Haley Starshine wrote...
Also vouching for the review that summarizes it:
http://www.videogame.../review437.html
(and still pissed.. Beware Bioware: Many people have been hanged for much less)
Excellent review
Your Dragon Age II Review *NO SPOILERS PLEASE*
Débuté par
javierabegazo
, mars 08 2011 04:02
#2176
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 03:07
esterH
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Excellent review
Retour en haut
#2177
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 03:11
Semaht03
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please watch this review , I think it's very clear , especially for romance option
#2179
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 03:40
Upper_Krust
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Hey all! 
1. CHARACTER OPTIONS (POSITIVE)
I remember last year that people complained that the main lead had no voice, no personality. Bioware tried to fix that by giving us a less flexible but still varied selection of gender and class. Is this a good or a bad thing? Its neither, simply personal preference as to which you enjoyed more.
I still would like to see more variety in character options though. How about some fat characters or thin characters? How about long hair, or dare I ask, some cloaks? But I was okay with the choices.
2. DIALOGUE WHEEL (POSITIVE)
Personally I like the dialogue wheel approach because the comments will surprise the player. Now other people prefer to know exactly what their character is going to be saying. I honestly don’t see why Bioware couldn’t offer both methods of dialogue.
So I liked it, but I can see why others didn't.
3. GRAPHICS (POSITIVE)
The graphics engine has definitely been improved, however, while technically proficient, much of the design is pretty bland and colourless (drab greys and browns) mainly annoying because of a heavy-handed reuse of environments and enemies, things can seem pretty boring.
But overall I thought the graphics were good, except for recycled stuff.
4. STORY (POSITIVE)
Okay, Bioware tried to do something different with DA2, in that it doesn’t really have a central plot. In many ways I would liken Origins to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy – a blockbuster movie, whereas DA2 is more akin to a television show, such as Legend of the Seeker, in that it has smaller ‘episodes’ rather than one big story. It’s hard to say which is best, I sort of prefer the blockbuster movie approach and I think perhaps the lack of a central story and villain really takes away the epic quality that DAO possessed.
I estimate this game has roughly as many choices with consequences as Origins, but I think that because they are part of an episodic approach rather than part of a big main storyline, they often seem to have much less gravitas.
Overall though I thought the story was pretty good.
5. CHARACTERS (POSITIVE)
We all loved Morrigan and Alistair, just get it out of your system. But the characters in DA2 are pretty good in their own right. The banter between characters has definitely improved this time around. I think DA2 being a shorter game inevitably means we spend less time with these new characters, so maybe they won’t be as well loved by the majority.
Overall, pretty decent though.
6. IMMERSION (COULD BE BETTER)
Enemies exploding into thin air just seems so out of place. I mean I could understand dusty undead exploding, or people exploding if they were hit by an “Explode Person” spell. But just when hit by regular attacks totally jars you out of the experience.
Enemies popping in right in front of you breaks any immersion the game tries to create. I can understand Demons or even Wizards appearing out of nowhere, but why could you not have regular soldiers just rush out from a doorway or from beyond a hill or street corner?
Sped up two-handed weapon combat has annoyed a few, but I also recall people complaining that the two-handers were TOO slow, so I think this is one of the cases where Bioware is damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
When a fight breaks out in the city, why not have background NPCs flee in terror? Screaming “Run for your lives” or similar phrases.
Or how about having cowardly enemies run away when outnumbered by the heroes?
Also why do I get gold or weapons from killing spiders? Just have monsters give appropriate loot and if you need to add gold or weapons have them in a chest in that location rather than garnered from monster corpses.
DA2 has added night and day cycles, but how about a few weather patterns as well. What about snowstorms in the mountains, or how about it raining once in a while. I mean I could live with the idea of different weather in different regions, but it is always the same regardless.
7. COMBAT (NEGATIVE)
Combat is terrible, and to be fair it was just as horrendous in Origins. The reasons for this are simple: 9 times out of 10 the choices you make in combat are irrelevant. You just click attack and keep clicking and you win. I read a lot of comments about how Bioware dumbed DA2 down. But Origins was already as dumbed down as you could get. What the game needs to do is force the player into making choices: who to attack, when to attack them, where to attack them, what attack to use on them.
I’m also still disappointed the game doesn’t have Wall spells (Wall of Fire, Wall of Ice etc.) These would really change the nature of combat, allowing players to throw a curtain of fire across a doorway to ward of enemy reinforcements, or to split enemy forces with a wall of ice allowing you to divide and conquer…and of course the enemy could do the same to you.
8. ENEMIES (NEGATIVE)
If there is one thing worse than the combat, it’s the enemies in the game. Even less variety than Origins, a game roundly criticised for its lack of enemy variety.
But the bigger disappointment is that so many of the enemies feel exactly the same to fight because there are no differences between different enemy types. Human, Skeleton, Hurlock, Genlock, Revenant, Dwarf, Qunari, Shade, Rage Demon…and on and on. They all just attack in the same way and may as well all have the same attacks and defenses. The solution to this problem is simple, in fact I created a thread about it a few days ago.
http://social.biowar...1/index/6611154
Of course I would like to say that while the stock enemies are terrible, the Boss Battles were much more entertaining this time around, so that is some small comfort...of course the bosses represent about 1-2% of the game so that puts that into perspective.
9. ENCOUNTERS (NEGATIVE)
Sameness personified. I’d estimate that 70% of the battles are against human opponents. SEVENTY PERCENT – that is absolutely ridiculous. In Origins you fought Darkspawn about 40% of the time and even with a bit more variety it still felt like too much of the same thing.
Secondly, nearly every group feels the same…tell me if this sounds familiar: Enemy Leader + Half a dozen Mooks + Half a Dozen Archers, followed by a second wave of a few more archers and mooks. Occasionally throw in 1 assassin to make things interesting. This has to sound familiar because it’s a battle you fight HUNDREDS of times.
10. SOUND (COULD BE BETTER)
I know we have all read the report from the composer about the sound being rushed and I have to say the music doesn’t really stand out, so he may have a point. But apart from the dialogue (which is great), I think where the game really suffers is in the lack of sound effects. I remember the first time I played Quake (yes the original) and you learned to equate the different sound effects with different monsters to the point that you would brick it if you heard the sound of a Vore from round a corner. But the sound in Dragon Age doesn’t really evoke the same responses.
Overall though, I am somewhere in the middle on this.
11. SILLY THINGS
The inability to change NPC armour seems weird.
The inability to toggle Friendly Fire on any difficulty also seems strange.
12. CONCLUSION (6 out of 10)
It’s both a triumph and a disappointment. While I personally think that the story, characters and dialogue are great, the combat, enemies and encounters need a lot of work. Hopefully they will learn for Dragon Age 3…although we said all this last year with Origins and they didn’t learn their lessons then, so…
Either way, good luck Bioware, we all want you to make the best games possible. Dragon Age 2 does a lot of things very well, but also does a lot of things very badly). Luckily the good outweighs the bad in my opinion.
