I question my sanity sometimes, I really do. A couple of days ago, I stumped up eight quid to buy Dragon Age II: Legacy, an "add-on" to the PS3 title that I reviewed some time ago. Previously, I'd also chucked a fiver the way of Bioware to get The Exiled Prince extra content.
A quick word on Dragon Age II: since I first played it (I'm on my second run through now), I've played the original Dragon Age: Origins and in my mind, the original had a much stronger story and character development. Perhaps having a more clearly defined "big bad" (or bads) from the start helped. The ending of the second game felt a bit tacked on, as if the writers had written themselves into a corner and desperately need an exit plan for the storyline.
To start with The Exiled Prince, I was somewhat annoyed with this one, as it turned out that the Prince in question, Sebastian, is actually pretty fucking vital to the plot development at a crucial point. On my original play, without Seb, the point in question passed with a curious sense of something missing. Now I know what it was. Bit of a rip-off there, lads and lasses.
Not that this is anything new, even to this century. Going back to the early 1990s, I can remember Origin bringing out "Expansion Packs" for their Wing Commander and Strike Commander games. I was lucky enough to find the versions that bunged in all the content into one handy package (as I did with Dragon Age: Origins), but it's become an increasingly common practise in recent years, especially in the RPG genre. Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are the biggest culprits, but I noted that L.A. Noir has been doing the same, which is more disappointing given the brevity of the original game.
The latter point was pretty much what put me off handing over thirty of my hard-earned (alright, not that hard) pounds: 15 hours of gameplay? Fuck right off. I'll wait till they bring out the "Ultimate Edition" in a year or so.
I fully understand why this happens - developers are playing on our emotional attachments to characters in games we love and are giving us more of them. But I, for one, would much rather they spent the time making a proper full-on sequel: I wouldn't be surprised to see one or two more Dragon Age II packs in the future, when what I really want is a Dragon Age III.
Is the price worth it? Probably not. So why did I pay? Simple - because I'm a complete fucking idiot, and that's why they'll keep getting away it.
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