Ok, so I've played the demo several times now on my PC (AMD X3 720, 5770), so here are my impressions:
Its not bad, its not great either. It does some stuff well and it does some stuff not so well. In short, it seemed there was some good stuff going on, but it was very rough around the edges. I'm likely going to list a whole bunch of more negatives than positives, but I did enjoy the demo overall.
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The GOOD:*
The graphics - Overall they were much better than the screens would have you believe. Performance was mostly ok, even on the DX11 renderer for me, and I loved the cloud shadows. The lighting in particular was a vast improvement overall from Origins. And having seen some of the DX11 and high res texture shots from today, I'm hopeful.
*
Flemeth- Its Flemeth. Come on. The highlight of the demo really. I liked how the old Korcari Wilds music struck up when she appeared too. I did very much like her quip about Morrigan in there too.
* Speed- The combat is indeed faster, which I did not mind that much. Its not perfect but the idea behind closing moves and such are nice, even if visually I don't like how it translates. Functionally, the speed is good.
Some of the animations- Generally, I enjoyed playing as a warrior or mage much more than rogue. The actual animations for most of the moves aren't too bad, although the transitions between moves is often jerky and the actual animations for the closing moves are too over the top for my taste.
* Oh, and I loved the
floating ash/sparks in the Lothering bit- that was a nice touch.
*
Explanations! I loved how the abilities and everything are detailed and explained much better.
*The 2D cutscenes/loading screens- I sort of like the style in Origins 2D intros more, but they're a stylish and neat touch in DA2.
*
Archery sound effects- The sound effects for archery had a very satisfying sort of "twang" to it. Sadly, the bows still lack bowstrings and now seem to lack quivers and occasionally arrows...
*
Closing moves- Specifically, as a concept they're great. Functionally, they work great most of the time (the DW rogue has a tendency to dance, or dare I say, shuffle over to the target if selected at range. Animation wise? Meh...again, too over the top and comical for my taste.
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The NEUTRAL:*The dialogue wheel: Eh, it worked ok. My preference is the silent PC with loads of non combat skills and speech checks and full text, but thats obviously not happening. There were times I had little idea what Hawke would say based on the paraphrases and not knowing the difference between angry fist and hammer and anvil, but it was ok. It makes for a far less immersive experience IMO, as the PC becomes just another NPC but it was serviceable in the demo.
I'll wait and see how it goes over the course of a whole game, but even in the demo there were times Hawke said something in full text that (IMO) didn't match up what I thought he'd say or the tone was off. Really, a full text option, even at the expense of a "cinematic experience" would alleviate so many of my issues with the voiced PC.
My issue is that when trying to RP and take various choices from between the tones, Hawke sounds like a nut. He's too holier than thou with the diplomacy and gritting his teeth in aggressive and clownish in sarcasm. You try them out and it makes for a bizarre time.
*
The framed narrative: Could turn out neat. Or it could turn out to really be intrusive and break any flow. Time will tell.
*The Combat- Its very much like Origins, yet changed enough so that its at the same time different. I do not care for many of the over the top animations, especially the rogue. The rogue just too often gets stuck in geometry and does weird stuff when you try to, say backstab when the enemy has their back to the wall or you jump out of somewhere and end up hitting some invisible barrier. The animations seem very herky jerky and lack a sense of fluidity and momentum. Better than Origins in some respects, but too often combat visually turns into something that looks like it would induce a seizure.
The problem is that at least playing through the demo several times, the combat gets pretty boring, pretty quick when you have to either mindlessly slam the R key or pause and micromanage your dumb as rocks party members because the Tactics menu is broken. Hopefully the encounter design is a bit more varied over the course of the full game.
But, functionally, in spite of the animations, combat works well.....mostly. The camera and AOE's are another issue (see below).
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The BAD(Some of these are mostly benign nitpicks likely isolated to the demo or just random issues but I'll put them here anyway)
*The skies are still the same bland overcast as Origins.
* Wesley is bugged out and mute when you try to click on him.
* The bodies magically sink down into the ground and leave nicely stacked coins and treasure? Is there at least a Call of Duty like option to leave bodies and decals on the screen for a time?
* Why XP all after the battle instead of showing it per enemy?
* I don't care for how the quick bar cannot collapse anymore and how you're stuck with it spanning the length of the screen.
*
The overall PC interface (Tactics menu included):This is a biggy. The entire PC version subjectively
feels like a console port. From the "Press any key to start" on the opening menu, to the Tactics screen. I know that supposedly the Tactics bugging out has been fixed, but even just how much screen space it takes up regardless of resolution: you can only click on one condition at a time and can't see the entirety of what you're selecting like Origins, so its less user friendly in terms of seeing what exactly you're setting.
Compare Origins tactics menu where you have the expanded menus and can see whats going on while in DA2 you have to use the arrows and only see one condition at a time:
Its the lack of the little things in terms of mouse and keyboard functionality and utilizing a PC monitor's screen space that really disappoints me. Even the radial menu on the pause screen- come on, when you're porting something over to the PC, at least try to make it not look like a console port.
The mouse and keyboard controls and clicking on things just does not feel very crisp and responsive. It feels sluggish- and thats nothing to do with any sensitivity. Its really, really disappointing considering that especially in an RPG you spend a good chunk of time in the menus and the menus in DA2 do not feel at all designed for functionality on a PC- they seem like they were designed to be best navigated with a controller.
* Along the lines of the UI,
the portraits- clicking on them is a total crap shoot. Especially when leveling up- sometimes they respond, sometimes it does nothing or sends you to a different character. You click on Aveline to level up and it sends you to Bethany.