1. CHARACTER OPTIONS (POSITIVE)
I remember last year that people complained that the main lead had no voice, no personality. Bioware tried to fix that by giving us a less flexible but still varied selection of gender and class. Is this a good or a bad thing? Its neither, simply personal preference as to which you enjoyed more.
I still would like to see more variety in character options though. How about some fat characters or thin characters? How about long hair, or dare I ask, some cloaks? But I was okay with the choices.
2. DIALOGUE WHEEL (POSITIVE)
Personally I like the dialogue wheel approach because the comments will surprise the player. Now other people prefer to know exactly what their character is going to be saying. I honestly don’t see why Bioware couldn’t offer both methods of dialogue.
So I liked it, but I can see why others didn't.
3. GRAPHICS (POSITIVE)
The graphics engine has definitely been improved, however, while technically proficient, much of the design is pretty bland and colourless (drab greys and browns) mainly annoying because of a heavy-handed reuse of environments and enemies, things can seem pretty boring.
But overall I thought the graphics were good, except for recycled stuff.
4. STORY (POSITIVE)
Okay, Bioware tried to do something different with DA2, in that it doesn’t really have a central plot. In many ways I would liken Origins to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy – a blockbuster movie, whereas DA2 is more akin to a television show, such as Legend of the Seeker, in that it has smaller ‘episodes’ rather than one big story. It’s hard to say which is best, I sort of prefer the blockbuster movie approach and I think perhaps the lack of a central story and villain really takes away the epic quality that DAO possessed.
I estimate this game has roughly as many choices with consequences as Origins, but I think that because they are part of an episodic approach rather than part of a big main storyline, they often seem to have much less gravitas.
Overall though I thought the story was pretty good.
5. CHARACTERS (POSITIVE)
We all loved Morrigan and Alistair, just get it out of your system. But the characters in DA2 are pretty good in their own right. The banter between characters has definitely improved this time around. I think DA2 being a shorter game inevitably means we spend less time with these new characters, so maybe they won’t be as well loved by the majority.
Overall, pretty decent though.
6. IMMERSION (COULD BE BETTER)
Enemies exploding into thin air just seems so out of place. I mean I could understand dusty undead exploding, or people exploding if they were hit by an “Explode Person” spell. But just when hit by regular attacks totally jars you out of the experience.
Enemies popping in right in front of you breaks any immersion the game tries to create. I can understand Demons or even Wizards appearing out of nowhere, but why could you not have regular soldiers just rush out from a doorway or from beyond a hill or street corner?
Sped up two-handed weapon combat has annoyed a few, but I also recall people complaining that the two-handers were TOO slow, so I think this is one of the cases where Bioware is damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
When a fight breaks out in the city, why not have background NPCs flee in terror? Screaming “Run for your lives” or similar phrases.
Or how about having cowardly enemies run away when outnumbered by the heroes?
Also why do I get gold or weapons from killing spiders? Just have monsters give appropriate loot and if you need to add gold or weapons have them in a chest in that location rather than garnered from monster corpses.
DA2 has added night and day cycles, but how about a few weather patterns as well. What about snowstorms in the mountains, or how about it raining once in a while. I mean I could live with the idea of different weather in different regions, but it is always the same regardless.
7. COMBAT (NEGATIVE)
Combat is terrible, and to be fair it was just as horrendous in Origins. The reasons for this are simple: 9 times out of 10 the choices you make in combat are irrelevant. You just click attack and keep clicking and you win. I read a lot of comments about how Bioware dumbed DA2 down. But Origins was already as dumbed down as you could get. What the game needs to do is force the player into making choices: who to attack, when to attack them, where to attack them, what attack to use on them.
I’m also still disappointed the game doesn’t have Wall spells (Wall of Fire, Wall of Ice etc.) These would really change the nature of combat, allowing players to throw a curtain of fire across a doorway to ward of enemy reinforcements, or to split enemy forces with a wall of ice allowing you to divide and conquer…and of course the enemy could do the same to you.
8. ENEMIES (NEGATIVE)
If there is one thing worse than the combat, it’s the enemies in the game. Even less variety than Origins, a game roundly criticised for its lack of enemy variety.
But the bigger disappointment is that so many of the enemies feel exactly the same to fight because there are no differences between different enemy types. Human, Skeleton, Hurlock, Genlock, Revenant, Dwarf, Qunari, Shade, Rage Demon…and on and on. They all just attack in the same way and may as well all have the same attacks and defenses. The solution to this problem is simple, in fact I created a thread about it a few days ago.
http://social.biowar...1/index/6611154
Of course I would like to say that while the stock enemies are terrible, the Boss Battles were much more entertaining this time around, so that is some small comfort...of course the bosses represent about 1-2% of the game so that puts that into perspective.
9. ENCOUNTERS (NEGATIVE)
Sameness personified. I’d estimate that 70% of the battles are against human opponents. SEVENTY PERCENT – that is absolutely ridiculous. In Origins you fought Darkspawn about 40% of the time and even with a bit more variety it still felt like too much of the same thing.
Secondly, nearly every group feels the same…tell me if this sounds familiar: Enemy Leader + Half a dozen Mooks + Half a Dozen Archers, followed by a second wave of a few more archers and mooks. Occasionally throw in 1 assassin to make things interesting. This has to sound familiar because it’s a battle you fight HUNDREDS of times.
10. SOUND (COULD BE BETTER)
I know we have all read the report from the composer about the sound being rushed and I have to say the music doesn’t really stand out, so he may have a point. But apart from the dialogue (which is great), I think where the game really suffers is in the lack of sound effects. I remember the first time I played Quake (yes the original) and you learned to equate the different sound effects with different monsters to the point that you would brick it if you heard the sound of a Vore from round a corner. But the sound in Dragon Age doesn’t really evoke the same responses.
Overall though, I am somewhere in the middle on this.
11. SILLY THINGS
The inability to change NPC armour seems weird.
The inability to toggle Friendly Fire on any difficulty also seems strange.
12. CONCLUSION (6 out of 10)
It’s both a triumph and a disappointment. While I personally think that the story, characters and dialogue are great, the combat, enemies and encounters need a lot of work. Hopefully they will learn for Dragon Age 3…although we said all this last year with Origins and they didn’t learn their lessons then, so…
Either way, good luck Bioware, we all want you to make the best games possible. Dragon Age 2 does a lot of things very well, but also does a lot of things very badly). Luckily the good outweighs the bad in my opinion.
#2180
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 03:44
Frenrihr
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- 364 messages
Im tired of idiots that says: i played for what it is!...
So you played it BECAUSE IS A S.HIT.... SO.. YOU LIKE S.HITS!
