Poll: Dragon Age 2 Demo Impressions

[Souplex]

They took out the ability to play as a Dwarf. Why would you want to play as a human in a fantasy RPG? That's like playing as an accountant.
This is like when they pissed me off in ME2 by telling us they killed Shepard only to have him come back. I wanted to play as a Krogan.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

This may be perveted but when they first show Hawke, and the girl with him: Holy Big Boobs Batman! I mean seriously, those things are huge. O_O

Yeah, a little bit too huge if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, I love breast just as much as the next man, but those things looked like freaking cannonballs. Let's hope that chick has access to a master-chiropractor.

That's the dwarf's BS version of the story, check again later

 

[Casual Shinji]

anc[is]

This may be perveted but when they first show Hawke, and the girl with him: Holy Big Boobs Batman! I mean seriously, those things are huge. O_O

Yeah, a little bit too huge if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, I love breast just as much as the next man, but those things looked like freaking cannonballs. Let's hope that chick has access to a master-chiropractor.

That's the dwarf's BS version of the story, check again later

I know he was exagurating in regards to Hawke's sister, but I was refering to Isabella. I surely hope her monstrous knockers are part of his BS as well.

 

[Hader]

Think I will give a female Hawke a playthrough tonight, hopefully the voice actor isn't disappointing. Not that the male was but it did feel somewhat...lacking. Predictable even. Hard to describe.

 

[Seneschal]

The RPG number-crunching aspects are actually greatly improved - you can instantly see the implications of raising every stat, how much damage and DPS each attack does (re-calculated when your stats increase), and there's the "physical/elemental force" measure that varies with the type of attack (heavier weapons and powerful spells have a higher multiplier, and supposedly stun-lock or knock down/knock back enemies much better). The skills/abilities seem much more varied and have more interesting effects (like stagger and brittle, oh I cannot wait to see what kind of devious spells the Entropy schools has).

Combat seems much more palpable, enemies obviously recoil after a hit, and attacks seem to have more effects than just shrinking the HP bar. They also seem much more contact-reliant (meaning if you run away or use a "dodge backwards"/"teleport behind enemy" ability before he executes his attack, he'll miss), a very welcome movement from MMO-like combat towards hack-n-slash mechanics. The quicker pace just makes attacks and abilities more responsive.

The dialogue wheel and voiced protagonist were my gripes too, but we have to face it - in modern 3D RPGs the graphics are NOT abstract representations where you can imagine the scene unfolding in your head, but the screen just shows 2D scenery. Here, if 3D models behave like they shouldn't (for example, when everybody in the game speaks except the protagonist), immersion is immediately lost. Every RPG after Baldur's Gate needs to contend with this uncanny valley.

That's why I'm a little miffed that the graphics seem just like DA:O with marginally better facial animations (somehow still not as convincing as the ones in ME2, or even ME1!) and some fancy dynamic lighting/shadow effects. The environments still resemble those from 2007.

EDIT: pic comparison with Witcher 2:
http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2010/11/Dragon-Age-2-soldier-face-off.jpg - DA2
http://images.gamersyde.com/image_the_witcher_2_assassins_of_kings-13235-2006_0003.jpg - Witcher 2

I mean come on. The Witcher might be one of those games that focus on having awesome screenshots (see Oblivion) and then play like shit, but a discrepancy this big is just embarrassing.

I know it's not quite fair to hold a story-based RPG to the standards of Crysis 2 and Killzone 3, but the environments here looked as plain and as artificial as those in KotOR. ME2 was just as linear and chest-high-wall-filled, but everything had that palpable texture and shine in it. In comparison, this just isn't as convincing.

 

[shado_temple]

Love it. I really need to finish DA:O before March 8th.
My only question is why did they change Flemeth's appearance if it's set in the same time as the first game? Continuity is nice.

Well it can't really be the same time since the darkspawn apparently took over everything, I'm guessing it's a couple of decades latter, or even centuries.
And they since they gotten alot prettier this time around I assume they put together a darkspawn union that demanded a good health-care plan, then there were probably quite alot of strikes, some slaughters, some demonic sit downs,... trust me these tings take hell of a long time to work out

The game begins just after Lothering's destruction, which is early on in DA:O. So the Flemeth in DA2 is certainly the same Flemeth that's in DA:O. So why does she look so different?

Correct me if I'm wrong but can't Flemeth shape-shift? Can't she 'absorb' others bodies so that she can become youthful again (like what she wanted to do with Morrigan)

Perhaps I'm giving Bioware too much credit on this one, but maybe she kept her appearance as an old "granny" for Morrigan's sake; if Morrigan saw her as nothing more than some weak old hag, she may have not suspected Flemeth's plans. Sure, it didn't work, but perhaps it's what she was going for.

 

[hagar2]

took me like 10 seconds to figure out they changed the control scheme. just dosent feel like dragon age anymore.. more like a lord of the rings game...

 

[Iwana Humpalot]

I liked the demo, combat was fluent and it felt more action based tha in the 1st DA. The camera was huge turn-off since i couldn't drag it bag more than just a little. And the "new" Flemeth is horrible, i didn't even know it was her before some1 in my party expained it to me. Why do they need to change the way every character looked like in DA1? Even the darspawn don't look like themselves. (I'm not complaining about Isabela though, shes hawt!)

EDIT: Thanks to all who informed me about the whole brother/sister thing. I shall now stop looking like an idiot and delete my "spoiler".

