up another star for two primary reasons: 1) The sheer number of quests and 2) There were a few very engaging storyline elements where I could see this games potential trying to shine through. This is definitely not a bad game, but it's not a great game either. Unless it's fleshed out with some serious DLC, it will be relegated to the bargain bin with all of the other mediocre releases. If I were to actually compare this game with its predecessor Dragon Age: Origins, I would have probably given it a solid two stars across the board simply because of all of the things that were removed.

Reasoning

First the good:
1) There is a LOT of quests. Each time I thought I was coming to the end, an entirely new line up of quests would open up.
2) Some of the quests were actually pretty fun to complete. The quest line involving Varric's house actually made me laugh out loud at one point.
3) Normally when I get a new game, one of the first things I do is turn off the music. I never turned off the music in this game. It's not amazingly awesome, but it does enhance rather than detract and that's all I ask.
4) The banter between characters is pretty good. Nowhere near as good as in the original game but good enough to be called an asset rather than a liability.

Now the bad. Unfortunately there is more bad than good in my opinion. I am going to break this down into sections for readability.
Gameplay Mechanics and Combat

After each fight, your party regains full health and mana and everyone who died is brought back to life.
This makes things such as healing and mana potions almost irrelevant unless you are playing on hard or nightmare. When I finished the game as a mage on normal, I used a grand total of 3 mana potions and 6 health potions start to finish. The only other potion I used was a couple of "fix injury" potions because someone happened to die early on. Those become irrelevant as soon as your healer is able to resurrect people without injury.

There is no combat strategy required.
Every fight consisted of me sending the tank(s) to the middle of the room and letting the first wave of mobs swarm him/her. Once they were nicely grouped, the mage would cast some combination of fireball/firestorm/electrical storm which would take out all but the one or two higher level mobs which everyone else could then gang up on. By the time the next wave of mobs spawned all the AoE's were off cool down so I could do it again. Yes, there were two or 3 "boss" type fights but they just took a little longer to tank and spank. It didn't matter whether or not I was fighting a group of blood mages, Templars, or poisonous spiders, the same tactic worked every time. If someone died it was because I wasn't paying attention, not because the fight was too difficult. I also really didn't care whether or not anyone died as they would just self rez with full health at the end of each fight.

This brings us to enemy variety...or actually the lack thereof.
There are "Guys in Armor", "Guys in Cloth", "Demons", "Spiders", "Dragons" and "Other." "Other" consisted of a Rock Golem model, a Wild Dog model, and an undead corpse. Even the main boss mobs were some sort of "Big Dragon", "Big Stone Golem", or "Big Spider." 6 enemy categories may sound like a lot of variety but when you find yourself running through the same cave, killing the same spiders which spawned in the same places, using the same tactics, for the 30th time, it begins to get old.

Itemization Issues
Most of the items and quest rewards are only wearable by the main character and the stat requirements make them class specific. This means that if your main character is a mage, that awesome piece of tank armor becomes vendor trash instead of another party members needed upgrade.

Because most of the armor is unusable by your companions, they look pretty much the same throughout the entire game. I'm not usually one to complain about in-game fashion but it did get somewhat annoying watching my main character get clean clothes while everyone else kept wearing the same stuff for 6 or 7 levels. This issue is purely cosmetic as the stats on your equipment really don't make much of a difference.

Other than the DLC and one or two quest rewards, items aren't even really named. Everything is just something along the lines of "cracked staff" or "fancy dagger." This makes it difficult to remember which you actually wanted to equip when you have a full inventory of crap you are trying to decide whether to keep or sell.

You are not able to see the equipment of anyone who is not in your party. If the game had a "camp" feature similar to the one in Dragon Age: Origins, this would be a minor issue. Since It doesnt, it becames a major annoyance to swap out all of the various characters to see if they need a certain piece before I sold it. This was made especially frustrating when you take into account that most of the equipment pieces have the same generic name.

Character Issues
The voice acting got annoying after a while.
While not terrible, the voice acting was far from top notch. After a couple of hours I ended up turning on subtitles and pressing escape rather than listening to the voices during cut scenes

You can only play one race as your main character...Human.
A fantasy RPG that only allows one race feels very limiting. Yes, you are able to get companions of other races but they seem like nothing more than short humans with pointy ears. There are no racial bonuses, penalties, or abilities. It also limits replay ability. Since the entire game takes place in one city, the lack of different starting areas absolutely kills any hope of replay ability.

The companions seem to be poorly thought out.
There are 2 Rogue companions (3 if you bought the DLC) , 3 Mage companions (4 if you don't start as a mage), and 3 tank companions (two if you start as anything other than a mage.) This sounds somewhat balanced until you realize that, depending on your main class choice and a few early story choices, you may end up losing 2 of the three tanks, the only dagger rogue(the other two can only use bows) and your only healing mage.

The companion skill trees are also lacking.
If your tank is a two handed fighter, learning sword and shield is not an option nor is any form of ranged weapon. On the other hand, a rogue who uses daggers cannot use a bow and vice versa. I could understand a proficiency penalty, but completely locking every companion into a single weapon choice seems like lazy design. This can be especially frustrating if an unexpected story fork removes a companion and takes with it a skill that you had come to rely on.

Questing
I listed the large number of quests as a positive above. The sheer number of quests is a positive, the way they are implemented is an overall negative. Because the entire game takes place in a single city with basically a single outdoor area with a few caves, everything seemed to blur together. All of the outside quests used the same cave maps and most of the quests in the city involved me running back and forth between the same one or two buildings with what seemed like a few randomly spaced fights sprinkled in for variety. Eventually I found myself not even reading the quest text. I would just open my map, look for the area with the most quest icons, and then run around that zone killing whatever attacked me. When my map was about empty, it was time to read my mail and talk to my companions to refill my quest log.

I also realized about halfway through that most of the quests really serve no purpose other than to stretch out the game. For example, at one point I was offered half interest in a working mine in exchange for protecting the workers. Fast forward 2 years later in game time and I realize that my mine is giving me absolutely no benefit. Why did I waste my time clearing out the monsters if I'm not drawing a cut of the profits? Another example is that after one quest I supposedly found enough wealth to fix my family estate and support my mother. If that's the case, why am I still broke when I look at my inventory? Shouldn't I have ended up with at least a little walking around money?

These particular examples are really not major issues though since money is useless. I think I bought a grand total of 3 items throughout the entire game and that was only because I wanted the achievements for equipping my companions.

Somewhat convulated story line.
In most RPG's, there is some sort of main story arc tying things together. In this game, I had no idea where things were headed until right near the end. I felt like I was just working a bunch of part time jobs in different parts of the city until all of a sudden the story kicks in near the end of the game. Granted a big part of this might be because I quit actually reading the quests about halfway through.

Conclusion:
I tried to like this title. I really, really did. Unfortunately this game feels like a late beta product rather than a production title. There is just too much "stuff" missing for it to be anything other than a below average title from a usually above average developer. If BioWare were willing to develop some decent DLC to flesh out the world and distribute it for free this could be a great game. Until that happens I will consider this simply a mediocre game that I paid way too much for. Read more ›

52 of 63 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars THE HEIR THAT LOST THE KINGDOM... March 8, 2011

By NeuroSplicer TOP 500 REVIEWER

Platform for Display:PC Download|Edition:Standard

The original Dragon Age was a true masterpiece that marked gaming history forever. It was an epic cRPG that not only absorbed you into a world of scheming nobles, romantic witches and invading darkspawn but it was also an exercise in morality choices and balancing the clashing personalities of your companions. Following in its success, everyone and their grandmother is waiting to play the sequel (for some reason, the grandmother usually opts for a handsome rogue character). However, the question is this: does the sequel prove worthy of the original?
Well, like an embellished Varric's tale, it seems to be a mix of good-news and bad-news.