Dragon Age for Dummys!
So you played it BECAUSE IS A S.HIT.... SO.. YOU LIKE S.HITS!
Dragon Age for Dummys!
Modifié par Frenrihr, 19 mars 2011 - 03:46 .
#2181
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 03:45
Frenrihr
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- 364 messages
This idiot didnt play DRAGON AGE ORIGINS and he dares to say that DA2 its a "good" game, and then the imbecile its angry that he doesent understand who is leliana in the end of the game -.- ... WHAT AN AS.S.HOLE!:
Its a good example of the tipe of idiots that bioware used to focus his stupid game, hahaha now the imbecile has to play origins hahaha maybe the imbecile change his mind when he finishs dragon age origins about his "good" game... hahaha he says its a good game because the game was long.... yeah when i was playing it i was like "jesus when this **** its going to over? im tired of this!".... so its not a good excuse to say its a good game...
idiots.
Its a good example of the tipe of idiots that bioware used to focus his stupid game, hahaha now the imbecile has to play origins hahaha maybe the imbecile change his mind when he finishs dragon age origins about his "good" game... hahaha he says its a good game because the game was long.... yeah when i was playing it i was like "jesus when this **** its going to over? im tired of this!".... so its not a good excuse to say its a good game...
idiots.
Modifié par Frenrihr, 19 mars 2011 - 03:56 .
#2182
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 04:13
Andarthiel_Demigod
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- 2 114 messages
StockySix wrote...
Its just horrible open your eyes people.
Ugh, please stop flaming, Stocky.
We get it,you don't like the game.
#2183
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 04:16
harazal
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- 70 messages
Loved it.
Thought it was a nice change of pace from 'here is captain amazing, go save the world'.
I thought the politics of Kirtkwall were well presented. Everyone had a point.
I LOVED how all the characters had a reason to be in Kirkwall, rather than simply mindless drones that followed me.
Also, running on my PC, 1920x1080 on DX11, i thought the game was beautiful. I really loved the look and feel of Darktown and Lowtown. Really nice arabic feel to it.
Personally speaking, i thought combat was virtually identical to DA:0, and the nerd rage has been completely over the top.
Will start a female hawke rogue next, i think,
Thought it was a nice change of pace from 'here is captain amazing, go save the world'.
I thought the politics of Kirtkwall were well presented. Everyone had a point.
I LOVED how all the characters had a reason to be in Kirkwall, rather than simply mindless drones that followed me.
Also, running on my PC, 1920x1080 on DX11, i thought the game was beautiful. I really loved the look and feel of Darktown and Lowtown. Really nice arabic feel to it.
Personally speaking, i thought combat was virtually identical to DA:0, and the nerd rage has been completely over the top.
Will start a female hawke rogue next, i think,
#2184
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 04:22
harazal
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- 70 messages
rft wrote...
Darksydephil's review:
AND people wonder why rpg players get labelled geeks.
Dear god, 12 minutes of such PEDANTIC whining
#2185
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 04:36
Dotice
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- 2 messages
Frenrihr wrote...
This idiot didnt play DRAGON AGE ORIGINS and he dares to say that DA2 its a "good" game, and then the imbecile its angry that he doesent understand who is leliana in the end of the game -.- ... WHAT AN AS.S.HOLE!:
Its a good example of the tipe of idiots that bioware used to focus his stupid game, hahaha now the imbecile has to play origins hahaha maybe the imbecile change his mind when he finishs dragon age origins about his "good" game... hahaha he says its a good game because the game was long.... yeah when i was playing it i was like "jesus when this **** its going to over? im tired of this!".... so its not a good excuse to say its a good game...
idiots.
Dragon Age 2's quality is dependent upon your own preferences. Just stop the flaming and let everyone voice their own opinions of this game.
I, for one, am enjoying this game much more than Origins. Obscurity of it being linear is gone. You're thinking a tad more.
I'd go in-depth, but I have no time to do so now.
EDIT:
Oh, and insults are completely unnecessary.
-X
Modifié par Dotice, 19 mars 2011 - 04:42 .
#2186
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 04:53
Frenrihr
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Dotice wrote...
Dragon Age 2's quality is dependent upon your own preferences. Just stop the flaming and let everyone voice their own opinions of this game.
I, for one, am enjoying this game much more than Origins. Obscurity of it being linear is gone. You're thinking a tad more.
I'd go in-depth, but I have no time to do so now.
EDIT:
Oh, and insults are completely unnecessary.
-X
Dragon age 2 its more linear than origins, origins OWNS the secuel any day, and its for dummys so, enjoy it!
#2187
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 04:57
Dotice
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- 2 messages
@ Frenrihr.
Opinions. They're your's. Your opinion only reflects your maturity upon this forum.
Back to playing.
Opinions. They're your's. Your opinion only reflects your maturity upon this forum.
Back to playing.
#2188
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 05:26
Artemis_Entrari
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- 551 messages
Upper_Krust wrote...
4. STORY (POSITIVE)
Okay, Bioware tried to do something different with DA2, in that it doesn’t really have a central plot. In many ways I would liken Origins to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy – a blockbuster movie, whereas DA2 is more akin to a television show, such as Legend of the Seeker, in that it has smaller ‘episodes’ rather than one big story.
With regards to the comparison of stories in Origins and DA2, this is actually how I saw it. The epicness of Origins made it like a big blockbuster movie, while DA2's tighter, smaller scale conflict was like an episode of a television show. Story-wise, I saw them sort of like Origins was Transformers: The Movie, while DA2 was like the 30-minute episodes of Transformers you see on Saturday mornings.
Overall, I enjoyed Origins more, but I also don't see the massive hate for DA2 that's going around. When I read threads about how DA2 ruined the franchise, or how BioWare sucks now, I'm just not seeing where the vitriol comes from. DA2 is a good game. Not great, not outstanding. But good. Yet some folks are trashing it as though it's the worst game ever created.
On my personal rating scale, if Origins comes in around 9.5 (I don't give perfect scores, because there is always a flaw or two in even the best game), then I'd give DA2 a solid 7.5. If they hadn't re-used maps the entire game, that would have gone a long way towards giving it an 8 or higher.
#2189
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 05:38
Kuriby
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Dragon age 2: The good
Combat Animations
Main character speaks
Choices can now really effect the story/companion interaction
Dragon age 2: The Bad
Repetitive dungeons
Pointless sidequests (find item, give it to someone, money!)
Animations/Designs imported straightly from mass effect
Lack of new environments
Linear dungeons
Lack of new enemies
Storyline bugs on release!
Poorly planned graphics
Some music imported from dragon age origins
Short game (finished in less then 20 hours, by completeing all the sidequest)
Overall:
Could have been a fanastic game, but either bioware or EA or both, had a plan to rush the release, if they took 6 months to 1 year more on this game the player reviews would have been superb.
