Dragon Age II Review

[prouler]

Looks like classic "paid review" syndrome if you ask me.

4chan has been dumping shit all over this game for two weeks now, a quick trip to /v/ will explain that user score EXACTLY. a bunch of 1 day old accounts giving two word reviews? thats not suspicious.

or maybe there are other reasons, because blaming 4chan for influencing the game score a full 5 points out of 10 is absurd. not impossible, but extremely unlikely. I myself at least would give the game a 3/10 easily. the PC version has some of the most poorly designed controls out there. It's the same BS you get for the generic bad PC ports of what were supposed to be consol exclusive, so they shunned their original fan basis completely. That tied to easily recognized and very stereotypical dialogue choices may make role playing "simpler," but not better. all the choices have completely lost their weight and ambiguity, there's no more moral leniency anywhere in the game, and the radial menu limits the maximum number of choices to 6, but it hardly ever goes past the same boring 3 limit choices.

Just have to say it one more time, PC controls are awful, completely limited, and unintuitive. If you're going to make every single PC gamer out there struggle with a complete break between gameplay and controls, why not even let us use a controller!!!

 

[Raeil]

Looks like classic "paid review" syndrome if you ask me.

I call bs on this. The game has been out for TWO DAYS. There's no way this score is accurate, given the amount of time it actually takes to play this game, and coupled with the fact that the game is at least worthy of a 7 (good, but not great, imho). I'm pretty sure this is artificially deflated...

Nice to be paid in full by EA eh, Escapist? Must have been a big cheque to excuse this monstrosity.

This is a game that copy-pastes the same area, steals the Na'vi look for that abomination of a fucking elf Merril and.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKAbJhiCJNo

Cardboard animation, voice acting, dialogue.. You can just smell the fat-folds of the butterfaced ***** that wrote these. And I'm not cruel enough to show the 'I'm Hungry' gay scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMcVZQI6ybw

People defending this game: You're on the same level as Twilight fans. Congratulations.

Ummm... Na'vi are blue... and tall... and have quite a bit of different life structure. Merril is entirely different, though I will say the face is very similar to the facial structure of the Na'vi)

Also, cardboard animation? It's not the most fluid, but it's better than it's predecessor, and I've found nothing to actually complain about specifically.

VA/Dialogue is amusing and fitting (Fenris = Balthier!). Seriously, I've only run across two places where the dialogue didn't fit, and that was partially because I wasn't paying attention to the mood indicator.

I will agree on the romance scenes though. Bioware should have stuck with simplicity and not messed with trying to animate it.

Finally, I'm defending this game because I love it. Up to this point, 15 hours in, I've gotten upset at the following: 1) No auto-attack [it's coming though], 2) Copy-paste dungeons [Eh, I dealt with them in ME1], 3) A small number of dialogue problems.

Simply put, there's reason to defend the game, and there is reason to criticize the game, but to say we're "on the same level as Twilight fans" is juvenile and insulting.

 

[PlasticTree]

A question for everyone who is already playing the game: how hard is the game on 'normal'? Is it comparable to 'easy' in Dragon Age: Origins, or..?

 

[Panopticon01]

A question for everyone who is already playing the game: how hard is the game on 'normal'? Is it comparable to 'easy' in Dragon Age: Origins, or..?

The game is a button mashing win fest on easy and just south of "annoying" on hard.

 

[Outlander1221]

I think a lot of people are annoyed because they expect a review to be an act of journalism, as far as the facts are concerned, as opposed to a piece of propaganda for the company producing the game. For instance, does anyone, even the defenders of this review, actually think this is a PERFECT game? 100%, no doubt about it, flawless game and best RPG of generations? That is the point at which the review begins to slip into the realm of cheerleading instead of following its responsibility to the consumer to inform. Then, the review claims it looks better than any game in years. A cursory glance at the textures and graphics on even the highest settings disproves that statement, so again, we are left wondering what exactly the reviewer saw that we did not.

The list goes on, and you can find the other falsities yourself. But while some of a review is indeed a subjective opinion, the reviewer shows a pretty clear bias as far as the facts are concerned (which a journalist is supposed to avoid) as they review this game. That is what has offended many people, I believe, and why they feel the need to attack the game and what Greg wrote.

 

[BruceyBaby]

Couldn't help but notice how brilliantly sarcastic the narrator was.

Especially when the dwarf goes: 'I'll stop exaggerating now'... LOL!

 

[EnigmaticSevens]

Wow... lotta hate in this thread. I'll admit, that review did seem a bit... ahh... excessive. But let me put this controller down, take a break from fifteen hours of play, and simply state, that I'm having an awful lot of fun. Will I be playing this game for months? Yes. Is it the messiah come to cleanse the world of sinners? No. Is it better than DA:O? Fuck yes. Oh gods... to actually made an attractive character in a console RPG sorely lacking mods, oh thank the Maker. Is that why the game's great? No, but the little things help.

