Dragon Age II Review

By Dan Whitehead Published 8 March, 2011

The second cut is the deepest.

Version tested: Xbox 360

After 45 hours of bloody combat, fraught conversations and shameless attempts to have sex with elves, Dragon Age dumps me back into the real world with the comforting ping of an Achievement unlocked for good measure. The friendly lozenge contains just one word: "Epic". It's not wrong.

Dragon Age II is a big game. Not in the usual sense of lengthy playing times and sprawling maps (though it's no slouch in those departments), but in terms of its ambition and storytelling.

This is a game with a lot on its mind, a game that wants you to feel the weight of history, both ancient and personal, pressing down on you with every decision you make. It wants you to live through a story that spans a decade, taking you from penniless refugee to beloved champion.

It wants you to think, to immerse yourself in cultural conflicts that don't try very hard to conceal their real life parallels, to juggle questions of faith and free will, justice and security, revenge and passion.

It wants you to stitch yourself into its unfurling narrative tapestry, to feel every betrayal and failure even as you carve your way through another dozen Darkspawn. This, it says, is more important than fannying about in your backpack sorting out potions.

Only a churlish heart would fail to appreciate the effort.

'Dragon Age II' Screenshot 1

The "ten dollar" DLC, The Black Emporium, offers some useful starting loot but is hardly essential.

Much like Origins, Dragon Age II is a slow burner. It takes the form of three acts. You play as Hawke, an inhabitant of Lothering who flees with his family from the Blight during the events of the first game.

Escaping across the water to neighbouring Kirkwall, you arrive along with thousands of other Ferelden refugees and your welcome is predictably cold. If there's a version of the Daily Mail in this world, you can imagine the headlines.

The game then hops forward three years to tell the story of how you rise from asylum seeker to local hero. Then there's another three year gap, after which you... Let's just say that a lot of plot threads come together in an unexpected yet satisfying way, and the decks are cleared to make room for three interlinked stories to be told.

During the following hours of play, the saga spins out in a slow and steady way. The game manages the fantasy cliché of setting you up against an urgent world-threatening force, then letting you amble off to muck about doing odd jobs for any bugger who asks.

Played the demo? Here's 15 minutes of what happens next, including a brand new party member.

Here, the procrastination is entirely fitting. There is no villain in this game, or at least no single villain, and those who do fit that description will surely vary from player to player. The big boss at the end of Dragon Age II is an ideological choice rather than a huge monster. Which isn't to say there aren't any huge monsters in the game - of course there are - but you're always aware that defeating them isn't going to save the day.

This lends proceedings a more bleak and confrontational tone than Origins, which traded in Tolkienesque myth. Dragon Age II is, at its heart, a political game. It places greater stock in the way you approach questions of society and culture than the binary quest choices of the previous game.

Choosing to save or destroy some sacred ashes feels like small beans next to some of the decisions you have to make here. Things still have a natural tendency to eventually boil down to either-or choices, but the path to get there at least takes you through a lot of grey areas. Often, the best you can hope for is to pick the lesser of two evils.

However, the game requires no small amount of patience from the player and a willingness to submit to the long-term narrative plan. With no overriding menace to keep you on track the three acts tend to clunk into one another, only revealing their shape after many hours of dutiful questing. The payoff is worth it, but the cast of new companions doesn't do much to inspire you to delve deeper.

They actually prove to be fairly deep and interesting characters by the end, but there's nobody who compares to instantly appealing fan favourites such as Morrigan, Sten, Zevram and Shale. This fresh crew of dwarves, elves, mages and warriors takes its time to win you over. I spent a lot of time quietly hoping for more of the cynical humour and colourful dialogue that typified Origins.

Hawke is a curiously inert lead who never quite makes himself (or herself) memorable, regardless of your actions. He's an improvement over the anonymous mutes you controlled in the previous adventure but he's no Commander Shepherd, able to instantly inspire devotion from both cast and player alike.

It doesn't help that importing a save from Origins seems to have little obvious impact on the gameworld. A couple of welcome cameos aside, I saw nothing to suggest any of my decisions had carried over from Ferelden to Kirkwall.

'Dragon Age II' Screenshot 2

One of the best side quests revolves around fixing one of your companions with someone else rather than trying to shag them yourself.

In gameplay terms, much has changed from Origins. Everything from skill trees to quest notifications have been redesigned and made easier to use. "Dumbing down!" goes the cry from the pessimistic faithful, and those coming to the game with that mantra in mind will find that confirmation bias supports their prejudice.

"Streamlined!" responds Bioware. The truth lies somewhere in between as the game walks a delicate, sometimes wobbly line between clutter-free immersion and the sort of menu-delving depth that RPG fans expect.

In combat this manifests as a more real-time experience. Every basic attack is now triggered by a button press rather than the activate-and-watch method of old. To begin with, it feels weird. Mashing the A button over and over is quite clearly Not RPG.

But as with all things Dragon Age, the wisdom in the change becomes clearer over time. Once you've added some extra ability shortcuts to your battle menu the tactical nature shimmies into focus.

'Dragon Age II' Screenshot 3

The Qunari play a large role in the second act of the story. The laughs never stop with this bunch.

The shift to a more immediate combat style allows you to react quickly to the field. Every sword swing, every arrow fired, every spell unleashed is now at your command, and it can't help but make the fights feel more visceral and satisfying – especially when you're able to explode enemies into bloody chunks.

The fact there's no way of going back to the old method suggests Bioware has no patience for those who insist on keeping the status quo. You can still use the radial menu to pause the action and hop from character to character, but combat is too fast and frantic for this to ever feel natural. As a tactical combat tool it's past its sell-by date, and you end up getting used to the new style by default.

The shadow of Mass Effect 2 looms large over many of the changes, especially where companions and inventories are concerned. Your control over these areas has received some of the most noticeable cuts. Companion armour is now completely off-limits while upgrade trees are inflexible and closed off to any new specialisms you might want to give them.

I still found that my inventory quickly filled up with fantastic weaponry that nobody could use. All unusable items, from diamonds to torn trousers, are now automatically stored in the junk tab of your inventory. They can be flogged to a merchant in one job lot, with a single button press.

Undeniably convenient, but I miss sifting through this stuff myself. When the game makes the decision for me it does so at the risk of breaking the spell, of making us see all this loot as ones and zeroes distinguishable only by database tags.

Crafting is a hands-off affair, too. No longer do you merrily pick herbs and flowers on your travels. You simply find hidden pockets of infinite crafting resources which merchants can then use to deliver potions direct to your inventory. It's strangely soulless, as if Tesco Direct has inserted itself into this fantasy realm.

Only the truly hardcore role-player will allow such design choices to dampen the experience. The genre is evolving, like it or not, and once you stop obsessing over what's different and start paying attention to what's important, Dragon Age II has plenty to offer.

'Dragon Age II' Screenshot 4

Visually, the game is a massive improvement over Origins. Stunning lighting, varied character models, gorgeous scenery and very few technical hiccups.

If the gloriously messy stat-heavy guts of the RPGs of old are being carved out and replaced by simple mechanisms, it's not because the Bioware designers want to appeal to drooling simpletons. It's because they want us to engage with story rather than statistics.

If Mass Effect 2 took its cue from the propulsive thrust of pulp sci-fi, Dragon Age II gladly follows its own genre roots and echoes the meandering myth-building of a doorstop fantasy novel.

This is a game packed with stories. With no monstrous uber-foe to defeat even the smallest side quest takes on its own importance, feeding back into the whole and weaving a saga that draws you further and further in as the hours tick by.

Some will bail out long before that, muttering darkly about the changes to beloved genre tropes. Yet more will find the languid pacing too directionless, and will duck out in favour of something with a more obvious endgame in mind.

15 minutes more, a couple of hours in as you loot a dank, dark dungeon.

For those who stick around, able to forgive the moments when the game spins its wheels, there's a substantial and muscular experience to be had. This game builds steadily to one of the more interesting climaxes in recent memory.

It's never quite as great as it could be. Nor is it as successful as Mass Effect 2 at pitching itself across genres. Nevertheless, Dragon Age II presents an absorbing, sprawling story encased in blood-stained action RPG armour.

For all the ideas that don't quite take flight, for all the design decisions that feel restrictive rather than liberating, when the credits rolled I was already itching to devote another 40-odd hours to reliving it all again.

An enduring classic? Not quite. A satisfying epic? Absolutely.

8 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Dan.

About Dan Whitehead

Dan has been writing for Eurogamer since 2006 and specialises in RPGs, shooters and games for children. His bestest game ever is Julian Gollop's Chaos.

Read more articles from Dan by visiting the Dan Whitehead archive page.

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Comments (239) Latest comment 10 months ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • ExplodingClown #1 12 months ago

    But how does it score on the Hellforge BioWare Cliche Chart?

    http://gz a.gameriot.com/content/images/o...
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 17:06

  • Jay-ITFC #2 12 months ago

    Enjoyable read despite the inevitable comparisons to Mass Effect 2 throughout.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 17:09

  • Miths #3 12 months ago

    I've got the game pre-loaded and ready to go. Now if only the damn release date check didn't say I have to wait until March 10, 01:00 :).

  • Yossarian #4 12 months ago

    So is that three or four points where Dan Whitehead takes the time to sneer at people who actually care about old-fashioned RPGs and what they were good at? There may have been more I missed.

  • M_of_the_sys #5 12 months ago

    DLC review next week? It'll be side by side with the game reviews soon enough.

  • Yodith #6 12 months ago

    Interesting. I was very concerned the quality of the demo but based on the review I'm satisfied that I will enjoy myself. Time to get that Steam pre-order in.

  • superbeast2010 #7 12 months ago

    Post deleted at 10:57:39 01-02-2012

  • Eraysor #8 12 months ago

    Need to decide on console or PC version...to me it seems like the original one was a PC game ported to consoles, while this is the complete opposite.

    EDIT: Also, you spelled Commander Shepard wrong.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 17:15

  • Daeltaja #9 12 months ago

    Oh boy, can't wait to read this thread in a few hours!

    Exactly the score I expected. Looking forward to getting this on friday.

  • Lunastra78 #10 12 months ago

    Well I really liked the first game, but the demo just makes the second game seem... bad.

    Think I'll wait for a price reduction and the inevitable GOTY edition.

  • Masaroth #11 12 months ago

    Think ill probally get round to this when it goes down in price a bit or the inevitable GOTY edition. Sounds like all my fears about the gameplay side of things have been confirmed but im a sucker for a good story. Ill just have to take this game as one completly unrelated to the orginal, that way ill probally enjoy it a hell of a lot more.

