Is it just me or are games getting dumbed down? Especially RPG's. I mean now every game basically puts a giant floodlight on your map advertising "GO HERE NEXT". There's no thinking involved anymore from the looks of it. Oh, and it seems like my party is ridiculously overpowered. Nothing I've come across has been remotely difficult on "Normal" level. Maybe it's because the game just started. I don't know. I'm controlling my mage for the most part, and it just seems like one big spam fest and console-loving mindless firing of spells. I'm not saying it's not fun, but there's really not much thought or tactics going into anything I'm doing at the moment. I love the storyline so far and the acting/voicing is pretty decent. And this is coming from a guy who couldn't care less about storylines in most games. I also love the music and sounds. The graphics are awesome, but I have to agree that so far the game seems very constrained to being within buildings/cities. I loved the Baldur's Gate series because so much of it was outdoors, but this game is a far cry from what the BG series was.
These are very similar to my thoughts as well on the game. I just hope that it gets more challenging as it goes on, and that there will actually be some thought required. It's odd the things they changed between the first one and this one, because most of them weren't things that I thought even got a lot of complaints. The graphics improved and that was the main thing I saw complaints about on the first one. I didn't hear much complaining that there was too much freedom in creating your own character at the beginning, yet that changed. I didn't hear too much complaining that the world was too spread out, and people wished it could all be contained in one area. I didn't hear too much complaining that the problems with combat were that it was too hard, and figuring out a working strategy was a real bummer. I didn't hear too much complaining that there was too much ability to make different decisions in the first game, yet that seems to have been removed as well. I guess there were some complaints about combat in the first one, but I thought it was mostly about party NPC's going against the strategies planned out for them by the player. I've only played about an hour or two so far, so maybe the elements I'm missing will reveal themselves later. But either way a lot of the changes that were made were just changes and not necessarily improvements.
I agree with the above. So far I feel like I'm playing a console game on my PC. The graphics are certainly improved (the new combat animations are very sharp), but the game seems dumbed down significantly. I'm hoping it gets better as it goes along.
I'm loving the game so far. I played it for over 6 hours last night without even realizing it and didn't get to bed until 5AM. :grin: I'm currently playing in DX9 Medium settings with high-res textures (as high as it will go in DX9) since DX11 is broken for nVidia cards at the moment. From what I've read, it has something to do with BioWare working with AMD to implement DX11, so ATI cards shouldn't have any problem running DX11 Very High. I'm hoping nVidia comes out with new drivers to fix the problems soon...
How's the story compared to Dragon Age 1? The story is what sold me on that game, if the story sucks. I'm not getting this...
DAO had a story that was more epic in scale, while DA2's story seems to be a lot more personal. It seems pretty interesting so far, and I've heard that it ties to the overarching story in a major way.
Are the dialogue options and character actions still really intricate and detailed like in the original Dragon Age?
This game has a lot of flaws, even more so that DO:A but I'm still enjoying every second of it. Very repetitive dungeons. Literally the same levels for multiple missions. The game is set entirely in one city, so the scenery barely ever changes. Graphics are iffy at times and if you're not pausing the game and playing tactically, the combat is often cluttered and too simple of a button masher. But the story is engaging and still a lot of fun. I'd say it's the worst BioWare game I've played, but it's still awesome. That says a lot about how good BioWare games are.
From what I've played, it's just as intricate and detailed. The main difference is that there is now a symbol with dialogue options to let you know what type of response it is (friendly, funny, aggressive, etc.). I think it's useful to have so you won't say something you weren't intending. I know there's been times in Dragon Age and Mass Effect where the dialogue choice would be something vague and then the character would say something different.
Ok I’m a bit underwhelmed by this game. What I like is that the choices made really influence the game, choices in chapter 1 have big consequences in later chapters etc. That is a big improvement. There are a couple of things I do not like: 1: Re-use of maps, all the cave's int he game are the same map, the same goes for houses etc. 2: Only staying in Kirkwall, I like it better when the party travels to other area's (like Baldurs gate 2). 3: The inability to choice armor for Companions 4: The fights are less tactical. and easy (the only creature I had troubles with was in the second chapter in that cave near the elves, for the companion quest of the elf on the normal difficulty) 5: Less choices in character race etc. 6: The leveling up system is also worse than it was. IMHO. 7: The comp-anions are less interesting than in Dragon Age 1. 8: Lack of interesting Warrior companions, I always play with 2 warriors a rogue and me (a mage). But i'm forced to play with Fenris which disagrees will almost al my choices. I think there are about the same amount of companions as in Dragon age 1. But for some reason I ike the companions much less. (why couldn't they put a Qunari as a companion?) So overall it is a nice game, which I will finish (now I’m at the start of chapter 3), but I expected more of this game. I hope The Witcher 2 will not disappoint.
Overall, I think the story and (ugh) the graphics are the saving graces for this game. The combat seems like maniacal mouse-mashing (hello? this isn't console gaming!), but I still enjoy it. The repetitious maps/revisiting the same location over and over kills the game a bit. The only other thing that really pisses me off? I just built a new computer and forgot to back up my Steam folder. Kill me. So I guess I get to start over. :grin: To be honest, despite its faults, I'd still probably buy this game.
I finished the game the other day. I enjoyed it, but I agree that it's the weakest game bioware has put out that I can think of. Some of the writing wasn't as good, and possibly some of the delivery on the sarcastic lines. It may be that this is one downfall of having the main character voiced. I know when the dialogue choices were written, they were hilarious some of the time. Part of it was the writing, and part of it was the delivery in my own imagination as opposed to some actor. I thought the "dumbing down" of the game was unfortunate, and unnecessary. Also the repeated maps of all the dungeon areas was annoying. The less challenging combat was also disappointing. It was not improvement over the original and was a significant step backwards. That being said it was still a good game, with an interesting story. If I had it to do over I would still buy the game, and play it. I just hope that the trend downward doesn't continue.
The biggest problem I had with this game is that the big choices you make are totally irrelevant. For example, with Anders Spoiler He'll blow up the Chantry whether you help him or not..... And Meril Spoiler She pieces together the Mirror with or without your help....
Well, following the trend of trilogys. The third is always the best, and the second is always the worst...
I have read that to get real tactical play out of this game you need to increase difficulty to hard/nightmare. At those settings, you will die if you simply button-mash. I have also read, though, that the tactics on those higher difficulty levels are pretty tedious.. i.e., they pretty much involve kiting.. and more kiting.. and more kiting... and more kiting.
If you're wondering why this game sucks, I will tell you. I know someone in the industry who was not directly involved with making DA2 but knows a lot of people who were. Apparently, DA2 was originally supposed to be an action-oriented spinoff to the series and started development that way. The marketing department wanted to quickly cash in on the success of DAO and determined that a direct sequel projected to have higher sales than a spinoff. So this spinoff was renamed DA2 and the team was given a relatively short amount of time to polish a turd into a proper Dragon Age game. This is also why you see Bioware reps lashing out on forums. They know they made a bad game, it wasn't really their choice, and they're having a hard time dealing with all the criticism.
Meh, i'm almost done playing the game a second time through and it's nothing more than a bridge between origins and whatever is going to happen in the rest of the series. This game is basically to fill in gaps so you wont be going woah wtf who is that/when did that happen in later Dragon Age games. Or at least that's what it seems like.
