Swoo wrote...
Did they really crack on the visuals a lot for DA? I don't tend to really read any reviews unless a game comes out of nowhere and blindsides me. I thought the graphics and the like were perfectly fine in DA, but if the sequel is going to be a huge step forward, I can't wait to see that.
Its sad- in my boredom a while ago I put my make believe developer hat on and went through every review of DAO and Awakening I could find. From that I tried to sift through the most common complaints and criticisms and most common compliments. One reason I did this was that I remember for ME2, the devs made giant excel sheets of every review and broke everything down into positives. negatives and how to improve based in part on comments from reviews. If you look at the GDC talk Christina Norman gave about ME2, you can see some of the type of spreadsheets they made- kind of cool.
I didn't go that far, but some of the most common criticisms you come across for Origins is that the story seems derivative initially, the world seems fairly generic fantasy and that the visuals (especially for the consoles) are not up to par with other games of this generation. Lots of reviews mention bugginess, the goofiness of the blood stains, boring conversation animations, the gift system making approval too easy to manipulate, zombie PC facial expressions when in conversations and boring/generic locales.
My personal favorite review for Awakening is this one: http://www.cinemable...ning-23526.html It just hits on about every issue and problem I had with Awakening.
But yeah, it seems alot of the criticisms for Origins come from the console side of things. Mainly the muddy graphics and ho-hum control wheel setup. One of my concerns for DA2 is that the consoles get all the attention or that the PC version somehow gets "dumbed down" for the sake of the consoles. BioWare would never admit to that, but I just hate it when multiplatform games get crummy ports to the PC. But thats a rant for another time....
Swoo wrote...
Couple that with Morrigan being confirmed to reappearing and I think we are starting to see hints that DA2 will take a mix of O and A companions with new ones, and be slightly moved down the time-line but nothing drastic....exactly like Baldur's Gate II.
Thats an interesting point. I'd love to see Justice come back and maybe Nathaniel. Anders was ok but I could never get over the fact that he seemed too much like Alistair in a mage costume. A maybe 5-10 year gap in time from Awakening to DA2 would be awesome.
Swoo wrote...
And to just be a little more clear on this
point since it really sticks out to me when I was re-reading for any
glaring typo's, I'm talking about flagpole releases like Origins or
Dragon Age 2. Smaller, 'crunched' releases like DLC and Expansion
Packages you have to raise an eyebrow and go 'Err, I don't trust you
Bioware' until they prove otherwise. But when talking about the central
releases, I think no expense will be spared and quality will be held to
Bioware's usual standard because love EA, hate EA, or not give a damn,
they have made it abundantly clear they want a strong corner in the
RPG market, and they know a team like Bioware gives them a legit shot to
be Top 3 in the field.
Yeah, the big BioWare titles I still have faith in. But Awakening and much of the DLC has definitely made me weary though. Is that a sign of the direction they're headed, or just the nature of those projects?
Plus you've got the fact that TOR is likely sucking talent away from DA and ME too, now that TOR is kind of BioWare's make or break title. I'm just really worried that eventually TOR turns BioWare into a Blizzard like situation, where once the MMO comes out, all their attention goes to that because thats what consistently raking in the money. Meanwhile, they'll neglect their single player stuff or the quality on the single player side will slip because all the energy is going to TOR. Unsubstantiated concerns as of yet, but concerns nevertheless.
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