3274 réponses à ce sujet

[Medhia Nox]

How does your opinion on what score you would give something mean he contradicted himself?

I'd give the game a 40 out of 100 myself - but that's beside the point.

[AnnaBananaBamBamBoo]

Yeeeep just as I figured all the complainers are the PC versionists. This game gets an 11 out of 10 in my books, haven't found a single legitimate complaint other than from those who really should be playing the p&p version of the game because there's no way in hell you're gonna get what you ask for within your lifetime.

[Tirigon]

Medhia Nox wrote...

How does your opinion on what score you would give something mean he contradicted himself?

I'd give the game a 40 out of 100 myself - but that's beside the point.

Because giving 70 of 100 to a disappointment is something I can´t imagine any sane person would do.

70 means it´s not special, but definitely decent and NOT bad, whereas a disappointment means it is bad.

[Erika T]

 Good game?  Yes.  Good "epic sequel to DA:O, game of the year 2009"? Not even close. 
Background:   29y old pc gamer relatively new to gaming; played all MEs, Fallout3 and NV, and 200+ hours on DA:O across 8 full playthroughs. DA:2:  2 playthroughs, one female rouge and one female mage. 
Here's my review: 
If DA2 had been the first RPG I played I would have loved it from beginning to end. It is a good game with an ok story, cool fighting, funny lines and it entertained me for over 20 hours already - so ok value for my £40.  I like the characters, the names and the world, the companions are interesting, and I like that you can have conversations with them, all in all not bad.  A huge improvement from mass effect in terms of conversation.  I really would have enjoyed it tremendously. 

If only DA:O hadn't spoilt me.  

Having played the demo, I predicted that this game will be a dumbed down version of DAO and I said I would be the happiest person if I have to come back and admit I was wrong.  Sadly I wasn't.  Whilst the game is enjoyable enough to play, i expected much more from the creators of DAO.  Here's why:

Graphics are just worse than DAO.  Its an art to create a beautiful character, and the most interesting hair styles and colours are missing - why? 

I felt zero connection to both my hawkes.  Due to the dialogue wheel system, which I hate with passion, they never say what I want them to say . It's downright stupid at times.  I could come up with thousands of examples but the freshest one comes to mind - romancing Fenris, he comes to my hawke and says something along the lines of "I'll go if you want me to", then I have three options, one is "don't go", and the other two break the romance.  so I went for "don't go",and what does my Hawke say?  "Did I say anything?" - now how stupid is this?  Why can't she say "don't go"?  or, I dont know "I'm glad you came - don't go" or whatever.  There are so many examples.  I ended up scrolling through so many dialogues just with ESC because I didnt want to get annoyed at what my character is saying.  A huge, HUGE step back from DAO.

Must mention that I didnt dislike the voice, but given the choice, i would rather go for a mute hero and be able to choose the exact lines 9ideally, a voiced hero with exact lines, even if its a repetition).  Come on Bioware, the majority of players are not 12 y old xbox kids who are lazy to read.  I LOVEd the long lines in DAO.

So many things break the immersion.  Like when you kill an enemy and instead of a dead body, you get a badly designed sign of coins to signal "loot".  Like when you kill a group of enemies with fireball and they end up all being cut into half (!) and bleeding - wtf? Like when a companion wants to talk to you, they're in your part, but you cant talk unless youre in their home.  like when you pick up a random item, you see a codex entry, then walk over to the guy with an arrow over his head and you get some coin.. and say something.. even though i didnt even know there was a quest.  When my character jumps 10 meters and i feel like im in Ninja Age 2.  

Speaking of quests - this is where the game has been dumped down to death.  go to place A, speak to the guy with the arrow, then go to place b, speak, go to play C, slay, collect, go to place A, get coin.  Repeat.  No puzzles, no multiple ways of solving quests, no real choices.  This is probably my biggest problem with the game - the choices.  You do not have any.  No Lady of the forest vs zathrian, no grand oak vs. hermit, no bhelen vs harrowmont, you just have to follow the story - and then this makes it bioware's story, not mine, erika's story.  And this is a shame.  

Repetitive dungeons:  everyones complaining about it, Id idnt mind it as much as others, but i was sad to be bored after a couple of hours.  
No ability to equip party members with robes or armor - what a shame and a missed opportunity.  Huge huge step back from DAO.  

