Dragon Age 2 - * Official *

Jed Shields said:
Actually, they say it's the best RPG combat ever.

Take a look at this editorial, seems like they've hit the nail on the head:

http://www.hookedgamers.com/editorials/2011/03/02/dragon_age_ii_the_decline_of_the_classic_rpg.html
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Good link & likely very true.

What slightly amuses me is that there was very little of this outcry when DA:O was released. That was a massive step to this 'dumbing down' as it appears to be called. Mage/Rogue/Warrior, essentially melee or ranged, two handed, shield or dual, mage got heals, Aoe dd/curse, single target dd/curse & cc. Stats were irrelevant, as was equipment mostly. The race backgrounds were genius, a quick quest that appeared to convince people that you had decent character creation choices.

The tactics amounted to cc'ing or dropping the casters first, or the big boss guy whilst you dropped his henchmen. Occasionally there were hard fights, but few & far between, most were fine with a pause at the start of the fight to see what you were up against, then just launching in as always. This was no BG2, definitely not with the combat, character creation choices, companions, or even dialogue choices & morally ambiguous questing.

DA:O was already 'dumbed down', but it was a great game & one that I've replayed several times. DA2 may have been taken 1 step to far, but we were already down that road. And it's going to get worse for rpg'ers, the simple fact is the market is huge for more simplistic gaming, and for the number crunchers, it's a lot smaller. Although I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few hardcore, unforgiving games released in a year or two, as there's always a backlash against whatever becomes popular.

Having said all that, I still love DA:O & I'm very much looking forward to DA2.
 
sldsmkd said:
My feelings exactly. On the PS3 it felt like you were constantly mashing X, then mashing the other buttons as soon as the cooldown hit. It had the pace of something like Heavenly Sword or Bayonetta, but underlying it all was a RPG engine pushed to its limit, not a beat em up engine. Felt all wrong.
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Well thats just it, in the demo the only thing I did in combat was wait for timers, the damage of standard sword hits was pathetic, taking a simple basic mob and standing there for ages just slashing away, when the timers were up, which were slow as hell, it was hit them, thats it, half of them didn't need targetting, had a massive range(for melee attacks) knocked people back and still didn't do that much damage.

I played the demo as a warrior, at no stage did it feel like it matter who I hit, when, why, just that I hit things as they came off cool down, the animations were ott as others have said, the ridiculous everyone gets knocked back stuff and the boring nature of combat, sitting there with character autohitting almost every attack for 2-3 minutes while tapping stuff as it comes off cooldown, honestly, it was pathetic.

The story/acting/dialogue in the demo was insanely weak, and the locations, urrggh, horrible horrible horrible textures, I would complain the "route" you took was almost like playing an on the rails COD game with forced scripted spawning but the first game was somewhat similar and linear, it wasn't open world like oblivion at all.


But this seems to be where everyone differs, some people hate the combat, others keep saying things like "it wasn't a problem" rubbish combat doesn't mean its impossible to play, or difficult, it just wasn't really fun, I felt very uninvolved, it felt like button mashing your way through Tekken or something rather than really mattering what I did.

Not a problem, it didn't prevent me finishing the demo, it didn't break, it just wasn't fun. 85% of DA:O was combat, if it was rubbish and boring I wouldn't have continued playing, the rest was story and it was VERY good story.

If the story blew and combat only "wasn't a problem" why the heck am I, or you, or anyone playing the game?
 
orderoftheflame said:
What? Because playing a game as it was designed to be played is the same has forcing a completely different camera angle never intended for use. :rolleyes:
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He says camera angles don't matter when clearly they do.

A review by PC Gamer that gives flying colours, who'd of thought that would possibly happen :rolleyes:
 
Played it a bit last night, the opening part is the same as demo, but the kirkwald bit is different as you kinda start from the beginning.

Playing a rogue this time as that's only one I didn't try in the demo, good fun but do find the right clicking to attack annoying, specially when its busy on screen. Hopefully someone releases a UI update soon for the PC.

Texture wise its looks great, although can't see what they did to warrant DX11, no tesselation in use.
 
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MadMossy said:
but do find the right clicking to attack annoying, specially when its busy on screen. Hopefully someone releases a UI update soon for the PC.
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This is precisely what alarmed me to the fact that they made the interface for consoles then the PC(it feels like an after thought), unlike the original. Modders may well save this game with a good interface, but really it shouldn't of needed modders, bioware should have spent more time on this themselves.

If I buy it (possibly in the Chrsitmas sales, or the holiday ones), I won't be paying £30 for it, more like £10 for GOTY edition max.

Hope you enjoy though, and all the others.

I will say that I have played the 360 demo too, and it plays MUCH better imo because the pad is more then adequate for the simplicity of the gameplay, I do wonder why bioware didn't have a 360 pad option for the PC version instead of adding a botched job of an interface.
 