  • Lusterpurge #12 12 months ago

    @Lunastra78
    I'm in exactly the same boat. I just lost the desire to purchase the game after playing the demo, but I'll probably pick it up when the GOTY edition goes on sale.

  • Raiftel #13 12 months ago

    Re: Yossarian

    I think he's sneering more at the people who equate a good RPG with autistic crafting and min-maxing.

  • DoctorFouad #14 12 months ago

    another epic game ! unfortunately I dont have enough time to play all those epic games released this generation...
    maybe the feeling that the ald generations era, especially the 16 bit era (megadrive/SNES) and the 32 bit/64 bit era (PS1, N64) + the dreamcast era, were the best moments in the history of gaming, is just nostalgia after all... or maybe with the video games generations I mentioned there was more innovation...anyway....

  • Murton #15 12 months ago

    Review started off good, then I felt I was being baited in the middle for liking "proper" RPGs and then a good conclusion.

    The review pretty much confirms my fears that DA has been significantly dumbed down in the sequel, but it also gives the impression that I will find parts of the game enjoyable despite the dumbing down. My conclusion, I'll pick it up later once the price drops a little and we know more about what sort of DLC is coming out.

    EDIT: the one thing Dan got right in this review was giving away the length of the game, I'd like to see more of this in future reviews, especially in shooters which are slowing getting to the point where the movies based on them will be longer.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 17:39

  • butler` #16 12 months ago

    No longer do you merrily pick herbs and flowers on your travels. You simply find hidden pockets of infinite crafting resources which merchants can then use to deliver potions direct to your inventory.

    So this doesn't even mildly annoy anyone else?

    I've gotta say I disagree with your sentiment that "only the truly hardcore role-player will allow such design choices to dampen the experience", Dan.

  • Quixz #17 12 months ago

    Forever in the shadow of Mass Effect!

  • dirtysteve #18 12 months ago

    @Daeltaja
    I reckon this thread will explode, it would get worse if people had the game to play now. Nerd rage unbound!!

  • Raiftel #19 12 months ago

    Now you see, that line suggests to me that your going to be doing a lot more enterprising stuff in Dragon Age 2. Without context it sounds dumbed down, but if it's due to links with local merchants it'll make a lot more sense within the context of the game.

  • Hunam #20 12 months ago

    I guess Origins was Bioware's swan song for RPG's. Now it's Action games with RPG lite mechanics.

  • Ninja_Tino #21 12 months ago

    I stopped playing Origins during the disastrous dream world (or whatever it was) sequence, despite the talking rats. Now *this* sounds much more my kind of game. I know many will disagree with me, and that's fine, but 40 hours is more than big enough for a single game, and I'm all for streamlining in RPGs. I mean, the game hardly sounds simple, just simplified. I was going to pass on this but it sounds great!

  • arcam #22 12 months ago

    If the gloriously messy stat-heavy guts of the RPGs of old are being carved out and replaced by simple mechanisms, it's not because the Bioware designers want to appeal to drooling simpletons

    That's just a happy coincidence?
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 17:30

  • nixc9 #23 12 months ago

    So, what version has hardware locked saves?

  • coomber #24 12 months ago

    I decided long ago I'd wait for the GOTY edition. Looks like I'll have a decent game to work my way through around Christmas time.

  • mkreku #25 12 months ago

    "The genre is evolving, like it or not, and once you stop obsessing over what's different and start paying attention to what's important, Dragon Age II has plenty to offer."

    Well thank you, Dan, for deciding what's important to me. Can you tell me, what should I have for dinner tomorrow?

    I'm sorry, but what's obviously not important to you is fun for me. Making more game mechanics soulless automated affairs is a bad thing, and it's important to me.

    I also take offence to the word "evolving". No! It is changing, not necessarily evolving. Better for some, worse for me.

  • arcam #26 12 months ago

    This must be what it felt like when Bob Dylan sang "The Times They Are A-Changing" to the dinosaurs of the past... if JLS had sung "The Times Are A-Changing".

  • Lexx87 #27 12 months ago

    Find it odd no mention of the PC version here, as they play very very differently.

  • Scimarad #28 12 months ago

    It's pretty sad that people are being negged for saying what amounts to "Actually, I quite like the sound of that!" - Some people really do struggle with the idea that their opinion of what a game should be isn't the only one.

    Clearly I'm delusional for liking a wide variety of different types of RPG...

  • easychord #29 12 months ago

    I'm not all that keen on Bioware stories TBH, not that I mindlessly hate them or anything, but I would rather have some statistics and tactical gameplay there to put a bit of meat onto the bones of the gameplay.

  • Gunship #30 12 months ago

    So Origins really was the end. BioWare - why the heck did you try to fix something that wasn't broke? Love the snarky lines in the review:

    "and once you stop obsessing over what's different and start paying attention to what's important, Dragon Age II has plenty to offer."
    "It's because they want us to engage with story rather than statistics."
    "Some will bail out long before that, muttering darkly about the changes to beloved genre tropes".

    The reviewer says relatively little about the combat, though. One part of the equation is dumbing down the RPG elements (human only, dialogue wheels with emoticons, paraphrasing voiced protagonists, fewer skills and spells, fewer NPC dialogue lines, recycled caves and dungeons). The other part is the fights. Ie optional pause and play combat, the spasmodic pace of the moves and animations, inability to equip new armor, fewer skills and spells, no tactical camera, back-flipping rogues and teleporting warriors? Or is the story so good, that these things no longer matter at all...
    Edited by 2 at 08/03/11 @ 19:05

  • Scopeh #31 12 months ago

    "It's strangely soulless, as if Tesco Direct has inserted itself into this fantasy realm."

    I have to admit, you got me chuckling at that.

  • Seoh #32 12 months ago

    really no mention about the difference between console and PC versions?

  • MrWonderstuff #33 12 months ago

    Agree with Lex. 360 and PC play so differently...point and shoot vs strategise and think (then shoot). 24" monitor on PC I work on...or armchair in front of a 42" plasma. Hmm...hmmm...

  • arcam #34 12 months ago

    I doubt Eurogamer even have a PC copy.

  • crimsoneer #35 12 months ago

    This has a very, very different vibe to the review of the PC version at PCGamer.com

  • bratmandu #36 12 months ago

    Still playing the first one (on nightmare difficulty) and I agree with Dan for a change, the genre must evolve - I could do without spending hours micromanaging and figuring out which hat is best for Wynne, etc. At the minute I'm trying to kick the shite out of Logain on my own - and it's not a lot of fun watching my guy play out the same set of stacked actions.

    Who's to say what a 'proper' rpg is? The 90s were over a long time ago. Back then games were limited by memory and graphics - realtime immersive combat wasn't an option - and if it was - you can bet your ballsack they'd have used it. As awkward and 'pause-y' as I find DA:o's combat (though I still kinda like the combat) - the story and conversation stuff is great - Bioware are masters in that respect - and the multiple outcomes than can occur from saying and doing different things is great. I get the feeling bioware could do wonderful genre changing things if they stopped pandering to the people who think a "proper" rpg needs to play like D&D or some sort of card based game. If you wanna play D&D hoke it out and play it - let games evolve!

  • Katana-Bob #37 12 months ago

    The way I see it, Dragon Age II and indeed the franchise has a few problems.

    1. It's not unique. It's post-LOTR fantasy. Been there done that. If you're going to make a fantasy world from scratch, why not use your, oh I don't know, imagination to make something different and interesting? Instead of yet more orc-like creatures, elves with pointy ears, short dwarves with big noses or whatever.
    2. Talking heads. Conversations may be interesting from time to time, but having conversations in the same camera angle 99 % of the time really makes conversations feel static, and, well, boring. I feel they used the same camera angle since KOTR. Mass effect did it much better where they might cling to walls, shout across rooms or lean onto balconies while talking. Makes conversations much more interesting.
    3. Colour palette. Ugh.

    And a few more thing said many times, many ways. Just my two shilling.

  • epiazk #38 12 months ago

    /sigh

    God you lot are whiny. Really, did you think this was going to be a bloody isometric? Did they tell you that it was going to be of dungeons and dragons complexity?

    DA:o was crap, it was dreary, the combat was ridiculous (force field tank and spam aoe being one of the thousands of ways to cheese it), the storyline tasted of cardboard, it was almost impossible to get the will together to replay it (a year later).

    Talking about DA:o as if it was in someway hardcore and upstream beggars belief. Do me a favour, go fire up BG2, start an assassin, and try ironman it. Come back here and tell me how you got around the THAC0 rape and then you can talk down to this "drooling" casual.

    Cant believe how annoyed the comments made me.

  • Starkillah_79 #39 12 months ago

    @CapAmerica: Exactly, i totally agree with you. liked the demo & can't wait to play the full game despite the fact i was a fan of Origins...guess what, change doesn't always mean something gets worse. I don't want the same xp i had with DA:o (especially the combat) when i'm playing Part 2 but anyway, haters gonna hate. so keep bitching about "dumped down rpg elements" that is so ridiculous. same argument came up last year when ME 2 arrived. Especially the pc gamers can't stop whining as if console games ruined their XP. Bottom line is Bioware has never released a bad game, not even a mediocre one & probably never will ...if you don't like the new style stay away from it. it's that simple because a lot of other gamers - hardcore rpg guys or not, will surely like this game. the platform doesn't even matter. btw 8/10 is a rock solid score.

  • Snidesworth #40 12 months ago

    I enjoyed the PC demo. Combat was, for all its flair, more or less the same as it was in DA Origins. What got me was the lack of the Hawke family's lack of charisma, iffy voice acting and lack of importance of any of the dialogue options. The latter is likely down to it being a demo, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

    From the sounds of things this game is fairly modular as well, as Mass Effect 2 was. I heartily support the trimming down of mechanics in favour of a stronger story focus, but I can't help but feel that this modular focus breaks takes away from the narrative. You end up with a bunch of self contained episodes that link up but lack any real narrative drive. It's been an issue in Bioware RPGs for a while (the four worlds of KotOR were the start of it) but it was never this bad. I can't help but feel that Mass Effect 2 suffered for the disjointed nature of its episodes and I suspect that Dragon Age 2 might as well.

  • Gunship #41 12 months ago

    This is what the Origins lead designer thinks of the changes in DA2.