Combat:  yes, its fast.  yes, it looks cool.  Yes, I admit, I enjoyed playing in combat.  To a point.  then the wave of enemies makes it just boring and breaks the immersion.  Come on, i am the champion of kirkwall, I just killed 20 of your mercenaries with a bat of an eyelid, why in the world would you 5 jump down from the roof to keep attacking me? Everything about combat breaks the immersion:  too fast, too unreal, too cool.  use of potions too slow, regeneration too fast, enemies falling have silly animations (if I kill it with a lightning bolt, I dont want it to be cut into half).

Interface:  dumbed down big time.  it was beautiful and elaborate in DAO, its just dull and modern in DA2.  A shame again and a step back.  As for the abilities - i dont mind the new trees / new system.  Fine either way.  

Party:  a mixed bag of feelings.  Isabela - I just didnt even have her because she looks ridiculous.  i am not a fat 13 y old spotty teenager who has never seen a real woman in life.  she is just vulgar in looks and in nature as well.  shame as she seemed quite an interesting character in DAO.  Anders - I really liked the idea of andres and justice and I think they could have delved deeper into this character.  A huge missed opportunity.  romanced him on one playthrough - its really bad that you cannot inititate romance or even a kiss.  Mass Effect all over again - Shame.  Fenris - did he come from tevinter or from final fantasy?  Come on, your fresh young lovely female hawke sleeps with the brooding ex slave, and then they dont even mention it for three years?  how real is this??  One thing I loved about DAO that it was a clever game.  Sadly, DA2 is not. Varric - a very interesting and likeable character.  He is really well written.  Merril - a big confusion there - what?  how?  why?  even after her personal quest I am not convinced... I cannot exactly articulate why as it would be spoilers... Aveline - she was fine, and another well written character.  The brother and sister, i just didnt have a connection with.  At all.  And whilst at DAO I cried, (actually cried!) when alistair broke up with me and then at the last moment sacrificed himself for me; here nothing, not even after what happened with my sibling or mother.  

Main story:  well thats just one big allusion to something huge and epic but i just didnt feel the tension or the goosebumps which I got at DAO all the time.  neither in act 1 - (whats the big deal?), or act 2 (fought them in DAO countless times, again, whats the big deal?); or act 3 - wow, blood magic, how original - hang on, not really, one third of DAO was about blood magic.  was DA2 just a demo to DA3?  


Good things about the game (try ing to be spoiler free)
what Bioware did with that first NPC we encounter who is also from Origins - great
party banter - well written and fab
cameos from DAO
lots of beautiful robes to choose from
you can choose the order of your quests to a point

and funnily enough - all these are things they took from DAO and did not change! 

Bottom line - not a bad game but a terrible, terrible sequel.  A huge step back for bioware.  I read somewhere that development was rushed and I can see that - if someone from Bioware is reading this, here's my 2 pence:  Please put together a game properly, spend 3X as much time on  it to make it clever, deep and engaging, make it worthy of being called Dragon Age.  And if you do it, I won't mind waiting for 2-3 more years.  And i won't mind paying three times the price for it.  Promise.  

[Dissolution]

OMGAH Uncharted 3 too! lol

[Erika T]

so rating: as a standalone game: 7/10. as a dao sequel - 3/10

[HalPlantagenet]

Kudos to you, Erika T. Your equitable, thoughtful review is perhaps the best I've read anywhere. It comes very close to summarizing my own feelings as well, by the way. I hope that EA and Bioware give it the careful attention it deserves as they plan future DA products and entertainment.

[cyrusmuc]

What a waste. This could have been a great franchise. I love DA:O very much and regret every single cent spend on DA2.

In a nut shell: the graphics are obviously better, but taking a closer look it's pretty clear: money was saved in production by receycling NPCs endlessly. Females (even parents) are ridiculously sexed up in order to serve a adulescent male consumer base. The controls and all relevant RPG aspects are seriosly dumbed down, "Consoleros" will find it great. Dungeons are mainly based on the same basic model reused over and over again.

I'm sorry for every single cent and won't preorder any future Bioware Games. I despise the greed of the producers and my own naiveté. Believing Bioware would stick to the high quality standards of the series while it was able to cash in on a inexpensivly produced cash cow was plain dumb.