Hopefully mine arrives by Fri it's still showing as packing even tho they took the money out my account on Tues :(

I was very critical of it after the demo and purposefully not reading any reviews. I really, really hope that Bioware haven't burned their bridges with a poor quality cash grab.
 
Metalface Mark said:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/03/08/dragon-age-2-review/

They say its the best RPG ever
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Pc Gamer LOL!!, that link has been posted before and how can you trust any review that ends with " Darker, sexier, better. "

:rolleyes:

I’m canceling my subscription after reading this. I was pretty excited to play this game despite all the negative criticism. I even fooled myself into thinking the demo was just an inaccurate representation of the game. After playing the game though, it just proved that all the criticism was right. This game is truly is a disastrous sequel. Save 60$ and your time, this game is a straight up slap in the face not only to PC gamers, but to all gamers in general.
There is no way this game could have received such a high score. NO. WAY. Ive been a long time subscriber to PC Gamer and I feel totally betrayed. There is some funny business going on with the reviews. Well guess what? I don’t buy it.
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Think PCGamer was playing a different Game. I’ve hammered a good 10 hours so far so I think I can genuinely comment and say this Game is a step backwards in many aspects. Mainly depth, development, story and combat. Who gives a s#!t about better graphics when the game is flawed. GUTTED!
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OMG 94 this game is garbage. In the first 10 minutes I started crying, I could not believe what they did compared to a BIBLICAL BESTING of the first game.
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“An honest critic review is when User reviews reflects it and backs it up, but I just looked up this game on Metacritic and while all major gaming critics gave it positive reviews, the user ratings were horrendous.”
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I miss Pc Zone :(

LOL!
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dragon-age-ii/user-reviews
 
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I think this comment on the PC Gamer section sums up nicely what most of the comments from naive fanboys say:

Lenin said:
You’ll soon be flamed. EA wants us all to believe that the only way we can make up our minds on whether or not to buy a game, is … to first buy it and test it. Then if it was no good, you are entitled to regret it. Until then, shut the **** up, you’ve got no right to an opinion.
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Because as he says, its wrong to base opinions on the demo, i have to buy the full game to find out its **** like i already knew before... but then the universe doesn't work that way now does it... unless of course EA are going to start giving out full refunds if i didn't like the game.
 
MW2 with that ridiculous IWNet and its lack of dedicated servers compared to DA2? Yes perhaps in some cases its wrong to trust user reviews (thats assuming you don't read them and just look at the score), but i can't think of anything that didn't do something controversial like Spore or MW2 that got dire reviews from users whether it deserved it or not. DA2 is certainly not in that category.
 
Reviews/scores in the opening week mean very little. Only those with vested interests, ie. paid or knickers in a twist over something, bother to post them. A demo is far more indicative.

I fail to see how people can complain this is dumbed down, when there's been a demo released, along with all the information previously given. It's clear as day it's a game for the wider console market, there's some of us who'll enjoy it for what it is regardless, but if you're the sort who can only see the negative, well...

Don't like the demo? Don't buy the game. Didn't play the demo & ordered the game? Oops ;) Unfortunately, these are the sort that will be posting their angst reviews everywhere they can.
 
Evilsod said:
MW2 with that ridiculous IWNet and its lack of dedicated servers compared to DA2? Yes perhaps in some cases its wrong to trust user reviews (thats assuming you don't read them and just look at the score), but i can't think of anything that didn't do something controversial like Spore or MW2 that got dire reviews from users whether it deserved it or not. DA2 is certainly not in that category.
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Regardless of a lack of dedicated servers or any other controversy MW2 didn't deserve 0s or 1s, neither does DA2 just because it has changes from DA:O. It's just people acting out like kids because the game didn't turn out like they wanted. I'm amazed there's no "boycott DA2 because of the camera!!!1!" group with the same people holed up in.

Redman said:
Reviews/scores in the opening week mean very little. Only those with vested interests, ie. paid or knickers in a twist over something, bother to post them. A demo is far more indicative.

I fail to see how people can complain this is dumbed down, when there's been a demo released, along with all the information previously given. It's clear as day it's a game for the wider console market, there's some of us who'll enjoy it for what it is regardless, but if you're the sort who can only see the negative, well...

Don't like the demo? Don't buy the game. Didn't play the demo & ordered the game? Oops ;) Unfortunately, these are the sort that will be posting their angst reviews everywhere they can.
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Bang on.
 
Amazing the difference between critic reviews and user reviews nowdays. The critics seem to be utterly worthless nowdays on the big franchises. Definitely some funny buisness going on. Glad I did not pre-order this abomination. It does make me worry for Bioware (being one of my favourite development studios).
 
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