    [link url= http://blog.brentknowles.com/2010/08/15/bioware-brent-year-1 0-fall-2008-summer-2009/comment-page-1/#comment-2398
    ]http://bl og.brentknowles.com/2010/08/15/...[/link]

    I'll just send him an email now to tell him he should just "stop obsessing" about the changes, and learn to love bink.
    For fans of RPGs with, em, RPG mechanics and gameplay, you might enjoy the editorial at hookedgamers.com

  • UncleLou #42 12 months ago

    Might as well ban CaptainAmerica right now, it's obviously Dr_Doom, Alca-Pwn etc., whose last 50+ accounts lasted for 24 hours max each.

  • CaptainQuint #43 12 months ago

    Read like a 9. Surprised it 'only' got an 8.

  • darkmorgado #44 12 months ago

    @CaptainAmerica

    "Ofcourse there's always going to be the weirdos who like to spend hours picking different flowers in the forest to make a specific potion that you don't really need. There's going to be those geeks who want to fuck about customizing and managing their inventory to precision. But there are great many more people who want more fun, streamilned action and better pace and LESS CLUTTER. The latter group far outway the miniscule nerdy group and so it makes sense that the normal people get Bioware's attention.

    You can really tell who the Dungeon and Dragons weirdos are who live in their parents cellars when these types of games come out.     "

    You don't have a clue what you are talking about.

    First of all, without Dungeons and Dragons, Bioware wouldn't be where they are today.

    If you want a streamlined action experience, what the fuck are you doing playing RPGs? Fuck off back to Gears of War.

    It's funny, because I bet that most of the people laughing at the people with legitimate complaints about how Bioware is dumbing down the genre, are probably the same people who moan that MS are abandoning the core for Kinect and dont realise the irony.

  • Katana-Bob #45 12 months ago

    "I'm Sir Hawke, and this is the only store in the city."

  • ceski #46 12 months ago

    A great example of everything wrong with the video game industry.

    This video sums it up:
    BioWare Presents: The State of the Game Industry
    Edited by 2 at 08/03/11 @ 18:05

  • darkphoenix #47 12 months ago

    blah, blah, Mass Effect 2, blah, blah,.......

    Won't you quit it?
    ME2 is the most overated game in EG. Ever.

    That and Fable 2, of course...

  • RockTwist #48 12 months ago

    If anyone cares, Bioware did some walkthrough's that are around 1 hour long showing content not in the demo, higher difficulties etc.

    [link url=http://biowarefans.com/201 1/03/results-of-the-dragon-age-2-developer-chat-2-march-5th/
    ]http://bi owarefans.com/2011/03/results-o...[/link]

    Watch, or don't, it's up to you but it might help make your mind up more than a review or a (shitty) demo could.
    Edited by 2 at 08/03/11 @ 20:41

  • darkmorgado #49 12 months ago

    Agreed. I don't understand the love for ME2. It was just GOW with conversation trees.

  • epiazk #50 12 months ago

    @CaptainAmerica

    The reason so many people have gotten pissed off about this is that they mistook bioware for black isle. Bioware is often seen as one of the last real hardcore RPG producing brands, and they (are perceived) have left their target audience and started making farmville/barbie dream horse/lego...

    Bioware long moved away from us though peeps, DA:o was not for the hardcore :/


  • 5h1nj1 #51 12 months ago

    quote: "it's not because the Bioware designers want to appeal to drooling simpletons. It's because they want us to engage with story rather than statistics."

    Yes, of course, but the real question is "Do WE want that?"
    Didn't most people buy the first game exactly because it was a refreshing oldschool model, compared to all the modern ones?

  • ulikmegee #52 12 months ago

    That score equals shit. Not that 8/10 means shit in the real world, but EG have a habit of disguising a lot of average games with that score.

    Neg away.

  • Dizzy #53 12 months ago

    Oh Ea what have you done?

  • the_dudefather #54 12 months ago

    Dragon age 2: Kung fu action magic

  • MasterNameless #55 12 months ago

    @darkmorgado

    Just because you, and several other, very vocal whingers feel that way, doesn't make it so. And I don't see you see the need to be so aggressive in your response to CaptainAmerica's post.

    Even if RPG's started off as stat heavy, micro-management fests from the whole Dungeons and Dragon era, why does that mean Bioware aren't allowed to make a game that evolves from that original at all? Are we all doomed to be stuck playing RPG's with same, or very near to, mechanics forever? Don't get me wrong, I love a good old school RPG too, and appreciate it for what it is - I also like Bioware's take on the genre too, they don't always get it right but I have thoroughly enjoyed most of their latest output - KOTOR really blew me away when I first played that, and I loved Baldurs Gate too. There are still plenty of old school RPG's around, Divinity II for one example off the top of my head.

    I realise this is mostly because gamers are jaded haters, that whinge and whine at any opportunity, and I guess Bioware are a nice big target for their vitriol.

    p.s. As someone else mentioned earlier, the word is evolve btw, not "change" - besides not wanting to dumb our language down to basic approximations of what we're trying to say, since when did evolving mean that it's isn't to the exclusion of any other factor? Apes evolved into us, and that was to the exclusion of climbing in trees (to the extent that they did anyway), they didn't "change", well, they did, but that's, ironically, the dumbing down of the meaning, and language - the very thing the comment was protesting against with RPG's.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 18:17

  • Stop-gap #56 12 months ago

    Bugger, I was warming to DA2 for the first page and a half of the review and then the inevitable changes were laid out and put pay to that. I'll pick it up later, it's probably best to wait for a few patches to come along anyway.

  • TRUTH #57 12 months ago

    I got the feeling there is no real sense of adventure or any real puzzles in this game. It's sounds to streamlined - you talk, choose a speech dialogue; it's either good or bad, walk a bit, have a fight then repeat till the end...no real openness as in Oblivion, Divinity II:DKS or tactical deep strategy as in Demon's Souls battles. DA2 seems to much based around endless speech marathons and all issues resolved by clicking on speech dialogues - this seems rather limited as your sense of adventure and freedom is missing if physically you unable simple things like swimming, pushing, climbing, jumping ducking, blocking; that gives the player more options to progress in discovery and play mechanics feeling better and more involved, rather then limited to dialogue and button mashing fighting - it just seems the sense of adventure and discovery is missing in DA2, esp after playing Oblivion, Divinity II:DKS, Fallout 3.

  • BlinkeredAxis #58 12 months ago

    Been playing this stuff since BG1, and personally I don't think things are that dumbed-down in DA. The BG series and Neverwinter let the CPU do your dice rolls after all. They all plyed smoothly without having to study tables (much).

    I'm a bit confused by this received wisdom going around that Bioware are somehow poor game designers. In fact, I find it completely mystifying. What sort of game do you want anyway? D&D is still available if you want it.

    And if some wierdasas shit says 'meh' about Mass Effect 2 again then I will break my new rule and neg the fuck out of their whiny, ignorant little asses. It's a terrific game.

  • TRUTH #59 12 months ago

    Also agree Mass Effect 2 is one of the most overrated games too!...it was simply speech dialogue - battle - speech dialogue - battle etc etc.

  • butler` #60 12 months ago

    Bit too much black and white thinking in here for me to bother constructing an in depth retort, but I'll summarise: accessibility and simplicity aren't the same thing. Deep, equally, doesn't necessarily denote complicated.

    See: Blizzard's design philosophy.

    The picking herbs / making potions example that I cited earlier sounds like simplicity at the cost of depth and thus interest. At least by the way Dan puts it across; I wouldn't want to judge 100% until I've seen it myself.

  • Raiten #61 12 months ago

    In all honesty, i can't see removing stats as evolution in rpg genre, if anything it's de-evolving. That's not because of being hardcore or anything, but it removes one important thing about char creation, making it personalized, this is even worse when used mmorpgs because every frecking char is the same, no chance to personlise your build to match your own taste, just forced in to a mold the creator wants you to do. If that is evolution the next step of evolution is removing talent trees/skill trees and having a char that grows without any input from you, kinda like Fable 3 and that wasn't rpg anymore aka the next step of evolution is burrying rpgs compleatly.

    Besides the rant, i found one part of the review hilarious, the reviewer stated how you the player should stick with it since the story opens up much much later. If this game was jrpg the reviewer would've butchered/skinned/tossed it in to fire for having you wait longer period of time before the plot takes off.

  • darkmorgado #62 12 months ago

    Well at least the Witcher isn't about to lose it's title as the best RPG of the last decade anytime soon.

    Well, until the Witcher 2.

  • Eraysor #63 12 months ago

    Mass Effect 2 is overrated in much the same way that Super Mario Bros. is (i.e. it isn't.)

  • dirtysteve #64 12 months ago

    The hair-trigger negging has started. God preserve us!

  • dfua #65 12 months ago

    Biggest issue for me from the demo is the icons for the dialogue choices. You don't have to think about what your saying anymore, you don't even have to read it. It just destroys the immersion. Part of the interest in these games is making your choice and sticking with the consequences, however small or large. By making it bloody obvious what your choice is going to do really does feel dumbed down.

  • Chufty #66 12 months ago

    Great review, thanks Dan.

    I'm concerned about the combat on the PC version; in the demo I found myself constantly clicking the floor instead of the target and having my character run around like an idiot at crucial moments. Hopefully that's just something to get used to.

  • Scimarad #67 12 months ago

    "The hair-trigger negging has started. God preserve us!"

    You aren't bloody joking! And at the same time we get somebody saying "If you like stuff like this don't play RPGs, sod off back to Gears of War" and they're on +4! Bloody ridiculous...

    -edit-

    Ha! Thanks very much whoever negged me for saying that:)
    Edited by 2 at 08/03/11 @ 18:43

  • anomagnus #68 12 months ago

    The facts of RPGs

    Fact one: The Majority of people that post on forums about RPGs, are hardcore rpg fans.
    Fact two: RPGS are made to appeal to the hardcore.
    Fact three. RPGs that appeal to the hardcore don't sell....

    Now, you can dispute that all you like, but the truth is, the most sucessful western RPG has been Mass Effect 2. Why? Because it took the bold step of removing all the shit of the day, all the inventory wank, all the boring combat stats, and brought back the core of the RPG, the story. It wrapped it in a nice shiney package, and if fucking sold a ton.

    Welcome to DA2

    Personally speaking, since Zelda rolled its arse out on the NES, i'e been playing RPGs. I remember my first jaunt through BG2. I remember killing Sephiroth for the first time. I still have my orginal save file from Morrowwind.I've wasted a year on WoW. If an RPG has come out, even that shite Two Worlds, i bought it. I love RPGs. Not for shit mechanics that please number crunchers, but for the story, the abilty for my choices to change a world.