Combat Animations
Main character speaks
Choices can now really effect the story/companion interaction
Dragon age 2: The Bad
Repetitive dungeons
Pointless sidequests (find item, give it to someone, money!)
Animations/Designs imported straightly from mass effect
Lack of new environments
Linear dungeons
Lack of new enemies
Storyline bugs on release!
Poorly planned graphics
Some music imported from dragon age origins
Short game (finished in less then 20 hours, by completeing all the sidequest)
Overall:
Could have been a fanastic game, but either bioware or EA or both, had a plan to rush the release, if they took 6 months to 1 year more on this game the player reviews would have been superb.
#2190
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 05:43
Hatchetman77
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Semaht03 wrote...
please watch this review , I think it's very clear , especially for romance option
There was no neutral option!!!!
#2192
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 06:05
Templarjer Hsu
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- 19 messages
Enjoyed
- The epic music both in combat and in exploration
- Fast paced combat
- Branched skill tree
- Simple interface
- The night-and day cycle. It felt cool
- The cinematography in conversation
Didn't enjoy
- The story. every plotline lacked motivations.
- the gay relationship. It is way too easy to establish, not to be sexist but it doesn't make sense that the second time I talked to Anders I could flatter with him. Why couldn't I do so to anybody else?
- the teammates. They aren't as memorable as those in DAO. Their personalities doesn't feel natural. It felt like someone told them to be like that
- The removal of ending-kill animation. I want to jump onto an ogre and put my sword into its head!!! Please!!!!!
- The over-simplified (or no-time-to-diversify) inventory system. Teammates are wearing the same thing all the time and I couldn't rip it off from them and put new clothes on
- the conversation wheel. It sucks. I'd rather have Hawke unvoiced and choose my text response.
- Isometric view is removed, can I get my refund? It feels bad when my mage's vision is blocked that I can't cast my spell on my enemy just because my warrior stands in the way.
- Reuse of maps!!! Reuse of maps!!! Reuse of maps!!! Reuse of maps!!! Reuse of maps!!! Reuse of maps!!!
- The sick feeling that all our comments is for an developing DLC (or DLCs) to fix all the things we hated. Should I get a free copy since I posted a review as an effort to your development??
anyway I'm not expecting DA3 as I did for DA2 it hurt my feeling. Let's pray that we don't get map reuse or 3-rd person view removed in Mass effect 3:police:
- The epic music both in combat and in exploration
- Fast paced combat
- Branched skill tree
- Simple interface
- The night-and day cycle. It felt cool
- The cinematography in conversation
Didn't enjoy
- The story. every plotline lacked motivations.
- the gay relationship. It is way too easy to establish, not to be sexist but it doesn't make sense that the second time I talked to Anders I could flatter with him. Why couldn't I do so to anybody else?
- the teammates. They aren't as memorable as those in DAO. Their personalities doesn't feel natural. It felt like someone told them to be like that
- The removal of ending-kill animation. I want to jump onto an ogre and put my sword into its head!!! Please!!!!!
- The over-simplified (or no-time-to-diversify) inventory system. Teammates are wearing the same thing all the time and I couldn't rip it off from them and put new clothes on
- the conversation wheel. It sucks. I'd rather have Hawke unvoiced and choose my text response.
- Isometric view is removed, can I get my refund? It feels bad when my mage's vision is blocked that I can't cast my spell on my enemy just because my warrior stands in the way.
- Reuse of maps!!! Reuse of maps!!! Reuse of maps!!! Reuse of maps!!! Reuse of maps!!! Reuse of maps!!!
- The sick feeling that all our comments is for an developing DLC (or DLCs) to fix all the things we hated. Should I get a free copy since I posted a review as an effort to your development??
anyway I'm not expecting DA3 as I did for DA2 it hurt my feeling. Let's pray that we don't get map reuse or 3-rd person view removed in Mass effect 3:police:
Modifié par Templarjer Hsu, 19 mars 2011 - 06:11 .
#2193
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 06:12
DarthCoffee
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- 2 messages
game review score: 6/10
I've bought and played every bioware game since KOTOR, and played through each one of those games at least 2-3 times each -- that said, i'm extremely disappointed with dragon age 2.
Dragon Age: Origins was one of my favorite all time games. My girlfriend even got into the story while watching me play it...she said it had a better story than most movies, and more in-depth, complex character interaction. Dragon age 2 story is just...bland, boring, and purposeless. Granted I'm only on the 2nd act, but i've put at least 15 hours into the game so far and I have really no interest in the story, the characters, or the even the environments.
I HATE the re-spawning enemies and the lack of auto-attack so much that I've turned the game down to casual, just so i can get through the combat as quick as possible. The combat animations also seem to be no longer 'gritty and realistic' but some cross between jedis and DA:O.
The music of dragon age 2 also reflects everything thing that's wrong with the game. It's completely forgettable and generic -- it just feels like it's "going through the motions". I may be biased because I'm a musician and songwriter, but DA:O's music was one of my favorite parts of the original game. From the start, you were introduced with music that reflected the emotional complexity of the story -- from the elf-song at campfire, to the dignified horns in the orzammar section...each piece helped flesh out a different world. In dragon age 2 we get what feels like a 'rough-draft' of an idea...which granted can be good, but only with time can you make the difference between an experiment and a completed piece.
Right now I am trying to get through the game as fast as possible so I can get my money's worth, but I think afterwards I'm going to do what I've previously never done: trade-in a bioware game.
I've bought and played every bioware game since KOTOR, and played through each one of those games at least 2-3 times each -- that said, i'm extremely disappointed with dragon age 2.
Dragon Age: Origins was one of my favorite all time games. My girlfriend even got into the story while watching me play it...she said it had a better story than most movies, and more in-depth, complex character interaction. Dragon age 2 story is just...bland, boring, and purposeless. Granted I'm only on the 2nd act, but i've put at least 15 hours into the game so far and I have really no interest in the story, the characters, or the even the environments.
I HATE the re-spawning enemies and the lack of auto-attack so much that I've turned the game down to casual, just so i can get through the combat as quick as possible. The combat animations also seem to be no longer 'gritty and realistic' but some cross between jedis and DA:O.
The music of dragon age 2 also reflects everything thing that's wrong with the game. It's completely forgettable and generic -- it just feels like it's "going through the motions". I may be biased because I'm a musician and songwriter, but DA:O's music was one of my favorite parts of the original game. From the start, you were introduced with music that reflected the emotional complexity of the story -- from the elf-song at campfire, to the dignified horns in the orzammar section...each piece helped flesh out a different world. In dragon age 2 we get what feels like a 'rough-draft' of an idea...which granted can be good, but only with time can you make the difference between an experiment and a completed piece.
