Gaming Dragon Age 2 Review

I use it, it looks really great. The game is good looking this time. It'll push your PC though. You need DX11, and some decent hardware for it. I have a C2D at 3.5Ghz and it's pretty much maxed out the whole time. I really need to upgrade sometime.

 

OK we'll have to agree to disagree then; as I said I've become accustomed to the negativity, on pretty much any game, here.

 

Well that's the point really. I grew up with PnP D&D so that's the sort of thing I am looking for in an RPG game. I don't want to be railroaded into a given character because of his really great voice acting, I want the freedom to create my own "star of the show" (in my head of course, that's the point of RPG's right?) with his own back story. It seems like a perfectly legitimate reason not to want to play this game. It's precisely why I couldn't finish ME2, it felt like an interactive movie and not an RPG game.

And no, I don't condemn Ultima Online, because I haven't played it. I was comparing this with other Bioware games that I have played and to a greater or lesser extent enjoyed.

 

You still do that though. You make the character at the start of the game, choose their sex, and first name. Then you make it look like you, and you control it entirely, choose all the dialogue options and build the stats and skills/spells from scratch.

It's not really any different from Baldur's Gate or anything else. In Baldur's Gate you were the Bhaal Spawn etc.. and this game isn't much different. The only difference is that you have a surname, a family, and the character actually talks. If anything, it's better than the first game because he talks in all the conversations so you feel more a part of the game.

It's never going to be a full sandbox type experience because it's not that kind of game. It's not got a free roaming world either. It's more of an adventure, so yeah, interactive movie isn't far off, but that's just what this game is. Criticising it for being that way is like criticising Gran Turismo for not letting you get out the car and shoot stuff. It's a straight RPG adventure, but really well made. I thought it was going to be crappy, but I'm very pleasantly surprised. I like it far more than the first game.

 

idd, the game has got red on it. bioware, what's with the fascination with ridiculous amounts of blood?

will get the game nonetheless

 

@sausages - totally agree with your comments. In fact I'd go so far as to say that I feel like I've had more control over 'who' my character is becoming in DA2 than I ever did in any of the previous games. The progression feels far more organic and natural. Because of this the stuff that happens is affecting me emotionally far more effectively than 99% of other games full stop, let alone other RPGs. For instance, when a certain character (I'll try not to spoiler here) died from the blight because I'd chosen to allow them to accompany me (I'm sure you probably know who I mean), I was genuinely really very upset with myself and upset about what had happened. I had to sort of shake my head and tell myself not to be stupid as it was only a character in a game. To me, that's the best indicator yet of just how good the writing is in this game.

Oh, DA2 - how I *so* wanted to hate thee for being consolified, yet you utterly won me over damnit. >.<

Anyway - gotta dash, I've got an appointment with the fade.....

 

Hear hear! Good to find someone else who thinks their wonderful mature storylines are actually trite abuses of any bog standard fantasy/sci-fi story and a bit of awful pseudo-sex thrown in.

 

well there was kind of ridiculous stuff in dao too.. like I went blood mage remember

so blood mages aren't accepted but I had used the ability before the cut scene and blood was shooting out my neck onto everyone.. and they were talking some stuff like we need to find the blood mage xD

everyone was covered with blood through the whole scene.. there was plenty of crazy dialog too in dao too- with the buttsecks elf

 

Exactly And yeah, I had to drag myself away from it last night after playing 7 hours straight!

 

Oh I'm pissed! I got my signature edition today and installed it only to find I can't bloody play it because of some BS date checker! I HAVE to wait until the 11th. What.a.piss.take. Americans had it since Tuesday, the rest of Europe can play today and the UK consoles arn't affected. Only the UK PC user. Beautiful, once again the legite buyers are shafted while the pirates have been playing the game all week. Great. Thanks.

/end rant.

 

The game "looks" even smoother now that bioware released the "Directx11 High-Deff Texture pack" for all PC users!!! Free 1GB download off the bioware site!

 

Change your clock then unplug the interwebs?

 

yeah figures huh.. saw the intro last night- looks pretty good.. mine had a glitch though and the dwarf didn't have any pants on.. here we go again

 

It's an online check. I could use a North American proxy, but free proxy servers are often run by people after your information. I don't even want risk that for the minute it would take to do the check. I'll wait...much as I feel betrayed.

@thehippoz No pants..hehe I had to chuckle. I know flaws are annoying, but sounds kinda humorous still.

 

Its been a long wait but its nearly over!

I know the reviews havent been great and the demo was a bit pants but i can wait to play DA2!!

 

2 hours latert and it seems like a decent game. I could play all night but i have work tomorrow

 

I was so amazed with what they've done with the classes that I could barely believe it until I tested it out. At last an RPG that actually balances mages, fighters and rogues so that you can have any party set up you like. In Dragon Age 1 you needed a mage, and that mage needed to be able to heal, a lot. Now you can just roll with whatever group you like. Healing helps, but it doesn't necessarily help more than a big slab of extra damage output. It's even more revolutionary than Mass Effect 2 in this respect, because at heart the Mass Effect series has always been more shooter than RPG.

 

I've played a few hours today and loving it so far.

 

Edited

 

liking the environments and animation..

no frames lost on a 460 too with the textures on very high game / very high in the cp, 16x af.. 4x aa dx9

they did a good job on it (well so far).. lot of dialog- some reason more believable

if had to rate it right now- fun but a lot easier in combat, good audio.. the mipmap textures get kind of blurry in dx9 though, not really noticeable though unless your looking for it- you can see in the background rocks here, same with the tile in town

I should dl the dx11 texture pack- just it looks good and plays perfectly so far =] tried dx11 with the new driver and some reason my card was losing a lot of frames