[gamefemme]

Disappointing... I loved DA:O. In fact it took the "my favorite PC RPG" title from FALLOUT 1 and 2 respectively. I was so excited about the game that I did something I rarely do: PREORDERED. I only did so because I thought, "Hey, the first game was so awesome, I'm sure the sequel will be too."

WRONG.

* Too Short (finished in 40 hours, as opposed to over 80 hours in DA:O)
*Companion interaction was not nearly as immersive. I didn't like too many of the NPC's and It didn't matter. Many were complete rivals, and yet fought with me in the end?
*No real control over the world, my choices didn't really make a difference. The End was always the same.
*Disliked the "Choice" options. Everything was morally grey, which made it seems like nothing was changed for the better.
*Abrupt ending, with no Closure... and no narrative saying what the world was like afterwards.
*Dumbed down for console... adding to the lack of feeling in control of the game.

I will not pre-order a bioware game again, I will wait for reviews and price drops before buying.

Honestly, as much as it pains me to say this, I wish I had my 40 hours and 70 bucks back.

One GOOD thing...  The nods to the original game, althought the character meshes for Alistair and Zevran were horrible... but even the reminders of how awesome DA:O was weren't enough to make this a good game.

Modifié par gamefemme, 18 mars 2011 - 04:09 .

[PhoenixSpartan5]

 I have say to i love and hate this game, i have always been an avid bioware gamer always love the games, but dragon age 2 is starting to make me loose faith. i have played through 1 playthrough and i am on act 3 of another, and i have to say the combat system makes me stay more in the fighting so i do like that. I just dont like that dragon age 2 is getting less like an rpg. there are fewer endings ( only 2 i think) and less customization, but the thing i hate most of all is that interaction with your companions is less personal, now you can only realy talk to them when the game lets you, you cant converse with them to get to know there deeper back stories which i hate so much, that is the one thing i have loved about bioware games the fact that i can realy get to know my companions, But the more i play this game the less it feels like a bioware game. When ever someone asks me about bioware i always say "Its the greatest rpg maker ever!" now to me those words are starting to ring alittle hallow

Also just wondering when the patch is gonna come out im tired of not get achievements, not being able to get all the rune slots for fully upgrading my companions armor, and im also tired of my cutscenes being stretched and strobing between stretched and condensed. 

[PhoenixSpartan5]

Erika T everything you said is exactly how i felt too

[PhoenixSpartan5]

i give the game a 7/10 for now

Modifié par PhoenixSpartan5, 18 mars 2011 - 05:24 .

[BosnickelKobold]

Erika's review FTW.

[helifax]

First of all I will give you some info about my background: I am a hardcore RPG player. I played all of Bioware's games more times that I can count starting with MDK (if people still remember it) and up to DA2. Now I see alot of people around giving bad and poor reviews...with different reasons for their disappointed. A review of a game, as of any other thing, should be from an objectiv point of view. This means, that DO NOT compare DA2 with DAO since it is a different game! We all wanted a sequel right? not another expansion! I agree with some of the points that they copied a well going formula from Mass Effect, the game looks more like an action-rpg than DAO etc... I will not say over again all the things that have already been said.
SO BEFORE WE BEGIN...FORGET ABOUT DAO WHILE YOU READ THIS!
So I will structure my review like this:
--------------------------
Artistic aspects:
--------------------------
Story - From the artistic point I say DA2 is better then DAO. I
really loved the way the story unfolds. What is wrong people?? We all
want epic stories these days? Save the earth, save the galaxy, save
everything kind of story? Well, this is not in real life ..is it? They
wanted to show the following thing (which they achieved in all it's
splendor): A lenged, a hero is not a different type of person then you
and me. We all have potential to do this. If you want to be a "legend"
you have to start working from the bottom up. Yes DAO had an epic
FAIRY-TALE story: "Save the World"; DA2 has a "dull" story of a
man/woman who happens to be at the right moment at the right time and by using his head (you command his head) he achieves something spectacular.
For this I "applaud" you Bioware!! All the games now have EPIX
stories...too few games present a story as it could be in real life! for
this I give a Score : 10/10.
Companions - Even if some companions aren't as memorable as
those from DAO, I still have some of them in my mind! Like "Fenris" the
"little white wolf". His story is very well written, his voice over
really suits the character. Isabella suits well her character even if
she's not as memorable as she could be...but her role of a pirate girl
is well depicted. Anders is somehow changed...but this can be explained
by the fact that he also represents Justice and Vengence. I simply loved
the innocence of "Merrill" who happens to be a good person driven by
good motives in a bad world. It reminds me that not all bad people are
"bad", some simply happen to be so naive and make "bad" deals (Even
Morrigan wasn't a bad person...just different in many ways). Score:
9/10
Atmosphere - I like the feel of the city...the athmosphere is
well balanced with moments of tension and moments of relief... The
environments are very well detailed and make you feel like you are
there. Like in all Bioware games, I love the fact that your companions
aren't MUTES. It is very refreshing to walk down an ally and two of you
companions chat, make a joke or even taunt each other. This is one of
those things that add spice to the game. Score 9/10.
Music - DAO didn't had rememorable soundtracks. DA2 has many of
them. Simply 10/10
Combat - I like the fact that the combat is coreographed. It
looked so dull and simplistic in DAO. Score: 10/10
Quests - All the quests in the game have an element of surprise
even if they don't require you to save the planet from a meteorite!) I
like how the quests are more "normal" ones. They give you the
impressions that even you as a person can do it....until something gets
wrong. So I give a 9/10.
---------------------------------
Technical aspect:
---------------------------------
Stability - I have a QUAD 2xGTX 295; AMD Phenom II X4-955 CPU (quad)+ 8GB DDR3 1600hz. On this computer I had little stability problems. DX9 renders up to 120fps. However DX11 on High effects ( DX 10 Compatible) gives some poorer results in terms of FPS. No crash or other errors here. So the game is preaty much stable but poor optimized. Score is 8/10.

