Dragon Age 2: not crap (spoilers aplenty)

[Sonic Doctor]

Snip

If that is how you right when you are drunk, then I would like to see how you write when you are sober, because that did not look like the writing of a drunk person.

I wholly agree, the game was awesome, to me the repeat dungeons were minor flaw because they were just the means to get through and get more of the story. The combat was greatly improved from Origins as well.

I'm glad you did pick the game up and play it. As you said, the unreasonable hate that people threw at the game is what put you off from getting it for so long, that is why I loathe the users on critic sites like Metacritic. They abuse there freedom to review games by instead of reviewing with a level head and reason, they throw out zeros and ones like they are reasonable scores for a solid game that just wasn't as good as the first game.

Let me give you some advice if you have any questions about if a game is going to be good or not, take a careful eye when looking at a site like Metacritic or whatever site you use to base your decision on. I'll use Metacritic as an example:

On the Metacritic site:

Professional average score: Xbox 360: 79/100, PC: 82/100, PS3: 82/100
User score:: Xbox 360: 4.4/10, PC: 4.2/10, PS3: 3.9/10

There is obviously a disconnect in the scores between professional and user. In such a case when making a decision if the game is bad or not based on reviews, take the professional's word. If the professionals are being professional, then they are reviewing with a level head and reasoned thinking. Though I believe a small amount of person views and thought are allowed for professional reviewing.

Just take a look at GameCritics review score of the 360 version, 25 out of 100, and the first part of their review shown on Metacritic said:

Defying all expectations, BioWare managed to take one of the most memorable Western RPGs in recent history and completely destroyed everything that made it so good.

That right there tells me that their review is going to be full of unprofessional bias that is filled by wrongful comparisons to the previous game. Unprofessionally, they gave a solid game a score that reflects that the game is totally unplayable, when it is clearly solid. BioWare said the game wasn't going to be exactly the same as DA:Origins or of the same size scale and it was going to be a different story telling style, and these so called professional reviewers, unprofessionally based the game on comparison to DA:Origins.

Though still, this is a situation you look at the majority of the professional reviewers and take their word, not the word of some incredibly bias people that aren't thinking with reason.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Cut and paste dungeons are...is this 2011? Unacceptable.

The whole game was a toiling preamble to something I would actually want to play. (all out pick a side war between mages and templars.)

Playing a mage makes all the dialog in the game broken. "DEATH TO MAGES THE DIRTY SCUM, AM I RIGHT HAWKE?" as I sit there with a staff and 2 other mages in my party...

Oh how immersive...

Loved the first game. This one was crap. Played mages in both games and didnt see a hint of imporved combat at all. Only change was gimpimg the character choices.

BUILD A MAGE ANY WAY YOU WANT. (but only one guy has healing magic so if you want a healer then he is forced to be leveled a certain way and always in your party) Choices?

I didn't see any dialogue choices that bad when I was a mage. I just saw choices that stated that mages can be dangerous and that Hawke would be fine if there were some rules in being a mage.

I had choices, there were four different power trees for regular powers and there were three for specializations.

I found that I didn't need a healer early on in the game so having a healer wasn't a problem. In the end my Hawke had learned everything in the Elemental Mage tree, and had twos specializations: Force Magic and Spirit Healer.

If I play a mage again I will again chose the Spirit Healer specialization. It isn't like choosing it removes a much in the way of attack options. My mage had everything in Elemental learned, almost everything but like two things in Force magic learned, and everything learned in Spirit healer.

It isn't that much of a drag being your parties healer. It was actually very helpful in the fight against the High Dragon. If my party needed healing, I took 3 to 4 seconds total to switch into spirit healer mode use the heal all in party power, and switch right back to my offensive powers and pummel the dragon with ice attacks.

The game was solid in story and in combat and character choices in the ability trees. I don't see how having the points to fill up two whole tech trees and most of another is in anyway gimping. And as my own mage, I didn't have to have a healer early on, potions were a dime a dozen and not all that expensive almost every third drop on an enemy had a potion in it. It isn't that hard to pause combat, take the time to order everybody that needs it to take potions and then start fighting again.

I find it sad that people needed healers withing the first half of the game. As a mage, after the first half of the game I already had my spirit healer specialization.