Dragon Age 2 - Here be spoilers.

[Tarami]

The writing is good enough, but there seriously isn't much of a game going on. It's akin playing one of those 90's Fighting Fantasy books, with marginally better combat.

[Mrbloodworth]

Apparently DA2 Requires an EA account when played on the PS3....................................................     DEMO. 

[Paelos]

I honestly don't understand the opposition to the EA account thing, but maybe I'm missing something. To me as long as it doesn't require you to always be logged into their shit to do anything, I'm cool with logging in occasionally to get updates and DLC.

Not that I'm not always logged into the net, because I am at home.

[Sjofn]

I'm pathetic, I just hit Act 3 with my mage ManHawke and I just ... can't do it again. I can't do that to my character again yet.

ROGUE LADYHAWKE IS A GO

[tgr]

I honestly don't understand the opposition to the EA account thing, but maybe I'm missing something. To me as long as it doesn't require you to always be logged into their shit to do anything, I'm cool with logging in occasionally to get updates and DLC.

Personally, my opposition to the ea account thing is that I already have an account for steam, why should I have yet another account, potentially pr damn game?

[Merusk]

Goddamn, Sjofn.. you're right.  That was a series of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make in an RPG. No clear path there. I let Anders live this play-through but I'll be returning to the save right before it.

[Mrbloodworth]

I honestly don't understand the opposition to the EA account thing, but maybe I'm missing something.

Its a demo?

Personally, my opposition to the ea account thing is that I already have an account for steam, why should I have yet another account, potentially pr damn game?

That.

[MournelitheCalix]

O'k wow, so I just finished it.  I have to say I am stunned by the ending, absolutely stunned.  The twist is something I never imagined coming.  I won't spoil it but, wow i am just floored.  So overall this game isn't as bad as people said it was.  Some final thoughts about it.  



End Likes:


1.  I really can't believe people are upset about the writing.  Yes there were some holes in it.  Holes that I thought were mainly due to polish as I said before but I would encourage everyone to stick with it, you will be rewarded.  The writing was superb in my opinion and I loved the ending I had.  There were many gut check moments during the final scenario and things really didn't at all go the way I had forseen.  I must say I can't wait to play again as a warrior this time to see what will change.

2.  I loved the character development.  The missions and conflicting goals of all the companions made for much more believeable fellows.  Hats off to all in Bioware for the story arcs involving Anders, Varric, Merril, and Isabella.  Most I never saw coming and yes the choices I made really had a lot of impact upon the world to say that there were consequences to your actions really put it mildly in the end.

3. I played on normal and love the fact that I didn't have to have a dedicated healer.  I love the fact that you didn't have to have a dedicated tank either.  An all DPS group is fine for just about every encounter.  This is a huge step forward in my opinion and I wonder if this is contributing to some of the bad reviews.  I think Bioware sought to break the Diku mold that Sword and sorcery games have been stuck in.  Great Job, Bioware please more like this.

4.  The cameo's and foreshadowing was awesome as was the style of storytelling.  Really unique and I don't think I have ever seen this attempted in a video game before.




Dislikes:

1.  Darkspawn art, enough said.


2.  The itemization is just not what it should have been.  The hoards of junk wasn't all that useful and in my opinion greatly detracted from the game.  It was a real point of frustration for me to find some secret areas with chests only to find useless junk.

3.  Polish wasn't in this one.  I had numerous instances where something strange would happen or you would find a particular piece of useful information and you couldn't confront the NPC's on it.  Wasted oppotunity IMHO and an oversight that in my opinion that I would expect to find with Obsidian Entertainment, not Bioware.  Also there were a couple of imported save errors.  I saw two in the Dragon Age: Awakenings events.  I hope they learn from this one, and change it for the next game.  

4.  Taking away the Player's ability to outfit the companions was a stupid move IMHO.  Bioware needs to seriously reevaluate this.  

5.  The combat bugs also suck specifically the one that prevents you from attacking until you execute attacks on other characters and then go back to hawk.



Anyway great story, I wish the execution would have been a bit better though.  I would highly recommend it to anyone sitting on the fence.  One thing I think is for certain, it did not deserve the metacritic beating its getting.

[El Gallo]

Played for 20 minutes, hate a lot of things about it.  
#1: I can't even pick what my character is going to say, just the general gist -- sometimes, barely even that.
#2: main character voice, further limiting anything I might want to inject into the character in my mind.  
#3: No choice about what to do. I'm a mage, run into some injured witch-hunting Chantry assfuck who's itching to murder me and my sister, and my only options are "join up with him" or "join up with him."  A minute later, I'm letting him give my sister her last rites. Fuck that, fuck him, fuck the Chantry, and fuck Bioware.