Controls - Many times, in combat it happend to me to be unable to move my character by using the keyboard. Normally I either have to use the mouse or pause the game and un-pause to be able to run it. Score 7/10.

Sound system - a very good sound system, with no distensions or poor quality. The audio quality is very good. Score 10/10.

Graphics - Graphics are nice..love the detailed environments and armors. Love the way the characters are animated and modeled. And YES I like THE ELVES ( they look ALIEN now...not like humans with big ears!!!). I give the Score of 9/10 for minor clipping artifacts I saw here and there. Also the QUNARI are Alien and fierce full too.

Level design - The dungeons that are implemented are very detailed and look believable. HOWEVER...they should made at least 2-3 more dungeons to swap between them...or at least a random dungeon generator like Diablo 1 used to have:). Score 7/10 (the score is high due to the fact that I liked how they are designed.)

Combat - The combat is fast pace which is a good improvement, but sometime this might appear to be to fast. So overall the feeling is of an action-RPG rather than a classic RPG. Score 8/10.

Video - the video sequence could have been a higher res. Score 8/10.

Bugs - Not many glitches but some of them are really annoying, like Merrills ACT 3 quest. Some glitches in all the acts, like broken quests if not done in an order. Score 6/10. Hope they will be fixed soon.

========================================================
---------------------Stereoscopic Support - 3D Vision Compatibility-----------------------

The game performs very well in Stereo 3D. The only thing that is out of sync is the sky. One eye renders a different image than the other.
Another problem is with framerate. This is rather an nVidia driver fault as the FPS drops to half even on SLI setups. So in order to play in stereo 3D, either play on DX9 or DX10-11 be sure that you have at least double FPS in plain 3D.
Like all Bioware games, this title can be played very well in 3D.
Score: 8/10
========================================================
Overall Score 9/10.

That's about all I can think about right now. Hope this helps.

[DarkAstartes]

Overall I thought Dragon Age 2 was a mediocre game, which was an enormous dissapointment because I was expecting great things after the fantastic Dragon Age Origins. I think this was a console game, and it showed, the dumbing down was both obvious and horrifying.

Fistly, the combat system, I basically hated everything about it. For starters, they largely abandoned any and all realism that was present in the first game, people expode when you hit them, characters can swing around massive two handed weapons like they weigh nothing, and warriors get quasi-magical powers as standard. I liked that in Origins, if you used a two handed weapon, (as I did) your character swung slowly, and with obvious effort, watch Hawke use a 2 hander in DA2, it's insane. Also, I don't need to be able to teleport around the battlefield pulling off ''cool'' special attacks that are so over the top they look ridiculous, it really gives this game the feel of an action adventure hack and slash rather than a legitimate RPG.

Now, the mechanics of the combat system were equally dreadful in my opinion, the combat is less tactical. and much more about spamming special abilities and spells than about thinking or planning. In fact is it actually impossible to plan ahead in battles because of how new enemies are always randomly teleporting into the fight, how can you plan ahead when you never know up front how hard a fight is going to be or what you are facing? You walk into a room to fight a bunch of low level enemies, next thing you know a bunch of high level ones and a boss jump down from the cieling at you. This was ok in Origins when it only happened with certain enemies for legitimate reasons (spiders on the cieling, stealth enemies popping into the fight), but every single enemy type in the entire game? This was in my opinion the single worst and most irritiating feature of DA2 that seriously reduced the fun I had while playing it. Along with that, the single most obvious piece of dumbing down in this game was with the difficulty settings, why is friendly fire only for nightmare? It's because the game isn't really designed with friendly fire in mind right? In Origins, friendly fire was standard, only casual turned it off, I tried to play on Nightmare for this one reason, but the difficulty at that level is just ridiculous, especially with the teleporting waves of new enemies in damn near every fight. Basically, you arent meant to think or plan or be tactical, you're just supposed to spam spells and abilities until the various waves of enemies are dead, and it's all been made to look ''cooler'' and ''sexier'' so that this wll supposedly be fun, like the battles in Origins were.


The combat system really is my main complaint and i think the one most likely to be shared by others, but there are a few more. Why did the Darkspawn need to be redone? They were fine as they were before and now look worse in my opinion. Why does this game have to borrow so heavily from Mass Effect? ME is a good series, but can't you just have two seperate games? Was it actually neccessary to turn Dragon Age into Mass Effect with swords? This really kept me from enjoying the out of combat side of things, I was always conscious of just how closely this was mirroring Mass Effect, from the dialogue wheel to having an ''official'' character (Hawke, as opposed to Sheperd) that you have to play with only cursory customization. Think about how much you were selling the Origins idea before Origins came out, ''hey, look at this, different race and class combinations have different backstories to choose from, which you get to play through, cool huh?''. Well yes, that was cool, I loved the origins aspect, think how far you broke away from that and ask yourselves if this was a sequel to Dragon Age Origins or just a Mass Effect remake in the Dragon Age universe.

[Kongwen2]

I'm having an issue and I don't know if this is the correct area to post it in so I apologize if it's not. I have been trying to transfer over my Dragon Age Origins to my Dragon Age 2. I've tried three different transfers with my Golems, Witch Hunt and Awakening (now the awakening was not the epilogue save file). My romance with Leliana never seems to transfer over while other things do like Alistar being King, my Warden being Dalish, amongst other little things. I just need to know which transfer am I suppose to use that will correct this problem.

[Relshar]

Just finished my first complete play through on the pc as a mage who sided with the circle.

The things i liked about the game were the combat animations and graphics smooth and very well done. The voice acting for the npcs were nice, but I had a hard time getting attached to any character other than Varric. I put this down to the fact i had to travel back and forth from each character home to get any conversations done with them. I hated this part. The party chatters away to each other but wont even talk to Hawke when in the street?

Crafting I didn't like it. The main reason was the fact I had to spend gold and silver to make the items I already had resources for may as well just go to the shop and buy them. The runes I like the old style more when you could take them out and swap them about and sell the extra ones to generate more gold for the nice items in the shops.

The long cool downs on the healing potions and spells was difficult to get round and I had to take my mage and Anders into most of the boss fights or I would get group wipes. Both mages were healing specced at the end so I could complete the game. Varric managed to pull aggro 99% of the time off my main tank and I couldn't keep up with the heals on him so he lay face down in the dirt. Also I found there was not enough ability points to finish off the build I was looking for either, unlike the original DA:O.

Now I move onto the inventory and equipment. WTF? I hated it. First BioWare removes our choice of race and now what armour and weapons our party can use? Role Playing games are about making choices and story line and part of those choices are what armour and weapons our characters can use and wear. With the removal of these you just turn the game into a simple hack and slash game with a genric look. And tailored upgrades for your party members made by the guys who think these are good stats to have on a rogue npc or mage npc when in fact they are useless.

Storyline wise for me this felt unfinished and I really hope it does not lead to a DA:3 where we have to play Hawke again. I want my choice of races back I want to feel epic again like DA:O. I want my equipment and inventory back for my companions and I want to speak to them where ever the hell I like, I mean who is the leader of this group ?

