Dragon Age II Previews

In addition to a bullet-point preview of Dragon Age II over at Nightmare Mode, there’s a 156-second video preview of the game on offer over at G4. I’m not sure why Ray Muzyka is suddenly calling the sequel an action RPG, but I suppose one of the points in the former article would help explain it:

As you know, combat is getting a rehaul the whole, ‘˜Think like a general, fight like a spartan’ bit. Mike Laidlaw expands on this a bit, citing that they wanted to get rid of (shuffle and lag.) Those who have played the Dragon Age 2 demo have made comparisons to God of War and Fable (spartan), only you have the ability to pause and give out orders (general). Moreover, Laidlaw says that (You have every ability you had in Origins in terms of being able to attack, move and position guys. But it’s faster, way more fluid, way more comprehensible. You may have to pause a little bit more to pull off the .rand strategy,’ but you can still pause the game, move between all of your characters. All those things are still there.) On the more tactical side of things, this new (responsive) system makes for faster orders. ()What I never felt was that my orders were being followed in that they weren’t orders so much as suggestions. Alistair would kind of move up, get in position, then attack, and I was like, ‘˜Dude, get up their with your sword and hit the guy,) Laidlaw says. And, sure enough, previews cite the ability to cast instant orders.which come at the expense of longer recharge times.