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RPS Article: What Went Wrong In Dragon Age II
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/31/analysis-dragon-age-ii/
It reflects quite percisely what I felt about DA2. Needless to say it contains heavy plot spoilers.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
He could've bitched so much more about this terribad game.
So much.
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Me and a Friend are Bad At Games
We've got Yahtzee for that, haven't we?
Gonna have to watch that tonight. ;p
Add me on Steam!
Me and a Friend are Bad At Games
It's not that bad, if someone else than Bioware had made it people wouldn't complain.
Sure, most of the characters are cheesy (I like Isabella and somewhat the dwarf, the rest are rather uninspired), the plot is somewhat weak and the crafting is pathetic.
But frankly wasn't DA:O that great either, Biowares best game in NWN followed by BG 1 & 2. It is common to large companies to loose some of it's sole, particularly if someone like EA or Activision buys you up. Blizzard don't do anything original or interesting anymore either, they just make followups to games they already made.
And frankly have Bethesda gone downhill since Daggerfall as well, I hope Skyrim change that. Square -Enix just make crap now, FF VII is still their masterpiece.
Sooner or later have you used up the best ideas. There are some companies that just continue to make great and original games but they are rare.
Bioware = Michael Bay (expensive looking, overrated rubbish)
Blizzard = Rolland Emmerich (action packed pop culture trash)
Bethesda = M.Night Shyamalan (had some glimpses of talent somewhere in the past, but currently it's just an empty tin, but somehow still retains a huge fanbase)
What to expect when considering multimillion budget games, which clearly has to rely on mass market appeal anyway.
REALITY CHECK
The animations I think were what bothered me the most
I actually like the combat system better than Origins. Origins had a double-edged sword with the Origins story as they became the stories which were unique to one character before going through the same game again. Dragon Age Origins while it had discrimination and racism, like when playing as a female elf mage (my first character), the world didn't change much from her.
In Dragon Age II, you make choices that also define the tone, attitude and approach Hawke has. Choices and Options open up based on if Hawke is friendly or violent. In fact a quest plays out differently on personality.
Dragon Age II also has some revolutionary technologies in its engines which actually improve light and shadows. I included it in my list of games with "revolutionalized" the industry with new implementations of technology. Other games I included were Crysis I for its FULL implementation of HDR on top of Hardware Physics. Guild Wars I, for maximizing and making innovative uses of lighting. Oblivion for the first major implementation of HDR.
The one thing I love about Dragon Age II is the fact that you have a female character in each class without them stealing the show completely. In fact Dragon Age II only had a female warrior for the first part of Awakenings. After that first part, she dies and as usual all female characters regardless of race are rogues or mages.
Dragon Age II gives you at least one character per class, per gender. Each character has its own perks too that make the character fall outside of the stereotypical archtype. This is a game where the female character design is actually slightly better than the male character archetype, but the male characters also fall slightly out of archetypes too. I give Bioware credit on trying to give characters personality outside of the basic archetypes.
I loved the many battlegrounds and locations of Dragon Age Origins, but if you wanted to go through the story, each playthrough would be around 60 hours if you chose to go through Origins, Awakenings and Witches Hunt. I guess we will have to wait to see if there will be any expansions for Dragon Age II.
Note: For Nvidia Users, make sure you download the BETA drivers for this game to allow SLI to scale as it should. I use them on my 480 GTX settings and have everything set to maximum including high resolution textures. The game looks great on very high, and the drivers eliminate corrupted black textures too. ^_^
Square Enix didn't make FF VII. That was Square Soft,
Meh, I liked the game. But then again I didn't go into it with preconceived notions (i.e. being like Origins).
Dragon Age 2 was a great game.
The only downside to the game was the limited areas of the game. But it makes sense being it all takes place majorily in the city. Other than that I had alot of fun playing the game and got my moneys worth.
At least you're right in terms of me. If it weren't called "Dragon Age 2" and it wasn't made by BioWare, I wouldn't really say anything about it; I wouldn't even had bought it.
I don't agree with all the points in the article (I liked Aveline), but I do agree with most. I don't think of DA2 as a terrible game or as a great game, I think of it as a mediocre game.
Gaider and the writing team spent a lot of time on the character's writing, and ultimately, it's the only part of the game that I like: the characters, their dialogue and, especially, their banter. Things like walking in on Merrill and Isabela talking, that is great stuff.
The rest of the game, I see too much detail missing. Over 7 years and absolutely nothing in the city changes outside of where the Qunari were (that just gets locked out, iirc). No dialogue with party members except when the quests come up. I can say much more, but there's relatively little point as everything I'd say has been said.
I mostly see the game as a potentially great game wasted by too short a development cycle. And I really did try to like it (I wouldn't have pushed myself to play the entire thing if I didn't).
He summed up alot of the issues I had with the game. I usually go watch his reviews for the laughs. Lately though he's been spot on with pointing out the flaws in games.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
Perfect article. Like this guy looked in my brain, saw my own opinion, and then wrote everything down.