48 réponses à ce sujet

[Chickenhawked]

Dragon Age: Origins is one of my favorite video games.  It has attractive graphics, good music, some of the best dialogue and character interactivity in gaming history, an amazing battle system, and a simple story that was well-carried by its premise, its presentation, and its extremely fleshed out world.  It's such a good game that I am willing to deal with restarting the client after every hour of play because of the RAM/resource leaks that BioWare has yet to fix (and probably never will).

I'm not stupid.  I understand that Dragon Age: Origins was made with time, care, and love--and that when EA saw that it was wildly (and unexpectedly) successful, they decided that it needed to be industrialized.  Going into Dragon Age II, I expected a polished, shorter, more simple Dragon Age: Origins.  That said, I always play my games 100% unbiased: I do not watch any trailers, I avoid gaming forums, I don't read the magazines that Gamestop sends me every month, and I avoid review sites. 

Instead of the slightly lesser sequel to Dragon Age: Origins I was expecting, I got something that feels like a shell--something so soulless and lackluster that I'd rather type up this post than play the game.  I stopped playing last night because I just wasn't having fun, and I still don't feel like playing.  So here I am.  This isn't a plea; I understand business and I doubt that what I say here will have any effect on the powers that be, but I need to express myself.  The following is just going to be a chronological list of my thoughts as I played the game.

At the beginning of the game, a girl I don't know is talking to a dwarf I don't know about a Champion I don't know in a room I don't know.  They're talking about events I don't know about, and then a character that I didn't customize is thrown into a battle with graphically blocky Darkspawn that remind me of the villains from Power Rangers.  While the graphics are sharp and crisp, the art direction is bland; there are nothing but faint shadows in the backdrop, and the whole map is a hallway of rust.  While fighting the Darkspawn, I realize that I can't die, and that this is just the tutorial.

I am able to customize my character (Male Warrior if you're wondering) and save the game, so I figure that this is the time to perfect my video settings.  I crank everything up to max settings (because I have a high-end computer) and--oh my god!  Everything has become a laggy mass of black triangles!  The "Very High" setting is broken!  I Google it, I download the beta NVIDIA drivers, and the black triangles disappear--but the framerate issue doesn't.  I turn the setting down to High and the framerate problem is gone.

I turn the game up to Nightmare and I go off on my way.  The characters look bland, but so did many of the characters in DA1, who turned out to be extremely interesting later in the game.  --Wow, the Nightmare tuning is tight so far; I'm going to set up my Tactics.

I go into the menu and am shocked by how inefficient it is.  Every option requires more clicks than it did in DA1.  I go into the Tactics menu, which is huge and enormous, so I have to scroll through the options for every tactic.  In DA1, the Tactics menu was small and compact.  When I select the wrong Tactics option in DA2, I am forced to press ESC or click on Back (as opposed to simply clicking outside of the box, like you could do in DA1) and then recreate that Tactic from the very beginning (because you can't "resume" from a piece of the tactic like you could in DA1).  I know this sounds a little confusing, but let me try to clarify, because this is something that is really important and really annoying.

Let's say you want to make an, [Ally > Anders > Health > Less than 50% > Use Ability > Heal] tactic.  You go through all of the menus and end up accidentally making an  [Ally > Anders > Health > Greater than 50% > Use Ability > Heal].  In DA1, you can simply open up that tactic, go to the middle of the tactic, and adjust/fix it from there.  In DA2, you can't go to the middle of the tactic; you are forced to recreate the tactic from the bottom up.  On Nightmare, where Tactics matter and must be edited often, this is a glaring issue.

I look at my inventory and I realize that there is no option to list all of my items.  I can't see all of my new items up-front; instead I am forced to categorize it by Weapon, and then Armor, and then Accessories, and then Consumables, and so on.  I click on Hawke's portrait because I want to equip him with something--

It takes me to the level up screen.  What?  I didn't ask for that.  I go back to the inventory screen and click on Hawke's portrait--  It takes me to the level up screen!  --But I don't want to level up yet!!  I want to shape my character builds on the enemies I have issues with in the future; I'm on Nightmare and I need to choose very wisely.  I close out of the menus, I get into a battle, I click on Hawke's portrait so that I can control him directly, and it takes me to the level up screen.  I scream, and I level Hawke up so that I can play the damn game.