LEVELING UP (FINALLY) MAKES SENSE
In most cRPGs, leveling up involves adding points to strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence etc - which, in turn, have an effect on health points, dialogue options, defending ability and damage dealt. By reading the manual you know what affects what, however, in most games, you cannot readily see those effects as you level up. Not so with DAO2. Every point added to an attribute will increase the derived statistics on the same screen.

COME FOR THE LOOT. STAY FOR THE STORY - YOUR STORY
Your hero, Hawk, lives during the times of the last blight, fleeing Lothering as it is burned to the ground. Your decade-long story is narrated by Varric Tethras, a companion of yours. However, how the story will twist and turn is entirely up to your actions and choices. The story will absorb you completely because it reaches so many bifurcation points that, in the end, it is entirely your personal creation. And, yes there are companions with......benefits here as well ;-))
I am guessing blood-branding the bridge of one's nose will be the next fashion fad.

THE FREE MARCHES NEVER LOOKED MORE BEAUTIFUL
In a nutshell: you are not actually playing the promo video but the graphics are beautiful.
The armor and clothes could use some more work in depth and texturing but the environments, the warrior moves and the spells look spectacular (keep in mind that said moves and spells will also start to look familiar after a while, especially since they look much more impressive than the actual damage they inflict - and have to be repeated again and again in every battle).
What I truly missed though was the isometric tactics perspective! The camera does zoom in and out and it pans around but it is no longer possible to get a bird's eye view of the battlefield and plan your attacks accordingly. And this was not the only thing I found missing.

FEWER OPTIONS ARE HARDLY EVER AN IMPROVEMENT IN AN RPG
In DAO I favored a dual-wielding warrior, building up both strength and dexterity, equipping him with both Maric's blade and Starfag and giving him all the cool moves of double-yielding. Well, although DAO2 is hardly short in cool moves, it offers less specialization options in order to make warriors and rogues visibly distinct on the battlefield - hence a warrior in DAO2 cannot dual-wield.
Do you find being human in a fantasy game trivial and prefer to play the role of an elf or a dwarf? Sorry, Flemeth did not see that in your cards: EA decreed you can only play a human in DA2 (and I am laying the blame on EA simply because something tells me it was a cost-cutting decision).
Personal preferences aside, the number of abilities and skills has also decreased - and some, like coercion, I outright missed.

WHAT'S NEXT, RPGs WITH EMOTICONS OVER THE NPCs' HEADS?
What I also missed was real dialogue options. If, like me, you found DAO laconic, you will sure find DA2 almost, well,...illiterate. Sure, your hero now has a voice but did the dialogue options have to consist of such short summary-phrases that give you only the gist of what is to be said? And why did those options have to be presented on a (Mass Effect!?) dialogue wheel with...visual hints on the attitude of the responses available? More often than not, you end up saying a completely different thing than what you intended...
Give some credit to your customers Bioware, we can read!

AM I PLAYING A FANTASY GAME OR WAS I BEAMED TO THE BRIDGE OF NORMANDY?
This is the first thing that hits you actually. Playing, and enjoying, a fantasy cRPG requires immersion - and the graphical interface plays an essential role in this. It was not by mistake that Baldur's Gate had menus designed as if chiseled in stone, whereas Icewind Dale's were as if carved out of dark wood. The interface sets the mood of the game. Now, can someone please explain to me what are ...SciFi (read, Mass Effect!?) menus doing in a medieval fantasy game?
Not only does one expect to find himself in a spaceship whenever the skills-tree or inventory menu is closed, but the in-game information is now displayed in smaller portraits with horizontal bars for health-&-stamina/mana. The portraits have moved from the upper to the lower left side of the screen; however, if opening up the screen for gameplay was the aim, well, they now seem to take up more space than before. Not to mention that they are harder to see.