The lack of auto-attack is a pro, not a con. Even on hard and nightmare, where pausing and planning is a must, it keeps you from just cutting off your brain an expecting your character execute your whims, it keeps you alert to positioning. If you're the sort to champion those difficulties, you really shouldn't decry having to use a bit of multitasking power. And if you don't like those difficulties, set the thing to casual and enjoy Dynasty Warriors Kirkwall (I say this without a hint of sarcasm, hell, I enjoy a good mindless hack and slash every now and then.)

Anyway, you feelin' it, buy it. You not sure, rent it, then buy it. You sippin' on that haterade? Uhh... have fun with that.

*picks controller back up*

 

[Kilgengoor]

Shame on you Bioware for catering to the lowest common denominator when you had such a rich vibrant story and characters to make them so 2 dimensional and pathetic in the sequel.

Shame on you Escapist for catering to the fat-cats who invested too much into this wreck of a game to see it fail so they had to pay off everyone to like it.

Pinnacle of a Generation of RPG's? are you serious? Maybe more like "Biggest letdown of the year" or perhaps "farthest fallen from previous title"

Alright, you didn't quite like the game. I get ya.

I don't know, I didn't like much the first game's characters either, they all seemed kinda shallow and stupid and quite annoying, too. And I never dug the battle system that much either. Maybe that's why I never got too hooked.

Anyway, the graphics thingy doesn't seem that horrible to me, I'll settle for a Mass Effect (1) graphics level (maybe a liiiittle more expressiveness) but eh, won't matter much either. And as for the combat and skill trees, as long as it feels actiony while affordable and I'm not forced to pause the game every 2 seconds to issue orders or having to control the tank personally so it doesn't run headlong into a dragon's flamey breath.

I'm downloading the demo again, see if it works and I definitely think it's worth a try if I like it. It looks like the story and characters will be more tight without all that multiple-race-multiple-background main character thing (not a bad thing, but I think it was too thinly spread) and it'll have a talking Hawke, which I find extremely pleasing. Also? Say all the shit you want, but I think this is the only Single-player game in which I can have my MMORPG-style combat fix without having to go back to that giant time-waster that is WoW.

meanwhile, ONWARDS TO THE ORLYSITH HORIZON!

[http://www.picturestack.com/725/721/lBgcapchaqgg.jpg]

 

[Raeil]

Honestly, I'm still kind of torn about auto attack. Maybe I'll keep it off when it gets patched in, but I really miss being able to keep a close eye on other party members, rather than having to make sure I'm still attacking the right thing. Either way, I look forward to the coming weeks when we get a console patch, since the only reason I'm posting is because my game just glitched...

 

[Necromancer1991]

Frankly this thread has devolved into trolling mixed with sporadic intelligent comments (God the escapist community is dying a slow painful death by the looks of this), I mean I've enjoyed the gameplay thus far, sure it's been changed to be more active, but otherwise it still has that strategic element (Focus the casters, keep tabs on ranged attackers, etc), really overall this is a good game that was a enjoyable experience.

P.S: The metacritic user scores are by no means reliable, the amount of disconnect the two score experience is always massive for some of the big titles, not to say that there are no intelligent reviewers there, also all the different versions of the game get separate reviewer sections, so the PS3 version of CoD may have a user rating of 9.75, whereas the Xbox version will have a 4.6 which also makes the bare scores sporadic at best, overall I tend to avoid meta critic user reviews because they tend to boil down to "OMG the reviewer were payed off" for the negative reviews of critical darlings (kind like this thread....). Also people seem really determined to post bad reviews on all three versions of the game which is suspicious IMO, most bad reviews are one off rants.

 

[Antari]

Either way this review won't be pushing me to purchase this game anytime soon. Maybe when its on a major sales binge on Steam but thats about it. EA has poisoned Bioware and I don't feel that it will recover. I guess its back to the Kotors for me.

 

[Karacan]

Give me back Baldur's Gate and PlaneScape Torment, damnit.

They haven't gone anywhere, you go back and see that those games just aren't as good by todays standards and leave the newer BETTER games for us

Them's fighting words!

Actually, half a year ago I had another run of BG2. With the mods out there that update to HD textures and a high resolution, it's still absolutely playable.

What I loved about the game is the dialogue system - especially the banter between party members that could actually lead to something, instead of just throwing out some funny lines in a while.

BG2 is one of the games that aged really well. Planescape, I agree, is too fiddly for the modern gamer. And get off my lawn!

 

[War-hamster]

I love how many people just stopped giving a shit about this when Skyrim was announced. Unless I'm mistaken, this is the first time RPG juggernauts Bethesda and Bioware have major releases in the same year, so it'll be interesting to see how Mass Effect and Dragon Age fare against The Elder Scrolls in terms of sales.

I think this may just be the best year for RPGs in a long time.

Actually the same thing happened in 2002. Bioware released Neverwinter Nights in the spring, and in autumn, Bethesda released Morrowind. The result - NWN is basically forgotten, Morrowind still has quite large and very active community with dozens of mods coming out every single day.