The maps I found to be repetative, "oh look in another square dungeon again. I wonder what the layout is?"  or "oh look the same cave again but this time the that door is locked and the other is open." Do I really have to go into the same dungeons over and over again? Its boring.
Falling NPC enemies from the sky in every fight got tiresome as well its ok for a supprise in some major storyline fights, but everytime I fight bandits or waves of slavers/ mages. I also noticed a lore breaker as well in the combat. The magic lore of Thedas says " A mage can not teleport from one point to another using magic its impossible. " Yet how can the NPC mages do this in combat ?

Summary
Good to play once, no real replay value unless your going for the unlocks on the achievements. DA:O has more replay value when compaired to DA:2. If DA:3 is the same format as DA:2 I will not be buying it till the prices come down. Dissapointed with BioWare for dumbing down a good game and format.

Modifié par Relshar, 18 mars 2011 - 06:20 .

[epeeist]

3 major pluses are:

It's a fun game to play, with enjoyable replay value, worth the money to me (especially since pre-order got the Signature edition);

Even better writing (story and dialogue) than DAO;

Presentation much better (graphics and voice acting is improved and used more, interface is easier);

3 Minuses That Are Easily Fixable (I think!):

Fix prices: there are too many really good items costing too much (at least with Black Emporium), relative to the amount of gold that can be earned in-game without cheating (or, there is too much of a price markdown for selling items vs. purchasing them, so that one can't make a good amount of money selling items);

Fix attribute requirements: given the companion armor and attribute requirements to wear the better armors (and use the classes' weapons), the player character is effectively limited to only 1/3 of the available items (i.e. usable by Hawke or not at all) - the benefits of having high attributes outside of the 2 class-centric ones seem minimal compared to the benefits of better equipment;

Add XP: I assume this will happen with future DLC allowing characters to gain more levels so as to be able to use some of the more fun abilities or equipment for more than a small fraction of the game.

3 Minuses that are Not (Easily) Fixable:

Mages, especially as a PC, public magic use ignored: With a few exceptions by e.g. the 1st mercenary or smuggler, or Fenris or other companions reacting upon 1st encounter, being a PC mage makes no difference. Cast spells with wild abandon from a magic staff in front of the templars in the Gallows, and there is no reaction. Unless there is a later in-game explanation, this is a story flaw (DAO, civil war and blight and being a Warden excused almost all...);

Much harder at least on initial playthrough without a guide, to figure out the pluses & minuses of the various abilities and what trees to pursue (and how much) - less intuitively obvious what they all do from the descriptions;

"Small" scope of game and repeated environments do limit how epic the game feels.

[themachine417]

the game is so amazing. great gameplay, awesome allies, all time enemies. but is it me or does every game bioware come out with have some kind of acheivment problem? first i beat mass effect 1 on insanity with no problem at all, but no acheivment. i beat mass efect 1 on hardcore, no acheivment, but i figured out what was wrong. then i go and do sebastians missions and heirloom or whatever and no acheivment. i dont care about acheivments really but im not sure if its my xbox, microsoft, or bioware.

[Hatchetman77]

helifax wrote...
 What is wrong people?? We all
want epic stories these days? Save the earth, save the galaxy, save
everything kind of story?

A story revolves around a central conflict.  I can't find a central conflict that the main character encounters throughout the entirety of this game.  A city where mages and templars are having conflict is a setting, not a story.  A city where Qunari have landed for some mysterious reason is also a setting and not a story. Being a refugee and trying to get rich through fetch quests is kind of a story, but not a very good one and it is dropped before the halfway point of the game when the character actually DOES get rich.  Just because a character is experiencing events in an interesting setting does not mean that there is a story.    

[Kongwen2]

I'm having an issue and I don't know if this is the correct area to post it in so I apologize if it's not. I have been trying to transfer over my Dragon Age Origins to my Dragon Age 2. I've tried three different transfers with my Golems, Witch Hunt and Awakening (now the awakening was not the epilogue save file). My romance with Leliana never seems to transfer over while other things do like Alistar being King, my Warden being Dalish, amongst other little things. I just need to know which transfer am I suppose to use that will correct this problem.

[jjkrogs]

jjkrogs wrote...