  • azix2 #69 12 months ago

    "Only the truly hardcore role-player will allow such design choices to dampen the experience. The genre is evolving, like it or not, and once you stop obsessing over what's different and start paying attention to what's important, Dragon Age II has plenty to offer"



    wtf?!? The genre is evolving or fking devolving? Its evolving into a fking third person action game you mean. Soon RPGs will be limited to god of war or devil may cry type games. THis is not evolution, they are being stupid with the changes they feel are necessary. Whoever is going around preaching the BS they are listening to needs to be got rid of


    If the gloriously messy stat-heavy guts of the RPGs of old are being carved out and replaced by simple mechanisms, it's not because the Bioware designers want to appeal to drooling simpletons. It's because they want us to engage with story rather than statistics.

    Naahh I'm pretty sure its the fking simpletons. Great game mechanics can't be replaced by a damn story. wtf kind of way of thinking is that. If you can't tell a good story with your game wihtout making it less than it once was, then you are simply bad. A story is the default expectation not the only expectation. Cann you imagine yourself saying "I pressed A all the way thru this game, but damn the story was the sh*t"? Go watch a fking movie.

    Frustrating and I really feel sad for the gaming industry. These guys aren't even comfortable making a proper RPG because of the market forces. They have to go make it appeal to the fps hack and slash halo cod gears morons. The fact that the camera is limited to a near third person perspective is ridiculous and a great example of their mistake. it is totally unnecessary to do that even with the new combat design. Their previous way of doing ablities (leveling them etc) was very much more useful than this foolishness they have now. You could look through everything on one single page and make your choices before, but now they have this (I bet they think its cool and the kids will love it) spell page that you have to click on different branches just to see what each icon is about. sigh. so damn misguided and they want to complain about other things like piracy (developers in general)

    raging cause i was really looking forward to this. WTF happened???
    Edited by 3 at 08/03/11 @ 18:59

  • UncleLou #70 12 months ago

    Strange how people who don't like the new direction get insults hurled at them in every second post. Personally, I think stories in RPGs are mostly shit, and Bioware is no exception. I play RPGs purely for the mechanics. I don't go around calling everyone that enjoys Bioware's stories a retarded, beardy nerd though.

  • man.the.king #71 12 months ago

    I've been very, very interested in this game for quite a while.

    However, I still won't buy it just yet. Better to wait for a year and then get the Ultimate edition with all DLC. It's not as if there is some MP component I'll lose out on by not getting it just now.

    It'll be just as fresh then as it is now.

  • darkmorgado #72 12 months ago

    Fact three. RPGs that appeal to the hardcore don't sell....

    Erm, the Witcher, Baldur's Gate, STALKER all sold millions.

    And that's just off the top of my head.

  • Raiftel #73 12 months ago

    Neckbeard Assault Squad...Assemble!

    What I find interesting is that Hardcore RPG fans tend to be accepting of some truly technically games but are utterly suspicious of anything even remotely polished. It's why you have people willing to defend Divinity 2, the latest Gothic game, even Two Worlds despite a myriad of technical faults with them. I can't decide if they're worried about developers selling out or if they're worried that people who don't care about Dungeons and Dragons might enjoy one of their precious games.

  • ExplodingClown #74 12 months ago

    @cheeky error: That just makes me sad they didn't make Jade Empire 2 instead.

  • dfua #75 12 months ago

    @anomagnus
    "Now, you can dispute that all you like, but the truth is, the most sucessful western RPG has been Mass Effect 2. Why? Because it took the bold step of removing all the shit of the day, all the inventory wank, all the boring combat stats, and brought back the core of the RPG, the story. It wrapped it in a nice shiney package, and if fucking sold a ton. "

    Thats a bit of a leap to make. You could quite easily argue that sales increased despite removing all that stuff, especially as people wanted to continue their story. Increased awareness due to being a sequel rather than a new IP will also have helped. Regardless, the difference in sales is just a couple of hundred thousand (on 360).
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 18:56

  • darkmorgado #76 12 months ago

    @Raitfel

    Perhaps because interesting, deep and rewarding game mechanics are far more important to hardcore RPG players than "ooh look, it's really really shiny!"

  • UncleLou #77 12 months ago

    Neckbeard Assault Squad...Assemble!

    /points at post above

    So if you enjoy things like stats, items and strategy, you're a neckbeard, but if you enjoy the cliché fests of fantasy RPG storytelling, you're not? :D Pot calling the kettle black.

  • Thirith #78 12 months ago

    Those who like it get shit hurled at them, those who hate it do too. Why is it that guys on the internet (and it is mostly guys) need to mark their territory by worshipping what they like and denigrating what they don't like? Why can't it just be "I would've prefered for this to be Baldur's Gate 3, but instead it's Mass Effect 2 with elves?" or "I prefer my RPGs to be streamlined, but I understand that some people genuinely enjoy number-crunching and tactics"? Why does it all have to turn into boring reruns of the old C-64 vs Spectrum/Amiga vs Atari ST/Playstation vs XBox crap?

  • Raiftel #79 12 months ago

    @darkmorNECKBEARDo

    Or maybe the Hardcore are unwilling to accept that a game can be deep and rewarding without going down the whole spreadsheet route. RPGs work because they're immersive and let you explore strange and interesting worlds and allow you to shape those worlds. They're about making decisions, living with consequences, and seeing new things. Redacting that down to min-maxing and potion brewing seems rather silly. Even sillier when you have games like Gothic, DK2, and Witcher which meet all your autistic-man-child-neckbearded needs.

  • carcass255 #80 12 months ago

    Can't wait for this to unlock on Steam. As much as I love BG and the other Black Isle games, I support Bioware's decision to focus on story and making the game accessible over the endless micromanaging.

    DA:o was always a pretty dreary game, and like many people have pointed out, the old BG game's contained a great deal more depth.
    People need to accept that change is good, especially change from the first DA.

  • anomagnus #81 12 months ago

    Erm, the Witcher, Baldur's Gate, STALKER all sold millions.

    And that's just off the top of my head.

    The Witcher hit the million, Stalker fell short, 950k units i think (to which THQ was very disappointed). BG 2 hit at number 5 at launch. Not sell may be too harsh, but lets be honest here, in today's age, most of them would be considered commerically disappointing.

    People can get butt hurt all they want over this 'de-evolution', but it won't stop bioware from crafting games like this. And for that, i'm eternally grateful.

  • Gastrian #82 12 months ago

    Quite simply why do we have to chose between storyline and player mechanics? Is it some unwritten rule that if you want to focus on plot, characterisation, etc then you have to remove all "complicated" game mechanics?

    Surely if the genre was evolving it could fit both groups of fans? Allow us to customise our party members but have a "best fit" option for those who don't want to spend ages micromanaging. The same for potions and poisons, give us the option of doing it ourselves or sending it to a merchant to do.

    Gamers can easily grasp basic RPG concepts, look at Pokemon, that is based around micromanagement and kids love it. There was no real reason to take a lot of this content out of ME2 and DA2, just put in "auto" options for those that don't want to play these meta-games.

  • Scimarad #83 12 months ago

    I think we can safely say the name calling is going in both directions, actually. There is an awful lot of "this is a big pile of crap if you are are a REAL RPG fan" being thrown around in this thread.

    Oh, and today's common sense award goes to Thirith!
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 19:04

  • parablax #84 12 months ago

    Sorry - played the demo, deleted it 5 minutes later. Same with Mass Effect 2.

    Maybe its me, I just don't get these Bioware epics! Now bring on Dark Souls and TLG.

  • UncleLou #85 12 months ago

    RPGs work because they're immersive and let you explore strange and interesting worlds and allow you to shape those worlds. They're about making decisions, living with consequences, and seeing new things.

    all your autistic-man-child-neckbearded needs.

    Heh. Your first sentence is the definition of "autistic man-child-neckbeard needs"[/i], if you insist on dragging the discussion down to that level.

  • azix2 #86 12 months ago

    @carcass255

    What was wrong with DA? it was pretty easy to get thru quests, manage items, lvl your character etc. It was easier to manage the battlefield. Dreary is a comment that I hate. If its not flashy like cod or colourful like halo it should be made so? Many aspects of the PC version of DA:o worked better than the foolishness in this game. ANything they have in this game could be made with the mechanics of that original game. The big problem is combat, interface (character information is not well done during game) the inventory system... omg man they f*cking gutted the game. This is the same BS I hated about mass effect.

    I am hoping someone mods the game to be better than this.

    Also, change is not necessarily good. This might end up working with the emerging generation of gamers ( who will think that this kind of RPG is a proper RPG). THats all they really care about I guess.

    Also you don't need to dumb the game down to put across a story. Considering they had the game framework before, changing it was the actual work

    Better RPGs are coming. The witcher, diablo 3 (pretty sure blizzard won't stupid up and pull this sh*t), fable 3 will bring its own flavor. It's a loss but w/e
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 19:11

  • epiazk #87 12 months ago

    @BlinkeredAxis

  • geordiek #88 12 months ago

    I said it in another post and I'll say it again here. Skyrim is out this year, so dont worry.

  • neems #89 12 months ago

    I'm not especially fond of DA:o - preferred ME2 - but I seem to recall that last year Bioware / EA announced that Dragon Age had outsold Mass Effect 2.

    I have no particular axe to grind in either direction, but it does seem that perhaps Bioware are trying to (over?) streamline their games in the face of popular opinion.

  • Orange #90 12 months ago

    Sounds shit, fitting that Dan Whitehead is reviewing it. First Bioware RPG I won't bother buying :(

    Roll on Witcher 2.

  • azix2 #91 12 months ago

    @neems

    The strange thing is that they do it for the PC version as well. They are basically making the same mistake that causes decline in PC game sales (not fking piracy). When you make a game that plays like a native console game and hope to sell well on the PC, you risk failing

  • the_dudefather #92 12 months ago

    My problem with the demo was that while they added a lot more enemies and made the combat quicker, this just leads to the battles feeling like chopping at an endless wave of jam, except the jam is made of darkspawn

  • spekkeh #93 12 months ago

    Awesome. So does this repudiate the article earlier today that said there are no good stories in games?

    But how does it score on the Hellforge BioWare Cliche Chart?

    To be fair to Bioware, these are nearly all pivotal points in the Heroes Journey template.

    Oh I guess I just answered my first question.

  • DRUNK3N-_-DRAGON #94 12 months ago

    i thought we were playing nxt gen consoles! from what i have seen of this it looks as if it has aged a lot, compared to ME1
    this looks garbage...

  • spekkeh #95 12 months ago

    In all honesty, i can't see removing stats as evolution in rpg genre, if anything it's de-evolving. That's not because of being hardcore or anything, but it removes one important thing about char creation, making it personalized

    Really, you need stats to personalize your character? You can't think of a way around stats?