Oh, a codex update!  I found a "Lothering Rock" (this is just an example I made up).  I double click on the codex notification message for "Lothering Rock", and the menu opens up and takes me to the codex entry for "Lockpicking".  I stare in disbelief, because the Lothering Rock entry is right there above Lockpicking, and it has been marked as read already.  I didn't read it at any point, but it's marked as read.  Wow.  All of this worked perfectly fine in DA1.  I click on the "Lothering Rock" entry, begin reading it, and then it dawns on me that I've read this entry before.  --It's a copy/paste from DA1.

I get to the end of the Lothering level and the events from the tutorial happen again, but this time it's not a tutorial.  --Still, it's repetitive.  I end up soloing the ogre with my mage, because there's a massive AI issue in DA2: As long as your character is running, it cannot be melee'd, no matter how close the enemy is to that character.  Every time the ogre came for the mage, I simply ran away.  Every time the ogre stopped to do once of its abilities, I damaged the ogre.  And then it died.  I had just killed every single melee boss in the game on Nightmare.

Then I got to Kirkwall.  At the time, I thought it was the first city in the game.  It was enormous--I was very impressed.  It was around this part that the dialogue options started to bother me.  I'd pick an option and Hawke would say something entirely different.  I'd look over the options and none of them would even remotely apply to me.  In DA1 there were many options, and what you picked was what you got.  In DA2 it doesn't really matter what you pick: Even if you pick "I'm going to kill you!", Hawke will just say something like: "You should try some tea in the morning."

The more I explored Kirkwall, the more fights I got into.  --Totally random fights with gangs of ninjas whose numbers rivaled those of the Ferelden army you build in DA1.  I'd just be walking around a random part of the city and 15 enemies would charge me.  I'd kill them, and then 15 more would spawn.  I'd kill those, and then 15 more would spawn.  Where are all these people coming from, and why do they want me dead so badly?  I'm just another refugee amongst the rabble, not a Grey Warden.  Due to the enormous cooldowns on crowd control abilities, the fact that you can't hope to control 30+ enemies, and the fact that some enemies are entirely uncontrollable (like the assassins who unstealth to backstab and one-shot your non-tanks on Nightmare, or the small armies that pop out of nearby walls and pillars), I quickly realize that the best way to deal with Nightmare difficulty is not to strategize.  Rather, if you want to beat the game on Nightmare, your best bet is to simply put together a ranged nuke team.  Crowd control isn't effective and tanks only have one threat-generating ability on a 20 second cooldown, so trying to crowd control or tank is just going to get you killed on Nightmare difficulty.

Let me state this a second time: If you attempt to strategize on Nightmare difficulty by implementing tanks and crowd control, you WILL die!  You simply won't be able to beat the game like that.  It's a shocking oversight.

The majority of my time on Nightmare was spent kiting enemies.  Bosses could be kited around for the entire fight without any of my party members ever taking damage, and groups of enemies could be kited away from their spawn points.  --If you decided to fight in their spawn points, you would be overrun by 30+ ninjas dropping out of the sky.  In DA1, my Nightmare fights were epic; all of my party members were capable of manipulating threat, controlling enemies, mitigating and/or healing damage, and outputting damage.  In DA2, you just end up kiting, since all of the other mechanics are broken.

Curious, I tried out the other DA2 difficulties after beating the game.  Unsurprisingly, the other difficulties don't require crowd control either.  On every other difficulty, you don't even need to pause the game--if you select each of your party members, one by one, and use their available abilities, you will win.  Crowd control and tanking is broken on all difficulty options, but it's only noticeable on Nightmare.  --The only thing that those playing on Hard and lesser difficulties will notice is that battles are generally long and drawn out, and that's no surprise when you're fighting off 4 waves of 10 enemies.  What's with the masses of enemies and the waves?  I assume that one of the game designers thought that this would be "epic".  --It's not.  Not when every corrupt merchant in Kirkwall has 40 followers who are willing to fight to the death over a 2 sovereign reward.

The game froze often.  Minimum 10 freezes in 30 hours.  The framerate halved often, and totally randomly.  I've been told that this is a Direct X 11 issue.  The framerate issue would come and go on its own, totally unrelated to available PC resources or what was happening in the game.

I thought the low resolution elf NPCs in Darktown were throwbacks to Zelda 64.  I was wrong.

"Wow, there's so much available content at the beginning of the game!"  That's what I kept telling myself for the first 15 hours of the game, until I realized that Kirkwall isn't the beginning of the game.  It is THE game.  When I finished all of the "sidequests", the climax happened--and then the game was over.  It felt like someone took Dragon Age: Awakening, blew it up, and tried to pass it off as a sequel instead of an expansion/DLC.  --I enjoyed Awakening very much, and I prefer it to Dragon Age 2.