*
The overall art style- yeah, I don't care much for the Power Rangers Putty Chalkspawn and Flemeth's get up is a tad ridiculous. Not to mention Isabela's chest having its own gravitational field. It all looks comical, which in conjunction with the over the top animations, especially the rogue, makes me laugh at things more often than not.
*
Pressing the tab key no longer brings up the enemy names or mini health bar. Thats really annoying in terms of trying to figure out who should be targeted next in combat, you know have to mouse over to see the health of the enemy.
* The menu colors- this is a nitpick, but for me at least, the dark orange text on black background isn't the easiest to read.
* What happpened to the full party selection button?
*
The faces- Ok, generally they look pretty good, but what is up with the buggy eyes? I hope this is just an issue with the demo build, but Cassandra and Isabela in particular have eyes that almost seem to clip out of their head on occassion. And the lip sync was definitely off in places. And they had nubby scary teeth- I don't know if thats better or worse than dirty corn kernel teeth from Origins.
Basically, I don't think Hawke's face should look like this:
*
Female Running- Awesome that they have their own animation rigs and their walking is ok, if a bit over the top hip swaying stripper walk (see Flemeth's stroll and subsequent hand on hip runway pose). But the running animation when they don't have a weapon equipped is bizarre- its like their hips are gyrating and their wrists go limp with them seemingly gliding along, so it gives the impression they're some sort of sexed up T-Rex on ice skates.
*
Healing is Busted- Or at least seems rather worthless now seeing as its stuck with the prolonged timer. And with the quick heal, that seems to be on a cooldown timer as well, but maybe I'm dense, how can you tell how long it takes before you can use it again?
*
The sound effects- This isn't really a negative, but they sound very flimsy and shrill, IMO. The fireball no longer has that satisfying bass to it but sounds rather weak. And the mage basic attack is all pew pew laser sounding. I've got a good audio setup but everything just lacked any "oomph." Stuff like the ogre plodding up the hill should have been beefy and heavy with some bass and it felt empty- maybe thats a demo issue.
* The Mass Effect Cinematic Approach:This is another biggy. I don't know how well it works in DA2 given the technology. You have all these close ups and zooms, yet instead of increasing the emotion in the scenes, it often just highlights blocky textures or clipping in armor or animations. Basically, Mass Effect did it better. It just doesn't seem to put the engine and everything in the best light as character movements and such still feel rather stiff.
*The Combat Encounters- "Another Wave!" *groan* I hope in game things aren't as boring. Simply having one wave plus elite/Boss guy plus some archers, toss on another wave coming from behind when boss guy goes to 50% HP, got old in the demo.
*
Numbers on the dialogue wheel? Is there any way to have the numbers visible on the dialogue choices?
*
THE CAMERA and AOE's:It sucks.
Compared to Origins, its a step down in every single way imaginable. You can't even get in close to take as good screens now since the camera is centered about 2 feet above Hawke's head. What happened to:
I have always felt that the key to tactical play was actually freeing your camera from the character you're controlling to issue precise orders, which is what we're tuning now. So, this means you can still maneuver the camera around the battlefield and issue orders from a remote location, just as you could in Origins.
I know things change and all, but its a joke to try and pass off the DA2 PC cam as even having anywhere near the functionality or flexibility as Origins' camera. Never mind the iso view, you can't even zoom out as far or detach it at all from the selected character.
This becomes an issue when trying to at all accurately target AOE's at any distance, especially on uneven terrain and especially since you cannot lock on to an individual enemy. Add in the waves that spawn out of thin air behind you and the camera quickly becomes the biggest enemy in the game. Which is such a damn shame.
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Cutscene, battle, cutscene, battle...: In general, I dislike too many cutscenes in games where control is taken away from the player. To be honest, they're often boring. In the demo, too often it was start/stop/start/stop with no flow at all. You'd get some combat, hit a cutscene, rinse and repeat. The transitions just were not smooth between combat and cutscene, even beyond the reported glitchy loading, but just in terms of the music cutting in and out abruptly or having you sibling smashed by the ogre in the cutscene and then magically stand up and fall down when the in game combat starts. Its all those little rough edges that sully the overall experience when taken as a whole.
* No non combat skills: To be expected, but still disappointing. The whole encounter with Isabela and that Hayder(?) in the Chantry was the perfect time to toss in a Speech Check or some sort of persuade/intimidate type dialogue option. But no, we're subjected to a Michael Bay slo-mo dagger toss. Ugh.
*
Finishing moves? The BG2 style instagib gore explosion was ok, but where did the nice finishing moves go?
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Party Member Stupidity- In part this is due to me giving up on trying to navigate and set tactics, but dammit Bethany, don't run right into a horde of darkspawn to launch a fireball on yourself. And again, maybe its the AOE targeting, but without locking on with AOE's it would seem party members like Bethany using fireball have TERRIBLE aim. Seriously, its almost worthless when she almost never hits a target thats moving at all.
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So, I think thats it. Overall its not a terrible abomination nor is it as overall as good as Origins, I'd say. Mostly, my disappointment is in how many little problems exist in the demo, anyone not terrible on its own, but taken together, they do sour the overall experience on the PC. It just feels like a mediocre console port job at times, especially in the menus and overall feel of the game in terms of how certain things like the Tactics menu or camera were designed.
Its really just lacking polish and seems very rough around the edges as a PC game taking advantage of the PC as a platform. Which compared to how at home DAO felt on the PC, is a big disappointment.
Modifié par Brockololly, 24 février 2011 - 09:15 .
Retour en haut
). I've got nothing against them putting sexual content in the game. In fact I'd be in favor of BioWare including increasingly detailed and realistic character development and relationships. But given the uproar around Mass Effect in america there are certain things they are not going to include/show. So some elements just seem a little hypocritical to me 
switch to the clicked party member when their portrait is clicked on the level up screen.