  • Thirith #96 12 months ago

    @spekkeh: What stats can do, which is often dropped when games are streamlined, is making you take certain decisions on what your character *can't* do. There is something exciting to choosing to be able to do A (e.g. sneaking) but not B (e.g. hand-to-hand combat) and then finding yourself in a situation where your choice comes back to bite you in the arse and you have to find a way to live with your choice.

    Streamlining does sometimes translate into "We're always leaving all options open so players can express themselves freely", which has its benefits, but it means dropping situations such as the one above. I enjoy being the thief/hacker type and finding myself in a situation where the obvious solution isn't possible due to my stats so I have to improvise.

  • Madder-Max #97 12 months ago

    I dont like being baited for liking traditional RPG mechanics just because Bioware have decided to reduce costs and aim this at simpler folk.

    Think i will give this a miss.

    now then. off to improve my gun stats in New Vegas to get the Anti matter rifle and therefore the .50 incendary ammo to take on the Deathclaws! Yay!

  • spekkeh #98 12 months ago

    @Thirith: I completely agree with you that that's important, in fact, it may well be the most important part of a role playing game: the idea of taking on a role and sticking to this, for better or for worse. However, stat(istic)s connote numbers, and you don't need numbers to play a thieving misogynist bastard. The best way to do that is simply act it out, and the game then has to come with an appropriate response to your actions.

    Stats are a copout when the game can't communicate your limitations via the game world.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 19:50

  • smurphs #99 12 months ago

    Darn. I loved the strategic nature of DA:o. Never mind, I'm so stoked with Wesnoth on my iPod touch that I don't really care.

  • strangerism #100 12 months ago

    its a fair review, I agree after all (in the negative)

    Dragon Age is the example of game design de-evolutions today.

    If you look at BG and how epic and massive it was and that was made more than 10 years ago, compared to these games todays you can only see de-evolution in grand scale.

    To all people who are claiming that in RPG the story is more important above all, I strongly disagree:

    To me RPG is about building your own character through the leveling system (using stats and talent mechanics) and the adventuring dynamic (gathering loot, ect) and then testing the results in the field (combat) with stronger opponents. The role play is then enhanced by living an epic story into a new undiscovered world/lore, thus enriching the exploration factor and the countless hours you spend building your char. Baldurs Gate encompassed all this and more.

    Another consideration on the DA story and to those who praise DA2 in that sense (including EG). DAO story/lore was cardboard, to cite someone else here, at my second playthrough I had to skip all dialogue. DA2 is on the same level, uninteresting and bit superficial. Tell how realistic is an old witch with back-horned haircut dressed as a centenarian sexy sado-twat. I saw many paper/web magazine review using the word sexy to qualify Dragon Age 2. Is that it? Sexy? Why not put Lady Gaga in it just as we are.

    If you want to live a good story, just read a book. Ok? Leave the RPGs what they are, games with mechanics to play with.
    Edited by 2 at 08/03/11 @ 21:41

  • Thirith #101 12 months ago

    @spekkeh: So how does the game know your limitations if not for at least a binary 0/1 setting? One of the things people tended to criticise about Bioshock was that because it always left all options open, none of the decisions had any weight. Think of something like Fallout: how does the game know that you've decided to be someone who's good at speaking, melee and science - but not at small guns, sneaking and medicine? You're only addressing the "good at" but not the "bad at". If the game allows you to do everything all the time, if it doesn't impose certain limitations (that tend to come with numbers, whether hidden or obvious), it turns into a very different game. Not necessarily a bad game, but also not a better game as such.

    Edit: Just seen your edit. Could you tell me how the sort of player choices/limitations you get in a Fallout can be done well without some kind of stats?
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 20:00

  • ShadowMountain #102 12 months ago

    Different people like different parts of 'rpgs'. Who knew?

  • chargen #103 12 months ago

    Holy crap, I love these comments. With demand like this, Bioware might start making RPGs again.

  • UncleLou #104 12 months ago

    In your opinion maybe. But I firmly believe Demon's Souls pisses all over The Witcher and Dark Souls will piss all over The Witcher 2.

    Except you haven't played The Witcher, of course. And yeah, DS is great, and might just be the best RPG this gen. Extremely amusing though, coming from you, seeing how it's exactly the type of game you had your rant about earlier. A hardcore, stat-heavy, story-less, min-maxing, item collecting niche game for über-nerds. Which you obviously don't mind, because it's not a PC game. You're really the worst troll ever. :D

  • absurdio #105 12 months ago

    I am reading about several references to the revolutionary system of ingenious different choices you are presented with in this game, and how the game's political intricacies and changing loyalties actually give you ambiguous and tricky moral conundrums. And here was I, thinking the talk was all about a huge, commercial rpg with a vast budget and not about The Witcher.

  • Mockerre #106 12 months ago

    Bollocks.

    Epic? The game has like 5 rooms recycled to death. It's quite comical when you're visiting the same warehouse over and over, and each time there's a different evil organization there. Well, no problem, 'cause there's just like 5 models for enemies, so pay attention to their names.

    The story is loose and unfocused, and very unsatisfying. The companions are bland (compared to ME/ME2 and DA:o). The art direction is hit or miss (love the new Qunari, hate Kirkwall). The graphics (on the xbox) are pretty poor, sometimes you can see huge pixels - I'm not surprised they issued a high-res texture pack for the PC.

    All in all, a missed opportunity and a disappointment. It feels very much like a cash-grab. The 30h campaign (done 95% of quests) is padded with endless fights with street thugs, the loading times are horrendous (and almost constant, as the maps are quite small). 5/10
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 21:39

  • spekkeh #107 12 months ago

    @thirith: Well I do believe the review stated a number of ways in which this is done; obviously if you're a dick, the immediate response of the NPC will be different from when you're friendly, but it also tracks the type of responses you give over time, to make later dialogue or even actions more in line with how your character would react.
    If you use archery, this should make your archery skill improve, but the game could also make that penalise other skills. All of this could be implied via game design, level design and interface design. In effect all games are learning environments; the moment they have to resort to outright instruction, it's a cop-out. I don't mind it much in games like Fallout; it's the way games have worked for ages, so it's somewhat forgivable, but it does hinder immersion. In fact I think Fallout 3 did it pretty good with the growing up bit of the game to form your character. Then again I do agree that it's not really convenient to start every game in this way, but that's not to say games shouldn't try.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 20:23

  • UncleLou #108 12 months ago

    If you use archery, this should make your archery skill improve, but the game could also make that penalise other skills.

    Stats, in other words. Just hidden more. Or a bit like Bethesda does it.

    All of this could be implied via game design, level design and interface design.

    So a less obtrusive way to show stats, or am I missing something?


    FWIW, I don't think that's a bad idea, but I am honestly convinced that people would complain that the game doesn't explain enough what does what. It seems to be just the opposite of the "follow golden arrow to the next quest" design that seems to be quite prevalent these days.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 20:36

  • ExplodingClown #109 12 months ago

    @spekkeh: But surely that just makes the case for moving away from all that oh-so-tired Joseph Campbell bullshit? Coupled with BW's incessant pandering to the adolescent messiah complex, there's less and less fresh or interesting with every game they make.

    As many comments on the article about games and stories pointed out, hiring a professional writer might get them out of that straightjacket.

  • darkmorgado #110 12 months ago

    Streamlining does sometimes translate into "We're always leaving all options open so players can express themselves freely", which has its benefits, but it means dropping situations such as the one above. I enjoy being the thief/hacker type and finding myself in a situation where the obvious solution isn't possible due to my stats so I have to improvise.

    This. The problem with too many RPGs these days is that they are too scared to make the player live with the consequences of their decisions. Oblivion was the worst for this - you could master every single discipline way too easily. The dumbing down of the genre is best demonstrated through the gradual "opening up" and "streamlining" of the levelling system. When you have all the choice, you have no choice. It also kills replay value.

    Deus Ex did this brilliantly, making you choose carefully with every upgrade, but always making sure that your playstyle was valid through complex and multi-tiered level design that allowed all skillsets to have a way to progress. The D20 system also does this well. You need to think about every decision you make.

    In terms of storytelling, Biowares games give very little choice beyond a clear good/evil path and everything is clearly signposted. There's no complexity there, and very little subtlety. The Witcher excelled at finally showing what choice can really mean, with every decision potentially being morally justifiable, and with the consequences not being made apparent until many hours down the road so you couldn't simply reload a quicksave.

    The problem with too many RPGs coming out of places like Bioware and Bethesda is too much of a focus on the fighting mechanics to the detriment of the player's ability to really shape the narrative and make meaningful decisions. The perfect RPG would allow you to complete the game without shedding any blood through guile, cunning, stealth or diplomacy. It shouldn't just throw you into a dungeon because yet another NPC wants you find a random mcguffin as an excuse to force you into a combat situation.

  • suicidal_penguins #111 12 months ago

    "a curiously inert lead who never quite makes himself (or herself) memorable, regardless of your actions", "Mashing the A button over and over", "fantastic weaponry that nobody could use", "the game makes the decision for me", "infinite crafting resources... is soulless".

    How on earth did those sentences lead up to this one?:
    "Only the truly hardcore role-player will allow such design choices to dampen the experience"

    That game reads like shite on a stick to someone looking for a role playing game.

  • darkmorgado #112 12 months ago

    Just ignore CaptainAmerica, it's so painfully obvious he is just Spartan.

  • spekkeh #113 12 months ago

    Games need stats; it's the way computers work. A stats-less game wouldn't be so much a devolution as it would be an extinction event. No a game absolutely need stats, I just like it under the hood. During my teenage years I played quite a bit of Dungeons and Dragons with my mates, and that's heavily based on stats and die rolls, but that's because there's no other way to do that kind of stuff. I once programmed an automatic hit calculator (hey might as well go full on geek if you already play D&D), that basically kept track of all your stats, and you only had to press the button to see whether you scored a hit and for how much damage. Because as a Dungeon Master, rolling dice was a necessary evil. Now we have games, so we don't have to do that anymore.

  • Smoped #114 12 months ago

    I'm on the fence on the whole old school/new school debate, but I think whoever it was that said that Origins wasn't a very "hardcore" rpg to begin with was correct. Now, I'm only talking about the Xbox demo here, since it's the only one I've played, but it didn't really seem any less complex as far as the basic gameplay mechanics are concerned, the battles were a bit more fluid but to me it had pretty much the same "feel" as Origins. Now, the graphics were quite a bit more stylized to put it nicely, but not many people seem to have a problem with that. Mass Effect 2 was a much bigger departure compared to the first game than this, but I'm not sure how relevant that is.

