I very much enjoyed playing the game. However remembering Bioware's past games like the Mass Effect series, Draogn Age: Origins and KOTOR, the climax left much to be desired. Especially in Mass Effect 2 the finale was thrilling through and through because of tight decisions that could mean death for your companions.
However in DA2 there was very little actual peril for the companion characters in the end. Your love interest is never in harms way which removed a great deal of emotional involvement in the ending for me. I wanted a lot more decision-making related to my companions and their potential survival or death. Act 3 in general fell really flat as it did not have enough drama when compared to the previous acts. Act 1 and 2 had a lot more impressive elements and I really like the game for those parts.
Also why did it seem like people were fine with you being a bloodmage, practically spewing blood into people's faces nonstop while they're so bent on hunting them all down? I'd wish for your abilities to provide you additional options for dialogue trees. It would be great to solve a discussion with some blood magic for instance.
The only gripe with the actual game's technical production was the amount of copypaste dungeons. How many times do bad guys gather in the same god damn cellar?
I hope the future DLCs really put a lot of attention to Act 3 and perhaps implement some additional sequences to the end to deliver more companion dynamics. This game would have been worth 10/10 if the ending was not so anticlimactic. I'll have to satisfy with 8/10.
Your Dragon Age II Review *NO SPOILERS PLEASE*
Débuté par
javierabegazo
, mars 08 2011 04:02
Retour en haut
#1952
Posté 15 mars 2011 - 11:20
murgotroid
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- Members
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Overall, I'm finding the game enjoyable but disappointing in the context of a Dragon Age game from Bioware. It's been said many times before, but if this were Age of the Walrus by Geostuff, I'd probably be a little more satisfied with it. That doesn't give Bioware a pass, though. I expect this of them because they've proven themselves. I buy their games at release because I expect higher quality. If this represents their new standard, then I'm going to stop buying their games sight unseen.
Story (no spoilers)
I'm only midway through Act 2, but here's my issue: where's the plot? I mean, I'm looking at a couple of things that could be the plot, but I don't think I've actually found the plot yet. This is why people are telling you that the story isn't very good, side quests are pointless, etc. There's no over-arching theme to tie everything together. And I realize that you don't always need that in a narrative, but in a video game, or at least a video game like this, there has to be something driving the plot. Because otherwise you find yourself going, "Why am I doing all of this again?"
In DA:O, everything can be rationalized in terms of defeating the Blight. In DAII, Hawke seems to be doing everything for kicks. Compare this to another fantasy heavyweight that just released: The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss. Exact same narrative setup, very similar character arc. A lot of diversions from the main plot that may or may not have anything to do with the ending. But in Rothfuss' book, he's constantly reminding us about The Chandrian, giving us the tiniest tidbits about who they might be, where they came from, why they do what they do, why Kvothe is looking for them. There is no such equivalent in DAII. Our character has no motivation for progressing. And by identification, we have no motivation for progressing.
Characters
Well done, for the most part. I've seen complaints that you don't interact with your characters enough. I'm not seeing a whole lot of difference between this and DA:O, for the most part. I don't have to go through a short dialogue tree 73 times to see if a companion wants to tell me something. I consider that an improvement.
Isabella turned into that annoying person who is always trying to shock you with sex. That might have been interesting if it was intentional. Eventually it just becomes boring and predictable.
Side quests
I found the side quests to be meatier and more engaging. Side quests in DA:O were sort of haphazard and happend on the way to completing the major quests. DAII side quests are stories unto themselves.
Combat Difficulty
I'm apparently awful at this game. I don't know why, I usually have to turn it all the way up to 11 for games like this (Mass Effect and DA:O in particular), but this one, I turned it down to normal at the end of Act 1, tried upping it again for a little while, then decided it just wasn't worth it. I'm going to evaluate the game as I played it on Hard. I don't think there's anything to evaluate on Normal--the game is so blah at that difficulty that I have trouble finding anything meaty to talk about. That said, the possibility exists that I'm "not playing it right." I don't want to put myself on a pedestal here, but I've been playing video games, and RPG's in particular for the better part of two decades. I'm willing to bet that I'm more at the hard-core end of your customer base than the middle. And I'm having a hard time picking up the system. Make of that what you will.
Control
On Hard, you have given me the controls to play one game, and then made me play another. Does that make sense? In order to be tactically effective, I have to pause the game, go to each character, tell them what to do, then unpause, make sure they're actually doing what they're supposed to, repause and go through the whole process again. Micro-managing doesn't begin to describe it. We're into nano-managing. Most similar games give me a few tools to better manage my character and his companions in these situations. The much-mourned isometric view for one. But more importantly, I'm missing an action queue. With that I could tell my mage to heal, then move, then cast an AOE, then move again, without having to perform 17 different actions to do it.We had that in Neverwinter Nights. I'm still not sure why it didn't show up in Dragon Age.
Viscerality
I'm not sure what to call this. I went back and played some DA:O last night (The dwarven noble origin, FWIW), and far from finding it stale and slow, I felt far more involved in the combat. When my dwarven noble defeats an enemy, I get a unique animation. The soldier falls back with a bleeding chest as my character slashes harder and deeper than his other attacks. Or my favorite: the pirouette decapitation. I never got tired of that. DAII's motto is supposed to be: Press a button and something awesome happens. Nothing has happened that is as awesome as climbing up onto an Ogre's chest and stabbing it in the head as it falls backwards. Every single one of the new abilities combined is not as awesome as leaping onto a dragon's head and holding on wildly as it tries to throw you off, then driving your sword into it's skull.
In DAII, I waggle a sword in the general direction of some dude, and he explodes as if he were a man-sized Jello mold. I never feel as if I've directly contributed to his defeat unless I hit him with a ranged attack. I applaud the intent of DAII in making combat move a little better, but it's lost some of it's grounding in the process. There has to be a better point halfway in between.
Talents
This is where DAII really shines. The system in DA:O had a lot of extra, unnecessary abilities. You'd have an action bar 12 actions long, and you only used the first 5 or so abilities out of habit. I liked the way the ability tables were set up, though I do have some quibbles with individual abilities.
I have issues with sustained abilities. It's not really obvious if they're doing anything, and generally the graphic effects are just confusing. DA:O did some interesting things with this regarding the warrior class. You used one ability if you were being targeted by archers, another if you were in the middle of a melee and another if you were somewhere in between. In DAII, do I really care that much if I'm doing 5% more damage or 5% more attack? Especially if I'm not real clear on what one or the other is actually doing?
Enemy Health
Weird combination of too much or too little. Many of the enemies detonate on contact. There has been at least one enemy where I literally walked away from the computer to make a sandwich while my party whittled him down to nothing. Going back to viscerality, at least in DA:O with one of these super-healthy enemies, you ended with some kind of kill move. So at least I could tell myself that all the previous attacks had set up that one. In DAII, they just fall over. Maybe they're just exhausted.
Also, there is not much sense in an enemy having a health bar if that enemy has an indeterminate number of health potions.
Status Effects
Don't make any kind of sense. So that guy is frozen, but he's not brittle. How do I know if he's brittle? He has a sort of vine icon over him. Or maybe he's confused. Or stunned. Or disoriented. Or staggered. These are all synonyms by the way. And they all make an enemy behave the same way. And the icons telling me who is affected by what? Utterly inscrutable. Quickly, what does the golf tee icon mean: is he stunned, staggered, confused, brittle, disoriented, discombobulated, dispeptic, or is he perhaps a quest item? Why does electrocuting him hurt him more if he's staggered, but not if he's disoriented (then you should apparently set him on fire). And these icons are kind of tough to make out in a battle. I can't tell exactly who has what icon over their heads, especially if they're all acting the same way.
None of this is rocket science to figure out, but it's not intuitive either. Spell combinations in DA:O may have been overly specific, but they made sense. The Cross-class combos? Make none whatsoever. It's an interesting idea, but poorly executed, IMO.
Cheap attacks
I don't know how many times I've used an ability that should have stunned an assassin, only to see him perform the world's slowest backflip and then disappear to take a smoke break, reappearing several minutes later to kill the only character in my party who can revive other characters. DA:O had this with the overwhelm and Donkey Kong ogre abilities. It was bad design then, and it's bad design now. At least then, there were theoretically counters to overwhelm and grab. In this game, if the monstrous spider knocks you up against a wall, you might as well forget trying to get out of it. You are going to get spider humped into oblivion and there is nothing you can do about it. That spider might as well play for the Steelers.
If an enemy has a particularly devastating move, the player should have a
counter for it. Because otherwise, you've made that encounter's success
dependent on a lucky break.
Kiting
Should never be a valid tactic in any game. In this game in particular, it turns a lot of encounters into Benny Hill skits. That ogre is far faster than me. Why is he lumbering after me like a Walrus after a fish sandwich?
Enemy identification
In DA:O, stronger enemies had different colored names in the MMORPG vein. This made them easier to prioritize/identify. In DAII, often the only hint I get that there's a high-level assassin on the field is when my health drops by 60%. Oddly enough, some enemies, like Revenants, are always labeled.
Equipment
It's been said before, but I'll say it again: 99% of the inventory stuff in this game is useless. Bioware might have streamlined the inventory, but by reducing its utility, they made it even more of a sea anchor than it already was.
I don't think Bioware would have taken near as much flack if they had allowed some of the characters to equip their own armor. A lot less are people bugged by one or two uncustomizable characters than all of them. Seems like I could at least afford to give Fenris some shoes. And I get why they're doing this. A lot of my companions in DA:O looked ridiculous in their armor. And I outfitted them with an eye towards aesthetics. But you fix that by making better-looking armor. This system goes too far in the other direction.
Re-used maps
You know what? I think you might have gotten away with this if you had chopped the maps up a little bit instead of using the same one with different walled off areas. If it wasn't for that mabari, and those stupid kids... The worst part about this was making me think I was missing some kind of lever or switch to open up those areas. I spent a very long time mousing over everything in one cave before reading about this.
Miscellaneous
In the intro, the way the Darkspawn moved looked totally like a villain from the Power Rangers. They had that demonstrative waggling of the weapon and foot stamping. It didn't look threatening; it looked like bad community theatre.
Totally down with the Qunari remake. Sten looked ridiculous in DA:O. Half the people complaining about this are perfectly happy watching shows/movies involving Klingons. Oddly enough, Sten spent most of my DA:O playthroughs wearing a horned helmet. I thought it looked appropriate on him.
I'm fine with the crafting system. Either make it complex and mysterious, or something like you've got in DA2.
Story (no spoilers)
I'm only midway through Act 2, but here's my issue: where's the plot? I mean, I'm looking at a couple of things that could be the plot, but I don't think I've actually found the plot yet. This is why people are telling you that the story isn't very good, side quests are pointless, etc. There's no over-arching theme to tie everything together. And I realize that you don't always need that in a narrative, but in a video game, or at least a video game like this, there has to be something driving the plot. Because otherwise you find yourself going, "Why am I doing all of this again?"
In DA:O, everything can be rationalized in terms of defeating the Blight. In DAII, Hawke seems to be doing everything for kicks. Compare this to another fantasy heavyweight that just released: The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss. Exact same narrative setup, very similar character arc. A lot of diversions from the main plot that may or may not have anything to do with the ending. But in Rothfuss' book, he's constantly reminding us about The Chandrian, giving us the tiniest tidbits about who they might be, where they came from, why they do what they do, why Kvothe is looking for them. There is no such equivalent in DAII. Our character has no motivation for progressing. And by identification, we have no motivation for progressing.
Characters
Well done, for the most part. I've seen complaints that you don't interact with your characters enough. I'm not seeing a whole lot of difference between this and DA:O, for the most part. I don't have to go through a short dialogue tree 73 times to see if a companion wants to tell me something. I consider that an improvement.
Isabella turned into that annoying person who is always trying to shock you with sex. That might have been interesting if it was intentional. Eventually it just becomes boring and predictable.
Side quests
I found the side quests to be meatier and more engaging. Side quests in DA:O were sort of haphazard and happend on the way to completing the major quests. DAII side quests are stories unto themselves.
Combat Difficulty
I'm apparently awful at this game. I don't know why, I usually have to turn it all the way up to 11 for games like this (Mass Effect and DA:O in particular), but this one, I turned it down to normal at the end of Act 1, tried upping it again for a little while, then decided it just wasn't worth it. I'm going to evaluate the game as I played it on Hard. I don't think there's anything to evaluate on Normal--the game is so blah at that difficulty that I have trouble finding anything meaty to talk about. That said, the possibility exists that I'm "not playing it right." I don't want to put myself on a pedestal here, but I've been playing video games, and RPG's in particular for the better part of two decades. I'm willing to bet that I'm more at the hard-core end of your customer base than the middle. And I'm having a hard time picking up the system. Make of that what you will.