The characters were so bland that I don't even have commentary on them.  I guess I can talk about Merrill: Were your writers really so uninspired that they had to use the "cute hyper talkative" anime/RPG character archetype?  What happened to the incredible writing that made DA1's characters so alive that I actually started to care about video game characters?  At the beginning of DA1, I pretty much thought, "Wow, all of these characters are ugly."  At the end of DA1, I thought, "Wow, I'm going to miss these characters--they felt like friends; I feel like I have to say goodbye to friends."  At the beginning of DA2, I thought, "Wow, all of these characters are ugly."  At the end of DA2, I thought, "Wow, they still feel like acquaintances, and I'm not sure why most of them joined my party at all."

The music of DA2?  I don't recall a single piece of it; not a single theme.

The story?  It felt unnecessary--like a side story.  Dragon Age: Awakening's story was way more interesting and pertinent.

Uh.  That's it.  I'm pretty disappointed.  I'm a thorough guy.  My first Dragon Age: Origins playthrough was 80 hours.  My first Dragon Age II playthrough is 30 hours.  My DA1 save is now up to 130 hours, and I don't expect to resume DA2 any time soon.  DA1 is almost perfect, and I don't even find DA2 fun.  I feel like no one at BioWare ever asked themselves, "Is this game fun?"

Please don't try to uh.. debate with me, because I'm not here for that; my opinion shouldn't be affecting anyone else's.  The game is already over and no amount of consolation is going to fix what I've already played.  But like I said, I needed to express myself.  At the end of DA1, my character saved the world by sacrificing himself to kill the Archdemon.  There was such an enormous amount of closure that I couldn't play the game for half a year after that because of the finality, and because I missed the world and characters.  At the end of DA2, my only closure is posting on a BioWare message board.  And there you have it.

[skylr616]

This is a thread at the top of this section that is for reviews... its stickied and pretty hard to miss. You apparently failed to learn some basic forum etiquette in those years of experience.

As for your review... I disagree with most of it and thats ok. 

Modifié par skylr616, 10 mars 2011 - 03:06 .

[Skilled Seeker]

Give yourself some false credentials so as to make your opinion warrant its own thread? It doesn't so prepare for lockdown son.

[PsychoWARD23]

Saw the game wasn't registered; skipped the wall

[Naitaka]

Spam.

End of the Line.

[/Stanly Woo Impression]

Anyway, cool story bro, even though I agree with most of your points, the way you presented it is just asking for flaming and trolling. Although I have one thing to say about characterization, Loghain. Him alone is better than every single characters DA2 came up with added together.

[iEscaflowne]

PsychoWARD23 wrote...

Saw the game wasn't registered; skipped the wall

Skilled Seeker wrote...

Give yourself some false
credentials so as to make your opinion warrant its own thread? It
doesn't so prepare for lockdown son.

"Oh ****! His opinion differs from mine! I better stick my head in the sand until it goes away."

[Anathemic]

PsychoWARD23 wrote...

Saw the game wasn't registered; skipped the wall

Maybe some of us warrant that DA2 isn't worht he $50-$60 currently?

I don't know about you but I don't spend my money willy nilly

[Drogo45]

Writing must not be going all that well for you if you have all those gaming hours. Oh wait.....

[Skilled Seeker]

Anathemic wrote...

PsychoWARD23 wrote...

Saw the game wasn't registered; skipped the wall

Maybe some of us warrant that DA2 isn't worht he $50-$60 currently?

I don't know about you but I don't spend my money willy nilly

How can you review a game you haven't played?

[iEscaflowne]

Drogo45 wrote...

Writing must not be going all that well for you if you have all those gaming hours. Oh wait.....

Because no one ever has freetime to do other things besides thier career. How about you address the points instead of attempting to discredit the validity of the points?

[Ratharos]

Wow I agree with the OP 100%.
While the game is by no means bad, it feels like a sidequest and it doesn't compare to DA:O
I guess I will keep waiting for the next planescape torment...

[Chickenhawked]

When did you get the game? It's been out for a day.

Friday.  Certain venues were given the game early for review purposes.  I will not be publishing the above review (both because it's a mess and because it's PR suicide).  These are just my personal thoughts.