  • darkmorgado #115 12 months ago

    Because as a Dungeon Master, rolling dice was a necessary evil.

    Not if you know your way around Excel :)

  • darkmorgado #116 12 months ago

    One thing that really, really irritated me in Origins was the half-arsed attempt to make it seem old-school. Bioware thought that just the ability to zoom out the camera to an overhead view would suffice, but they forgot to include the wealth of customisable options that the Infinity Engine games gave. The most basic being auto-pause at the end of each combat round.

  • spekkeh #117 12 months ago

    @ExplodingClown: yeah I fully agree, for once I'd like to play the weasel that turns out inadvertently killing everyone and then dying miserably. It would be great if a developer would actually have the balls to create that game (although of course in a better overarching story). In BW's defense, while the overarching story is mostly cookiecutter, they do often have some interesting sub-storylines where novel things happen (like where you could kill the mother in DAO to save the son, or not), and the review of DA2 states that it deviates from the normal BW story and is more politically focused. Which is a much needed change in my opinion.

  • ronuds #118 12 months ago

    The only thing this review and subsequent comments section has made me want to do is play The Witcher. :/

    Does anyone remember that BioWare was taken over by EA? And it still surprises you that their games are becoming progressively less intricate?

  • Psihomodo #119 12 months ago

    And again this site tricks me into believing this is a PC review... until I glimpse at the browser window name or the nav pane... Yeah, I know that the tags are the blame, but then what's the point?! It is not the same thing on all the systems.

    Some more professionalism is in order Eurogamer... more like ConsoleGamer..

  • byron_hinson #120 12 months ago

    Played it for about 10 hours or so on the PS3 and really enjoying it, love the story and the combat, not so keen on the lack of RPG elements and the stupid decision not to let you tinker with companions armor etc.

  • digitalash #121 12 months ago

    Am I the only one who thinks this game looks a bit rough? I can't abide the orangey grey colour scheme and lots of the character models just aren't up to Bioware standards. Also, blood everywhere. Looks daft, especially when they're having a romantic cutscene with their faces smeared in plasma.

  • StarchildHypocrethes #122 12 months ago

    Sod you lot, I'm really looking forward to playing this.

  • darkmorgado #123 12 months ago

    Am I the only one who thinks this game looks a bit rough? I can't abide the orangey grey colour scheme and lots of the character models just aren't up to Bioware standards. Also, blood everywhere. Looks daft, especially when they're having a romantic cutscene with their faces smeared in plasma.

    That was a problem in DA:o as well.

    I think it stems from the fact that the engine is in-house, and was built years ago (they've were previewing Dragon Age, along with screenshots, years before it was released). The blood thing is really stupid - always seemed like a "look how dark and gritty we are!" thing. It is even more ridiculous when you just give a character a bit of a slap to subdue them, and then they are absolutely fine, but you are covered in about ten times more blood than their body could possibly produce.

    The whole thing ends up looking like all the characters spend their time bathing in jam.


    Hmmm.

    Jam.

  • leketin #124 12 months ago

    @strangerism

    The most sensible and the epicest thoughts on RPG today man.

  • RedPanda #125 12 months ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • Silvervein #126 12 months ago

    Innovation is good.
    However, the fact of innovating doesn't necessarily make the end product good.

    There's a reason that chockolate and puss cakes never got popular.

    The same applies to mixing game genres while being restricted by a budget, which leads to cutting a lot of elements from given game.

    DA 2 might be great rpg game for people who have a choice between halo, splatterhouse and fable. Fortunately, pc side of things has games that offer a bit more in the rpg department.

  • evarofzentral #127 12 months ago

    I love Mass Effect 2 but I wasn't too impressed with the demo for this but I'll give it a chance once it comes down in price a bit. The combat is a bit iffy and the characters seemed knowhere near as interesting as the DA:o ones. Still, its only a demo and things often seem a lot worse in the demo than they are in the actual game. However, I do like, amazingly, having stats for my weapons and armour, so, you know, you can actually tell which one is best.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 22:15

  • spudsbuckley #128 12 months ago

    Think i'll wait for a price drop before i pick this up. Mass Effect 2 was fairly meh IMHO and it certainly wasn't an RPG.

    The genre isn't really evolving that much, Bioware just put out hack and slash games and shooters at this stage and try to pass them off as RPGs to rope in their old customers.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 22:17

  • WiseGuy #129 12 months ago

    Really enjoyed the first DA. Torn between picking this up or Mas Effect 2 up on Friday for the PS3, cant decide. A 25 hr campaign is fine for me, thats a good 4/5 weeks of gaming at my rate!

  • lockload #130 12 months ago

    45 hours woot

  • spekkeh #131 12 months ago

    @darkmorgado
    The problem with too many RPGs these days is that they are too scared to make the player live with the consequences of their decisions. Oblivion was the worst for this

    Seems like a weird example, because Oblivion used the same mechanics as Morrowind for that, if anything I'd say that games these days do this better than previously. I do fully agree with you that the best RPG would be one where you could choose to finish the entire game without bloodshed. Sadly a minority opinion here.

  • Murton #132 12 months ago

    Why is everyone using the word "evolve" to describe what's happening to RPGs? To say that they're evolving suggests that they're getting better in someway. I also find the argument impossible to fathom when we see something as core to RPGs as inventory management all but removed from modern RPGs to make them "more accessible"

    What we have here isn't evolution, it's a mutation, something halfway between RPG and action adventure, and if it was a new game there'd be nothing wrong with that, but it's part of an established RPG franchise made by an established RPG developer, aren't the long term fans of said developer entitled to skeptical, entitled to be disappointed by the developers decision to forsake them and what they want in favour of pandering to people who aren't all that interested in RPGs?

    I'm reminded of a rather elitist comment I saw once on a driving game forum "you can assistance options to a racing sim but you can't add sim mechanics to an arcade game" or something along those lines. Same applies here, why not make a proper RPG with the option to dilute the experience if you want, that way everyone is happy.

  • spekkeh #133 12 months ago

    1) what would be your definition of better? Apparently not 'enjoyed by the most people'?
    2) evolution is not teleological
    3) just look at the RTS genre to see why RPG developers are absolutely right to evolve/mutate their games this way

  • Roamer #134 12 months ago

    1. Most RPGs are removing RPG staples, thereby becoming more shallow.
    2. Recent games from other genres seem to include RPG aspects, thereby deepening the experience.

    I wholly support #2. #1? Not so much.

  • spekkeh #135 12 months ago

    Which RPG staples are you referring to exactly? From the (S)NES era? I remember them being a lot more action oriented. Then later on they suddenly were all turn based. Then later on you had to spamclick the mouse a lot. Oh and the good times I had with MUD text adventures. I also played Baldur's Gate incidentally. All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in the rain. Time to die... or get over it.

  • FiOth #136 12 months ago

    Reading about how BioWare is moving the RPG genre away from the endless inventory pages and scroll-down-dead dialogue trees NEVER gets old. I imagine many people here have been RPGing since the days of Wizardry or Baldur's Gate - as I have - and I have to say after almost 15 years of being an RPG fan "Good riddance!". Let us focus on the plot and leave the hailstorm of menus behind. As the reviewer so rightly wrote:

    "If the gloriously messy stat-heavy guts of the RPGs of old are being carved out and replaced by simple mechanisms, it's not because the Bioware designers want to appeal to drooling simpletons. It's because they want us to engage with story rather than statistics.".

    Honestly, some of the most spot-on writings I've ever read regarding the evolution of the genre.

  • dirtysteve #137 12 months ago

    RPG cliches so far.
    Welcome to the first big city- gates are locked under higher authority, until you convince the guard captain otherwise.
    'I'm a surly guard with no time for your bullshit, so yes, I'll answer your questions'

  • ExplodingClown #138 12 months ago

    An aside: as I won't be buying this, can someone who has please explain why the chap in the adverts has that ridiculous smear across his nose? Is it a birthmark? Can't be blood, that would dry and flake off. Is it more of that "ooh look how dark and gritty we are" nonsense?

  • the_inchworm #139 12 months ago

    I find the faux English - 'ser' and other cringeworthy spellings - make this universe one that I can never really settle into. I found the main male lead from the demo very bland, too, as the reviewer pointed out. With no Morrigan story to follow I don't think I can be bothered with this one.

  • strangerism #140 12 months ago

    @dirtysteve

    oh yeah, following that you need to convince the only NPC near the gates (a merchant) to pay the bribe to the local smuggler also near the gates so u can enter the city.
    How do u do that? Go click at the chest near the NPC he will prompt you dialogue "Hey what u doing?", choose evil wheel option "Its about time u pay the bribe", NPC "Urgh, Ok have it"

    rite so I understand now, it was fair to dumb down RPG gameplay mechanics so they could be in par with dumbass bioware storytelling mechanics. jeez

    Edit: you can replace both "dumb down" and "dumbass" with "streamlined" to be in line with game reviewers lingo.
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/11 @ 23:51

  • Grayvern #141 12 months ago

    Lets talk about an rpg one in which you can only customise the lead at a stats level, there are very limited equipment choices and most of the game is spent chatting.

    What RPG am I talking about, Planescape Torment, a fusing of western RPG with japanese RPG elements.

    Or fallout 1 and 2 in which you could spec a character to see the entire game with speech small guns and lockpick, and could only customise the main character.

    Blach Isle is notable for two things the deranged half working nature of the special system and making rpg's that were more about story, atmosphere, and conversations than combat.

    Finally Baldurs gate 1 and 2 were AD and D and then 2nd ed respectively, so compared to 3rd ed or even 4th ed very little customisation, and a lot of equipment upgrades. AD and D was not complex or interesting the stats of characters were relatively static and the game still hadn't properly thrown off it's wargame routes.

    RPG's are about playing a role in a story, to put it another way my friends never talk about the specs or stats of their exalted characters they talk about what batshit nuts scenarios they came up with or invented. RPG's are about the time your crazy friend 'accidentally' burned down the village or when you went back in time to kill a previous set of characters you had made in a previous campaign.

    Restrictive or inclusive stat systems are only there to inform how your character can interact in a given story situation whether that's braining monsters or baking cakes.

    Edited by 3 at 09/03/11 @ 00:26

  • mowgli #142 12 months ago

    Less clutter sounds great to me. Shame the demo ran like shot on my laptop and I can't play this type of game on a console.

  • dirtysteve #143 12 months ago

    Are all the elves going to be Oirish or just the aggressive ones with giant shamrocks on their backs? Bioware, why you so racist?

  • UncleLou #144 12 months ago

    1) what would be your definition of better? Apparently not 'enjoyed by the most people'?