Control
On Hard, you have given me the controls to play one game, and then made me play another. Does that make sense? In order to be tactically effective, I have to pause the game, go to each character, tell them what to do, then unpause, make sure they're actually doing what they're supposed to, repause and go through the whole process again. Micro-managing doesn't begin to describe it. We're into nano-managing. Most similar games give me a few tools to better manage my character and his companions in these situations. The much-mourned isometric view for one. But more importantly, I'm missing an action queue. With that I could tell my mage to heal, then move, then cast an AOE, then move again, without having to perform 17 different actions to do it.We had that in Neverwinter Nights. I'm still not sure why it didn't show up in Dragon Age.
Viscerality
I'm not sure what to call this. I went back and played some DA:O last night (The dwarven noble origin, FWIW), and far from finding it stale and slow, I felt far more involved in the combat. When my dwarven noble defeats an enemy, I get a unique animation. The soldier falls back with a bleeding chest as my character slashes harder and deeper than his other attacks. Or my favorite: the pirouette decapitation. I never got tired of that. DAII's motto is supposed to be: Press a button and something awesome happens. Nothing has happened that is as awesome as climbing up onto an Ogre's chest and stabbing it in the head as it falls backwards. Every single one of the new abilities combined is not as awesome as leaping onto a dragon's head and holding on wildly as it tries to throw you off, then driving your sword into it's skull.
In DAII, I waggle a sword in the general direction of some dude, and he explodes as if he were a man-sized Jello mold. I never feel as if I've directly contributed to his defeat unless I hit him with a ranged attack. I applaud the intent of DAII in making combat move a little better, but it's lost some of it's grounding in the process. There has to be a better point halfway in between.
Talents
This is where DAII really shines. The system in DA:O had a lot of extra, unnecessary abilities. You'd have an action bar 12 actions long, and you only used the first 5 or so abilities out of habit. I liked the way the ability tables were set up, though I do have some quibbles with individual abilities.
I have issues with sustained abilities. It's not really obvious if they're doing anything, and generally the graphic effects are just confusing. DA:O did some interesting things with this regarding the warrior class. You used one ability if you were being targeted by archers, another if you were in the middle of a melee and another if you were somewhere in between. In DAII, do I really care that much if I'm doing 5% more damage or 5% more attack? Especially if I'm not real clear on what one or the other is actually doing?
Enemy Health
Weird combination of too much or too little. Many of the enemies detonate on contact. There has been at least one enemy where I literally walked away from the computer to make a sandwich while my party whittled him down to nothing. Going back to viscerality, at least in DA:O with one of these super-healthy enemies, you ended with some kind of kill move. So at least I could tell myself that all the previous attacks had set up that one. In DAII, they just fall over. Maybe they're just exhausted.
Also, there is not much sense in an enemy having a health bar if that enemy has an indeterminate number of health potions.
Status Effects
Don't make any kind of sense. So that guy is frozen, but he's not brittle. How do I know if he's brittle? He has a sort of vine icon over him. Or maybe he's confused. Or stunned. Or disoriented. Or staggered. These are all synonyms by the way. And they all make an enemy behave the same way. And the icons telling me who is affected by what? Utterly inscrutable. Quickly, what does the golf tee icon mean: is he stunned, staggered, confused, brittle, disoriented, discombobulated, dispeptic, or is he perhaps a quest item? Why does electrocuting him hurt him more if he's staggered, but not if he's disoriented (then you should apparently set him on fire). And these icons are kind of tough to make out in a battle. I can't tell exactly who has what icon over their heads, especially if they're all acting the same way.
None of this is rocket science to figure out, but it's not intuitive either. Spell combinations in DA:O may have been overly specific, but they made sense. The Cross-class combos? Make none whatsoever. It's an interesting idea, but poorly executed, IMO.
Cheap attacks
I don't know how many times I've used an ability that should have stunned an assassin, only to see him perform the world's slowest backflip and then disappear to take a smoke break, reappearing several minutes later to kill the only character in my party who can revive other characters. DA:O had this with the overwhelm and Donkey Kong ogre abilities. It was bad design then, and it's bad design now. At least then, there were theoretically counters to overwhelm and grab. In this game, if the monstrous spider knocks you up against a wall, you might as well forget trying to get out of it. You are going to get spider humped into oblivion and there is nothing you can do about it. That spider might as well play for the Steelers.
If an enemy has a particularly devastating move, the player should have a
counter for it. Because otherwise, you've made that encounter's success
dependent on a lucky break.
Kiting
Should never be a valid tactic in any game. In this game in particular, it turns a lot of encounters into Benny Hill skits. That ogre is far faster than me. Why is he lumbering after me like a Walrus after a fish sandwich?
Enemy identification
In DA:O, stronger enemies had different colored names in the MMORPG vein. This made them easier to prioritize/identify. In DAII, often the only hint I get that there's a high-level assassin on the field is when my health drops by 60%. Oddly enough, some enemies, like Revenants, are always labeled.
Equipment
It's been said before, but I'll say it again: 99% of the inventory stuff in this game is useless. Bioware might have streamlined the inventory, but by reducing its utility, they made it even more of a sea anchor than it already was.
I don't think Bioware would have taken near as much flack if they had allowed some of the characters to equip their own armor. A lot less are people bugged by one or two uncustomizable characters than all of them. Seems like I could at least afford to give Fenris some shoes. And I get why they're doing this. A lot of my companions in DA:O looked ridiculous in their armor. And I outfitted them with an eye towards aesthetics. But you fix that by making better-looking armor. This system goes too far in the other direction.
Re-used maps
You know what? I think you might have gotten away with this if you had chopped the maps up a little bit instead of using the same one with different walled off areas. If it wasn't for that mabari, and those stupid kids... The worst part about this was making me think I was missing some kind of lever or switch to open up those areas. I spent a very long time mousing over everything in one cave before reading about this.
Miscellaneous
In the intro, the way the Darkspawn moved looked totally like a villain from the Power Rangers. They had that demonstrative waggling of the weapon and foot stamping. It didn't look threatening; it looked like bad community theatre.
Totally down with the Qunari remake. Sten looked ridiculous in DA:O. Half the people complaining about this are perfectly happy watching shows/movies involving Klingons. Oddly enough, Sten spent most of my DA:O playthroughs wearing a horned helmet. I thought it looked appropriate on him.
I'm fine with the crafting system. Either make it complex and mysterious, or something like you've got in DA2.
#1953
Posté 15 mars 2011 - 11:31
Chmielutek
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- 1 messages
Well, completed the game, and I liked it alot, but....
Well, on the bright side -
cool storyline, nice characters, combat was at first not what i expected, but after some time I must say I liked it alot, very entertaining and for sure one I do not regret getting it.
and here comes what really REALLY irritated me, which was probably said tons of times already.
(I'm on the second playthrough now)
I'm sorry for being terribly blunt here, but were the dev's just lazy with the location development? There are like 5 different locations for dungeons which you just enter from points A/B repeatedly with selected parts of them closed occasionally. Hugely disappointing. I can pretty much draw the minecave (because apparently thats what it is if you put same location for a mine and caves), ruins, undertown corridors 1 and 2, warehouse and the remaining one or two i might have forgotten to mention just now without launching the game. Seems like someone really decided to just shove it to players without caring about the diversity at all.
I know it's just wishful thinking, but getting a free patch for some more fancy maps on my next playthroughs would be nice, and I guess everyone would appreciate it.
Still - really good game, loved it and I can definitely recommend it.
And now - back to the same warehouse! /cry
Well, on the bright side -
cool storyline, nice characters, combat was at first not what i expected, but after some time I must say I liked it alot, very entertaining and for sure one I do not regret getting it.
and here comes what really REALLY irritated me, which was probably said tons of times already.
(I'm on the second playthrough now)
I'm sorry for being terribly blunt here, but were the dev's just lazy with the location development? There are like 5 different locations for dungeons which you just enter from points A/B repeatedly with selected parts of them closed occasionally. Hugely disappointing. I can pretty much draw the minecave (because apparently thats what it is if you put same location for a mine and caves), ruins, undertown corridors 1 and 2, warehouse and the remaining one or two i might have forgotten to mention just now without launching the game. Seems like someone really decided to just shove it to players without caring about the diversity at all.
I know it's just wishful thinking, but getting a free patch for some more fancy maps on my next playthroughs would be nice, and I guess everyone would appreciate it.
Still - really good game, loved it and I can definitely recommend it.
And now - back to the same warehouse! /cry
#1954
Posté 15 mars 2011 - 11:35
DraCZeQQ
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- Members
- 1 075 messages
Likes:
+ Day / Night ... I love this version (better then some "Wait" function in other games)
+ 30 minutes poisons and buff elixirs
+ Mabari as sustained skill (I used Mabari mod in DA:O)
+ The middle "Smart-ass" dialog option (yea I love smartass sacrastic Lady Hawke)
+ The combat animations, all the rogue jumping and porting, spells too ...
+ The armor of champion is really nice!
+ The skill trees
+ Kinda liked the story, well I loved my Lady Hawke
+ Cross-class skills
Dislikes:
- Complete desing of combat events, long boring WoWlike boss fights
- Enemies poping out of nowhere
- "Assassin" type of enemies, especially when demons have one of these, templars have one of these ... annoying as hell
- "Demi-lich" kind of mage enemies
- Heat seeking arrows flying through walls
- Fortitude system (Interupted, Interupted, ...)
- Way too obvious location recycling (seeng the same cave, building, part of coast milion times ... )
- END OF ACT 1!!! HATE YOU!!!
- The skill tree distribution ... basicly forcing people to pick one companion over the other just coz of skills ...
- REALLY UGLY models of armors and weapons ... except few late ones
- Friend / Rivalty system is weird, dumb and NPC often went +- without any obvious reason ...
- The ending (if one can call it) and absence of proper epilogue (well you dropped ball even at DA:O ... but al least some mods like "Royal Wedding" fixed that)
- "Visit your companion at their home so you can talk to them" (ok i understand that you needed that place for some epic cut-scene, but still was annoying)
- The money system ... even the most unique pice of equip is sold to shop for 2g tops ... and the worthless priceless junk ... there was way too many items in the game (95% absolutly useless) ... not to mention epic dragon treasure worth 95 silver I usually found ...
- The Nightmare is maybe more "challanging" but definetly not fun at all and even when I beat some encounter on nightmare i feel more frustrated of how retarded that was ... never felt some sort of accomplishment
- NPC even with good tactics still act pretty dumb and do stuff it should not
- "Hold position" command is weird and doesnt work as expected
Summary: 7/10 (Good story - kinda reminded me of Witcher Order vs. Nonhumans ... but Im kinda used to fact, that Bioware takes inspiration in other games, poor desing of combat encounters and no design of side-quest areas, but still the game looks nice and its long enough)
EDIT: I completly agree with murgotroid!
+ Day / Night ... I love this version (better then some "Wait" function in other games)
+ 30 minutes poisons and buff elixirs
+ Mabari as sustained skill (I used Mabari mod in DA:O)
+ The middle "Smart-ass" dialog option (yea I love smartass sacrastic Lady Hawke)
+ The combat animations, all the rogue jumping and porting, spells too ...
+ The armor of champion is really nice!
+ The skill trees
+ Kinda liked the story, well I loved my Lady Hawke
+ Cross-class skills
Dislikes:
- Complete desing of combat events, long boring WoWlike boss fights
- Enemies poping out of nowhere
- "Assassin" type of enemies, especially when demons have one of these, templars have one of these ... annoying as hell
- "Demi-lich" kind of mage enemies
- Heat seeking arrows flying through walls
- Fortitude system (Interupted, Interupted, ...)
- Way too obvious location recycling (seeng the same cave, building, part of coast milion times ... )
- END OF ACT 1!!! HATE YOU!!!
- The skill tree distribution ... basicly forcing people to pick one companion over the other just coz of skills ...
- REALLY UGLY models of armors and weapons ... except few late ones
- Friend / Rivalty system is weird, dumb and NPC often went +- without any obvious reason ...
- The ending (if one can call it) and absence of proper epilogue (well you dropped ball even at DA:O ... but al least some mods like "Royal Wedding" fixed that)
- "Visit your companion at their home so you can talk to them" (ok i understand that you needed that place for some epic cut-scene, but still was annoying)
- The money system ... even the most unique pice of equip is sold to shop for 2g tops ... and the worthless priceless junk ... there was way too many items in the game (95% absolutly useless) ... not to mention epic dragon treasure worth 95 silver I usually found ...
- The Nightmare is maybe more "challanging" but definetly not fun at all and even when I beat some encounter on nightmare i feel more frustrated of how retarded that was ... never felt some sort of accomplishment
- NPC even with good tactics still act pretty dumb and do stuff it should not
- "Hold position" command is weird and doesnt work as expected
Summary: 7/10 (Good story - kinda reminded me of Witcher Order vs. Nonhumans ... but Im kinda used to fact, that Bioware takes inspiration in other games, poor desing of combat encounters and no design of side-quest areas, but still the game looks nice and its long enough)
EDIT: I completly agree with murgotroid!
Modifié par DraCZeQQ, 15 mars 2011 - 11:39 .
#1955
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 12:17
22nd MadJack
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- 180 messages
My first and last impression: Dragon Age has been handed to a gaggle of man-boys who say awesome far too much.
#1956
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 12:31
Eternal Phoenix
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- 8 471 messages
DA2 is an RPG regardless of what people say but it's gone down the route of being more of an action RPG. Thankfully, it still contains a lot of RP elements and I can still create character classes how I want to. I can create a 2h warrior who focuses on strength and wears the best of armor. That's good. Anyway, most of what I'll be saying here are basically suggestions of what should go into DA3. The fighting for DA2 wasn't bad, I think what people hated was how some human enemies have high amounts of health. I find that annoying. This should be removed in a patch. The side quests are good though apart from those ones when you find something and have to deliver it. Moral choices are more complex and need to be thought about which I liked. Areas should all look different from each other. No more copied and pasted areas in the next DA game. The game needs more tactics but should retain the fast combat, basically like some people have said - combine DA:O and DA2's best elements for DA3.
Combat is good but could be more tactical. Taking down a high dragon was easy. Attacks should drain more health of humans while enemies like the dragons should have been harder.
Text should be bigger.
Allow us to give our companions armor. No one hated that feature from Origins.
Bring the wall of text back or at least show us what our character is going to say when we are about to choose a dialogue option from the wheel.
I doubt Bioware will be listening to everyone or even listening at all. Big companies normally don't do that.
My score for DA2?
8.5/10
It's not ME2 like some people have said. Far from it but those pesky enemies really need to be dealt with and hopefully the next DA game contains a more epic story next time.
Combat is good but could be more tactical. Taking down a high dragon was easy. Attacks should drain more health of humans while enemies like the dragons should have been harder.
Text should be bigger.
Allow us to give our companions armor. No one hated that feature from Origins.
Bring the wall of text back or at least show us what our character is going to say when we are about to choose a dialogue option from the wheel.
I doubt Bioware will be listening to everyone or even listening at all. Big companies normally don't do that.
My score for DA2?
8.5/10
It's not ME2 like some people have said. Far from it but those pesky enemies really need to be dealt with and hopefully the next DA game contains a more epic story next time.
#1957
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 12:35
arathor_87
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- Members
- 394 messages
Ok, I will make a new review now after playing some more. I'll raise this game from a 5 to a 7. Its not as epic as DA:O but its not superbad. If you take the best from DA:O and DA2 and combine it for DA3. it will be superb. Here are my reflections about the game.
Storyline: No way near as good as in DA:O. It feel like Bioware wanted to throw in as much as possible into the mainstory. There are qunaris, templars, blood mages and darksapwn just in Kirkwall. The main story just felt like a sidequest for me. One of the weakest parts in this game.
Graphics: Really enjoyed the new graphics but sometimes I missed the iso-view. The new looks of the qunari was awesome and so was the new textures. The new looks on the darkspawn and the reuse of the maps was a disappointment thou'. Cinematics are as good as in DA:O.
Combat: I really like some of the new combat. Mages (spellcasting) , Warrior (tanks) and some of the roguecombat are big improvements. Negative was mages staffcombat that looked really stupid, to much twist and turn. Two-handes warriors combat was way to fast.
Comapnions: Only two good compabions is not good enough. Merrill is a superb character with depth and is outstanding is this game, one of my favourites in DA so far.. Varric is also good but the rest are dull and not interesting at all. One thing that DA2 does way better than DA:O is the companion quests. They are awesome, but to bad some of the companions lacks charisma and depth.
Gameplay & sidequests: Some good some bad. Junk inventory is awesome and so is the new crafting. I miss some of the things from DA:O like persuade and the lack of convesations between me and my party members. Its to few gifts in this game aswell, it was funny to give gifts, The sidequests in DA2 are to short and to much of the same, I want more variety - some short quests and some longer. The spawns of mobs are really annoying to.
I don't know what to think about the actionbar but I'll think I liked the old one better and the same about the talent trees. One thing that DA2 does better thou' is that you can improve some spells and that's good. And I dont like that you can't change armors on your companions.
I'm sure that I'd forgotten something but this will do: Merrill alone gives this game 2 extra rating points from me (but she is a part of the game to). I'll hope Bioware listen what people say about this game so they can improve some. Its not as bad as ythe Metacritic says but is not a 10 either.
Rating: 7/10
If you want you can comment my review!
Storyline: No way near as good as in DA:O. It feel like Bioware wanted to throw in as much as possible into the mainstory. There are qunaris, templars, blood mages and darksapwn just in Kirkwall. The main story just felt like a sidequest for me. One of the weakest parts in this game.
Graphics: Really enjoyed the new graphics but sometimes I missed the iso-view. The new looks of the qunari was awesome and so was the new textures. The new looks on the darkspawn and the reuse of the maps was a disappointment thou'. Cinematics are as good as in DA:O.
Combat: I really like some of the new combat. Mages (spellcasting) , Warrior (tanks) and some of the roguecombat are big improvements. Negative was mages staffcombat that looked really stupid, to much twist and turn. Two-handes warriors combat was way to fast.
Comapnions: Only two good compabions is not good enough. Merrill is a superb character with depth and is outstanding is this game, one of my favourites in DA so far.. Varric is also good but the rest are dull and not interesting at all. One thing that DA2 does way better than DA:O is the companion quests. They are awesome, but to bad some of the companions lacks charisma and depth.
Gameplay & sidequests: Some good some bad. Junk inventory is awesome and so is the new crafting. I miss some of the things from DA:O like persuade and the lack of convesations between me and my party members. Its to few gifts in this game aswell, it was funny to give gifts, The sidequests in DA2 are to short and to much of the same, I want more variety - some short quests and some longer. The spawns of mobs are really annoying to.
I don't know what to think about the actionbar but I'll think I liked the old one better and the same about the talent trees. One thing that DA2 does better thou' is that you can improve some spells and that's good. And I dont like that you can't change armors on your companions.
I'm sure that I'd forgotten something but this will do: Merrill alone gives this game 2 extra rating points from me (but she is a part of the game to). I'll hope Bioware listen what people say about this game so they can improve some. Its not as bad as ythe Metacritic says but is not a 10 either.
Rating: 7/10
If you want you can comment my review!
Modifié par arathor_87, 16 mars 2011 - 12:39 .
#1958
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 01:21
Ansa
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- Members
- 69 messages
3/10
So far I see 80% of user reviews bashing it, and there sure as hell is a good reason for it. Hopefully it will clear some "awesome" fog around your latest crap of a games guys (ME2+DA2).
Worst Bioware game to boot by now.
And Im saying this as an old-timer, playing this stuff from the times of Deathgate, Zelda, Wizardry 7, Arcanum, Planescape: Torment and such, Baldur's Gate+IWD veteran and blah blah blah. I can hardly believe David Gaider has anything to do with this joke of a game. But I guess EA's money was too good to pass by this company as well.
Anyway, the review. Since its no spoilers, and I cannot beat on the brain dead scenario with no choices whatsoever and gimmick companions, I'll just dip into the craptastic game mechanics.
- Ridiculously easy Normal gameplay and ridiculously hard Hard/Nightmare is pure example of either crap playtesting or gimmick difficulties to cater to console kids so they do not get turned down from the "hard" game and won't buy the DLCs. Pitiful.
Horrible combat.
- Enemies moving at light speeds are horrible. I am not going to mention in detail enemy reinforcements dropping down from ceilings. Worst. Combat. Sequences. Of. Any. RPG. Game. Ever. Don't do that to your customers. You basically filled the already empty game with meaningless encounters.
- You get knocked down/back from any attack if you are not investing into STR/CON. Which is, if you are Mage or Rogue, forget about any soloing attempts, or, well, forget about. You either kite like crazy, or cheat it down, that is your choice. Most horrible idea ever, whoever came up with that in Bio team. Basically, you are not in control of your character in most fights and locked into death in most of those fights.
- Gimmick DLC gear is better that any gear for the whole Act1. Yes, buy our DLCs, preorder our game, or suck horribly. No choice here.
- Talent trees which were supposed to make meaningful builds are still filled with crap we have to take to get to any meaningful talents. So much for the boasting about meaningful talent trees, blah.
God forbid exploration in an RPG game
- Cinematics Age 2 will tell you quite an interesting story. Too bad you do not have any meaningful amount of game to explore or choices to make. Your whole adventure is filled with cinematics, sometimes interrupted by the need to go into limited claustrophobic rooms of ridiculous size. I mean, come on, even Diablo1 dungeons felt more spacey. Basically you are watching some cinematic, rarely abrupted by few steps into some small room, just to meet the next big enemy and another cinematic. God forbid exploring game world now. Too hard for console kids, lets make it a few straight corridors and hope they dont get lost, dont ragequit our game, and buy DLCs, yes. Great stuff guys.
These are just some main pointers.
I feel I know what I am going to see in Mass Effect3.
I must admit - after horrible demo I did not even buy the game, simply downloaded it from torrent just to see how bad it is. And yes, it is just as horrible as I expected. Sorry, this is not worth any money, not after I have seen what games this company could make.
As an RPG company EAware is out for me now, and I gonna have to move to another titles/game makers.
Adios EAware, and thanks for those great games you guys done while not being infected by money, consoles and overall IQ drop (I bought them all and just feel bad you guys are just too greedy to make crap like DA2 after grands such as BG1/BG2/Jade Empire/Kotor1/Kotor2/Mass Effect. Mass Effect 2 was bad, but I still was stupid enough to buy it just for the sake of it).
Bye.
So far I see 80% of user reviews bashing it, and there sure as hell is a good reason for it. Hopefully it will clear some "awesome" fog around your latest crap of a games guys (ME2+DA2).
Worst Bioware game to boot by now.
And Im saying this as an old-timer, playing this stuff from the times of Deathgate, Zelda, Wizardry 7, Arcanum, Planescape: Torment and such, Baldur's Gate+IWD veteran and blah blah blah. I can hardly believe David Gaider has anything to do with this joke of a game. But I guess EA's money was too good to pass by this company as well.
Anyway, the review. Since its no spoilers, and I cannot beat on the brain dead scenario with no choices whatsoever and gimmick companions, I'll just dip into the craptastic game mechanics.
- Ridiculously easy Normal gameplay and ridiculously hard Hard/Nightmare is pure example of either crap playtesting or gimmick difficulties to cater to console kids so they do not get turned down from the "hard" game and won't buy the DLCs. Pitiful.
Horrible combat.
- Enemies moving at light speeds are horrible. I am not going to mention in detail enemy reinforcements dropping down from ceilings. Worst. Combat. Sequences. Of. Any. RPG. Game. Ever. Don't do that to your customers. You basically filled the already empty game with meaningless encounters.
- You get knocked down/back from any attack if you are not investing into STR/CON. Which is, if you are Mage or Rogue, forget about any soloing attempts, or, well, forget about. You either kite like crazy, or cheat it down, that is your choice. Most horrible idea ever, whoever came up with that in Bio team. Basically, you are not in control of your character in most fights and locked into death in most of those fights.
- Gimmick DLC gear is better that any gear for the whole Act1. Yes, buy our DLCs, preorder our game, or suck horribly. No choice here.
- Talent trees which were supposed to make meaningful builds are still filled with crap we have to take to get to any meaningful talents. So much for the boasting about meaningful talent trees, blah.
God forbid exploration in an RPG game
- Cinematics Age 2 will tell you quite an interesting story. Too bad you do not have any meaningful amount of game to explore or choices to make. Your whole adventure is filled with cinematics, sometimes interrupted by the need to go into limited claustrophobic rooms of ridiculous size. I mean, come on, even Diablo1 dungeons felt more spacey. Basically you are watching some cinematic, rarely abrupted by few steps into some small room, just to meet the next big enemy and another cinematic. God forbid exploring game world now. Too hard for console kids, lets make it a few straight corridors and hope they dont get lost, dont ragequit our game, and buy DLCs, yes. Great stuff guys.
These are just some main pointers.
I feel I know what I am going to see in Mass Effect3.
I must admit - after horrible demo I did not even buy the game, simply downloaded it from torrent just to see how bad it is. And yes, it is just as horrible as I expected. Sorry, this is not worth any money, not after I have seen what games this company could make.
As an RPG company EAware is out for me now, and I gonna have to move to another titles/game makers.