Right now I am trying to get through the game as fast as possible so I can get my money's worth, but I think afterwards I'm going to do what I've previously never done: trade-in a bioware game.
#2194
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 06:48
some name
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I don't consider myself being a HC RPG player or Bioware fan. More of a casual. So much about me.
The good (better than in origins):
-Voiced main character.
-Main plot. I'm tired of these "Behold, now you're special, gather your fellowship, unify the land and defend ancient evil" scenarios. There were some hard decisions unlike in origins, but hate between elves/humans/qunari was not "dissected" enough.
-Resources for crafting. No more travelling across whole Ferelden to one vendor becasue he has cheaper this, then travelling to another because he has cheaper that. Own mansion.
-Friendship/Rivalry.
-Option to reset skills/attributes, change appearance.
-Day/night switch.
-Skill trees/cross class combos.
-Mages are no longer a groinpokers, they act when enemy gets too close. I consider this to be a good idea, no matter how it looks.
The bad(could've been better, but I can get over it):
-I'm not gonna hate dialogue wheel just because it was in ME2 and ME2 wasn't trve kvlt RPG and blah blah blah... However, in Origins, I had to read response options and think about what would be the best to choose. But not anymore. In DA2, I'm a stupid child and dialogue wheel is my big momma, guiding me through dangerous world of thinking/reading with her shiny icons. And it's not always accurate. I would prefer written text+voiced character. It worked in Witcher, it should work here.
-Enemies transforming into a pools of red water after few blows.
-No isometric view. The game is well playable even without it, but I hope it wasn't left out just because of ninja mages jumping off the roofs. It would still be very useful sometimes.
-No persuasion. No talents at all.
-Constantly reused maps. With all respect, this looks really cheap.
-Start of the game. No Hawke at Lothering/Ostagar, just a quick walk trough wasteland.
-Friendly fire only on nightmare.
-Companions with one fixed armor? Is there any solid reason behind this?
-Kirkwall is supposed to be a big city and yet there are just a few areas to "explore". Um.... just one little graveyard please? With huge tomb full of unholy minions of ancient evil? And perhaps some golden skull. Level of deadness is close to Denerim.
-Not enough dialogue with family members/companions. Well, there's not much dialogue with anyone.
-Romances are rushed, I don't need naughty scenes, but I'd like to actually build up something(and put some effort into it), not just click this, click that and everyone willingly jumps into my bed.
-Perhaps I did something wrong, but enemies seem like they're using almost no abilities. And there are mostly four kinds of them. Humans/undead/shades/spiders. I want Umber Hulks.
-Citizens don't react when I start a fight. They walk straight into battle, like nothing happens.
The ugly:
Combat. I don't mind new animations, big weapons, faster combat etc. But I have one major problem. Enemies materializing from nothing right behind my back. When I think about it, I've never seen anything like this in any other game. It's annoying, it looks stupid and it is a SOLE reason why I don't feel like playing this game anymore. I suspect that someone thought this will increase difficulty. In my opinion, difficulty would be more increased by a few tough and mean thugs using grenades/poisons/combos than by waves of the same enemies over and over again. This increases only one thing. Temperature of blood rushing into my head. DA2 combat is basically just a primitive meat-mincer. Open the door, ten enemies will attack, you kill them and more of them suddenly appears out of nowhere. You kill them, open another door and HOORAY!!!! More meat waiting for it's turn in Hawke-mincer. I switched from nightmare to casual at the end of act I, combat is totally boring now.
The really ugly: My english is as much polished as DA2. Sorry if there are any mistakes. Greetings from Czech Rep.
Summary: I was determined to give this a really low score, but my bad mood caused by Dragon Mincer I is finally gone, so it will be a little higher.
Score: 10 - 2 for respawns - 2 for everything else = 6
When I get my hands on Bioware game, I expect three things. Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll. DA2 is far from being a total disaster. If this was a standalone game released by some newbie company above issues would be more acceptable, but this is supposed to be sequel of a game I spent several months with and Bioware are veterans. I won't buy any more products by Bioware because this.... I can't help it, this really looks like some subpar datadisc for a full game price.
The good (better than in origins):
-Voiced main character.
-Main plot. I'm tired of these "Behold, now you're special, gather your fellowship, unify the land and defend ancient evil" scenarios. There were some hard decisions unlike in origins, but hate between elves/humans/qunari was not "dissected" enough.
-Resources for crafting. No more travelling across whole Ferelden to one vendor becasue he has cheaper this, then travelling to another because he has cheaper that. Own mansion.
-Friendship/Rivalry.
-Option to reset skills/attributes, change appearance.
-Day/night switch.
-Skill trees/cross class combos.
-Mages are no longer a groinpokers, they act when enemy gets too close. I consider this to be a good idea, no matter how it looks.
The bad(could've been better, but I can get over it):
-I'm not gonna hate dialogue wheel just because it was in ME2 and ME2 wasn't trve kvlt RPG and blah blah blah... However, in Origins, I had to read response options and think about what would be the best to choose. But not anymore. In DA2, I'm a stupid child and dialogue wheel is my big momma, guiding me through dangerous world of thinking/reading with her shiny icons. And it's not always accurate. I would prefer written text+voiced character. It worked in Witcher, it should work here.
-Enemies transforming into a pools of red water after few blows.
-No isometric view. The game is well playable even without it, but I hope it wasn't left out just because of ninja mages jumping off the roofs. It would still be very useful sometimes.
-No persuasion. No talents at all.
-Constantly reused maps. With all respect, this looks really cheap.
-Start of the game. No Hawke at Lothering/Ostagar, just a quick walk trough wasteland.
-Friendly fire only on nightmare.
-Companions with one fixed armor? Is there any solid reason behind this?
-Kirkwall is supposed to be a big city and yet there are just a few areas to "explore". Um.... just one little graveyard please? With huge tomb full of unholy minions of ancient evil? And perhaps some golden skull. Level of deadness is close to Denerim.
-Not enough dialogue with family members/companions. Well, there's not much dialogue with anyone.
-Romances are rushed, I don't need naughty scenes, but I'd like to actually build up something(and put some effort into it), not just click this, click that and everyone willingly jumps into my bed.
-Perhaps I did something wrong, but enemies seem like they're using almost no abilities. And there are mostly four kinds of them. Humans/undead/shades/spiders. I want Umber Hulks.
-Citizens don't react when I start a fight. They walk straight into battle, like nothing happens.
The ugly:
Combat. I don't mind new animations, big weapons, faster combat etc. But I have one major problem. Enemies materializing from nothing right behind my back. When I think about it, I've never seen anything like this in any other game. It's annoying, it looks stupid and it is a SOLE reason why I don't feel like playing this game anymore. I suspect that someone thought this will increase difficulty. In my opinion, difficulty would be more increased by a few tough and mean thugs using grenades/poisons/combos than by waves of the same enemies over and over again. This increases only one thing. Temperature of blood rushing into my head. DA2 combat is basically just a primitive meat-mincer. Open the door, ten enemies will attack, you kill them and more of them suddenly appears out of nowhere. You kill them, open another door and HOORAY!!!! More meat waiting for it's turn in Hawke-mincer. I switched from nightmare to casual at the end of act I, combat is totally boring now.
