134 réponses à ce sujet

[jbrand2002uk]

I used to like the old duke nukem games more for the OMFG did he really just do/say that aspect more than anything else but after 12 years in development you'd expect it to be way better than it was, I mean what was it with hurling turds at a boss the size of the empire state building,

DA2 had it faults but was par for what i expected for game with a Dev cycle of that length, having said that I think BW could have been more creative/original with DAO given the 4 years in Development.

I just hope the £20 I have just spent buying DAO:UE isnt money thrown down the Kharzi I guess time and my patience wil tell when it arrives between now and Friday

[Fast Jimmy]

jds1bio wrote...

Yeah, this is what I mean about the breadth of what "disappointment" now covers. City section names like "Hightown" and "Darktown" are more generic than names like "Riverwood" (in the woods right next to a river!) and "Winterhold" (where it is ALWAYS snowing)? Scope of story I can understand to a degree, but I guess every RPG will now be considered disappointing if the player's hero is not "the One" who will deliver the world from an overarching evil.

Jesus-H-tap-dancing-Christ...


...it has nothing to do with saving the world. There are plenty of good games where the story doesn't involve saving the world. There are plenty of BAD games where the whole point is to save the world.

It doesn't matter what you are saving... as long as the game appeals to you and makes you feel like what you are saving is worth saving. DA2 did not do that. I didn't save the city. I didn't protect its people (mages or non-mgaes). But even if I did, I didn't care about a single person there that wasn't already following me into demon infested dungeons anyway. So why WOULDN'T they leave the city if I asked? 

I could have been saving unicorns from evil storm clouds in DA2 and, as long as it made sense and had an engaging story that I felt like i was a part of, it would have been good. DA2 did not make sense, was not engaging and made me feel like I showed up to a party that I had no desire to go to.

[SkittlesKat96]

Skyrim had more generic names than DA 2 and even then I don't think its a big deal...

Also I think it deserves to be on this list, I think it was a decent game but it had a lot more flaws and wasn't as great as we expected it to be for a Bioware game.

I just have to say though that a lot of people don't seem to understand what opinions are...

A lot of reviews for DA 2 are fairly positive and DA 2 made decent sales and a lot of people enjoyed it...in fact I think overall more people enjoyed it than despised/detested it (and at the very least you can't really prove it either way, but its more logical that more people enjoyed it.)

So yeah, that is just my two cents. Even Skyrim has a very large group of haters (/v/ in particular has a lot of hate for Skyrim now for some reason) and SWTOR which has just came out has a very, very large group of haters.

Check out the Metacritic page for SWTOR. The same thing that happened to DA 2 is happening to SWTOR, and imo SWTOR is a great game and nearly everyone I've seen that has played it has enjoyed it yet there are a large group of anon that hate it and can't accept that other people enjoy it...

But as I said, it can work in reverse, there are a large group of Skyrim fans that don't understand why people see flaws in the game and have problems with the game even if its shoved into their faces.

My post will probably just get ignored by some of you guys but that is just my two cents on the whole 'Everyone hates DA 2, how can anyone love DA 2?' thing

[jds1bio]

billy the squid wrote...

It deserves its place. I look at the Me series, KOTOR and DAO, then at DA2 and wonder simply what the hell happend there, from bad execution to half baked ideas it was decidedly mediocre. The other games, many of them I wouldn't consider them a disappointment as I wouldn't have considered buying them. Duke Nukem wasn't a disappointment it was just a mess.

Quite a few feel that DA2 deserves its place among the most disappointing, but I like your explanation of why more than I do Wired's explanation - it gets to the essence of the disappointment, chiefly buyer's remorse.

[jds1bio]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

It doesn't matter what you are saving... as long as the game appeals to you and makes you feel like what you are saving is worth saving. DA2 did not do that. I didn't save the city. I didn't protect its people (mages or non-mgaes). But even if I did, I didn't care about a single person there that wasn't already following me into demon infested dungeons anyway. So why WOULDN'T they leave the city if I asked? 

Funny, because in DA2 I did save the city, twice.  I tried to protect its people.  I thought it did matter whether I was more aligned morally to the mages or the templars.  The first time around, the game even had me going in thinking I could turn the tide.  I couldn't make a difference with everyone, however, and in a few cases I couldn't make a difference at all no matter what I did.  A disappointing part about DA2 for me was that I was left wonderring just where was Hawke during all this build-up, and even if the final results were the same, i wanted to try to do more in 7 years' time.

[PeterBazooka]

Good. It's the only kind of end of year list it deserves to be on.

[Icinix]

DA2 was this years most disappointing game in my list.

I think its right to be on that list - as the year has gone and seen some awesome releases one after the other - it has cemented itself quite nicely on that list too.

[panamakira]

The biggest issue I had with DA2 was the recycling of environments and the fact we were stuck in one city for 40+ hours. The game for me did not make any list of disappointments but it didn't live up the hype that DA:O was. I hope BW takes all of this with a grain of salt and brings a much more complete game in DA3.

[ImoenBaby]

Icinix wrote...

DA2 was this years most disappointing game in my list.

I think its right to be on that list - as the year has gone and seen some awesome releases one after the other - it has cemented itself quite nicely on that list too.

Indeed. It was a sad letdown for this long-time Bioware fan, and it left me wary.

I look forward to the future...with caution.

[Icinix]

ImoenBaby wrote...

Icinix wrote...

DA2 was this years most disappointing game in my list.

I think its right to be on that list - as the year has gone and seen some awesome releases one after the other - it has cemented itself quite nicely on that list too.

Indeed. It was a sad letdown for this long-time Bioware fan, and it left me wary.

I look forward to the future...with caution.

Same. Failures are a pain, but no-one with an interesting collection has only flawless pieces.

It may well end up swinging the RPG genre into actual awesome territory.

[Tommy6860]

Mr.House wrote...

The fact that Two Worlds II is on that list makes the list laughable. If they expected anything from a sequel to one of the worse games ever then they must have expected the second coming of Jesus with DA2.

Except TW2 was a quality game in comparison to its predecessor. DA2 was a near failure for a sequel that reused much of the music from Origins, along with a lot reused stuff as well. At least TW2 went into the right direction, though I still thought it was a weak game.
 

[tanerb123]

well deserved

[jds1bio]

I just saw on HookedGamers that they gave DA2 top MDG honors, backed up with an original review score of 6.7 (point-seven ???) and ending their review with "This is what’s called 'resting on your laurels.'"

I have to admit, playing through the game and conversing with the devs online, I never once thought of DA2 being a result of resting on laurels. I did think this with Rage, though - a runner-up on HookedGamers' list .

[TheRealJayDee]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I could have been saving unicorns from evil storm clouds in DA2 and, as long as it made sense and had an engaging story that I felt like i was a part of, it would have been good. DA2 did not make sense, was not engaging and made me feel like I showed up to a party that I had no desire to go to.

Agreed!

[RenaissanceDweeb]

I was disappointed in the lack of explanation on certain points such as the lyrium idol, the lack of creativity in dungeon design until it came to DLC, and the lack of exploration, but the story and characters are what make me love the game and keep playing it. However, what is and isn't disappointing about the game is all subjective and entirely dependent on the person who is playing it.

[Gunderic]

Mr.House wrote...

The fact that Two Worlds II is on that list makes the list laughable. If they expected anything from a sequel to one of the worse games ever then they must have expected the second coming of Jesus with DA2.

Two Worlds II is actually better than Dragon Age 2. I'm being honest.

[TEWR]

It deserves to be on the list, but not for the reasons given. There's a tl;dr at the bottom of this section in bold, but I'd appreciate it if you could read this wall of text, as I did put some thought into it. Pretty please?