Adios EAware, and thanks for those great games you guys done while not being infected by money, consoles and overall IQ drop (I bought them all and just feel bad you guys are just too greedy to make crap like DA2 after grands such as BG1/BG2/Jade Empire/Kotor1/Kotor2/Mass Effect. Mass Effect 2 was bad, but I still was stupid enough to buy it just for the sake of it).
Bye.
Modifié par Ansa, 16 mars 2011 - 01:54 .
#1959
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 02:39
wiskeylab
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- 41 messages
i'm gonna defend bioware, the thing is i've been a big fan of bioware since baldurs gate. the problem is bioware themselves can't actually publish their games, if they could they would have probably made dragon age 2 a much better game. maybe bioware should see about using other publishers instead. ea are the ones with the dollar sign eyes i think. and how or why would bioware spend their money on making a game if they haven't got the means to publish them. get rid of ea and try another publisher instead.
#1961
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 03:16
Skye Kross
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- 72 messages
javierabegazo wrote...
Any comments on the upgrading system or Armor?
Armor yes, give us an option to what ch*****n armor we get, and dont class restrict it lol XD
#1962
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 04:03
zebrakeys
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- Members
- 29 messages
I just give a quickie 
The good:
Combat: Oh dear Maker do I love this combat system. Finally no more watching giant great shale hit a tiny Genlock just to watch him comically stubble back two steps and then continue its advance. No more slowly pacing around the battle field for some complex tactic maneuver only to see it fail because one enemy moved. I can feel every swing, in a sense. I can easily slash away weaker enemies and feel the endurance of greater badies.
Story: Well no spoilers so all I can say is it is awesome.
Talking: I like having a voice and I like that my character can join in on the party banter. The wheel is a nice touch with the pictures and all, now I know what and how I will say something. Though it does have some bugs.
The Bad:
Graphics: I don't really like the new look so much....ugh the elves... the hurlocks...
Team mates: That is all they seem to be, team mates, like there is a big hole between everyone. I understand that this was made in only two years but, it was such a nice cast; you really could have done something with them.
Armor: I hate...HATE not being able to give armor to my team mates. I bought us all matching outfits for nothing...
Overall: Great game. I don't know if I would say this game is as good as DA:O but I see it as it is, an important part to an epic tale. I think you guys brought to much of ME into this game, maybe it is just me but I would like them to be different.
The good:
Combat: Oh dear Maker do I love this combat system. Finally no more watching giant great shale hit a tiny Genlock just to watch him comically stubble back two steps and then continue its advance. No more slowly pacing around the battle field for some complex tactic maneuver only to see it fail because one enemy moved. I can feel every swing, in a sense. I can easily slash away weaker enemies and feel the endurance of greater badies.
Story: Well no spoilers so all I can say is it is awesome.
Talking: I like having a voice and I like that my character can join in on the party banter. The wheel is a nice touch with the pictures and all, now I know what and how I will say something. Though it does have some bugs.
The Bad:
Graphics: I don't really like the new look so much....ugh the elves... the hurlocks...
Team mates: That is all they seem to be, team mates, like there is a big hole between everyone. I understand that this was made in only two years but, it was such a nice cast; you really could have done something with them.
Armor: I hate...HATE not being able to give armor to my team mates. I bought us all matching outfits for nothing...
Overall: Great game. I don't know if I would say this game is as good as DA:O but I see it as it is, an important part to an epic tale. I think you guys brought to much of ME into this game, maybe it is just me but I would like them to be different.
#1963
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 04:05
Lord of Mu
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- Members
- 262 messages
I'll give this a go and try not to spoil anything.
Story
Dragon Age 2's story isn't half bad however, when broken up over the span of the game the story is disjointed and difficult to follow. I believe this is partly due to a lack of a central villain or a major threat of some kind beyond the rising tensions between the various factions with in the city.
Hawke as a character was relatively well created. I really like this character but I’d like to do more with him. Dragon Age 2 really doesn’t provide enough of an experience to warrant removal as a main character. That being said I wouldn’t be apposed to using Hawke as a companion in future games.
Environment
One of the primary things I noticed in Dragon Age 2 was the lack of environmental change as I progressed through the game. Here I am cleaning up crime on the streets, stamping out corruption where ever I find it and bring peace to an over crowded crap hole of a city. And yet nothing has changed.
Hawke gains part control of an asset yet gains no revenue from said asset. Even after gaining full control of the asset you still gain no revenue.
I get that this is not central to Hawke's rise to becoming the "Champion" but surely fighting crime, owning large assets and helping people in general would change the city of Kirkwall. Maybe make some improvements to the city and or acquire more assets. I upgraded the Normandy in ME2, Improved trade and repaired and upgraded the walls around Vigil's Keep. But I can't do anything to Kirkwall.
A key issue for a lot of plays is the reuse of content. Less has never equalled more. And I'm sure someone at a board meeting provided a very articulate, brilliant and well beyond my level of education argument that less equals more. But after playing Dragon Age 2 I can honestly say, it doesn’t and it never will.
Reusing content is fine so long as minor changes like aging are applied to each zone through each act. Even creating smaller zones that simply look different are preferable to using the same content over and over again.
Companions
One of my greatest issues with the companions in Dragon Age 2 is the lack of communication available. Characters in Dragon Age had so much to say about themselves, sometimes too much. But it really added to their
character and gave them depth. By spending time in camp talking to my companions I can understand their position on matters, what troubles them and sometimes change the companions in ways for the better or worse.
The twins are by far the worst companions in Dragon Age 2. They’re supposed to be my siblings yet I have so little time to establish a connection with them and maybe change their minds about the way they see
things. I’m not given an option to learn more about them beyond a few short scenes.
I really think more depth should be added to future companions in Dragon Age games. Companions and major characters alike are always more memorable when you learn a great deal about them by talking to them. Not running around listening to their banter. As much as I enjoy “Shut up ****!”, “That’s my girl!” or Anders with bromance on the brain I’d much rather spend half an hour talking about life on the high seas, How many times Ander’s escaped the circle tower and how each time was different. Etc
Combat
Some of the stylized combat was an improvement over Dragon Age: Origins. By some I mean mages auto attacking with staves, rogues jumping, rolling, flipping and doing what ever they do. But really it’s all a little too fast to be believable. Warriors are by far the worst class for realistic combat. Every time I see Hawke swinging his two-handed weapon I think, jeez that thing is made of aluminium or something.
Take Starfang from DA:O or any two hander for example. The combat in DA:O is slower true but look at the way the characters are animated. The characters look like they’re struggling to carry the weight of the weapon,
hold their balance and deliver a heavy hit all at the same time.
Sword and Shield warriors are understandable able to use much faster weapons so a faster style of combat is a little harder to detect. Put simply, kung fu mages are good, super fast rogues are passable but
lightning faster warriors just does happen.
Another of the less believable aspects of Dragon Age 2’s combat is the jumping out of windows, spawning randomly waves of adds. I could understand adds coming out of buildings or running towards me from alleys but
just spawning on the second floor of buildings right out of thin air. It’s about as real as Isabella’s knockers.
The one aspect of combat I did like was the raid like boss encounters. I don’t mind a boss fight that requires more than just keeping the tank alive and the boss facing away from the rest of the group. One thing I don’t like is excessively long fights due to massive health pools. That being said I didn’t have any major issues with the bosses I killed as the duration of the fights was drawn out by boss abilities or adds.
Equipment
This really was much of an issue for me but the dramatic reduction in companion customization really seemed a little over the top. I can understand that companions should look unique rather then just the average Joe in plate. I’d still like some options in terms of stat management and appearance of my companions in future games.
One thing I would like is some customization options for armour. The Champion’s Set is extremely unique looking. Well it looks awesome but we don’t get the chance to use the full set for very long.
Talents – player and companion
One of the last points I’d like to bring up. The friend / rival unique to each companion talent tree is great save for one thing, it pigeonholes companions. I’d much rather a system where the unique tree is added to the specializations available.
As for player talent trees, I really miss Arcane Warrior.
Overall I’ll still give the game 7.5 to 8 out of 10.
I’ve still had fun playing the game though I’m hoping DA3 will be an improvement.
Thanks for reading
Story
Dragon Age 2's story isn't half bad however, when broken up over the span of the game the story is disjointed and difficult to follow. I believe this is partly due to a lack of a central villain or a major threat of some kind beyond the rising tensions between the various factions with in the city.
Hawke as a character was relatively well created. I really like this character but I’d like to do more with him. Dragon Age 2 really doesn’t provide enough of an experience to warrant removal as a main character. That being said I wouldn’t be apposed to using Hawke as a companion in future games.
Environment
One of the primary things I noticed in Dragon Age 2 was the lack of environmental change as I progressed through the game. Here I am cleaning up crime on the streets, stamping out corruption where ever I find it and bring peace to an over crowded crap hole of a city. And yet nothing has changed.
Hawke gains part control of an asset yet gains no revenue from said asset. Even after gaining full control of the asset you still gain no revenue.
I get that this is not central to Hawke's rise to becoming the "Champion" but surely fighting crime, owning large assets and helping people in general would change the city of Kirkwall. Maybe make some improvements to the city and or acquire more assets. I upgraded the Normandy in ME2, Improved trade and repaired and upgraded the walls around Vigil's Keep. But I can't do anything to Kirkwall.
A key issue for a lot of plays is the reuse of content. Less has never equalled more. And I'm sure someone at a board meeting provided a very articulate, brilliant and well beyond my level of education argument that less equals more. But after playing Dragon Age 2 I can honestly say, it doesn’t and it never will.
Reusing content is fine so long as minor changes like aging are applied to each zone through each act. Even creating smaller zones that simply look different are preferable to using the same content over and over again.
Companions
One of my greatest issues with the companions in Dragon Age 2 is the lack of communication available. Characters in Dragon Age had so much to say about themselves, sometimes too much. But it really added to their
character and gave them depth. By spending time in camp talking to my companions I can understand their position on matters, what troubles them and sometimes change the companions in ways for the better or worse.
The twins are by far the worst companions in Dragon Age 2. They’re supposed to be my siblings yet I have so little time to establish a connection with them and maybe change their minds about the way they see
things. I’m not given an option to learn more about them beyond a few short scenes.
I really think more depth should be added to future companions in Dragon Age games. Companions and major characters alike are always more memorable when you learn a great deal about them by talking to them. Not running around listening to their banter. As much as I enjoy “Shut up ****!”, “That’s my girl!” or Anders with bromance on the brain I’d much rather spend half an hour talking about life on the high seas, How many times Ander’s escaped the circle tower and how each time was different. Etc
Combat
Some of the stylized combat was an improvement over Dragon Age: Origins. By some I mean mages auto attacking with staves, rogues jumping, rolling, flipping and doing what ever they do. But really it’s all a little too fast to be believable. Warriors are by far the worst class for realistic combat. Every time I see Hawke swinging his two-handed weapon I think, jeez that thing is made of aluminium or something.
Take Starfang from DA:O or any two hander for example. The combat in DA:O is slower true but look at the way the characters are animated. The characters look like they’re struggling to carry the weight of the weapon,
hold their balance and deliver a heavy hit all at the same time.
Sword and Shield warriors are understandable able to use much faster weapons so a faster style of combat is a little harder to detect. Put simply, kung fu mages are good, super fast rogues are passable but
lightning faster warriors just does happen.
Another of the less believable aspects of Dragon Age 2’s combat is the jumping out of windows, spawning randomly waves of adds. I could understand adds coming out of buildings or running towards me from alleys but
just spawning on the second floor of buildings right out of thin air. It’s about as real as Isabella’s knockers.
The one aspect of combat I did like was the raid like boss encounters. I don’t mind a boss fight that requires more than just keeping the tank alive and the boss facing away from the rest of the group. One thing I don’t like is excessively long fights due to massive health pools. That being said I didn’t have any major issues with the bosses I killed as the duration of the fights was drawn out by boss abilities or adds.
Equipment
This really was much of an issue for me but the dramatic reduction in companion customization really seemed a little over the top. I can understand that companions should look unique rather then just the average Joe in plate. I’d still like some options in terms of stat management and appearance of my companions in future games.
One thing I would like is some customization options for armour. The Champion’s Set is extremely unique looking. Well it looks awesome but we don’t get the chance to use the full set for very long.
Talents – player and companion
One of the last points I’d like to bring up. The friend / rival unique to each companion talent tree is great save for one thing, it pigeonholes companions. I’d much rather a system where the unique tree is added to the specializations available.
As for player talent trees, I really miss Arcane Warrior.
Overall I’ll still give the game 7.5 to 8 out of 10.
I’ve still had fun playing the game though I’m hoping DA3 will be an improvement.
Thanks for reading
Modifié par Lord of Mu, 16 mars 2011 - 04:14 .