Edit: in short, the most common thoughts going through my mind while I play are "That's not what he would say," "that's not how he would say it" and "that's not what he could do."

I seriously feel more attached my my avatar in a game of PacMan.

[caladein]

Apparently DA2 Requires an EA account when played on the PS3....................................................     DEMO.  

You unlock something in the main game for completing the demo if you sign in with your account.

They had the same thing with the Character Creator for the first DA.

[rk47]

DA:O I could play my DLC without being logged in. In fact, I got bugged in such a way that I had to play not logged in, as the servers wouldn't recognise my DLC as being mine.  

Not sure what the game did to make you hate it so much, rk47, but I hope ME3 is good too. :P


EDIT: Also, you know what sucks?

The lack of diplomacy is damning, especially some quests where I was intent on shedding as little blood as possible was ruined by the 3 dozen spawn rule. Mobs LITERALLY spawning OUT OF THIN AIR, right next to my backline continues to amaze me how depraved some executives are. Without the filler combat the game would've been 20% shorter. Fill it with fodder attempt is so obvious. Bits and pieces of it was quality, especially when the companions interaction clicked. I question why they even took out things that worked (Party Equips) and left things that I hated in the game (filler combat materials).

Dragon Age II is definitely a rushed product.

[Margalis]

I hear it was programmed by Chinese sweatshop workers. Explains the copy/paste locations etc. 

[Mrbloodworth]

Apparently DA2 Requires an EA account when played on the PS3....................................................     DEMO.  

You unlock something in the main game for completing the demo if you sign in with your account.

They had the same thing with the Character Creator for the first DA.

They made my friend make an account for a DEMO, and he did not like the demo.


Demo.

[Merusk]

Marketing info.

[Mrbloodworth]

Marketing info.

Demo. 

[caladein]

Yeah, if it's required to even play (which it isn't for the PC version of the demo I think) that's all it is.  I'll see how that works out on my 360 although I'd assume it would just automatically log me in like it does with everything else EA-related.

Edit: in short, the most common thoughts going through my mind while I play are "That's not what he would say," "that's not how he would say it" and "that's not what he could do."

At least in my case the ME/AP/DA2 method solves that problem instead of creates it.  A lot of games with "choose your exact response from the following" run into the problem where I dislike all my responses and it takes me out of character (the worst and most recent case being Fallout 3).  With this game, I'm free to choose intent and enjoy the conversation as it plays out in front of me, even more so because of the lack of interrupts or time limits.

[Tarami]

Aveline's courtship of someone-not-you is absolutely fantastic though.

They made my friend make an account for a DEMO, and he did not like the demo.

Demo.

You mean like Blizzard does with StarCraft 2?

[Mrbloodworth]

If you want me to check out your game, don't as me to fill out a form.

[Merusk]

Marketing info.

Demo. 

And?

If you want me to check out your game, don't as me to fill out a form.

But but but then how will they collect all that valuable marketing information?  You were interested enough to check it out, so clearly it appeals to your demo.  Getting you to buy might mean just a small tweak here and there.

Seriously though, that's why.  It's valuable information.  If you're arsed to download and check it out then it's another bit in the data.  Everything we do is collected and mined for better ways to get us to spend our money. The better the profile of the customer, the more valuable the information is.

[El Gallo]

Is there really no way to bind "turn left" and "turn right" to keys (i.e. to have regular old WASD).  Or is this actually mousemove only?

Edit: and did the take out the ability to do the top-down view from DA1?

[tmp]

The lack of diplomacy is damning, especially some quests where I was intent on shedding as little blood as possible was ruined by the 3 dozen spawn rule. Mobs LITERALLY spawning OUT OF THIN AIR, right next to my backline continues to amaze me how depraved some executives are. Without the filler combat the game would've been 20% shorter. Fill it with fodder attempt is so obvious.

In all fairness, from what Mike Laidlaw said months ago that might have been genuine attempt to make things more interesting -- the reasoning he provided was, by adding extra enemies beyond the first group the combat would no longer be the stale "evaluate targets, put tank on the big guy, mop up trash with alpha strike and work your way up" deal.

It seemed like pretty good idea at the time. Of course, i didn't take into account they'd overdo it in the usual BioWare style and throw these waves in pretty much ever bloody fight, effectively swapping one single trick pony for another

[caladein]

Is there really no way to bind "turn left" and "turn right" to keys (i.e. to have regular old WASD).  Or is this actually mousemove only?