After experiencing some ridiculous technical issues before I could even begin my adventure, I'm now almost finished with DA2, and I've played enough to form some editorial opinions.  Is it a fun game?  Yeah it is, but it's not nearly as good as previous BioWare installments, and sadly, I expected this would be the side effect of their new union with EA.
 
Despite rabid defense by forum moderators and others associated with this project in the face of accusations by some fans, it seems the "Dragon Effect" punchline turned out to be true.  DA2 tries too hard to be Mass Effect in a fantasy setting, a console-focused, dumbed-down game that achieves little and seems appropriate considering the drastic hard-left in concept taken by the franchise which all but forgets about the 'origin'al plans for this once-epic series.  Now, I love Mass Effect 1/2, but they are completely seperate universes and need to be treated as such.

Dragon Age is (or at least should be) an RPG, whereas Mass Effect is a hybrid shooter as far as I'm concerned.  Many people, myself included, want an RPG to be an epic, turn-based (or at least MORE turn-based) combat system, with total character customization and a huge explorable world, memorable characters and a damn good story.  Sadly, DA2 struggles to accomplish these, and instead gives us a cartoon-like, action-oriented choose-your-own movie.
 
There's nothing wrong with that, because as I mentioned in my opening paragraph, it IS a fun game.  It's just not what I expected from a BioWare RPG, and it surely isn't what I wanted as a followup to Dragon Age: Origins.  It's what I expect for Mass Effect.  Get it?  Just because I like it in ME's universe doesn't mean I want it in DA's.
 
But clearly this is the direction BioWare is taking under the watchful eye of Electronic Arts, so we have to look for other companies now to fill what is, admittedly, a niche in gaming.  I couldn't help but miss D&D-based games of old when I was playing DA2, and that's unfortunate.  After seeing what is becoming of the Dragon Age franchise, I'd kill for a company to fire up, say, Neverwinter Nights 3...

There's nothing wrong with cinematics.  They're great in games, actually.  But if you're going to pump out sequels every 2 years, something's gotta give, and clearly substance took the hit over style in DA2.
 
Will I continue to buy Dragon Age games?  Of course I will.  But I won't ever again expect them to be epic RPGs, but instead a fun distraction while I await other games that will scatch that itch.

Now that I'm finished, here are some final comments as a continuation of my initial review:


-- I really like a voiced NPC, and I considered that an improvement, though I know this was a bit controversial after Origins.  And while I like the male Hawke's voice actor, he seemed a bit too James-Bondish for a fantasy setting. 

-- I also found many of the abbreviated responses on the wheel completely different than what I had expected.  I rarely felt that way in the Mass Effect games so I'm not sure why it would be so different.  Finally, I felt railroaded too many times with my dialogue, making the whole interaction seem like nothing more than mouse-clicking to continue the conversation.

-- I've changed my mind about memorable NPCs from my initial comments.  A few of them grew on me as the game progressed. 

-- I will add my vote to those who really got tired of the reused maps.  My goodness, I finally stopped doing side/secondary quests because I was tired of the same stairs that didn't allow me to click down below to get my group through the zone faster.  It also really became a chore crossing town as it seemed like every time I had a quest plot in an area I would be started at the opposite end of the map.  This type of artificial inflation of play-time is really a cheap tactic.

-- Someone needs to find a way to thwart the "big room equals big battle" predictability of maps. 

-- Armor again looked gorgeous in this game, as it did in Origins.  Weapons, on the other hand, were a mixed bag.  The sizes of some of them were just ridiculous. 

-- I really like the new look of Elves and Qunari.

-- I'm going to have to get used to the idea of useless leveling now with Dragon Age games.  I figured it was an anomoly, but now after 2 games, I've decided that leveling does very little but push the "oooh, I get to level!!" button of the brain's reward center.  Why even HAVE skills, abilities, etc if you will ultimately be able to specialize in everything, yet a spider at level 3 is going to be roughly the same challenge at level 20?  This is what I miss most of all from D&D-games, where I felt my character actually got better as the game went on.  There are several ways to improve this, but that's a discussion for another day.

-- Equipment leveling really got old.  So in Act 1 I could buy "Superior Armor" that was as solid as tinfoil compared to the same superior (or rather, more superior'ier) armor in Act 3?  I'd rather see everything at the beginning of the game for what it is, and then work toward earning the gold to buy it later.  This whole trend toward scaling in RPGs really bothers me.