#1964
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 04:42
Kims Sonic Burgers
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- Members
- 13 messages
Lurker finally coming out of the closet without registering my game. Darn shame.
Anyway. I just finished the game on casual (because I do like story more than gameplay) and to be quite honest, I wish there was more.
The story itself had a good idea, but the delivery was very lackluster. I was doing more quest tha really didn't have any point to the main plot than main plot quests and Act 3 definitely needed more off the plot quests. Kind of flipped it there didn't you? I see your ploy. The ending was probably the most disappointing one I've every played in a game. It was just...was. It felt so rushed and I absolutely hated that there was no post-battle epilogue going on.
The companions stories varied but many of the companions were annoying. I was going to do the character I thought was hilarious in a previous game but became an emotional wreck and became crazy, hence turning towards the ever so hateful slave. At least HE was more tolerable, than the 'oh justice is me' crap I probably would have gotten from the abomination. Plus, the slave's voice was much more...interesting. I'm not a Fenris fangirl, but I have now become a fan of Gideon Emery's voice. And let me just get this out of the way: Isabella is a **** riddled in STDs, WHY would anyone want to say...'tap that?' and lord she too was annoying. Also, I wanted to speak with my characters more often. I didn't really relate to many of them. I didn't even relate to Anders and he had a very imperative part in the story. I think I enjoyed the dialogue wheel put into this as well and how those choices affect how you come in. I was always a polite, 'agreeable' when I walked into a situation and it portrayed that when the wheel didn't come up. I really liked that. Not going to lie.
The gameplay was smoother, but I think I need a cast for my thumb now. So much button pushing. It is good for those who don't want to use too any tactics, like myself, but it was getting boring, I did enjoy the talent trees, but the attacks, specifically for a rogue, seemed a little underwhelming, even with the passive abilities.
What was up with the recycled homes/rooms/caves/etc? I know you had very little time to develop it, but you could have changed the color scheme or something. Changed the way the rooms looked for each one, there really weren't that many. I'm not a game developer and I don't know how difficult to change a chair to a table is, but it must of been really hard or expensive. It feels lazy. You didn't have a lot of destinations either. I would have loved to gone farther than Kirkwall. Just saying.
So in short:
Worst thing: Rushed feeling with a rush ending (with lack of story and likeness to the companions really close behind).
Best thing; Gideon Emery.
Anyway. I just finished the game on casual (because I do like story more than gameplay) and to be quite honest, I wish there was more.
The story itself had a good idea, but the delivery was very lackluster. I was doing more quest tha really didn't have any point to the main plot than main plot quests and Act 3 definitely needed more off the plot quests. Kind of flipped it there didn't you? I see your ploy. The ending was probably the most disappointing one I've every played in a game. It was just...was. It felt so rushed and I absolutely hated that there was no post-battle epilogue going on.
The companions stories varied but many of the companions were annoying. I was going to do the character I thought was hilarious in a previous game but became an emotional wreck and became crazy, hence turning towards the ever so hateful slave. At least HE was more tolerable, than the 'oh justice is me' crap I probably would have gotten from the abomination. Plus, the slave's voice was much more...interesting. I'm not a Fenris fangirl, but I have now become a fan of Gideon Emery's voice. And let me just get this out of the way: Isabella is a **** riddled in STDs, WHY would anyone want to say...'tap that?' and lord she too was annoying. Also, I wanted to speak with my characters more often. I didn't really relate to many of them. I didn't even relate to Anders and he had a very imperative part in the story. I think I enjoyed the dialogue wheel put into this as well and how those choices affect how you come in. I was always a polite, 'agreeable' when I walked into a situation and it portrayed that when the wheel didn't come up. I really liked that. Not going to lie.
The gameplay was smoother, but I think I need a cast for my thumb now. So much button pushing. It is good for those who don't want to use too any tactics, like myself, but it was getting boring, I did enjoy the talent trees, but the attacks, specifically for a rogue, seemed a little underwhelming, even with the passive abilities.
What was up with the recycled homes/rooms/caves/etc? I know you had very little time to develop it, but you could have changed the color scheme or something. Changed the way the rooms looked for each one, there really weren't that many. I'm not a game developer and I don't know how difficult to change a chair to a table is, but it must of been really hard or expensive. It feels lazy. You didn't have a lot of destinations either. I would have loved to gone farther than Kirkwall. Just saying.
So in short:
Worst thing: Rushed feeling with a rush ending (with lack of story and likeness to the companions really close behind).
Best thing; Gideon Emery.
Modifié par Kims Sonic Burgers, 16 mars 2011 - 04:44 .
#1965
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 05:00
lobotomy42
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- Members
- 38 messages
I don't have much to say, other than that I think Dragon Age 2 is terrible. It is definitely the worst BioWare game, and possibly one of the worst games I have ever played. (I'm about 8-10 hours in.)
It is lots and lots of min-cutscenes with a meaningless dialogue wheel about the most trivial of trivial quests, followed by brief jaunts into copy+pasted rooms filled with bandits. So many bandits. I think "bandit" and "assassin" must be by far the most common profession in Kirkwall. (Also, by the end of the game, shouldn't the size of the city be significantly smaller? It seems like Hawke and company would have killed half of it by then.) Once in the bandit-rooms, you press A until everything is dead. Rinse, repeat.
Does the game get any better? I am seriously considering returning it.
It is lots and lots of min-cutscenes with a meaningless dialogue wheel about the most trivial of trivial quests, followed by brief jaunts into copy+pasted rooms filled with bandits. So many bandits. I think "bandit" and "assassin" must be by far the most common profession in Kirkwall. (Also, by the end of the game, shouldn't the size of the city be significantly smaller? It seems like Hawke and company would have killed half of it by then.) Once in the bandit-rooms, you press A until everything is dead. Rinse, repeat.
Does the game get any better? I am seriously considering returning it.
#1966
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 05:13
Kreidian
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- Members
- 578 messages
I finally finished the game ( for the first time ) and I loved it! But
still there are so many people complaining about this game. Now I don't
have a problem with people expressing their oppinions, but I've seen so
many folks complaining about stupid things; in many cases what people
are complaining about are the very features of this game that I enjoyed
so much. The last thing I want is for Bioware to get the impression that
they got something wrong when they really didn't. So here are some things I loved, and some things I didn't, about Dragonage 2 which I hope Bioware takes to heart.
I love the character of Hawke.
Sure one of the things I
loved about Origins, and all the really Old School style RPGs is the
ability to completely customize and define your character's story and
background. Now everyone complains you can't really do this. But this
isn't that kind of game. Here you are playing the role of a very
specific character, but unlike other games you still have complete
control over how YOUR Hawke develops.
In old school D&D terms, it's akin to playing D&D with a
pre-made character vs. rolling one up from scratch yourself. In the end
you still completely control the character once the game starts. This
'premade' character is awesome to play with, and you still have alot of
options and tweaks that you can do to truly make Hawke your own.
Better yet this time your character is completely voiced. He/She
actually interacts with the world around them, talks back to people in a
conversation, shows more expressions and emotions. This is far more
engaging, immersive, and fun to watch then just seeing your Warden
standing there like a mute idiot while others are talking.
I love the Combat!
I'm strictly speaking PC here though, but I
really enjoyed the more action oriented style of this game. When the
action really gets going it's a balls to the wall drag out fight that
really keeps you in the combat and makes this tons of fun. But you still
have the option to pause the game at any time and really tactically
work out every detail of the battle. I think this works great overall. (
Though I agree you should have left in the option for the isometric
view. )
I love the simplified Crafting system.
No more wasted time and bag space trying to find all of the resources you need and being limited by one or the other. Now you can always get as much as you want of whatever you can find. Thank you!
I love the companion armor system.
It's annoying enough
having to manage all of the possible inventory options on your own
character. Thank god I didn't have to mess with that for everyone else
as well. Even then it was annoying enough just dealing with companions'
jewlery and weapons. But now your companions pick their own style and
their own looks and you don't have to worry about checking every stupid
peice of gear that drops to see if it's just barely an upgrade across a
dozen different people. Yes, sometimes streamlining is good, I don't
want to spend all day playing dress up. As an added bonus, all the
characters now have their own visual style that enhances their
personality. This is better then, say, having Morrigan wearing Circle
Mage robes, or Isabella wearing ... pretty much anything sensible. If
anything they should have done the same thing with weapons as well. Much
like they did with Varic and Bianca, only apply that to all of your
companions.
Honestly I wish they would have done something simmilar with Hawke
her/him self. So rather then be a slave to whatever gear you find, you
can actually pick how your want hawke to look like from the start and
just get the same sort of armor upgrades like you companions get. Then
you can really define your own character's style and personality that
much more. The alternative now is that you as a player have no real choice in what your character looks like, since you will almost always be equiping gear based on stats alone.
I loved the story.
I loved seeing how things develop over the
course of a decade. This wasn't a quick one year jaunt through the
Fereldan countryside, this was all about seeing how people really live,
and really evolve. You really got to see people grow, and it allowed you
to see how you effect the world around you over the years in a real way
in person, not just some text at the end of the game.
What I didn't like...
Don't mistake me for a fanboy here, however. There were definite
flaws in the game that should have been addressed. Even beyond the
occasional bug, the lack of dungeon veriety was just sad. I understand
and do appreciate very much the fact that given their production
constraints it is far better to have a few very high quality areas to
play in. ( And make no mistake; the areas they did work on were
downright GORGEOUS! ) That said constantly going into the same dungeon,
the same cave, the same sewer room, over and over again, completely
takes people out of the game.
Another major issue I had was the lack of companion conversations.
Now certainly there were many great conversations to be had, and I loved
the tons of party banter that happen as you're walking around. But,
like ME2, it annoyes the hell out of me that after a major quest you go
talk to a companion and they'd have NOTHING to say to you. On top of
that, it makes it harder then it should have been to work on your
friendships and rivalries with certain people without being forced to
play a very specific way with preselected answers. Thereby completely
negating player choice for the sake of a gameplay element. You have over
6 years worth of time to get to be really good friends and rivals with
these people, but you're limited to only a few bits of conversation to
get there. Just plain stupid.
In the end the biggest issue with these combined problems is it
makes the game feel rushed and incomplete. It now becomes Bioware
telling us that we don't matter as much anymore, and making your sales
figures has become more important. That's just sad, Bioware, this game
should have stayed in production for another year, you should have added
really spent the time to polish the game, to add more areas, to add
more VO work. It might sound like alot of work for minimal gain, but
you're completely wrong, these things matter, and people notice it. And
this is why DA2 has been such a dissapointment for so many people.
And if EA doesn't like that then you should have gone to another publisher from the start.
still there are so many people complaining about this game. Now I don't
have a problem with people expressing their oppinions, but I've seen so
many folks complaining about stupid things; in many cases what people
are complaining about are the very features of this game that I enjoyed
so much. The last thing I want is for Bioware to get the impression that
they got something wrong when they really didn't. So here are some things I loved, and some things I didn't, about Dragonage 2 which I hope Bioware takes to heart.
I love the character of Hawke.
Sure one of the things I
loved about Origins, and all the really Old School style RPGs is the
ability to completely customize and define your character's story and
background. Now everyone complains you can't really do this. But this
isn't that kind of game. Here you are playing the role of a very
specific character, but unlike other games you still have complete
control over how YOUR Hawke develops.
In old school D&D terms, it's akin to playing D&D with a
pre-made character vs. rolling one up from scratch yourself. In the end
you still completely control the character once the game starts. This
'premade' character is awesome to play with, and you still have alot of
options and tweaks that you can do to truly make Hawke your own.
Better yet this time your character is completely voiced. He/She
actually interacts with the world around them, talks back to people in a
conversation, shows more expressions and emotions. This is far more
engaging, immersive, and fun to watch then just seeing your Warden
standing there like a mute idiot while others are talking.
I love the Combat!
I'm strictly speaking PC here though, but I
really enjoyed the more action oriented style of this game. When the
action really gets going it's a balls to the wall drag out fight that
really keeps you in the combat and makes this tons of fun. But you still
have the option to pause the game at any time and really tactically
work out every detail of the battle. I think this works great overall. (
Though I agree you should have left in the option for the isometric
view. )
I love the simplified Crafting system.
No more wasted time and bag space trying to find all of the resources you need and being limited by one or the other. Now you can always get as much as you want of whatever you can find. Thank you!
I love the companion armor system.