    Are you saying your definition of "better" is "enjoyed by the most people"? That's a scary idea. Obviously developers and publishers want to make as much money as possible, but it's not any game's (or film's, or book's, or musician's) job to please as many people as possible, and it's a recipe for lowest common denominator design and lack of variety - especially if we're not talking about making the best game possible within a certain genre, but where the lines are beginning to blur.

    And before you shout "elitism", where does it stop? Is it ok to turn "hardcore" RPGs more into action-adventures to reach more people, or should Bioware go a step further even and make the next Maple Story?* I am sure there'd be a limit where you'd object as well, it's just that some people have a different threshold.

    *And in case you haven't heard of that, that's a free-to-play, casual MMO with 70 million players and an annual revenue that'll make you feel dizzy. But it pleases a lot more people than all Bioware games combined ever did.
    Edited by 2 at 09/03/11 @ 01:21

  • ubergine #145 12 months ago

    Dan Whitehead's Fallout New Vegas review was likewise too kind.

    I guess they give him the reviews to games from major advertisers now.

  • dirtysteve #146 12 months ago

    @redbarony Thanks to your 'review', I now know that EG comments have apparently no maximum length.

  • sirtacos #147 12 months ago

    Hmmmmm. Will obviously get this. I'm glad it's cromulent, and I can't wait to see whether I'll get along with the changes... fine review.

  • OliverH #148 12 months ago

    Now here's the problem:
    "If the gloriously messy stat-heavy guts of the RPGs of old are being carved out and replaced by simple mechanisms, it's not because the Bioware designers want to appeal to drooling simpletons. It's because they want us to engage with story rather than statistics. "

    Maybe. But these "statistics" are just as much an integral part of who the main character is as his moral decisions are. In fact, in real life, all too often, "statistical" limitations impose specific choices onto us. If we're no strongman, we can't get the guy out from under the log - we HAVE to run and get help. In a pen&paper RPG, this style of "less stats, more story" works occasionally, quite simply because you have the flexibility of simply winging everything that there's no statistics for. In a computer RPG, your possible actions are dictated by what the programmers had in mind. So every bit of chopping off at our influence over the character risks disengaging with the character. And that - engaging with the character - is the main point of an RPG, as opposed to, say, an interactive movie.

  • spekkeh #149 12 months ago

    Are you saying your definition of "better" is "enjoyed by the most people"? That's a scary idea. Obviously developers and publishers want to make as much money as possible, but it's not any game's (or film's, or book's, or musician's) job to please as many people as possible, and it's a recipe for lowest common denominator design and lack of variety

    Well I can see where you're coming from, and that would be scary, but indeed I didn't mean turn every game into an FPS decked out in browns.

    Here's where I'm coming from: I'm a scientist doing research in game design techniques. There are many simple techniques that you can implement, have a lot of people play it, and then they'll say, 'I like this over other games'. It's the most objective way of saying if an augmentation improves the game.

    It's the same for other media. Dan Brown has pretty much perfected the way cliffhangers work in books. Now you might say that the genre Dan Brown writes is horribly crass pulp fiction, but there's little denying that the books would be a lot worse without the cliffhangers. Within that genre it works wonders. Hollywood movies--again summer blockbusters could be called horribly crass, but there's no denying that they have superior editing and camera techniques compared with fifty years ago. These movies are incredibly well designed to tickle our emotions and testosterone from beginning to end. And all this comes from endless user testing and trying to find the common denominator.

    And of course for games there's presence, or immersiveness as it's colloquially known, and if Bioware (and the reviewer) says that less time in menus and more time in the game world will improve the feeling of presence. Well, I'm interested to find out. Professionally, and as someone who's been playing games for 25 years.

    edit: person negging me now, and probably previously, is officially pathetic.
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/11 @ 09:50

  • Yossarian #150 12 months ago

    What all the people crying "neckbeards" or whatever don't seem to realize is that the vaunted story and roleplaying and choice you natter on about were and are far more pronounced and better realized in older games (Fallout 1/2, Planescape) or even in newer ones you don't buy (The Witcher) because they don't have Bioware's 'slick' 'presentation' and boilerplated tropes or whatever the fuck.

    It's not all about inventory management and stats, although, you know, I do like to feel I'm participating in a rule-governed gameworld and not just occasionally hitting the pause/play button on 40-hour Lord of the Rings machinima. When I say Bioware's recent games have been "dumbed-down", I mean that in every sense. They've also become so rote and predictable that I can play them on all but autopilot, especially with systems like the "conversation wheel", and especially with "party mechanics" that I could sketch out diagrammatically on a napkin and apply to every game they've ever made. Player choice is a paltry shadow of what it once was, and the blessed "story" is the same every time.

    I mean the problem doesn't stop with RPGs, it's just most obvious there.

    So any time you go to think or say anything about a videogame in future, ever, I want you to think about these four sentences:

    1. Interactivity is the crucial feature of videogames; it is what distinguishes them from every other medium.
    2. Any time a developer compromises, hinders, or reduces players' interactivity, they are making their game less distinguishable from other media.
    3. Until we invent the fucking holodeck, videogames will never compete with even the worst of our other media on their own terms.
    4. So every time you support the efforts of such developers, you are helping to reduce videogames to sub-par imitations of our worst television and movies.

    In evidence of #4, I ask you to youtube one of the sex scenes from Dragon Age 2. If those barely-interactive and shamelessly terrible cutscenes are what you want because tactical combat and deep choices are too "neckbeard", then honestly, go fuck yourself, you are responsible for the industry the rest of us have to suffer under.
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/11 @ 07:42

  • Dagdriver #151 12 months ago

    Judgin by the demo, the fighting mechanism was clumsy and un-interrresting.
    Why can't we have a game with DA's story telling and epic proportions & Demon's Souls fight mechanincs?

  • Mockerre #152 12 months ago

    @Yossarian:

    Actually there's a more or less of a consensus, that videogames aren't and will never be truly interactive, but instead ergodic. Think more 'choose your own adventure' books and less traditional pen and paper rpgs.

    What Bioware sorely lacks is a good writer. Not only because the story is forgettable, but mainly because it lacks an emotional impact and because it fails to create the illusion of choice. In most cases it really doesn't matter if you choose the nice, witty or aggressive (I'd like to call it 'direct') approach, it's just a cosmetic feature and doesn't influence the story at all.

    MASSIVE SPOILERS (if you care for the story of DA2, please don't read further)








    For example, they can flaunt the morally grey decision of supporting the mages or the templars all they want, but if they then put a evil cliche muggufin into the hands of the villain and basically say it influenced them to do it, well, so much for morally grey.

  • midnight_walker #153 12 months ago

    I haven't even read this review based on Eurogamer's usual complete inability to keep spoilers out of reviews. If someone could tell me if it's safe I'd really appreciate it.

  • Goodfella #154 12 months ago

    Played about four hours of this and blow me down if it isn't as boring as ME2, long converstion tree, go to marker on map, have another long conversation, kill group of enemies that appear, another conversation, go to marker on map, another conversation, fight enemies that spawn...etc etc.

    Yep, that's about it, another one for the shelf.

  • Quint2020 #155 12 months ago

    Sounds ok, I bet it's still no Baldur's Gate II though....

  • Zerobob #156 12 months ago

    "Visually, the game is a massive improvement over Origins. Stunning lighting, varied character models, gorgeous scenery and very few technical hiccups."

    I think that's all I wanted to know :)

  • arcam #157 12 months ago

    Have they really removed friendly fire except on 'Nightmare' difficulty?

    Anyone know what nightmare difficulty is like? Enjoyable or frustrating? I think I would have got pretty annoyed playing the first game on nightmare, but if this game is a bit easier it might not be so bad.

  • StolenGlory #158 12 months ago

    Skyrim is going to stiff the shit out of this.

  • levitate #159 12 months ago

    I'm not a hardcore rpg'er in any stretch of the imagination but the gameplay looked uninspiring and I pretty much confirmed my fears by reading this review. I wouldn't say they've "dumbed down" the game; they've just streamlined it, making things go at a faster pace. I see the same troubling signs with such classics like Civilzation.

    Ironic, then, how DA2 has been made "quicker" and "more streamlined" and yet it demands more patience from the gamer in order to get into the story. Somehow that doesn't fit.

  • Goodfella #160 12 months ago

    They've basically done to this what SquareEnix did to FFXIII, streamlined it so much they've taken all the fun out of it!

  • Weezer #161 12 months ago

    Personally I'll miss equipping my team with the most relevant bits of kit. Even if it matters not one jot to the overall story, at least it gives me the feeling of involvement and control - and it adds only a tiny bit of time to the overall game. I certainly missed it from ME2 and no doubt I'll miss it here as well.

    But despite the rather boring demo, I still couldn't miss out. Especially after TopWare dropped the ball so brilliantly...

  • darkmorgado #162 12 months ago

    @Speedy1982

    Spartan, it really is pathetic how you keep coming back again and again.

  • geeza2020 #163 12 months ago

    Well, to be honest, this sounds exactly as I feared it would be. Call it whatever you want, dumbing down/streamlining/evolving, it doesnt matter, Bioware's games are becoming less and less like RPG's and more like Gears of War with dialogue options every time they release a new one. I won't risk paying full price for a game that sounds like I won't enjoy it, so I'll be waiting for this to hit sub £20, or a GOTY edition depending on what the DLC is like.

    I'm sure Bioware will succeed in what they were aiming for here (increased sales), and trying to get a wider audience involved in RPG's is admirable, but in the process they've also alienated a huge portion of its original/hardcore fanbase, the people that made Bioware the company they are today, which is a real shame.

  • apoc_reg #164 12 months ago

    This statement sums up the problem bioware:

    "If the gloriously messy stat-heavy guts of the RPGs of old are being carved out and replaced by simple mechanisms, it's not because the Bioware designers want to appeal to drooling simpletons. It's because they want us to engage with story rather than statistics"

    Its that that MADE YOU!!!! And those people want it.... at elast give the CHOICE. Make the simple inventory and sompanions a menut option when you start the game or something

    PRO CHOICE

  • apoc_reg #165 12 months ago

    wait this is the guy who HATES RPGs like Risen and Witcher isnt... sorry i'll pass Dan W!

  • CatWeazle #166 12 months ago

    >> If the gloriously messy stat-heavy guts of the RPGs of old are being carved out and replaced by simple mechanisms,
    >> it's not because the Bioware designers want to appeal to drooling simpletons. It's because they want us to engage
    >> with story rather than statistics.

