14 DAY TRIAL // BioWare, just as its new Dragon Age 2 game is being released all around the world, is adamant that the console versions of the title won't be viewed as simple ports of the PC version.
Dragon Age: Origins, the predecessor of the new game, played quite differently on the PC as opposed to consoles, and many PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners complained that BioWare betrayed their trust with such a bad release.
For the second game, the Canadian studio has worked hard in order to keep the experience consistent across all platforms, with its art and look being the most improved areas.
The team created many lists of changes from fan feedback and console reviews, which proved essential to see where the areas that needed the most improvements were.
"We're obviously keeping all the good stuff and we made a short list of everything we thought needed improvement," explained Dragon Age 2 producer Fernando Melo to CVG. "Consistently, they kept coming up in reviews and fan feeback, and for us it came down to the visual style.
The look and the art of the game were the most criticized, according to the developer, who worked hard in order to keep the experience as unchanged as possible no matter the platform on which the new game was played.
"As well received as Dragon Age was, 'art' kept coming up and particularly so on the consoles. It was a PC game that was ported to consoles and I think they suffered a little bit because of that. That was something we wanted to get right. For Dragon Age 2 the art team took that on full stride and basically revamped the art style with the goal that, if you look at a screen from Dragon Age 2 you know it's Dragon Age, I think they've done a fantastic job with that."
Dragon Age 2 on consoles has been better received, with plenty of people praising its enhanced controls, making the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions pretty much on par with the PC one.
The game is currently available in North America, and is finally being deployed today in Europe and other locations around the world.