It's annoying enough
having to manage all of the possible inventory options on your own
character. Thank god I didn't have to mess with that for everyone else
as well. Even then it was annoying enough just dealing with companions'
jewlery and weapons. But now your companions pick their own style and
their own looks and you don't have to worry about checking every stupid
peice of gear that drops to see if it's just barely an upgrade across a
dozen different people. Yes, sometimes streamlining is good, I don't
want to spend all day playing dress up. As an added bonus, all the
characters now have their own visual style that enhances their
personality. This is better then, say, having Morrigan wearing Circle
Mage robes, or Isabella wearing ... pretty much anything sensible. If
anything they should have done the same thing with weapons as well. Much
like they did with Varic and Bianca, only apply that to all of your
companions.
Honestly I wish they would have done something simmilar with Hawke
her/him self. So rather then be a slave to whatever gear you find, you
can actually pick how your want hawke to look like from the start and
just get the same sort of armor upgrades like you companions get. Then
you can really define your own character's style and personality that
much more. The alternative now is that you as a player have no real choice in what your character looks like, since you will almost always be equiping gear based on stats alone.
I loved the story.
I loved seeing how things develop over the
course of a decade. This wasn't a quick one year jaunt through the
Fereldan countryside, this was all about seeing how people really live,
and really evolve. You really got to see people grow, and it allowed you
to see how you effect the world around you over the years in a real way
in person, not just some text at the end of the game.
What I didn't like...
Don't mistake me for a fanboy here, however. There were definite
flaws in the game that should have been addressed. Even beyond the
occasional bug, the lack of dungeon veriety was just sad. I understand
and do appreciate very much the fact that given their production
constraints it is far better to have a few very high quality areas to
play in. ( And make no mistake; the areas they did work on were
downright GORGEOUS! ) That said constantly going into the same dungeon,
the same cave, the same sewer room, over and over again, completely
takes people out of the game.
Another major issue I had was the lack of companion conversations.
Now certainly there were many great conversations to be had, and I loved
the tons of party banter that happen as you're walking around. But,
like ME2, it annoyes the hell out of me that after a major quest you go
talk to a companion and they'd have NOTHING to say to you. On top of
that, it makes it harder then it should have been to work on your
friendships and rivalries with certain people without being forced to
play a very specific way with preselected answers. Thereby completely
negating player choice for the sake of a gameplay element. You have over
6 years worth of time to get to be really good friends and rivals with
these people, but you're limited to only a few bits of conversation to
get there. Just plain stupid.
In the end the biggest issue with these combined problems is it
makes the game feel rushed and incomplete. It now becomes Bioware
telling us that we don't matter as much anymore, and making your sales
figures has become more important. That's just sad, Bioware, this game
should have stayed in production for another year, you should have added
really spent the time to polish the game, to add more areas, to add
more VO work. It might sound like alot of work for minimal gain, but
you're completely wrong, these things matter, and people notice it. And
this is why DA2 has been such a dissapointment for so many people.
And if EA doesn't like that then you should have gone to another publisher from the start.
#1967
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 06:19
MelfinaofOutlawStar
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- Members
- 1 785 messages
Pros
-Combat is more entertaining and fast paced yet you can still pause and have the strategy of the first one
-Character models were improved
-Sound overall was great from the voice-acting to the music
-No more watching yourself painstakenly travel between locations on a loading map
Cons
-Recycled dungeons(just downright lazy)
-Flat textures on things like surfaces and clothing, ME2 ocassionally had an empty hallway but for the mostpart was eye-catching in design
-One city, that's it...It's like you couldn't make the world feel any smaller
It's like the game took one step forward and two steps back. I love the ME games but aside a few small adoptions(namely a voiced protagonist and dialog options) I think the DA series should be treated as a separate game. By trying to change it too much a lot of what made the original great was lost.
-Combat is more entertaining and fast paced yet you can still pause and have the strategy of the first one
-Character models were improved
-Sound overall was great from the voice-acting to the music
-No more watching yourself painstakenly travel between locations on a loading map
Cons
-Recycled dungeons(just downright lazy)
-Flat textures on things like surfaces and clothing, ME2 ocassionally had an empty hallway but for the mostpart was eye-catching in design
-One city, that's it...It's like you couldn't make the world feel any smaller
It's like the game took one step forward and two steps back. I love the ME games but aside a few small adoptions(namely a voiced protagonist and dialog options) I think the DA series should be treated as a separate game. By trying to change it too much a lot of what made the original great was lost.
#1968
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 06:23
Rocambole4
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- Members
- 117 messages
A copy of my review on Gamespot (just fair I use the same)
I decided to play the whole game before I did this review because my first impression of DA2 was not that great, and that's what I did. I played almost 50 hours by now, most of in in my first walkthrough, roughtly 35 hours on Hard trying to do all the side quests I could.
Here's the hard thing when trying to decide what you think about DA2 - the game has ups and downs, and each person will give different values to each. I'll present my personal experience.
DA 2 starts slow. The narrative of choice, a story being told and you living the stuff knowing it's past, while passable, was not a great idea. It makes the whole game feel like an Origin (yeah, from DA:O) instead a grand adventure. Of course, the lack of a more relevant main quest adds to the feel.
After some hours (not one or two, you have to give the game some 4 or 5 hours), you'll start to be sucked in. Many of the side quests are interesting and few of them are amazing. Even if it's not most of the time you spend with the game, that gives you a sensation of familiarity and overall quality.
After some days, it feels almost like a MMORPG. It's long, you don't see it ending that soon, but it's confortable to know you can return to your champion shoes. There's a little too much repetition of scenarios and quest objectives tough.
On the gameplay side, things are bittersweet. classes are better balanced now, warriors and specially rogues are not crap anymore, and the active control of a melee character is much more interesting.
When you try to control the group tactically, on the other hand, things are worst. You can no longer zoom out until the view become isometric and even if you could it would not make that much of a differente - in EVERY encounter more adds simply appear from the thin air. It looks stupid and make the fight much more chaotic.
My guess is - they made things that way so they could "kinda" balance real time action play with pause and order tactical play. It doesn't work. It removes part of the fun from trying to play tactical but it's still vastly superior.
Of course, reading this you might believe I hated the combat. Not true. But what's good about it was already in DA:O (minus the fun playing it as an action game - again, not the way I like to play DA). To be fair, the cross class combo system is an improvement over the spell combos in DA:O, but it would take too much space to explain here, if you're interested look it up on the official forum.
On the new artistic approach, I think the change is positive, but the lack of better technical support make is matter much less than it should. Without the high rez package (and playing in DX9 overal) the game looks OLD, much worst that Origins. No artistic style can change it. playing on DX11 very high with the package the game looks OK, slightly better than Origins, except some spell effects from Origins were better (like Firestorm and Storm of the Century).
Ah, the choices you make are less meaningful than the ones you can make in DA:O. You still decide if a lot of people live or die, but nothing like leading the werewolves killing the Dalish - with few exceptions.
All in all, DA2 is not incredible, but the fact that I've returned after my first run (and 35 hours of play) means the balance of things is positive. No, it's not perfect, and some of the flaws (specifically the combat system and encounter design) seem to be on the game for no rational reason, I still recomend everyone that played and liked DA:O to play DA2.
Some numbers to make it look official:
Graphics: 8.0 (with DX11 and high rez package, otherwise 6.0)
Sound: 8:0 (competent voice acting but nothing outstanding)
Gameplay: 7.0 (why remove stuff fans like? And spawning adds WTF)
Immersion: 8.5 (great but sometimes broken by repetitive environments or combat)
Longevity: 9.0 (the game is HUGE is you do all side quests)
Replayability: 3.0 (story-wise) or 9.0 (if you're a build nutjob like me)
Average: 8.0
Good.
I decided to play the whole game before I did this review because my first impression of DA2 was not that great, and that's what I did. I played almost 50 hours by now, most of in in my first walkthrough, roughtly 35 hours on Hard trying to do all the side quests I could.
Here's the hard thing when trying to decide what you think about DA2 - the game has ups and downs, and each person will give different values to each. I'll present my personal experience.
DA 2 starts slow. The narrative of choice, a story being told and you living the stuff knowing it's past, while passable, was not a great idea. It makes the whole game feel like an Origin (yeah, from DA:O) instead a grand adventure. Of course, the lack of a more relevant main quest adds to the feel.
After some hours (not one or two, you have to give the game some 4 or 5 hours), you'll start to be sucked in. Many of the side quests are interesting and few of them are amazing. Even if it's not most of the time you spend with the game, that gives you a sensation of familiarity and overall quality.
After some days, it feels almost like a MMORPG. It's long, you don't see it ending that soon, but it's confortable to know you can return to your champion shoes. There's a little too much repetition of scenarios and quest objectives tough.
On the gameplay side, things are bittersweet. classes are better balanced now, warriors and specially rogues are not crap anymore, and the active control of a melee character is much more interesting.
When you try to control the group tactically, on the other hand, things are worst. You can no longer zoom out until the view become isometric and even if you could it would not make that much of a differente - in EVERY encounter more adds simply appear from the thin air. It looks stupid and make the fight much more chaotic.
My guess is - they made things that way so they could "kinda" balance real time action play with pause and order tactical play. It doesn't work. It removes part of the fun from trying to play tactical but it's still vastly superior.
Of course, reading this you might believe I hated the combat. Not true. But what's good about it was already in DA:O (minus the fun playing it as an action game - again, not the way I like to play DA). To be fair, the cross class combo system is an improvement over the spell combos in DA:O, but it would take too much space to explain here, if you're interested look it up on the official forum.
On the new artistic approach, I think the change is positive, but the lack of better technical support make is matter much less than it should. Without the high rez package (and playing in DX9 overal) the game looks OLD, much worst that Origins. No artistic style can change it. playing on DX11 very high with the package the game looks OK, slightly better than Origins, except some spell effects from Origins were better (like Firestorm and Storm of the Century).
Ah, the choices you make are less meaningful than the ones you can make in DA:O. You still decide if a lot of people live or die, but nothing like leading the werewolves killing the Dalish - with few exceptions.
All in all, DA2 is not incredible, but the fact that I've returned after my first run (and 35 hours of play) means the balance of things is positive. No, it's not perfect, and some of the flaws (specifically the combat system and encounter design) seem to be on the game for no rational reason, I still recomend everyone that played and liked DA:O to play DA2.
Some numbers to make it look official:
Graphics: 8.0 (with DX11 and high rez package, otherwise 6.0)
Sound: 8:0 (competent voice acting but nothing outstanding)
Gameplay: 7.0 (why remove stuff fans like? And spawning adds WTF)
Immersion: 8.5 (great but sometimes broken by repetitive environments or combat)
Longevity: 9.0 (the game is HUGE is you do all side quests)
Replayability: 3.0 (story-wise) or 9.0 (if you're a build nutjob like me)
Average: 8.0
Good.
#1969
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 07:44
Sangaire
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- Members
- 12 messages
This game is incredible.
Take DA1, make it greater, more addictive, more fun to play, with better character development, better UI, cooler map, and you have DA2.
The best RPG I have ever played. Period.
Really ! Don't cry on oldy DA1 ! Developpers have done a fantastic job making a really GREAT fighting fantasy team.
I can't understand what you regret in DA1 ... the soporific archer class ? Hey ! Tell the truth : This is the exact sequel we could hope.
Of course there are some changes in UI, but don't let you fool by the simplified look, everything is just better and deeper.
Thx to DA2 team and respect ...
Take DA1, make it greater, more addictive, more fun to play, with better character development, better UI, cooler map, and you have DA2.
The best RPG I have ever played. Period.
Really ! Don't cry on oldy DA1 ! Developpers have done a fantastic job making a really GREAT fighting fantasy team.
I can't understand what you regret in DA1 ... the soporific archer class ? Hey ! Tell the truth : This is the exact sequel we could hope.
Of course there are some changes in UI, but don't let you fool by the simplified look, everything is just better and deeper.
Thx to DA2 team and respect ...
#1970
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 09:07
Alfrebaut
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- Members
- 3 messages
Here goes.
Let's start with gameplay, as that's at the heart of it. There a lot of good that's been done with the gameplay. The combat feels faster and smoother, and the talent trees have more character. Some of the specializations feel a bit underwhelming, but most of them are fine. I like cross-class combos, because they sit at a point where the system is not too overly complicated, but it is satisfying when brought to fruition. Some of the trees are kind of a pain because they require you to branch off to take talents you wouldn't otherwise(specifically trees like the rogue's Specialist tree) but I guess that's more design I disagree with than I necessarily dislike. Dialogue is more streamlined, and better for it. I actually agree with the decision to remove skills from the leveling process, as I didn't feel that they really added very much and were a relic of the bygone age of role playing. On that note, I also liked that disarming traps and opening chests was moved from talents or even skills to just a Cunning requirement. That's another thing I liked, which was that ability points were more clearly streamlined, and that amor required the class's own key abilities and not just Strength. The inventory system seems fine, with less random crap clogging the inventory space, so you could just sell off all the junk in one go. I appreciate what this also did with the companions' armor, though I would have liked more visible changes on the models with each upgrade. I understand the need to have the characters change appearance given certain in-game events, but it would have been nice to see the effects of the upgrades in more than just stats. I was a fan of the change in the crafting system, from having to collect individual components to just searching for resource deposits, though having them be missable while not warning how much was still missing in each act was a bit alarming for the completionist in me. Also, I was a bit disappointed that there were only a few runes that didn't just do damage, or prevent damage or add armor and such.