DAII was a game with solid concepts and horrifically flawed execution.

DAII's weaknesses extend far beyond the reused maps. That is a minor grievance that should not have been on the priorities list for things that needed fixing. I learned to accept the reused maps because that decision allowed for side quests with great stories -- albeit heavily combat focused, but this is a flaw of DAII itself -- to be instituted.

Granted, the side quests could've had some significance in DAII's main story, but alas. And I don't mean anything world changing. Just story changing. Like you go "Oh this is different because I did this back then! Cool!". DAII had very few instances of this, and even then they weren't very strong.

Case in point being the quest dealing with Kelder. Sure upon his death Lia eventually joins the City Guard. I liked that. But... what about the Magistrate who vows revenge? To me, if Kelder is killed he should've appeared during the Qunari conflict with a band of soldiers fending off Qunari, and then upon seeing Hawke tries to attack him with his men.

Add into that how grateful Lia's father is to Hawke for killing Kelder and says the whole Alienage will appreciate this. During the Qunari conflict, Hawke -- along with Merrill if chosen -- should've been able to go to the Alienage and gather a great deal of Elves to form a militia of sorts -- and whomever you chose in the prologue could help supply them with weapons and armor -- on the promise that for fighting off the Qunari they'll be treated better. And then 3 years later the Elves are treated better. And keep the Lia thing

This would've been an appropriate and significant story-changing consequence to a side quest.

And while being stuck in one city may seem to be the problem, it really isn't. Rather, it's the lack of life in the city that is the problem as well as the city not feeling as large as it should. Personally, Kirkwall felt very small and confined. The city doesn't evolve or react to my choices, and I go around small areas of a supposedly large city.

Kirkwall should've been large and grandiose, with the areas connecting to one another. IMO, each map -- Hightown, Darktown, and Lowtown -- should've been at least 3 times as big, with stairs leading to the other areas.



sort of like this. The areas would be visibly connected. At the very least this is what should've been done, but I think Kirkwall the city should've been one gigantic map, where Hawke could run all over the place if he wanted. And you could go into a companion's house, leave again, and the map would appear where you could still choose which area you wanted to go to -- incase you don't want to go romping around a large city -- and hand Lord Fancypants his fancy pants.

You see, in Rabanastre you could actually see the next area you would go to. If you wanted to go to the area with the Gambit store from the area before it you could see the Gambit store area back there. Granted Rabanastre itself was still small but it at least helped make the city feel more connected.

DAII's main problems however are the disjointed story, idiotic protagonist, heaping helping of death in an attempt to make the game "mature", horrible characterization, flawed execution of great concepts, one sided gameplay, and the lack of meaningful choice. Possibly others.

One of the first problems with the game is that there isn't really an origin story based on class. At least two should've been present, where the player is either at Ostagar in the army -- and the death toll caused by Loghain's treachery would've shown how much devastation the Blight can cause to men and women, while Wesley and later on the siblings would've showed the effects of the Taint -- or is at home defending Lothering from Darkspawn bands.

The second problem is how class dictates who dies in the game. IMO, this is a failure on the part of the game because the first time you play through it, you have no knowledge of who the sibling is to you beyond "We're siblings". Worse still is that the game forces the player to metagame in order to care about who they are as a person.

Headcanon be damned. You can give Hawke and the siblings some grand story in your head but that means nothing in the grand scheme of what goes on within the actual game.

IMO, both siblings should've lived so as to allow for a greater range of options. Both siblings could die in the DR, or one becomes a Warden and the other pursues their personal path. Or both could become Wardens by doing what Legacy did, in that Varric still accompanies you even though he may not be in the party. Or both pursue their personal path.

But these are all flaws within the prologue. The disjointed story comes into play because the Mage-Templar conflict and the Champion's rise to power were the central focus of Varric's tale. But the game does a poor job at conveying this feeling. It tries to make them two separate stories entirely when they should've been linked together.

