See the first two minutes of Dragon Age 2

@littlepunkryo Yay to Lady Hawke indeed!

@(Unverified)
I was thinking about this too. Why do the ME games look so much better? Why don't they jut use the same engine for both games?

@(Unverified)
Really? I thought they looked like Skeletor.
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/6105/skeletorhm.jpg

@Lucky48 Mass Effect 2 had all of that, there's no way that's the reason.

@(Unverified) I agree, bioware has almost always been a bit behind when it comes to graphics (KOTOR, anyone?) but now it's even more disappointing when they've proven to be capable of making such a beautiful game out of Mass Effect 2, even if it was with UE3. You'd think such a successful studio as Bioware would hire a bunch of graphics programmers and just let them go to town.

@TheDarkWayne

KOTOR looked great when it came out.

As for the different engines, their developed by different studious.

@This Little Man Says His Name Is As deeply and purely as I love it, KOTOR looked dated when it came out. UE3 is, as I acknowledged, not from Bioware, but they still edited it a ton, and it was beautiful. The Eclipse engine for DAO and DA2 however, is proprietary and as a lot of people agree, not so hot.

@(Unverified) DA is more complicated graphically than ME actually, so its resources are spread more thinly. Basic but crude example - armour. Think about the average "medieval fantasy" armour and the average "sci-fi" armour - which has more spikes, or edges or crevices or bumps or even parts? Think about the environments - a small medieval town with some trees can often be more demanding than a large futuristic cityscape; the trees, the more rounded architecture, the little "messy" details (buckets, rocks, planks, etc.) that you usually don't need in a "clean urban environment".
Then of course think about the party. In ME you only control your own character and just give orders to the others, here you can control every character, that makes things more complicated in terms of AI and other gameplay logic that's working in the background.
Then there's the combat and enemies. Consider that in ME typical combat involves mostly laser fire of various colors and the few occasional effects for powers. Whereas in DA you got swords, arrows, magic effects and so on.

Now obviously I'm simplifying things, and I'm not saying ME wasn't good looking, or that it was simplistic, but when you compare a typical fantasy setting, vs. a typical sci-fi setting, the fantasy setting is more complex, with more "visual clutter", and then you add the additional AI and gameplay demands to accommodate control of any character, and the whole game just becomes that much more complex, and so it has less resources to allocate to graphics.

@Guhungus I loved Dragon Age, but I gotta tell ya, Dragon Age made Dragon Age look last gen. The first time it laded up, I kept wondering when the texture was going to load. Then it hit me...

@ddrussianinja Dragon Age 2: Rise of the Silver Cobra

@ddrussianinja
Dragon Age II has very little to do with the Origins storyline.

@arnavdesai

If it has little to do with Origins, why call it "Dragon Age II"? That implies that it is a direct sequel and thus a continuation of the story. If it's a completely separate story taking place in the same universe, they should have called it just "Dragon Age" but with a different subtitle. So the fact that it isn't really a continuation of the story means the title makes even LESS sense...

I mean, I get it from a marketing perspective. It's easier to sell a sequel when it has a number after it. I'm just annoyed that they set up this whole subtitle thing with the first game and then immediately abandoned it as if it never existed.

@ddrussianinja All because it says Dragon Age doesn't mean it's automatically a "sequel". Look at the Elder Scrolls games, technically they are not "sequels" (different time-lines, different characters, different environment) but they continue the story, which is what Bioware is doing with Dragon Age. It's in the DA universe but it has almost nothing to do with Origins.

@paigero789

I know what you mean. Another example would be the Final Fantasy series. But my problem is that if they're just going to slap on a number to this title, why did they bother giving the first game a subtitle in the first place? I thought it was cool when the first Dragon Age came out with the subtitle. It seemed to say "Yeah, we know there will be a ton of sequels, but we're too cool to just call them by numbers. So we're calling this one 'Origins'. Maybe the next one will be 'Reckoning' or something bad-ass like that." But instead, we just get "Dragon Age II". It just annoys me, that's all. I wouldn't even care that they call it "Dragon Age II" if they just gave it a subtitle afterward. That's all I'm saying.

@ddrussianinja

DA : O has Origins in the title as a reference to the multiple different Origin stories you play through when creating a character.

@This Little Man Says His Name Is

You're missing my point. I understand why Dragon Age had the subtitle "Origins". I just don't understand why Dragon Age 2 doesn't, especially because the first one did.

@ddrussianinja

You already answered your own question;
"I mean, I get it from a marketing perspective. It's easier to sell a sequel when it has a number after it."

You're just [b]making it[/b] (wtb html to joystiq comments, btw) "hard to understand" yourself ;)

@The Only Girl I replayed that part 3 times!

@ennzo

EA? Haiz Bioware!

@jynxycat
I think that's because this was only 2-minutes long.

@jynxycat I agree, the movements of the sword and lady Hawke's arms were wonky at the least.

@TheDarkWayne

But that's just reminds us of Origins!
Uhh.. Nostalgia for the win?

@TheDarkWayne

But that just reminds us of Origins!
Uhh.. Nostalgia for the win?

@Xirifus

Damn, I was too slow and that nasty typo got in there! D:

@andgreen

It's all about graphics with you damned kids.

You should be thankful that you don't have to play this in 8-bit.

Although, I happily welcome Bioware to take on the mid-late '80s/early '90s.

@Apsac D I can't believe you would actually post that. Graphics are an extremely integral part of every game. Maybe they shouldn't be the main selling point, and they definitely shouldn't be the deciding factor in whether a game is ultimately good or not, but they are definitely important. It's easy to forgive graphics on old classics when the technology was once impressive and the gameplay or story overwhelmingly positive, but when a game made by a quintuple A studio is looking like most did 4 years, that's cause for some concern when we have no idea how good the gameplay is. Ridiculous, it's like saying the cinematography in a movie doesn't matter.

@TheDarkWayne

Firstly; I don't watch movies, I'm a gamer. (Sounds a bit douchey, but I do literally not waste my time, when I could be gaming. Rock on.)

Secondly, if the game is good, screw graphics. Just because Dragon Age 2 doesn't look like Mass Effect 2 or Final Fantasy 13 doesn't mean anything. We all know the graphics aren't as great as they could be, but it'll still be an amazing game.

The graphics are far from last-gen as well. And they will be degraded for consoles, but who cares? It's still going to be an extremely fun usage of 30+ hours of a majority of out lives.

Graphics are important, but having cutting-edge graphics is not. Long live Dragon Age 2!

@Apsac D

Good old FF13. Great graphics, shit game.

@Apsac D Okay, well, I'm pretty sure you've seen at least one movie in your life and understand the simile, so that was pretty much wasted time. More importantly, are you sure it's fun? Cause it isn't out yet, and we don't really have any idea. Sure, graphics aren't everything, but they certainly are something, and having cutting edge graphics can add to the fun of the game when it's fantastic and beautiful to look at. So it's pretty disappointing when an extremely successful developer doesn't seem to bother with good graphics for a game that already seems pretty rushed and when they are fully capable of it.

@TheDarkWayne

Is it out yet? Can we be sure that the graphics are bad?

@This Little Man Says His Name Is Well, yeah. Unlike all the other, more subtle parts of a game, graphics are pretty easy to judge without playing them.

@Da Mr

He looked pretty badass doing it, too.

@Da Mr while he was wearing gloves even!