The really ugly: My english is as much polished as DA2. Sorry if there are any mistakes. Greetings from Czech Rep.
Summary: I was determined to give this a really low score, but my bad mood caused by Dragon Mincer I is finally gone, so it will be a little higher.
Score: 10 - 2 for respawns - 2 for everything else = 6
When I get my hands on Bioware game, I expect three things. Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll. DA2 is far from being a total disaster. If this was a standalone game released by some newbie company above issues would be more acceptable, but this is supposed to be sequel of a game I spent several months with and Bioware are veterans. I won't buy any more products by Bioware because this.... I can't help it, this really looks like some subpar datadisc for a full game price.
Modifié par some name, 19 mars 2011 - 06:52 .
#2195
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 07:53
DarthCoffee
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I'll also link this review too:
http://www.videogame.../review437.html
It describes about 99% of my experience as well
http://www.videogame.../review437.html
It describes about 99% of my experience as well
#2196
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 09:35
Hugh the Hammer
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I am pretty digusted with the whole game. I really hate the fact that you can't deactivate the tactics for the companion characters,
I've been playing Bioware games since Balders Gate. After this i am pretty much done with them.
I'm not going to finish the game. After going thru the same dungeon layout for the fourth time i can can see that they made no effort. If there is no complexity to the game i am just not interested anymore
I've been playing Bioware games since Balders Gate. After this i am pretty much done with them.
I'm not going to finish the game. After going thru the same dungeon layout for the fourth time i can can see that they made no effort. If there is no complexity to the game i am just not interested anymore
#2197
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 10:16
Get Magna Carter
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18 hours in (in deep roads section) enjoying so far..with minor issues (see below)
(I'll try to be vague enough to avoid spoilers)
Have not yet found any serious bugs but had a couple of glitches (Hawke's head being "clipped" during shepherding wolves cutscene and right arm getting stuck in an awkward pose for a while..looked very odd while she was talking to the elf salesman)
Conversation options seem to use nice, witty, nasty mix too often and other options sometimes aren't clear enough (e.g. lowest option with magistrate after handing in criminal)
The text isn't particularly clear on my HD-ready TV (especially the red text for equipment)
I do not have a home internet connection for my XBox360 - this is the only game I have played that asks me to connect every time I try to play it..and I have to press a button to make that message disappear and get on with the game (which is irritating)
Disappointed by the removal of skills and the multiple screens for class-based abilities make them more complicated to look through than Origins.
I also thought the use of triggers in the map screen should have been in the manual
Concerns that may be addressed later - Hawke's motives - is he/she really gathering money to go on an expedition to get money for the sake of getting money and to do so gathering a group of allies and leaving half of them behind? If so that is a weak motivation (and a bit of railroading), if not we're roleplaying a character we don't understand. This is the reason why most games like this have a quest to save a country\\world\\galaxy\\universe\\etc because it easily justifies getting a group like this working together..without such a quest the games tend to end up weak.
Also a bit concerned about the companions -can only talk\\give gifts if a quest enables it-which makes it hard to build meaningful relationships without playing the system intruding on the main game...I'll have to see how that goes next week...
sorry if that sounds more a gripe list than a review but as I said before, I'm mostly enjoying it only half way through
(I'll try to be vague enough to avoid spoilers)
Have not yet found any serious bugs but had a couple of glitches (Hawke's head being "clipped" during shepherding wolves cutscene and right arm getting stuck in an awkward pose for a while..looked very odd while she was talking to the elf salesman)
Conversation options seem to use nice, witty, nasty mix too often and other options sometimes aren't clear enough (e.g. lowest option with magistrate after handing in criminal)
The text isn't particularly clear on my HD-ready TV (especially the red text for equipment)
I do not have a home internet connection for my XBox360 - this is the only game I have played that asks me to connect every time I try to play it..and I have to press a button to make that message disappear and get on with the game (which is irritating)
Disappointed by the removal of skills and the multiple screens for class-based abilities make them more complicated to look through than Origins.
I also thought the use of triggers in the map screen should have been in the manual
Concerns that may be addressed later - Hawke's motives - is he/she really gathering money to go on an expedition to get money for the sake of getting money and to do so gathering a group of allies and leaving half of them behind? If so that is a weak motivation (and a bit of railroading), if not we're roleplaying a character we don't understand. This is the reason why most games like this have a quest to save a country\\world\\galaxy\\universe\\etc because it easily justifies getting a group like this working together..without such a quest the games tend to end up weak.
Also a bit concerned about the companions -can only talk\\give gifts if a quest enables it-which makes it hard to build meaningful relationships without playing the system intruding on the main game...I'll have to see how that goes next week...
sorry if that sounds more a gripe list than a review but as I said before, I'm mostly enjoying it only half way through
Modifié par Get Magna Carter, 19 mars 2011 - 10:17 .
#2198
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 10:55
Annoyed Dragon
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Before listing the good and bad points of the game I would just like to say that I thought the game, is brilliant 
I loved the different approach to story it took me 59 hours 48 minutes 
to complete the game, so you can see I am the kind of person who likes to see everything about a game.
I played the on the PC set at medium settings.
What is good:
+ The story is different from the stereotypes where you face some big bad enemy, this time its survival and try to make the best of your situation while dealing with political powers like the templars, mages, qunari and nobles in lot of ways this is a more in-depth view of situations across play of the game. In DAO we faced the task of uniting all the forces in the land against the Blight which is a good story though it was done in other rpgs
+ The characters are all interesting and have their own lives, which you can alter depending on your choices. This approach give the characters more individuality than the characters in DAO where they are uniting under you to face the Blight, its also interesting hearing the talk between character to hear what they get up to when they are not with Hawke.
+The dialogue wheel feels like a more evolved version of ME2, I remember the amount of times my character in ME2 accidentally romanced Jack when I was just being friendly with her having this in ME2 would have solved a lot problems. This in DA2 gives you a good feel of the intent of what you are saying.
+ The diplomatic/helpful, humorous/charming and aggressive/direct system greatly improves the dialogue in DA2 than in DAO where you couldn’t really get a feel for the intent of the dialogue. The system in DAO felt like your character didn’t have much life to him/her now in DA2 the dominate personality, intent, expressions and movement in scenes give the character a life of their own.
+ The dominate personality is the best addition so far to DA2, this gives your character a more unique feel to them causing massive replay value since you will feel like a different character.
+ The quests are great not only in the Hawke & companion interaction with the quests but the consequences that happen in it, we rarely saw this in DAO causing this a step in the right direction.