 

[Rusty Bucket]

This may be perveted but when they first show Hawke, and the girl with him: Holy Big Boobs Batman! I mean seriously, those things are huge. O_O

Yeah, a little bit too huge if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, I love breast just as much as the next man, but those things looked like freaking cannonballs.

I really do not understand people call that a plus. It really looks terrible.

I know.

It's not just that they look big, they look unhealthy. As if she's suffering from somekind of petrified-breast desease.

I don't understand people who complain about this, to be honest. The woman has massive tits, so what? Some women do, it's entirely natural. I will admit that their defiance of gravity is a little odd given that bras have yet to be invented, but still. It's ok for a woman to have big breasts. And it's also ok if said woman is also very attractiv and likes to wear skimpier clothes in order to show off said attractiveness or help manipulate others. In the case of Isabella, I'd say it's the latter.

Not trying to start a massive argument here, you've got your opinion and that's fine. I just think people blow this stuff way out of proportion is all.

Edit:

And there was something i noticed in the game and trailer that did not match.

Spoiler

Huge spoiler alert, but this is just a theory and i can be really wrong about this part of the story. In the demo, Hawkes brother dies, but then after meeting the flemeth comes load of cut-scenes. In those cut-scenes Hawkes brother is whit him/her, but i didn't see hes/her sister in those cut-scenes. Maybe she dies in the real game.. Oh my, what a twist. Ofc, just a theory.

Spoiler: This has been confirmed by Bioware

If you play as a mage, then your sister dies. Rogue or warrior and your brother kicks the bucket instead.

 

[AlternatePFG]

Spoiler: This has been confirmed by Bioware

If you play as a mage, then your sister dies. Rogue or warrior and your brother kicks the bucket instead.

Spoiler

Egh, both of them seemed like rather uninteresting characters to me. I thought since this was a BioWare game that they'd die anyway, I was honestly really surprised when the sister survived.

 

[04whim]

Having just finished it, I like the new combat system. It felt like it gave the combat some actual weight since I had to input the command for each swing. In DA:O it was a case of 'click on enemy, throw a fireball every now and then' but in this I feel more a part of the experience. (I always play mage in these things, seriously, I picked the male warrior for the demo and still wound up playing as that mage o'breast party member apart from that one time she died).

 

[Paragon Fury]

Because if I'm going to have to stare at a woman for the next 30-40 hours, then damn it she better have a nice rack, because Light knows there is a 99% chance I'll stop giving a damn about the words coming out of her mouth partway through the story, and will need something else to pay attention to.

Also, bigger is better, so.

Thanks for epitomizing the stereotypical console gamer. Ugh.

What?

1: I read a fuck-ton faster than 99% of people on this planet and in games can speak. Which means I've read, re-read 4 times and understood what characters are trying to say before they reach the first adjective. Having to listen to them say it is just annoying, unless I'm confused about the tone.

2: I'm usually four or five steps ahead of the story. I don't need to listen, because I can damn well already tell what is going to happen. I could probably give half the speeches given in games, given enough practice.

3: I have fairly good "useless/uninteresting banter" filter. If its not;

-Vital to the story
-Vital to the quest at hand
-Funny
-Otherwise peculiar or interesting

I ignore it.

And if I epitomize the average console gamer, what does that make the average PC gamer, considering they're the ones for whom the most popular/downloaded mods for games like Oblivion, DA, Fallout etc. are the ones that add ridiculous sexual elements to games.

I didn't say you were dumb, now did I? Maybe just focused on the wrong aspect of things. You can skip each line of dialogue by pressing escape, so that's not an issue. I'm just wondering what kind of person plays a video game for the boobies, rather than interacting with an actual person or simply watching porn.

I don't play for the breasts; but the version with the bigger breasts was more interesting to watch.

Besides, porn is boring, and most women in real life don't have breasts even worth mentioning.

Hey, lets not be unreasonable. Spend some time around really small breasted women, then go hang out with normal sized ones. Its a pretty cool effect.

Right.

Like I need people to think I'm any weirder...

 

[Googenstien]

I have to admit.. I wanted to hate it.. I love it and played it twice already and will be picking this up for sure. They refined the game enough to really improve how it looks and plays

 

[Fr]anc[is]

Beat it a couple more times, had some more thoughts. Maybe we are giving the conversation wheel too much grief here, it's not like it has ever actually mattered which of the three choices you pick in regular conversation, and other than that it's pretty obvious.

I'm starting to think there aren't enough skills/spells on those trees. But maybe I'm wrong, I didn't see force mage on there, and I saw that played in the livestream the other day. Maybe once everything opens up it will feel like the old mage with a zillion spells again. But so far I think the trees might be better for warriors/rogues. In 1, warriors were basically stuck with their chosen style and the general talents, this way might give them more wiggle room.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I was just pleased that the combat isn't annoying shuffling around like in DA:O. Glad that the fights seem faster and more fluid... It lets me power through them better to get to my precious dialouge quicker.

 

[Ickorus]

I like the new combat system, it feels much more fluid and if I want I can stick with controlling my own character rather than micro-managing the whole group I can without too much ounsihment for doing so. I much prefer to only give minor commands than telling everyone exactly what to do and when.

My only problem with it is that they seem to have stuck way too many controls on the right mouse button and only one thing on the left, speaking of which I can't quite understand why they have done the mouse controls the opposite way around to everyone else in the entire world.

 

[Colonel Alzheimer's]

DEM BOOBS
I really enjoyed the demo, and to be honest I think I had more fun in that hour than I have in 12 hours with DA:O. Still working on DA:O, but damn, the combat in 2 was just so much better.
Only real problem I had was that I thought male Hawke's voice actor was really bad.