WHAT GAME AM I PLAYING AGAIN?
Watch a gameplay video of the upcoming Dungeon Siege III and Diablo III and try to answer this: can you really tell a difference in the gameplay? Sure, their stories and graphical styles are bound to be somewhat different but action games, hack&slashers and RPGs seem to have merged into a single hybrid-genre of quick cinematic moves, looting, bartering, re-equipping and leveling. And DA2 did not escape this.
Whereas DAO had lots and lots of character, its sequel appears to have clearly favored style. I am sure it tested better on the teenage (console-seasoned) target groups - but I am also sure that said target groups did not include any RPG purists.

(ALMOST) REASONABLE DRM ADDS EXTRA POINT TO FEALTY
EA dropped the ball with the recently released and over-DRMed DAO-Ultimate Edition so, hopefully, they learned a valuable lesson. Going the draconian way of UBISOFT & 2K GAMES only manages to shoot your own sales on the foot. Surprisingly, DA2, although not perfect, sports a reasonable DRM scheme.
The game requires initial activation (add half a star to the overall rating if this is not important to you) and it will re-authenticate every time it is run and it has access to internet connection - but it will not require to do so in order to run. In other words, once activated at installation you can block its internet access and it will run fine. Moreover, it contains neither disc-checks nor any form of SecuROM - at least according to the official EA/BIOWARE announcements. Let's only hope this customer-friendl(ier) trend holds when the DLCs start rolling out...

Initially I had rated the game at 3.5-stars game - and then rounded my rating up rather than down because of how much I enjoyed the series overall. However, as I progressed I realized that I could not honestly give this game more than 3-stars, pedigree or not.
DA2 is a good-looking game that relies more on its stylish hacking&slashing than any uniqueness of character and on the appeal of forging a personal story rather than following a deeper preset one.

Without any hesitation, I would choose the original game over the sequel. DA2 may not measure up but it is still a fun game on its own, one that will stay with you long after the last blade is swung and the last spell is cast. Read more ›

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Ok, but not as good as the first one March 14, 2011

By RobVa2000

Platform for Display:PC Download| Edition:Standard|Amazon Verified Purchase

First and foremost, I played the first Dragon Age on the PS3 and thought it was a great game. But 2 days before DA2 was released, my PS3 died (red light of death). And I am still not sure if I'm going to replace it or not.

So I got the PC version of DA2. And I must admit that the keyboard / mouse combo is not my favorite and I enjoyed the PS3 gamepad controller better.

I also don't have the graphics card to run DA2 in DirectX 11. But my quad core with 4 gb of ram (32 bit) ran the game just fine and very smooth. I had no problems with lockups or bugs.

But, for me, this game lacked the integrated story of the first one and seemed to be just more menial shorter tasks of running errands for other people instead of an epic adventure like the first Dragon Age. It didn't seem to have the big build up to a grand finale like the first one had. It just seemed much more segmented without any cohesiveness to it. Personally, I think Bioware could have done a better job wit it.

So from that stand point, it felt flat. And I agree wih the other reviews, I was suprised to see the same maps and terrain used over and over. There seemed to be little variety and was just kind of there instead of inspired.

I played straight through for the most part and while it was a decent game overall, I wouldn't put in the great category like I would the first Dragon Age.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Pass December 2, 2011

By mr_bubbles

Platform for Display:PC Download| Edition:Standard|Amazon Verified Purchase

To preface I have beaten Dragon Age on the computer. They took almost everything about Dragon Age I and ruined it in this game. Character dialogue is rehashed almost as much as the terrain and environment, you will see the same dungeon multiple times and it truly is game breaking, do not let anyone fool you. There are only so many times you can go on a fetch quest in the same dungeon. Yes the combat is still for the most part interesting but void of almost any difficulty unless you forget to click. Liking the art is subjective so im not going to go into it but for the most part the game looks decent on high graphic settings aside from the occasional graphic hiccups. Quests are tedious and forgettable with few moments that actually stand out. Game lacks any variety and is forgettable compared to the first DA.