Edit: and did the take out the ability to do the top-down view from DA1?

WASD control is there, but the 3/4 really zoomed out view is gone.

Edit: Yeah just loaded the game up and looked at keybinds.  There's no regular turn, only strafe left/right (QE by default) which is probably what you were asking about.

[El Gallo]

Must be missing it, when press A or D it spins the camera around, but the character doesn't turn.  Q and E make him run left or right, but don't move the camera.  Basically, A and D move the camera, not the character.  Q and E do the reverse.  I don't see the way to sync them.  Halp!

Too bad about the 3/4, was useful as hell in DA1.

Edit: FFS, what's the possible rationale for not having good, old-fashioned "turn"?  Consolitis, I assume. 

[caladein]

Only way to sync them up is to move forward/backward at the same time you're turning the camera, taking advantage of the camera-snapping.  I have no idea why I didn't notice that was the behavior before, but I'm just going to blame shooters and call it a night.

[Ingmar]

Must be missing it, when press A or D it spins the camera around, but the character doesn't turn.  Q and E make him run left or right, but don't move the camera.  Basically, A and D move the camera, not the character.  Q and E do the reverse.  I don't see the way to sync them.  Halp!

Too bad about the 3/4, was useful as hell in DA1.

Edit: FFS, what's the possible rationale for not having good, old-fashioned "turn"?  Consolitis, I assume. 

Hold right mouse button, turn. Was WASD even in DA1? What's wrong with mouselook anyway?

[Sjofn]

Goddamn, Sjofn.. you're right.  That was a series of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make in an RPG. No clear path there. I let Anders live this play-through but I'll be returning to the save right before it.

[Ingmar]

Finally finished. Great game, you can see the shorter development time (~1 year for this vs. ~5 years for DA:O) in the limited number of area maps and such, but you sure as hell can't see it in the writing. Best work Gaider and Co. have ever done on that, IMO.

[Sjofn]

DA:O I could play my DLC without being logged in. In fact, I got bugged in such a way that I had to play not logged in, as the servers wouldn't recognise my DLC as being mine.  

Not sure what the game did to make you hate it so much, rk47, but I hope ME3 is good too. :P


EDIT: Also, you know what sucks?

The lack of diplomacy is damning, especially some quests where I was intent on shedding as little blood as possible was ruined by the 3 dozen spawn rule. Mobs LITERALLY spawning OUT OF THIN AIR, right next to my backline continues to amaze me how depraved some executives are. Without the filler combat the game would've been 20% shorter. Fill it with fodder attempt is so obvious. Bits and pieces of it was quality, especially when the companions interaction clicked. I question why they even took out things that worked (Party Equips) and left things that I hated in the game (filler combat materials).

Dragon Age II is definitely a rushed product.

[Sjofn]

And another thing!

[El Gallo]

Hold right mouse button, turn.

No shit.

Was WASD even in DA1?

No, but the top-down camera mode made it mostly irrelevant.

What's wrong with mouselook anyway?

Pick any three of: Substantial forearm tendon pain.  Inability to play 1-handed.  Just find it annoying.

[Nightblade]

Was WASD even in DA1?

Actually, it was.

[Sjofn]

No, it acted the same way El Gallo described DA2? Unless there was some option buried somewhere I never saw.


EDIT: Although! If you're running forward it basically turns into WASD. I don't often stop and to turn, so the weirdness doesn't bug me, I guess, but I can see how it's a little odd.

[jakonovski]

Did anyone here buy the retail box version for PC? It came with secret Securom.

[FatuousTwat]

So apparently after Bioware explicitly claiming that DA2 will not install SecuROM... It will install SecuROM.


Source site is down: http://www.reclaimyourgame.com/content.php?769-Evaluation-Report-Dragon-Age-2

But this site sums it up well: http://vividgamer.com/2011/03/10/ea-fails-to-disclose-securom-in-dragon-age-ii/

[rk47]

Male Hawke can't even pull off Angered responses right. He sounds so goddamn restrained.

Where is the RAGE? Some of the things the NPC did in this game is deserving of unbridled rage. Not just the stab him on the chest type. They deserve to be punched Shepard style, and as they begged for mercy on the ground, I'd like to tell Varrick to unload triple bolts on the bastard's chest. THEN I behead their tear stained faces.

Someone get Kevin Conroy in gaming VA please.

Also need a mod to remove the spawn mechanics for enemies. I can't take it if they keep spawning like this: