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[AgentWhale]

There is a thing about game "sequels" that polarizes people. Sometimes it is the timing of the sequel e.g. L4D2 was due to come out a year after the first game, a lot of people felt, myself included, that having new survivors was a betrayal to the old survivors whom we had come to love. Others felt that the game coming out so soon meant that it was really just expansion material that should have been included in the first game, and will now split the community, and so on. Other people didn't like the more colourful palatte of L4D2 prefering L4D's boring dark maps. Basically this game had a lot of sceptics and I think there are some people who persist in not liking it. As it happens I much prefer the gameplay of L4D2, 500+ hours compared to 100 hours in L4D. Valve even listend to the communtiy about leaving behined the old survivors and made a new campaign and a comic book (which I don't like for making Bill into a total jerk) to continue their story. Valve admitted that it was something of an experiment for themselves to release L4D2 to a tight deadline. I'm guessing it has something to do with money, and making it, but I wonder if it is also something of a duty to the staff to keep them in employment and probably other reasons too. For me L4D2 has been a success.

Anyway, I was feeling similar sentiments when it came to DA2. I'd defeated the blight with my buddies, and now, just like in L4D they were being abandoned. Who the hell are the new characters, I hated them by default, for replacing my buddies.

I didn't like the game previews, why oh why Bioware do you try and make your games look like-hack-and slash console games in game previews when they are always your trademark story-driven RPG? I've said in another post that I almost didn't buy DA:O because of that stupid trailer with blood splashing everywhere and limbs gone flying set to an awful rock soundtrack. I thought you had made a Diablo dungeon crawler.

I also felt the "press a button = awesome" was a rather stupid thing to say. " oh hai, we made the game for idiots". and I admit my initial thoughts were that the combat did look OTT.

Again, the demo -boy oh boy. What a bad advertisment for the game. This was a bad move, possibly the worst way to introduce people to the game, see the above paragraphs. I understand the idea, to give you a taster of the different classes and their abilities, but for a lot of people who had been harbouring doubts about the game this was just pure LOL for them. You are an invincible superhero cutting through paper enemies in god mode. Bad, bad, bad. Bioware you have just reinforced their position! Then you get a completely un heart felt loss of a sibling. This makes people think that you have dropped the ball on the writing too. The opening is one of the weakest aspects of the game! While you may not care much about that sibling, Hawk should. how about a CAAAAAAAAAAAARVER!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO, rather than, "oh well he's dead... lets go!" So you have now made a very bad first impression.

However, despite all this I thought to myself that Bioware fail at marketing. I thought I would hate DA:O too, simply Bioware make good games they just try and self-saboutage with bad marketing to attract the wrong sort of people.

Commence some sort of review:

Anyways Ive actually come to like DA2 a lot and agree with the developers on most of the game changes. The game felt a lot like DA:O I think the game engine has only been modified a bit and when I'm runnign around it definitly feels like DA:O. I like the way classes have been handled, the skill tree and abilities are now a lot more purposeful. While it may appease the old school rpg fanatics can't say I am sad to lose that attribute system.

I even fired up DA:O to compare the combat. DA:O by comparison is like playing in a labourious slow motion. Ugh it is clunky. The female animation is also much better in DA2, poor Morrigan and Leliana Combat in DA2 is a lot more satisfying, visualy and in terms of gameplay. I've only been playing on Hard mode so far because I thought Normal would be too easy, and I do have to make a lot of tactical pauses.

Now before playing the game, but after its release (damn being in the UK) I heard about the awfulness of the dungeon recycling. Well to be honest this doesn't bother me because... Bioware have made DA2 a MUCH more attractive game than DA:O. DA:O was ugly, it was ugly for a Bioware game, Mass Effect looked much nicer. I'll say more about this, bt it seems obvious to me what happened. Bioware have always had recycled areas, of various sizes, but in DA2 Bioware went for medium sized, better looking recycled areas that are pleasureable to be in. Still, I think this is one of the shortcomings and  would have liked to see more unique maps for the Main plot stories.

So aesthetics. DA2 is a huge win. DA:O was ugly and boring. (I have to install the Dragon Age Redesigned to make the characters look halfway decent), otherwise the game is visually ugly, the characters just look like a selection of plastic looking medieval Poser models, very broing outfits and armor, just brown drab is how I remeber it. Aside from bad visual style it was also bad technically I recall many lazy 3D clipping glitches (some of which perssist into DA2  e.g. people floating off the ground, or feet in the ground, Isabela's skirt cutting into her leg, etc, etc, etc.) Some areas did look nice, but there were loads of low res textures that made the game ugly. Somehow the visual elements of the game did not gel together and made it look crude and tasteless.

DA2 is much prettier, much nicer colour palattes. I agree that Kirkwall needs a bit more bustle, but otherwise it is beautiful to run around, nice interiors, there is still something odd about the characters. I'll take Aveline as an example, her orange hair just looks pure orange, it doesn't seem to get light from the surroundings and looks like a pool of pure colour. Well I'm starting to lose the ability to express myself; aesthetics being subjective and all, but I do appreciate the companions and their unique bodies. So I can't change their armour, well small price to pay for them looking good, I say. I would much rather have nice individuals thant DA:O companions that looked as dull as the NPCs.

Qunari = big improvement. Sten looked like a boring, ugly big man. Elves again = big improvment, before they just looked like someone had made small scale humans.

The improvments that the Art dept. have done to this game have been fantastic.

I also like the new look Flemeth, actually I don't think it is a "new" look it is just one of the forms she takes when she is, to take a Tolkien-ian expression, abroad. Get some imagination people.

Story; this is why I play bioware games. Not really for the combat or the loot. I like being in a nice environement and influencing the story. People criticized DA:O of having a cliched story, well I have to come out and say it, this does not bother me. It is fine for a computer game. It is fun to PLAY a cliched story, while it is boring to READ a cliche story. Besides they companions were well written and interesting.

Now then I take on board that the way Bioware is able to create this story is by sacrificing open-worldness and through an illusion of choice, they try and pre-empt the type of respones most sane people will take givent he situation, it can be limiting, but I think it works. I do not know why the haters expected anything else form a bioware game. HELLO have you played a Bioware game since KoTOR, why did you expect anything else? Why did I like KoTOR? combat was fun and challenging, but real reason it sticks in the memory banks was "Revan", and bringing Bastila back from the brink. Story is what immersed me in the game. When I was playing DA:O I found the lore really interesting regarding the Chantry, Templar, Mage Circle I was dissapointed to only really hear about these in passing and wanted these themes to be more fully developed. I liked the way DA2 went in this regard.

One thing that bothers me when people praise the origins stories, god that was superficial, so what, you got a different 20 minute intro and then a slight alternative end game meeting. So what. I've only played one complete playthrough as a human noble, and then done the origins themselves withought taking them any further. Boo hoo.

So I've noticed that the outcomes of your choices DOES seem a little on rails in DA2, and while I can't really excuse it and it is a flaw in my opinion, (my guess is the limited development time) it is interesting to me the way you are really choosing how you FEEL about certain situations which I think is also important. I also think the conversation wheel is an improvement, (in DA:O I romanced Zevran by mistake when trying to unlock his approval...)

So anyway, I don't find any of the complaints people are making to hold much water for me, while I approve nearly all changes as fully warranted improvements. UNFORTUANTELY Bioware did such a good job of digging a hole for themselves in the first place with the lusy intoduction to the game, marketing, demo, etc. I can see why a lot of people are unable or reluctant to enjoy themselves in it.

Furthermore, being called "DA2" was kind of a mistake too. It makes it sound like an, you know, actual sequel. And given that I'm still interested in the events on DA:O I'm still left wondering what the hell happened to Morrigan's baby!

Dragon Age: The Champion of Kirkwall, is what the game should have been called.

I hope Bioware doesn't abandon all that was good in this game because of all these idiot haters. I've grown to like Hawke and his companions and I will be a shame to leave them now. Stop abandoning characters Bioware!

Oh well, thanks for reading my cool story...