If you haven't played through the entirety of the game yet, I suggest you veer away from this thread so that you can formulate your own opinion beforehand.  --My assumption was that the only people who would be on this board (instead of playing the game) are those who were feeling the same way as I do.

I've beaten the game once on Nightmare, including all sidequests (and available DLC).

[Cobrawar]

prepare to be flamed by bioware's minions. I thought it was a good review , you were being honest and hell that's all anyone can ask for.

[tryguy]

Cool. I read most of it. I'm pretty certain what you wrote is accurate.

I've been reading impressions like this ever since the game came out.

It's not looking too rosy for Bioware right now.

[Melness]

At the beginning of the game, a girl I don't know is talking to a dwarf I don't know about a Champion I don't know in a room I don't know.

At the beginning of the game, an old man I don't know is talking to another old man I don't know about a ritual I don't know in a room I don't know.

Also known as Mage Origin.

I click on Hawke's portrait because I want to equip him with something--

It takes me to the level up screen. What? I didn't ask for that.

When you level up, the portrait becomes a level up button. As is shown by the huge yellow arrow pointing up.

The rest I either didn't read or was a lot of personal opinions followed by even more personal opinions.

[Sharkey1337]

Thanks for the great review! I'm only 8 hours in but everything you said totally matches what I've been thinking so far. I went ahead and spoiled the ending for myself to even see if I have anything to look forward to, and yeah the whole game seems so meaningless as a full blown sequel. Awakening was so much better than what I've played so far of DA2, and that expansion was only 13 hours for me.

[skylr616]

There are a handful of professional critics that agree with him... there seem to be many others that don't... but thats the way opinion works. There is no accounting for taste

[Morroian]

Anathemic wrote...

PsychoWARD23 wrote...

Saw the game wasn't registered; skipped the wall

Maybe some of us warrant that DA2 isn't worht he $50-$60 currently?

I don't know about you but I don't spend my money willy nilly

Is that a justification for piracy? Cause its not warranted if you don't like it don't play it. 

[Loup Blanc]

You know... I am really wondering what the guys at Bioware are doing/thinking right now. Where are they all? Mr Gaider, Laidlaw and co? Are they reading the boards and realizing the extent of fan rage on the boards? I'm really, really curious and I would love to see their faces right now.

[TeaCokeProphet]

Too long. I'm not interested enough in your opinion.

[Mallific]

This is probably my first post on the forum (but I've been registered for a while). I myself am a indie game developer (Although not RPGs) and I have to agree with almost everything you posted. I'm actually not done with the game yet, about 15 hours in, and it's honestly hard for me to get "into" the game. I cranked it up to nightmare just to make it less hack and slash, which I thought would fix the problem, but It honestly feels like a hack and slash. As far as the story line so far: I feel like it's a bunch of side quests stapled together with no central plot other than what is hinted at through the narration. DA:O felt like I was making my story as I played it (I got to choose who was king, who lived/died, etc) but so far it feels that everything I do is predefined and chosen already. I think the biggest issue is the character relationships. In KOTOR I fell in love with my allies, same in jade empire, ME, ME2, DA. DA2 I have no clue why I have these people in my party. Good luck though on the official review, although game informer and gamespot did have the balls to review the game how it is.

[Anathemic]

Morroian wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

PsychoWARD23 wrote...

Saw the game wasn't registered; skipped the wall

Maybe some of us warrant that DA2 isn't worht he $50-$60 currently?

I don't know about you but I don't spend my money willy nilly

Is that a justification for piracy? Cause its not warranted if you don't like it don't play it. 

What? I'm not defending or going against priacy, I'm replying to the Psychp?

What you smoking, because I want some

Modifié par Anathemic, 10 mars 2011 - 03:29 .

[Faust1979]

There really isn't that much fan rage, there are a lot of people probably playing the game and not every single Bioware fans come to these boards. The people here make up the small percentage of people playing the game. Some people should have seen the forums when Mass Effect 2 came out it was the same exact thing

[HTTP 404]

I mostly disagree with the OP and I think DA2 is pretty fun and the graphics are better IMO than origins but that never was a big deal with me in the first place. The voice acting was great but the writing was oook. I like the indepth setting for one place but I can see why someone wants to diversify exploration. The combat could be toned down just a wee bit, I could go on but I have 5 good things to say about the game for every 1 negative thing about it. Overall I would give it a 8 out of 10, whereas Origins would be a 9 for me.

Other than that, I really hope this thread doesnt get locked any time soon. OP seemed pretty civil (cant really say for some responses) but I mostly disagree with him.