Not everything about the gameplay was an improvement, however. As you have probably heard from many people already, the use of Mass Effect-style recycled maps was a huge turnoff. After the first couple of instances, where I walked around confused as to whether I was actually in the same area, I became annoyed. After the tenth time, I lost faith. There are other issues, such as bugs(game freezing, a certain quest triggering when it was not supposed to) and minor issues, such as enemies spawning out of thin air which made strategic positioning useless in certain situations, but for the most part, the gameplay was improved. Except when it came to the part of gameplay which happened to intersect with the storytelling...
The story is where I felt most let down by this game. I played through Origins. Twice the first goaround, then a couple of times right before Witch Hunt. Awakening, too. I loved it. The thing that I loved most about it was the sense that if not every, at least most of the decisions I made in that world mattered. Sure, there were ways to cleverly talk my way out of unfavorable situations, but decisions carried weight. What kept me playing time and again was to see how my different decisions would affect the outcomes of the people of that world.
The first thing that struck me was how little my actions from Origins affected the events of DA2. This is understandable, since Origins took place in Ferelden, far away from Kirkwall. However, without giving too much away, let's just say I was surprised to see how little it affect those who did show up in DA2, and those who didn't. There were some hanging threads at the end of Origins that were not addressed, and some events in Origins which seemed to have either been completely ignored.
That wasn't as striking to me as what actually laid in store for me in terms of actual choice in DA2. DA2, being ostensibly the successor to Origins, seemed to have been promising decisions. It was billed as being "how Hawke became Champion of Kirkwall," which it did, in a way, deliver. However, the general feeling I got from it was of very little of the decisions mattering. I obviously can't go into specifics, but on several occasions, I played through, was dissatisfied with what happened, then later re-loaded to make a new, branching save, but found the exact same situation arose. At a couple of these, I loaded saves from more than a few hours beforehand to try and see if they would make a difference. They didn't. I know that this was done to somehow prevent confusion on the part of the developers of future titles, because having actual choices that mattered would make programming that hypothetical future sequel more difficult, but just having a couple of reasonable branching points which at least felt like they mattered would have been nice.
I've heard Origins described as a game where you "shape your story," and I've always thought of it like that. In contrast, DA2's message, especially with some of the main story points, is that whatever you end up choosing, you don't affect anything. Like it's a meta-textual message from Bioware, saying, "even someone as supposedly great as the Champion of Kirkwall can't affect any change, no matter how hard s/he tries." And believe me, I've tried. If that was your aim, Bioware, then congratulations, you have somehow introduced me to a feeling of helplessness. Yes, through this game, now I really know that I really CAN'T do anything, even if I try hard and put my mind to it. In the end, it's hard to care about a struggle in which you can't change how it turns out, and you can barely even change how it plays out.
Let's start with gameplay, as that's at the heart of it. There a lot of good that's been done with the gameplay. The combat feels faster and smoother, and the talent trees have more character. Some of the specializations feel a bit underwhelming, but most of them are fine. I like cross-class combos, because they sit at a point where the system is not too overly complicated, but it is satisfying when brought to fruition. Some of the trees are kind of a pain because they require you to branch off to take talents you wouldn't otherwise(specifically trees like the rogue's Specialist tree) but I guess that's more design I disagree with than I necessarily dislike. Dialogue is more streamlined, and better for it. I actually agree with the decision to remove skills from the leveling process, as I didn't feel that they really added very much and were a relic of the bygone age of role playing. On that note, I also liked that disarming traps and opening chests was moved from talents or even skills to just a Cunning requirement. That's another thing I liked, which was that ability points were more clearly streamlined, and that amor required the class's own key abilities and not just Strength. The inventory system seems fine, with less random crap clogging the inventory space, so you could just sell off all the junk in one go. I appreciate what this also did with the companions' armor, though I would have liked more visible changes on the models with each upgrade. I understand the need to have the characters change appearance given certain in-game events, but it would have been nice to see the effects of the upgrades in more than just stats. I was a fan of the change in the crafting system, from having to collect individual components to just searching for resource deposits, though having them be missable while not warning how much was still missing in each act was a bit alarming for the completionist in me. Also, I was a bit disappointed that there were only a few runes that didn't just do damage, or prevent damage or add armor and such.
Not everything about the gameplay was an improvement, however. As you have probably heard from many people already, the use of Mass Effect-style recycled maps was a huge turnoff. After the first couple of instances, where I walked around confused as to whether I was actually in the same area, I became annoyed. After the tenth time, I lost faith. There are other issues, such as bugs(game freezing, a certain quest triggering when it was not supposed to) and minor issues, such as enemies spawning out of thin air which made strategic positioning useless in certain situations, but for the most part, the gameplay was improved. Except when it came to the part of gameplay which happened to intersect with the storytelling...
The story is where I felt most let down by this game. I played through Origins. Twice the first goaround, then a couple of times right before Witch Hunt. Awakening, too. I loved it. The thing that I loved most about it was the sense that if not every, at least most of the decisions I made in that world mattered. Sure, there were ways to cleverly talk my way out of unfavorable situations, but decisions carried weight. What kept me playing time and again was to see how my different decisions would affect the outcomes of the people of that world.
The first thing that struck me was how little my actions from Origins affected the events of DA2. This is understandable, since Origins took place in Ferelden, far away from Kirkwall. However, without giving too much away, let's just say I was surprised to see how little it affect those who did show up in DA2, and those who didn't. There were some hanging threads at the end of Origins that were not addressed, and some events in Origins which seemed to have either been completely ignored.
That wasn't as striking to me as what actually laid in store for me in terms of actual choice in DA2. DA2, being ostensibly the successor to Origins, seemed to have been promising decisions. It was billed as being "how Hawke became Champion of Kirkwall," which it did, in a way, deliver. However, the general feeling I got from it was of very little of the decisions mattering. I obviously can't go into specifics, but on several occasions, I played through, was dissatisfied with what happened, then later re-loaded to make a new, branching save, but found the exact same situation arose. At a couple of these, I loaded saves from more than a few hours beforehand to try and see if they would make a difference. They didn't. I know that this was done to somehow prevent confusion on the part of the developers of future titles, because having actual choices that mattered would make programming that hypothetical future sequel more difficult, but just having a couple of reasonable branching points which at least felt like they mattered would have been nice.
I've heard Origins described as a game where you "shape your story," and I've always thought of it like that. In contrast, DA2's message, especially with some of the main story points, is that whatever you end up choosing, you don't affect anything. Like it's a meta-textual message from Bioware, saying, "even someone as supposedly great as the Champion of Kirkwall can't affect any change, no matter how hard s/he tries." And believe me, I've tried. If that was your aim, Bioware, then congratulations, you have somehow introduced me to a feeling of helplessness. Yes, through this game, now I really know that I really CAN'T do anything, even if I try hard and put my mind to it. In the end, it's hard to care about a struggle in which you can't change how it turns out, and you can barely even change how it plays out.
#1971
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 10:10
Crusher Bob
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- Members
- 2 messages
Normal
0
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Almost to the end of act I.
---Not enough interaction with the characters.
I've had more interactions with the dog than any of the other characters.
It seems like, whenever I go back to the uncle's house, I can click on the dog
and get something interesting.
Any of the other characters, It seems like I just get one or two talks with
them. That makes it much harder to get a feel for their personalities.
I get disapproval from Carver a lot, but since I can't talk to him, I have very
little idea for what his motivations are.
No real interactions with Hawke's mother either, she has less buy in that the noble
origin mother in Origins, or the city elf father character.
--Weak motivation
Why am I doing stuff, again? I want a big pile of money, because I'm poor
or something, I guess. But the game hasn't really presented any
disadvantage to my current state of 'poorness'. In the city elf or dwarf
commoner origin, you saw plenty of disadvantages to your lack of money and
power, so If offered a chance to try to strike it big in the deep roads, either
of those characters might have gone along. Hawke, not so much.
--Time skip is too 'empty'
So I spent a year either as a smuggler or a mercenary, but apparently I drank
so much during that year that I don't remember it, or something.
The way I'd have done it: You and your sibling are sitting in a bar at
the end of the year and have a discussion about the various things that
happened. You make choices about what happened during the
conversation. Then Varric's brother comes in and you try to approach him
to join the expedition. To explain why Varric knows this stuff, you can
show him sitting in the background in the bar during the establishing shot, he
listened to your conversation.
Example:
During the conversation, you have some choice about your interaction with
Worthy, the dwarf.
Then, when you meet Worthy later, you can have three different lead in
sentences with him:
Worthy, with eye patch:
"I'm always glad to see my good friend Hawke. If you hadn't come along
they'd have put out my other eye, too."
Or
"I'm out of that life now, Hawke. It was all fun and games until I
lost my eye"
or
"Of course I'd never try to cheat you again, Hawke. You'd put out my
other eye."
So for a one sentence conversation about Worthy with your sibling and a 1
sentence lead in when you meet Worthy, you have a choice about your
relationship with him and then get to see the 'effect' when you meet him for
the first time.
--The templars are supposed to be scary, but it seems like they can't find
their ass with both hands. I'm worried about being found out as a mage,
but I'm walking down the city street raining down fire and lightning
everywhere. Of course, if I was playing a mage there is no other in game
option to deal with the strangely suicidal and huge bands of thugs that seem to
roam the streets.
--Skill tree has too many quantitative increases.
I can increase my mind blast knockback force. Um, yeah...
--Combat not very interesting
The additional monsters that spawn out of nowhere means that there is little
reason to try to keep to a formation and no really way to form a front line and
a back line.
The small areas and constrictive cameras make for AOE spells that hit the
entire combat.
In DA:O the aoe spells could be decisive if you landed them, but since you
could also blow up your own party, you have to be careful with them. In
DA2, since friendly fire is default off, you just throw the AOE spell at your
feet to increase the damage you do to the monsters. And since the AOE
spells aren't decisive anymore, turning on friendly fire just makes them mostly
worthless, since the monsters as a group have a lot more health to waste than
your party does.
It also feels like the human choices in combat are greatly reduced; if I could
just turn over control of everyone to the computer and let it control everyone,
I could read a book or something until the combat ended.
--Redesigned darkspawn don't look scary at all.
--No felt presence of people who will be important later
I'm assuming that Knight-Commander Meredith will be important later, but I haven’t
seen any signs of her influence yet. So if I have to fight her later,
she'll just be a name, not a villain.
And there are supposed to be mages on the other side, but other than my crew, I
haven't really seen any of them either.
If, like the Witcher, I could just let the two groups kill each other and do my
own thing, it probably wouldn't be so bad; But combined with my own lack
of motivation, and the fact that I sounds like I'll be forced to side with one
of them later on in the game, I should already be seeing the pros and cons of
both groups.
I remember having more mage vs. templar stuff in DA:O, and it really wasn't the
point of the story there.
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Almost to the end of act I.
---Not enough interaction with the characters.
I've had more interactions with the dog than any of the other characters.
It seems like, whenever I go back to the uncle's house, I can click on the dog
and get something interesting.
Any of the other characters, It seems like I just get one or two talks with
them. That makes it much harder to get a feel for their personalities.
I get disapproval from Carver a lot, but since I can't talk to him, I have very
little idea for what his motivations are.
No real interactions with Hawke's mother either, she has less buy in that the noble
origin mother in Origins, or the city elf father character.
--Weak motivation
Why am I doing stuff, again? I want a big pile of money, because I'm poor
or something, I guess. But the game hasn't really presented any
disadvantage to my current state of 'poorness'. In the city elf or dwarf
commoner origin, you saw plenty of disadvantages to your lack of money and
power, so If offered a chance to try to strike it big in the deep roads, either
of those characters might have gone along. Hawke, not so much.
--Time skip is too 'empty'
So I spent a year either as a smuggler or a mercenary, but apparently I drank
so much during that year that I don't remember it, or something.
The way I'd have done it: You and your sibling are sitting in a bar at
the end of the year and have a discussion about the various things that
happened. You make choices about what happened during the
conversation. Then Varric's brother comes in and you try to approach him
to join the expedition. To explain why Varric knows this stuff, you can
show him sitting in the background in the bar during the establishing shot, he
listened to your conversation.
Example:
During the conversation, you have some choice about your interaction with
Worthy, the dwarf.