+ The redesign of the races in DA2 is lovely, the races look more unique and exotic when compared to DAO being just different variations of humans.
+ The import of my DAO save caused a lot of things to happen regarding my choices in DAO, I love this especially how there is a lot of reverence regarding my origin choice. Hope to see more of this in DLC to come and hopefully in DA3 if made so we can see the DAO & DA2 choices joined together in DA3.
What is ok:
* The graphics look nice and different but I don’t really consider it any better or worse than PC DAO.
* The combat in DA2 feels the same as DAO just faster paced.
What is bad:
- The reuse of environments was up to the point of being abusive, they are beautifully done environments but still the amount of repeats felt like tied to a chair forced to watch something over and over… 
please I beg you bioware don’t do this in any new DLC you might be working on.
- There is quite a few bugs in the game though that is to be expected with a new game already sent the list of bugs to the appropriate threads.
Conclusion:
I give the game a 95 out 100 give DAO the same though both great games, don’t understand all this hate for DA2 the games are very similar to each and this is just the beginning we don’t know what DLC and expansions we will see further down the line must say I am looking forward to it.
I loved the different approach to story it took me 59 hours 48 minutes to complete the game, so you can see I am the kind of person who likes to see everything about a game. I played the on the PC set at medium settings.What is good:
+ The story is different from the stereotypes where you face some big bad enemy, this time its survival and try to make the best of your situation while dealing with political powers like the templars, mages, qunari and nobles in lot of ways this is a more in-depth view of situations across play of the game. In DAO we faced the task of uniting all the forces in the land against the Blight which is a good story though it was done in other rpgs
+ The characters are all interesting and have their own lives, which you can alter depending on your choices. This approach give the characters more individuality than the characters in DAO where they are uniting under you to face the Blight, its also interesting hearing the talk between character to hear what they get up to when they are not with Hawke.
+The dialogue wheel feels like a more evolved version of ME2, I remember the amount of times my character in ME2 accidentally romanced Jack when I was just being friendly with her having this in ME2 would have solved a lot problems. This in DA2 gives you a good feel of the intent of what you are saying.
+ The diplomatic/helpful, humorous/charming and aggressive/direct system greatly improves the dialogue in DA2 than in DAO where you couldn’t really get a feel for the intent of the dialogue. The system in DAO felt like your character didn’t have much life to him/her now in DA2 the dominate personality, intent, expressions and movement in scenes give the character a life of their own.
+ The dominate personality is the best addition so far to DA2, this gives your character a more unique feel to them causing massive replay value since you will feel like a different character.
+ The quests are great not only in the Hawke & companion interaction with the quests but the consequences that happen in it, we rarely saw this in DAO causing this a step in the right direction.
+ The redesign of the races in DA2 is lovely, the races look more unique and exotic when compared to DAO being just different variations of humans.
+ The import of my DAO save caused a lot of things to happen regarding my choices in DAO, I love this especially how there is a lot of reverence regarding my origin choice. Hope to see more of this in DLC to come and hopefully in DA3 if made so we can see the DAO & DA2 choices joined together in DA3.
What is ok:
* The graphics look nice and different but I don’t really consider it any better or worse than PC DAO.
* The combat in DA2 feels the same as DAO just faster paced.
What is bad:
- The reuse of environments was up to the point of being abusive,
they are beautifully done environments but still the amount of repeats felt like tied to a chair forced to watch something over and over… please I beg you bioware don’t do this in any new DLC you might be working on.- There is quite a few bugs in the game though that is to be expected with a new game already sent the list of bugs to the appropriate threads.
Conclusion:
I give the game a 95 out 100 give DAO the same though both great games, don’t understand all this hate for DA2 the games are very similar to each and this is just the beginning we don’t know what DLC and expansions we will see further down the line must say I am looking forward to it.
Modifié par Annoyed Dragon, 19 mars 2011 - 11:42 .
#2199
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 11:01
SiIencE
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- 568 messages
Andarthiel_Demigod wrote...
SiIencE wrote...
Andarthiel_Demigod wrote...
Well despite all the DA2 bashing I'm quite happy with this installment
Some points I'd like to raise, both pro and con
Pros:
-Animation is much nicer than DA:O especially when it comes to combat(I never get tired of seeing my Rogue leap towards an enemy with daggers in hand)
-Looks much better, visually speaking with the high res textures, lighting, effects etc.
-The Interface is much more efficient and compact, the potions shorcuts are awesome
-Great story, not all moments have it but certain quests certainly elicited an emotional response from me
-Some excellent characters(I've gotten especially fond of Merriland Varric)
-The abilities are great especially the specializations which can really be useful in tough situations
-Nice music, love the new theme and some of the new tracks are great(also noticed a return of some DA:O ones)
-Flemeth is back and she looks badass
Cons:
-More locations would have been more nicer
-Really bad optimization, it chugs unless you know the drivers solution(I know it's DirectX 11 but I've played DX10 and DX11 games that ran faster than DA2 so it doen't really warrant my PC's sturggle)
-Companion Armour, bad idea
-Also crafting ingredients, also bad idea(I know what they were trying to do but they're so ridiculously rare that it's pointless, like lyrium which I didn't find until the Deep Roads but by then it didn't really matter)
- Qunari design just makes no sense, I prefer them looking more human and less demonic since they're an intelligent and civilized race
-Doesn't have invetory stacking(This is just common sense especially when you have a limited inventory and are stocking up on potions or some other essential consumable)
So overall I give it a 8/10, good not great
I guess i have to agree here, except i haven't played DA:O yet!
Some points i agree on some i don't but overall this review is how i feel about DA2,
I'm having a hard time writing a review myself without going into details, which offcourse contain spoilers, sofar i've tried 5 times and all didn't work without the spoilers
However i had no problems with the game performance, DX11+Highres Textures pack and all settings maxed, some hickups now and then but no crashes at all either.
Well that's odd, what are your hardware specs? And what driver version are you using?
I'm guessing the kind of hardware i use isn't really common.
Vista Ultimate X64
Dual Xeon 5160 (2 x 2cores) @ 3Ghz
16GB DDR2 ECC FB Dimm 667 interleave mode
Supermicro X7DAE+
2 x Seagate 320GB @ Raid0 (Dedicated game disk)
Also tried DA2 on my XM25 SSD but for some odd reason it kept bugging out, works fine on normal HD's tho.
2 x Radeon 5870 1GB. (Crossfire doesn't help).
Latest AMD drivers, updated 2 weeks ago.
1920x1200, 4xAA, 16xMSAA, forced some settings through CCC.
Also still running 1.00, 1.01 patch didn't have improvements i wanted, i'll wait for a patch that actually fixes the bugged quests.
I was able to play for ~14 hours straight no crashes
Modifié par SiIencE, 20 mars 2011 - 01:00 .