This is not to say that Hawke should've been responsible for the war. I want to say that is not what I'm trying to say.

But Hawke should've been trying to prevent the war -- before it forcibly involved him -- and still failed anyway, and then sets out to make a difference still. This would make him a hero adored by most -- if not all -- of the public gaming community, as they would see that while Hawke had the best intentions at heart, everything went to hell in a handbasket anyway because it was too far out of his control.

The best way this could've been done is through Act 2. Act 2 should've still had the Qunari conflict, but it should've had regular dealings between Meredith and the Arishok with her showing how she is spiraling into a darker person, while also having Hawke being able to help either the Templars or the Mage Underground through a series of quests. These quests would weaken Templar authority in Kirkwall, either because the Templars can't do their job to catch mages or the Templars need outside help to do their job.

What this also would've done is make the player think that Hawke's actions within Kirkwall may have actually had a prominent effect on the Mage-Templar War. Because, as of now, it seems like we are all wondering "So why the hell is Cassandra looking for Hawke?"

Not to mention that Hawke rarely -- and I do mean rarely -- gets to solve problems with his head and not his hands. To him, almost every scenario can be solved by killing things. Sure, much of the game you're fighting things you can't reason with -- meaning Demons, Undead, Abominations, Dragons, and wildlife -- but what about the instances with the people in the quests? This is where Hawke rarely gets to flex his true wit. I don't mean the personality system. I mean instances where the personality system -- which is heavily flawed as well -- wouldn't have anything to do with it. Like Decimus.

Alas, what we get is a man whom -- outside of fanfiction -- does in fact sit around the house until something forces his involvement.

EDIT: tl;dr is that DAII did suck, but for more vital reasons than this "review" gave.

Fast Jimmy wrote...


...it has nothing to do with saving the world. There are plenty of good games where the story doesn't involve saving the world. There are plenty of BAD games where the whole point is to save the world.

Dude, I've been saying the same thing for months now. Some people just really want to hold onto this logical fallacy that the only way DAII could've been approved in the eyes of gamers was if Hawke was this perfect hero that keeps everyone from dying because he ****s badassery and pisses awesome. They hold onto it as if it would make the fallacy true.

What they fail to realize is that Hawke only needed to be proactive in trying to keep **** from hitting the fan, only for **** to still hit the fan anyway. And this would require more than just him doing something because he was now forced into acting, like how Act III began.

It's the sense of trying to keep a problem from arising and failing to do so that would've made the game great, had it been done well.

Alas, it doesn't matter. Some people desperately want to believe that the only reason DAII was hated was because the people who disliked it wanted Hawke to be perfect.

And they are blind for it. Sure maybe some of the people that disliked DAII wanted that -- though I have yet to see anyone actually claim as much -- but they try and extend it to the whole group of disappointed fans.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 25 décembre 2011 - 05:50 .

[Lithuasil]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...


Dude, I've been saying the same thing for months now. Some people just really want to hold onto this logical fallacy that the only way DAII could've been approved in the eyes of gamers was if Hawke was this perfect hero that keeps everyone from dying because he ****s badassery and pisses awesome. They hold onto it as if it would make the fallacy true.

What they fail to realize is that Hawke only needed to be proactive in trying to keep **** from hitting the fan, only for **** to still hit the fan anyway. And this would require more than just him doing something because he was now forced into acting, like how Act III began.

I don't know if you were here when the hate-hyperbole was at it's prime. But many people have claimed just that. True, few people had the honesty of outright admitting it - but a lot of the criticisms boil down to it. Especially since the supposedly superior Origins' biggest flaw was just that - the warden being an untouchable (if completely psychotic) walking fix-all, strolling through the land, passing judgement on what side got the better epilogue slide, fighting the most generic ancient evil imaginable. (Which is exactly the kind of wish-fulfillment powertrip that many people confuse for roleplaying)

And basically - what reason does Hawke have to be proactive? She didn't ask to be a hero, she didn't plan to become champion or defend the city - why would she get involved in those conflicts, if she could help it?