Then, when you meet Worthy later, you can have three different lead in
sentences with him:
Worthy, with eye patch:
"I'm always glad to see my good friend Hawke. If you hadn't come along
they'd have put out my other eye, too."
Or
"I'm out of that life now, Hawke. It was all fun and games until I
lost my eye"
or
"Of course I'd never try to cheat you again, Hawke. You'd put out my
other eye."
So for a one sentence conversation about Worthy with your sibling and a 1
sentence lead in when you meet Worthy, you have a choice about your
relationship with him and then get to see the 'effect' when you meet him for
the first time.
--The templars are supposed to be scary, but it seems like they can't find
their ass with both hands. I'm worried about being found out as a mage,
but I'm walking down the city street raining down fire and lightning
everywhere. Of course, if I was playing a mage there is no other in game
option to deal with the strangely suicidal and huge bands of thugs that seem to
roam the streets.
--Skill tree has too many quantitative increases.
I can increase my mind blast knockback force. Um, yeah...
--Combat not very interesting
The additional monsters that spawn out of nowhere means that there is little
reason to try to keep to a formation and no really way to form a front line and
a back line.
The small areas and constrictive cameras make for AOE spells that hit the
entire combat.
In DA:O the aoe spells could be decisive if you landed them, but since you
could also blow up your own party, you have to be careful with them. In
DA2, since friendly fire is default off, you just throw the AOE spell at your
feet to increase the damage you do to the monsters. And since the AOE
spells aren't decisive anymore, turning on friendly fire just makes them mostly
worthless, since the monsters as a group have a lot more health to waste than
your party does.
It also feels like the human choices in combat are greatly reduced; if I could
just turn over control of everyone to the computer and let it control everyone,
I could read a book or something until the combat ended.
--Redesigned darkspawn don't look scary at all.
--No felt presence of people who will be important later
I'm assuming that Knight-Commander Meredith will be important later, but I haven’t
seen any signs of her influence yet. So if I have to fight her later,
she'll just be a name, not a villain.
And there are supposed to be mages on the other side, but other than my crew, I
haven't really seen any of them either.
If, like the Witcher, I could just let the two groups kill each other and do my
own thing, it probably wouldn't be so bad; But combined with my own lack
of motivation, and the fact that I sounds like I'll be forced to side with one
of them later on in the game, I should already be seeing the pros and cons of
both groups.
I remember having more mage vs. templar stuff in DA:O, and it really wasn't the
point of the story there.
#1972
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 10:17
wiskeylab
-
- Members
- 41 messages
so i just registered my copy of da2, how do i download the soundtrack for it? i registered an xbox 360 version of it if it helps.
#1973
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 10:35
stubbieAussie
-
- Members
- 139 messages
I must admit - after horrible demo I did not even buy the game, simply downloaded it from torrent just to see how bad it is. And yes, it is just as horrible as I expected. Sorry, this is not worth any money, not after I have seen what games this company could make.
A plus for actually admitting in an offical forum that you didnt buy the game.
A negative for trying the demo and hating it but still supporting pirating by downloading a torrent of the full game.
And because you didnt buy the game I think you have no right to post an opinion about the full game here. [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/angry.png[/smilie]
Modifié par stubbieAussie, 16 mars 2011 - 10:36 .
#1974
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 10:40
Clammo
-
- Members
- 150 messages
Ok, well I'm going to do this review now, before I've completed the game, as that's never going to happen. I tried, I really did, however I can't manage to bring myself to play anymore of this. And that's quite an admission as I've shamelessly played and replayed just about every Bioware game going with wild geek-like abandon.
No tactical view was a huge negative for me. I played in tactical mode for around 95% of DA:O, and not being able to full see what my party are doing at all times is incredibly frustrating. Fortunately the game's been made so embarrassingly easy that they were never in any real danger anyway.
My character choice was to play a rogue (the other choices being warrior or mage)who can't seem to steal, what happened to picking pockets? Presumably that's been removed as it's too complicated, like much of the heart of what made DA:Origins great.
My rogue Hawke spun and whirled round the battlefield in a series of superfluous moves, looking much like a spastic marionette, inflicting unfeasibly obscene amounts of damage on hapless enemies that seem to explode at a mere pinprick. Ugh, made the game feel really cheapened and well, yes, dumbed down. Backstab as a rogue, my favourite move in DA:Origins has been made easier - what was so difficult about the concept of positioning my character behind someone to stab them in the back, as the name would imply? Nope, not now, now I seemingly teleport behind someone, as part of the general theme of simplifying the game. Awesome.
Enemies re-spawning in repetitive, tedious waves right in front of me. Every. Single. Fight. Ugh, seriously irritating, and a blatant attempt to pad the game length out.
No racial choices. In another obscure move, Bioware decided to remove this element of roleplay, so now we're left with default human Hawke, the protagonist.
Locations are re-used far too many times in an effort to cut costs. It shows. Makes the game feel cramped, repetitive, cheap and nasty. Also, locations are tiny, narrow little maps with no points of interest. The main city, Kirkwall, feels devoid of life and atmosphere.
The conversation wheel, presumably implemented for the TL,DR generation. It's plain awful. Many times it says something you weren't expecting, in a tone you hadn't intended. Makes the conversational side of the game feel like guesswork. And yes, despite assurances to the contrary pre-release, the choices are nearly always good, neutral and evil. How exciting.
The voice - well a spoken protagonist is a huge problem if you hate their voice. Considering voice acting is one of the more expensive elements of making games then, in light of other obvious areas of weakness in the game, the money could have been much better spent.
Customising my party inventory. Nope. That went the way of streamlining too. The only person we can equip properly is Hawke.
Far too many cutscenes, taking me out of the game, it's very jarring. I didn't want a vaguely interactive movie, I wanted a game. There's so many it feels like you've firmly stepped into the ridiculous realms of Final Fanatasy 13. They even happen mid-fight at times, often with very hammy acting - if that isn't an immersion breaker I don't know what is.
Friendly fire removal at all but nightmare difficulty was a huge mistake. Most of us don't want teeth-grindingly frustrating difficulty, yet to restore this element of tactics we have to play at nightmare. Now the game is an endless session of spamming fireball's by the party mage, which now our party of front line heroes can miraculously walk from unscathed.
The art style feels and looks cartoony, I kept expecting Snarf and the Thundercats to roll up any moment. Enemies don't feel in any way menacing because of this, merely laughable.
The story. Not sure how this went so wrong as it's normally Bioware's forte, but it was dull and very fragmented. Having the story take place over years was one of those 'hmm this seems interesting as a concept' ideas. However in practice it made the game disjointed with no sense of cohesion. I felt no ties to the characters in game (including my own), never really gelled with any of them, friends or foe alike. Show me why I feel emotion about people and places, don't just dump them on me and expect me to care.
The only plus I can find is that I didn't encounter any significant bugs.
I'm not really sure why this game went so wrong. It felt incredibly rushed - presumably to meet EA's financial
targets, whereas it obviously needed at least another year in development to fill these ideas out. There was no real sense of direction, and was clearly done on a shoestring budget in comparison to DA:Origins which probably didn't help, but really it was the simpification of it that was worst. The game felt aimed at a target audience too young to legally buy it.
DA2 felt aimed at console gamers and what developers perceive console gamers to love (presumably because they're so rarely given any alternatives). Button-mashing hack and slash, overly simplified to the point of insulting, lots of over the top blood and gore - generally the lowest common denominator game mechanics. Although I'm generally a PC gamer I feel the need to stick up for console gamers here - they're not monosyllabic idiots so please stop treating them as such. They can handle complexity both in game mechanics and story, yet the game felt tailored to the stereotypical view of consoles - in the words of one Bioware developer "press a button, something awesome happens" - and in that he was right - I pressed the quit game button and it was the most awesome part of DA2 for me.
4/10
No tactical view was a huge negative for me. I played in tactical mode for around 95% of DA:O, and not being able to full see what my party are doing at all times is incredibly frustrating. Fortunately the game's been made so embarrassingly easy that they were never in any real danger anyway.
My character choice was to play a rogue (the other choices being warrior or mage)who can't seem to steal, what happened to picking pockets? Presumably that's been removed as it's too complicated, like much of the heart of what made DA:Origins great.
My rogue Hawke spun and whirled round the battlefield in a series of superfluous moves, looking much like a spastic marionette, inflicting unfeasibly obscene amounts of damage on hapless enemies that seem to explode at a mere pinprick. Ugh, made the game feel really cheapened and well, yes, dumbed down. Backstab as a rogue, my favourite move in DA:Origins has been made easier - what was so difficult about the concept of positioning my character behind someone to stab them in the back, as the name would imply? Nope, not now, now I seemingly teleport behind someone, as part of the general theme of simplifying the game. Awesome.
Enemies re-spawning in repetitive, tedious waves right in front of me. Every. Single. Fight. Ugh, seriously irritating, and a blatant attempt to pad the game length out.
No racial choices. In another obscure move, Bioware decided to remove this element of roleplay, so now we're left with default human Hawke, the protagonist.
Locations are re-used far too many times in an effort to cut costs. It shows. Makes the game feel cramped, repetitive, cheap and nasty. Also, locations are tiny, narrow little maps with no points of interest. The main city, Kirkwall, feels devoid of life and atmosphere.
The conversation wheel, presumably implemented for the TL,DR generation. It's plain awful. Many times it says something you weren't expecting, in a tone you hadn't intended. Makes the conversational side of the game feel like guesswork. And yes, despite assurances to the contrary pre-release, the choices are nearly always good, neutral and evil. How exciting.
The voice - well a spoken protagonist is a huge problem if you hate their voice. Considering voice acting is one of the more expensive elements of making games then, in light of other obvious areas of weakness in the game, the money could have been much better spent.
Customising my party inventory. Nope. That went the way of streamlining too. The only person we can equip properly is Hawke.
Far too many cutscenes, taking me out of the game, it's very jarring. I didn't want a vaguely interactive movie, I wanted a game. There's so many it feels like you've firmly stepped into the ridiculous realms of Final Fanatasy 13. They even happen mid-fight at times, often with very hammy acting - if that isn't an immersion breaker I don't know what is.
Friendly fire removal at all but nightmare difficulty was a huge mistake. Most of us don't want teeth-grindingly frustrating difficulty, yet to restore this element of tactics we have to play at nightmare. Now the game is an endless session of spamming fireball's by the party mage, which now our party of front line heroes can miraculously walk from unscathed.
The art style feels and looks cartoony, I kept expecting Snarf and the Thundercats to roll up any moment. Enemies don't feel in any way menacing because of this, merely laughable.
The story. Not sure how this went so wrong as it's normally Bioware's forte, but it was dull and very fragmented. Having the story take place over years was one of those 'hmm this seems interesting as a concept' ideas. However in practice it made the game disjointed with no sense of cohesion. I felt no ties to the characters in game (including my own), never really gelled with any of them, friends or foe alike. Show me why I feel emotion about people and places, don't just dump them on me and expect me to care.
The only plus I can find is that I didn't encounter any significant bugs.
I'm not really sure why this game went so wrong. It felt incredibly rushed - presumably to meet EA's financial
targets, whereas it obviously needed at least another year in development to fill these ideas out. There was no real sense of direction, and was clearly done on a shoestring budget in comparison to DA:Origins which probably didn't help, but really it was the simpification of it that was worst. The game felt aimed at a target audience too young to legally buy it.
DA2 felt aimed at console gamers and what developers perceive console gamers to love (presumably because they're so rarely given any alternatives). Button-mashing hack and slash, overly simplified to the point of insulting, lots of over the top blood and gore - generally the lowest common denominator game mechanics. Although I'm generally a PC gamer I feel the need to stick up for console gamers here - they're not monosyllabic idiots so please stop treating them as such. They can handle complexity both in game mechanics and story, yet the game felt tailored to the stereotypical view of consoles - in the words of one Bioware developer "press a button, something awesome happens" - and in that he was right - I pressed the quit game button and it was the most awesome part of DA2 for me.
4/10
Modifié par Clammo, 23 mars 2011 - 05:11 .
#1975
Posté 16 mars 2011 - 11:27
CorgiDaddy
-
- Members
- 3 messages
Not even out of act 1 and I'm seeing recycled dungeon maps. That's pretty pathetic. I can overlook game redesign easier than I can overlook Deja Vu Cave.
Yes, I know I'm playing slowly, but I keep falling asleep while playing the game. No joke. Probably a sign that I should trade it in while I can still get money for it, but I spent $60 on this. I'm going to finish it, durn it.
Yes, I know I'm playing slowly, but I keep falling asleep while playing the game. No joke. Probably a sign that I should trade it in while I can still get money for it, but I spent $60 on this. I'm going to finish it, durn it.
Modifié par Corvus Stormblade, 16 mars 2011 - 11:32 .