#2200
Posté 19 mars 2011 - 11:30
Karazax
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Just finished the game today. I played the first 2 acts on nightmare, before it just got too tedious about half way thru act 3. Nightmare combat was challenging at times, but as many others have mentioned this was primarily due to the waves spawning on top of you. Unfortunately this made the most viable tactics to run the entire party to a different room or area as soon as you entered combat, so that the waves came all from the same direction, and in nightmare it meant many of the boss battles involved long extended kiting the boss sequences which, while challenging, frankly were as boring and tedious as the normal and hard with no friendly fire. Ideally friendly fire should have been a switch available for every difficulty. I swapped to normal for the last half of act 3 just to get it over with.
The story was ok. I don't really consider it that different from the generic "save the world" story, it was just shrunk down to save the city instead.
I lot of the choices left me feeling that they were completely superficial, with the same out come regardless of what you say.
My main complaints:
1) Repetitive combat with arcade game like wave spawning. Either play nightmare and have the combat drag out, with the risk that assassins can one shot your mages and bosses require exploiting bad AI to beat, or anything else and have friendly fire be meaningless. There is some Diablo-esque level fun there, but it isn't particularly strategic, especially if you set up strong tactics for your companions.
2) Restriced ability to outfit your companions. I felt the armor upgrades being mostly restricted to Hawke was a major disappointment. Part of the fun is finding new gear and some of that was eliminated with the set armor for each companion and all the gear restricted to Hawke only. It also took away from immersion of the game.
3) Very vague dialog options. Often what you mean to say and what your choice leads you to believe you are going to say are very different.
4) Quests are mostly follow the gold arrows to kill some mobs, grab an item maybe, and repeat.
5) For all being in one city, the city itself is not very developed. Exploring the city in Baldur's Gate II felt more like a city, where this city feels so small and underdeveloped. Probably because of all the areas that are reused over and over. The one bar, the one brothel, the one church, and the MMO like NPC's that have nothing better to do but stand in the street at the same spot every day. NPC's like this aren't specific to DA2, but it is more noticeable when you are stuck in the same spot for the whole game. How about having dozens of different buildings to explore in each zone in the city? I was expecting an epic undertaking on the Deep Road expedition, but it was like 5-6 rooms and over with. It just seems like if the whole game is going to be in one city, that city could be a lot more extensive in scope.
6) Part of the advantage of a single player RPG is that you can have a player really change the world with their quests, but I didn't really feel like I was changing much. I mean this wasn't really much different from the other RPG's where you save the world, except here you are just saving a city. Sure you advance from immigrant, to mansion owner, to champion of the city, but it doesn't feel like any decision you make has any effect on how it ultimately plays out, which is more typical of an MMO. It's understandable in an MMO, after all it's hard to make EVERYONE have changing effects on a world shared by thousands of others. But in a single player game, it feels really restricted how little your choices change the final out come of each act.
7) Extremely repetitive mobs. On top of the repetitive environments, there are about 4 different types of encounter in the game that you see hundreds of times. Humaniod (darkspawn/human/elf/ect) combat with leader and lackeys, with a few archers and maybe an assasin. Spiders. Demons. Bosses. The bosses were generally interesting, but still suffered from the random spawn waves of minions. Waves occasionally wouldn't have been bad, if it wasn't every single fight with no way to know how many are coming. They also could have been improved by having them come thru doors, or by giving a way to prevent the waves (say once the players are spotted, some of the mobs run to go get help, if you kill them fast enough you prevent a wave).
The game wasn't bad, except in comparison to some of Bioware's previous efforts. Still it can't be considered good when I am wrapping up act 2 and ready for the game to be over all ready because every combat outside of bosses the rest of the way is just rehashes of fights I have already done, in the same locations I have already fought before.
The story was ok. I don't really consider it that different from the generic "save the world" story, it was just shrunk down to save the city instead.
I lot of the choices left me feeling that they were completely superficial, with the same out come regardless of what you say.
My main complaints:
1) Repetitive combat with arcade game like wave spawning. Either play nightmare and have the combat drag out, with the risk that assassins can one shot your mages and bosses require exploiting bad AI to beat, or anything else and have friendly fire be meaningless. There is some Diablo-esque level fun there, but it isn't particularly strategic, especially if you set up strong tactics for your companions.
2) Restriced ability to outfit your companions. I felt the armor upgrades being mostly restricted to Hawke was a major disappointment. Part of the fun is finding new gear and some of that was eliminated with the set armor for each companion and all the gear restricted to Hawke only. It also took away from immersion of the game.
3) Very vague dialog options. Often what you mean to say and what your choice leads you to believe you are going to say are very different.
4) Quests are mostly follow the gold arrows to kill some mobs, grab an item maybe, and repeat.
5) For all being in one city, the city itself is not very developed. Exploring the city in Baldur's Gate II felt more like a city, where this city feels so small and underdeveloped. Probably because of all the areas that are reused over and over. The one bar, the one brothel, the one church, and the MMO like NPC's that have nothing better to do but stand in the street at the same spot every day. NPC's like this aren't specific to DA2, but it is more noticeable when you are stuck in the same spot for the whole game. How about having dozens of different buildings to explore in each zone in the city? I was expecting an epic undertaking on the Deep Road expedition, but it was like 5-6 rooms and over with. It just seems like if the whole game is going to be in one city, that city could be a lot more extensive in scope.
6) Part of the advantage of a single player RPG is that you can have a player really change the world with their quests, but I didn't really feel like I was changing much. I mean this wasn't really much different from the other RPG's where you save the world, except here you are just saving a city. Sure you advance from immigrant, to mansion owner, to champion of the city, but it doesn't feel like any decision you make has any effect on how it ultimately plays out, which is more typical of an MMO. It's understandable in an MMO, after all it's hard to make EVERYONE have changing effects on a world shared by thousands of others. But in a single player game, it feels really restricted how little your choices change the final out come of each act.
7) Extremely repetitive mobs. On top of the repetitive environments, there are about 4 different types of encounter in the game that you see hundreds of times. Humaniod (darkspawn/human/elf/ect) combat with leader and lackeys, with a few archers and maybe an assasin. Spiders. Demons. Bosses. The bosses were generally interesting, but still suffered from the random spawn waves of minions. Waves occasionally wouldn't have been bad, if it wasn't every single fight with no way to know how many are coming. They also could have been improved by having them come thru doors, or by giving a way to prevent the waves (say once the players are spotted, some of the mobs run to go get help, if you kill them fast enough you prevent a wave).
The game wasn't bad, except in comparison to some of Bioware's previous efforts. Still it can't be considered good when I am wrapping up act 2 and ready for the game to be over all ready because every combat outside of bosses the rest of the way is just rehashes of fights I have already done, in the same locations I have already fought before.