Also, to stay in the comparison - when did the warden act proactive? All Origins get forced by circumstance or outright blackmailed into the grey wardens. (excluding smart mages, those join because the script says so) Ostagar happens, and the remaining wardens decide to go with the treaties, because plan A failed. In each respective questhub, the warden rides the railroad du-jour, because the treaties can't be used, otherwise. None of this is proactive, or even voluntarily.

[TEWR]

Lithuasil wrote...


I don't know if you were here when the hate-hyperbole was at it's prime. But many people have claimed just that. True, few people had the honesty of outright admitting it - but a lot of the criticisms boil down to it. Especially since the supposedly superior Origins' biggest flaw was just that - the warden being an untouchable (if completely psychotic) walking fix-all, strolling through the land, passing judgement on what side got the better epilogue slide, fighting the most generic ancient evil imaginable. (Which is exactly the kind of wish-fulfillment powertrip that many people confuse for roleplaying)

I was here then, but I either forgot about those threads or left soon after the threads turned into a lack of reasonable discussion and thus never really saw those comments.

And basically - what reason does Hawke have to be proactive? She didn't ask to be a hero, she didn't plan to become champion or defend the city - why would she get involved in those conflicts, if she could help it?

Hawke is either a mage or has a sibling who is a mage, and finds out that Meredith's measures -- prior to her acquired item -- have been less friendly to mages, as well as seeing the type of people she considers worthy of high-ranking positions (Kerras and Alrik to name two)

Self-interest in the heart of it mostly, or in the interest of the sibling.

Also, to stay in the comparison - when did the warden act proactive?

Point out where in my post I said the Warden was largely proactive. I never did. To think that I was saying such a thing anywhere in my post is a little absurd.

But to answer it still, he was largely reactive but did get to make a few decisions that could be considered proactive. The Anvil maybe, but Avernus' research definitely. And Shale. He could think that having a Golem would be handy.

EDIT: The issue here is that DAII should've been the opposite of what DAO was. DAO had a largely. reactive hero with intermittent instances of proactivity while DAII should've had a largely proactive hero with intermittent instances of reactivity.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 22 décembre 2011 - 10:37 .

[Savber100]

Still think DA2 is a success, Bioware?

[TEWR]

Financially it may have been a success depending on the budget, but that's largely due to the pre-orders made due to DAO's success.

But as a game itself it's a failure.

[bleetman]

Tommy6860 wrote...

DA2 was a near failure for a sequel that reused much of the music from Origins-

Wait, what?

[TEWR]

bleetman wrote...

Tommy6860 wrote...

DA2 was a near failure for a sequel that reused much of the music from Origins-

Wait, what?

Inon Zur did say he was rushed, and some of the music heard in the game is reused. Like when you meet Varric it's the Dwarven-type theme of Orzammar I think.

That's one instance, but there are others. I just can't think of them at the moment.

That's not to say though there weren't any original pieces. Mage's Pride, the Qunari themes, The Hanged Man themes, the Hanged Man battle themes, and others.

[thats1evildude]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Inon Zur did say he was rushed, and some of the music heard in the game is reused. Like when you meet Varric it's the Dwarven-type theme of Orzammar I think.

I believe the occasional re-use of music from the original is deliberate.

Modifié par thats1evildude, 22 décembre 2011 - 10:49 .

[TEWR]

I'm not saying all of it wasn't deliberate, but I think there were times where it was done because of time constrictions. But that's only known to Inon Zur.

And I think it was more than just the occasional re-use.

The Orzammar theme did fit for Varric's introduction though, but I kinda wish he got his own theme. Or did he? I wasn't able to download the soundtrack. Stupid laptop wouldn't download it.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 22 décembre 2011 - 10:57 .