-- There were more technical issues in this game than there were in Awakening, and before Awakening there were very very few, which tells me BioWare/EA is on a downward trend with their QC.  I expect it with EA, but it used to be one of BioWare's strengths.  I will no longer be preordering in the future because of it, and will instead wait a couple weeks or a month for the first patch or two.  This game was unplayable for me until folks worked through it on the boards for a solution.  That's inexcusable.

-- Having 90% of the game take place in a city isn't really the 'adventure' I am looking for in an RPG.  To me, cities in RPGs have always been a place to take a breather from the hazards of adventuring-- a place to get a room at the inn, do some shopping, do a few side quests, etc.  I liked Kirkwall, but to have darn near the whole story there I think took away from the whole concept of adventuring.  I enjoy seeing new towns, new lands, etc.

-- I liked the concept of having my own estate, but why wasn't I allowed to modify it?  I realize this game wasn't SimKeep, but at least let me throw some of my cooler quest items/trophies in there.  How neat would it have been to kill a dragon and then come back to my estate to find my collection of dragon skulls over the mantle, for instance?  Something like that...

-- I'm not sure what to think of the rivalry/friend system, as it was clearly out of my control in several instances, and didn't appear consistent at all within the game.  So my city watch captain friend gets mad that I say something wrong, but yet she'll accompany me during the slaughter of literally hundreds of people in her jurisdiction throughout the course of a day without complaint?  I don't get how someone can completely hate me, yet still stick around and contribute to party banter in a jovial way.  I fully expected some sort of "gotcha" from party members whose needle was buried in the rivalry side, but it never came.  What was the point, then?

-- I actually didn't mind the final battle.  There, I said it.  It was better than ME2's giant skeleton, so if it's better than that, I won't complain.

-- It was great to see cameos from DAO NPCs.  I'm really looking forward to, hopefully, seeing Lelianna as a party member in DA3?

Modifié par jjkrogs, 18 mars 2011 - 08:19 .

[Zexiv]

Erika T wrote...

 Good game?  Yes.  Good "epic sequel to DA:O, game of the year 2009"? Not even close. 
Background:   29y old pc gamer relatively new to gaming; played all MEs, Fallout3 and NV, and 200+ hours on DA:O across 8 full playthroughs. DA:2:  2 playthroughs, one female rouge and one female mage. 

Fantastic review I just hope someone at bioware actually hears you.  I'll wait for the forum feedback if they make a DA:3 before buying it to see if the PC version of the game is more like DA:O or more like DA:2 next go around.

Take it easy
Zex

[Ghost Of Rage]

Ok just finished my first play through of Dragon Age 2, and i really enjoyed it took me approx 47 hours was lvl 21 Mage I didn`t complete every quest /  hidden story line etc , but man really enteraining great story great characters merrill is really hilarious (great to have gwen from torchwood as her voice) varrick made my sides split also, i felt up until a certain point (won`t say) they game was very easy even for normal but then it sorts it self out difficulty wise.
I found the learning curve to be spot on, being a newb to these sorts of games (i have origins but not played much of it yet, will do tho next).
They game made me shout O000hhh and Aaahhhh and argghhh and hahahaha alot, I know that alot of the "dungeons" are recycled but to be honest when your questing in that particular area for something different it really didn`t bother me, my main gripe was certain enemies being too easy at times even for me , revanants are  supposed to be tuff like in origins but they are not so, also i feel that i would of liked x armor going on y character , not being able to outfit my allies was a slight bummer, but alas that is a minor niggle great story, amazing characters that you become to care about the music is 10 stars all round, i don`t have a super computer , I am running a Amd phenom 720 be (stock) 4gb ddr2 ram (reapers) Ati 4850 but still i found the graphics to be really crisp even when sparks fly.


I`m glad that i have finished this game but sad also, i want more and also i have alot of questions, like who was that and why was that etc (no spoilers - ) anyways my verdict.

Storyline 9 out of 10
Graphics 9 out of 10 (i do need to upgrade to dx11 soon tho)
sound 10 out of 10
characters 9 out of 10
things to collect and craft 8 out of 10

I give this game 9 out of 10 ---- bring on the dlc`s can`t wait, hopefully they can clarify a few things for me