Dragon Age 2 - Trailer, Preview Roundup

There are a few new Dragon Age 2 things around at the moment, so I'll collect them here.

First, a "Champions" trailer has been released, which you can view from the BioWare gallery.  It shows the three classes and demonstrates you can be slashy Hawke, blasty Hawke or stabby Hawke.

IGN has a Console or PC? article, written by Charles Onyett who is an experienced PC writer.  Still, it clearly explains the advantages for consoles but doesn't really address the PC in detail.  BioWare gameplay producer Dan Lazin also adds some explanations, although some of them don't make a lick of sense to me.  On not being able to queue orders:

Pausing and zooming around the battlefield still plays a big role in Dragon Age II. Against multi-stage bosses and grunts alike I found freezing the action and issuing heal and special attack commands made a big different in effectiveness. Like Origins, you're still limited to queuing one command at a time. That means you can't order a heal, a fireball, and a frost arc blast all during the same pause. You have to wait for the first action to be executed before ordering a new one. The only reason I bring this up is because in BioWare's past role-playing games, you could, in fact, queue multiple combat commands to multiple party members at once and then watch the automated fireworks. It was a cool feature because it let you plan ahead, anticipating enemy attack patterns and layering multiple buffs and debuffs.

Again, Lazin explains why that's the case. "The number of enemies in [Knights of the Old Republic] is much lower than what we've got in [Dragon Age II]. Here you get very large parties of enemies who go down fairly easily individually. So consequently queuing up orders, a whole lot at once, isn't particularly useful because that individual guy is going to be dead pretty soon and you're going to need to reassess in two seconds and pick a different target."

GameSpot UK has a hands-on with the X360 version:

Accordingly, we found the crypt--a flinty cavern with glowing red veins--and faced off with its guardian: another huge rock wraith, this one with a powerful rock fist and the ability to summon profanes. This boss-like fight and the absence of a healer character had us micromanaging the party members, not least to keep them out of the way of the rock wraith's periodic rolling knockdown attack. Here, the rhythm of combat started to feel familiar, as we flipped between characters to keep everyone healthy and in the right spot, a la Dragon Age: Origins. It remains to be seen, then, how radically overhauled the combat feels in the long run--but certainly in its visuals, presentation, and dialogue system, Dragon Age II is looking to be a more confident, polished adventure than its predecessor.

Joystiq also has a preview, though they don't say much:

Dragon Age 2 looks brighter and its environments seem far more alive -- it's a quasi cel-shaded look that really makes the game pop and will offer better consistency across all platforms. "Consoles on Dragon Age: Origins were left behind a little bit," Lazin admits. "You could tell the art had been created primarily for PCs and that we'd done what we could to make it work for consoles, but now it looks great across all three platforms." Lazin promises that the game be up to snuff on consoles, and even look better than on most mid-ranged PCs. You'll still have access to the graphical bells and whistles on a more powerful PC, of course, and still have the ability to zoom out the camera.

A preview at Eurogamer:

On consoles, you'll still be able to pause the action and cue up attacks and strategies for team-mates before letting rip. On PC the tactical view may have been very slightly reigned in, but the trade-off allows for more complex geometry, with hills and steps and split-levels, all of which can be used tactically.

Beyond the visuals and the combat, BioWare's preparing a refined experience for things like DLC. Having learned from the first game, the developer is promising optional updates will provide longer adventures and will be easier to locate in the world once you've bought them.

Lastly, Joystiq filmed the first two minutes of the game - essentially the intro cinematic.