    That sentence was a showstopper for me - DAII just went from a 'must buy' to a 'total fail'. I like stats - just like thousands of others out there who are pissed off with the dumbing-down of RPGs.

  • spudsbuckley #167 12 months ago

    It isn't 'the dumbing down of RPGs' though. There are still plenty of great traditional RPGs out there.

    The problem here is Bioware aren't making RPGs anymore. They make fairly standard action games with branching dialogue cutscenes and level selects in the form of maps. For the record, I enjoyed ME1 and DA:o (played on PC in isometric view) but didn't think much of ME2 what with it being a bland Sci-fi shooter pretending to be an RPG. DA2 sounds like a bland hack and slasher pretending to be a high fantasy RPG.

  • Articulate-Troll #168 12 months ago

    It's a shame that Dan Whitehead has made the usual mistake of assuming that streamlining and stripping features away is the same thing. It's possible for a game to become more streamlined, without losing all of the features that make it unique.

    I'd be curious to know what Dan thinks of Blizzard and Bethesda, developers who spend time refining, rather than dumbing down the RPG genre. Does he think WoW and Skyrim are games that are refusing to "evolve"?

  • dirtysteve #169 12 months ago

    @sirtacos I have long hoped the word 'cromulent' would enter common usage. It embiggens us all.

  • ExplodingClown #170 12 months ago

    @Spekkeh: Wish you hadn't made those analogies. Dan Brown is a dismal plagiarist who can't write for toffee - lots of imbeciles bought 'that book' because it was something to do with Jesus. His prose style is appalling, characters are cardboard, plots are ludicrous. His writing couldn't BE worse if it was daubed on a torture chamber wall in excrement. Test screenings for movies have resulted in more disastrous tacked-on happy endings, bad re-cutting, and patronising voiceovers than one can count. Is this really the model we want for game design? Why is it considered undesirable that entertainment might even slightly challenge its audience? It's like eating at a restaurant where everything on the menu comes as puree.

  • spekkeh #171 12 months ago

    But RPGs are interactive stories. That's what they're about when you get down to the core. That's what Bioware have been trying to create all this time, and that's why they're streamlining it to focus on that. It was also why FFXIII was such a spectacular failure; not because they streamlined it, but because they turned it into a battle sim, where the story was the reward, instead of the central driving force of the game.

    Oh why am I even bothering.

  • Murton #172 12 months ago

    "I'd be curious to know what Dan thinks of Blizzard and Bethesda, developers who spend time refining, rather than dumbing down the RPG genre"

    That's a joke right? Bethesda have been dumbing down for years now, starting with Oblivion and getting progressively dumber since. They're holding onto the core elements of RPG gameplay which is nice, but Fallout was and Skyrim looks like it'll be more an action adventure games with RPG elements than an RPG with action elements.

  • spekkeh #173 12 months ago

    @ExplodingClown: lol, well you're right there. But I'd say too much of everything is bad. Still, even the most challenging books or movies use tried and true cinematography and dramatic structures. Simply because they have been found to work directly into a person's psyche; they are undeniably effective. Games have gotten better over the past thirty years, because game designers now have a better understanding of the medium than back then.

  • Inigo #174 12 months ago

    What is it with this game that brings out all the haters? On Metercritic the average user review is 3.6/10 and that's because loads of people kept giving it 0's.

  • shadowmind #175 12 months ago

    I know its not Baldur's Gate, which is in reality what I want the game to be.
    So for that I will be disappointed. Though at the same time I enjoyed the demo, and can still enjoy the game for what it is.

  • OliverH #176 12 months ago

    @spekkeh
    "But RPGs are interactive stories. That's what they're about when you get down to the core. That's what Bioware have been trying to create all this time, and that's why they're streamlining it to focus on that. It was also why FFXIII was such a spectacular failure; not because they streamlined it, but because they turned it into a battle sim, where the story was the reward, instead of the central driving force of the game. "

    'interactive stories' has two words. Stripping away at one will make it just as much less of an RPG as stripping away on the other. Heck, "Planescape: Torment" didn't give you the slightest choice of what your character looked like and where he (and only he) came from, but once you got your feet onto the ground, you had plenty of interactivity not just with the storyboard but with the character itself. And what an RPG it was. In my eyes, one of the greatest CRPGs of all times. "Streamlining" a core element of what RPGs are is plain and simply not getting RPGs.

  • spekkeh #177 12 months ago

    edit:

    But isn't that what Bioware is now focusing on? I mean, from the description of DA2 it's sort of how you describe Planescape (which I sadly never played, well apart from in pen and paper D&D that is). Bioware is streamlining stuff like item management (not even throwing it away, just streamlining). The story itself is still as interactive as it ever was, even more so probably.
    Edited by 3 at 09/03/11 @ 13:42

  • spekkeh #178 12 months ago

    To be fair, horses for courses. When I played D&D I used to be the dungeon master and one of my players annoyed me to no end for his obsessive tendencies over stats improving loot (I think he actually went to rub one out after I gave him a sword +2 +3 with 50% critical hit bonus), as I felt it constantly interfered with the awesome story I was trying to guide them through. Maybe I sympathise with Bioware a little bit too much because of my experience lol.

    Still, it feels ridiculous to call him a hardcore RPG player and me somebody who should be playing Gears of War (which incidentally I don't care for one bit).

  • OliverH #179 12 months ago

    @spekkeh #154

    "Here's where I'm coming from: I'm a scientist doing research in game design techniques. There are many simple techniques that you can implement, have a lot of people play it, and then they'll say, 'I like this over other games'. It's the most objective way of saying if an augmentation improves the game."

    Huh? I'm not sure where they taught you scientific method, but that's a pretty extraordinary claim. "I like this over other games" is a personal subjective preference. And even aggregating it "More people like this over other games" doesn't say anything about an improvement of the game, because the specific reasons they like it for might actually be contradictory. And strictly speaking, you cannot even say that a specific augmentation causes more people to like the game unless they explicitly say so because simple correlation doesn't imply a causative connection, least of all in one specific direction. And even asking them specifically whether it is change XYZ that makes them like the game better doesn't work, because the question is loaded with bias. And if you make it an open question "What changes made you like the game better?" you're going to have to ask a LOOOOOOT of people so that the number of matching answers will make the whole thing statistically useful....

  • spekkeh #180 12 months ago

    I meant over other versions of the same game; with or without the singular intervention, I'm doing randomized controlled (psychological) experiments, so no post-hoc correlations, and actually testing a lot more than simply enjoyment. Still, that makes it difficult to generalize to other games, that's true, but somebody has to start somewhere.
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/11 @ 13:58

  • darc #181 12 months ago

    Does anyone else feel that Bioware has kind of lost the plot with the Rogue class? Particularly, backstab seems like a very different animal to me - not properly a backstab at all considering you can initiate even if you're engaged with an enemy who's looking right at you. It's more like an evasive maneuver that happens to do a lot of damage, and could just as well have been given to the warrior class as the rogue class.

    I miss the "real" backstab mechanic, where you had to work strategically to keep a rogue behind an enemy while a fighter kept him aggro'd, or put a rogue front and back and give the enemy no chance whatsoever. I'm worried these sorts of tactics won't present in DA2 at all, but it's still early going.

    The mage seemed really overpowered to me, but ultimately not that much fun to play. Absence of friendly fire, especially with magic, is a bit odd. I might have to have a look at "Nightmare" mode after all.

  • Murton #182 12 months ago

    "To be fair, horses for courses. When I played D&D I used to be the dungeon master and one of my players annoyed me to no end for his obsessive tendencies over stats improving loot"

    As a former DM myself I found it best not to pander to that sort of player. Anyone who is so focussed on what's written on his character sheet is doing it wrong and should not be encouraged. Maybe I was spoiled with players who genuinely liked their characters? I had to make up a quest on the spot once because one of my players lost an arm to a critical hit and they couldn't afford to get it healed (as in regenerated) so the party leader insisted on raiding a nearby bandit encampment to secure the funds. That's the sort of player you want as a DM, one that appreciates their DM and works with them to keep things fun for everyone.

  • slivir #183 12 months ago

    Any word yet on which version (ps3 or xbox) is superior? I'd like to order this soon but am holding off deciding on which version to get until I see some comparisons.

  • Raiftel #184 12 months ago

    What I don't get is that over the last two years, on the XBox alone, there's been Divinity 2, Gothic 4, Two Worlds 2, Risen, released which perfectly meet the requirements of being technically incompetent, but stat driven, that seems to be so important to Hardcore RPGers. In the next few months you'll have The Witcher 2 and Dungeon Siege 3.

    I don't get why ONE out of SEVEN games going away from formula is causing all this fuss. It's like the FPS fans who moan whenever an FPS isn't Halo or CoD. Whether it's good or bad Dragon Age II trying new things has to be good for the genre overall, even if it doesn't succeed. I know that people like Yossarian are never going to be happy, years of him moaning about Oblivion don't seem to have dented his passion for having a go at the game, but it's ridiculous how many people threw their toys out of their pram in this thread.
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/11 @ 15:19

  • geeza2020 #185 12 months ago

    Yeah, nobody should ever moan about anything, they should just shut up and be mindless drones who buy whatever happens to have the biggest advertising budget at the time.

    whats wrong with a good moan?
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/11 @ 15:26

  • TheJuriel #186 12 months ago

    If it hasn't been mentioned yet, the console versions don't have the auto-attack option enabled.

    So, have fun hammering that A button.

  • arcam #187 12 months ago

    I don't get why ONE out of SEVEN games going away from formula is causing all this fuss.

    For me it's because they used to be masters of the genre. Kind of like how Call of Duty is so disappointing these days when you think about its awesome heritage, but the other slightly crappy FPS are just another in a list of average releases that I don't really care about one way or another.
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/11 @ 15:41

  • digitalash #188 12 months ago

    Oh dear - hammer x button to continue - this is starting to sound like the most dull sort of JRPG...

  • SvennoJ #189 12 months ago

    I played the game yesterday and the 'streamlining' is not as bad as made out to be. It's a lot more RPG then ME2. You're still designing your own character, assigning stat points and abilities for everyone, and buying and upgrading armor for everyone.
    I don't get this statement "Companion armour is now completely off-limits", I've already replaced the armor of my companions in the first few hours of the game and there is even an achievement for upgrading the armor of a companion. So far combat as a mage doesn't feel much different from origins. The tactics page seems to have a bit more options to use then origins, and looks very flexible.
    The only two minor points are that the talent trees are now on different pages instead of 1 big character sheet and the conversation system is like ME2 with all the questions stored away under 'investigate' I guess so you can ignore them more easily and quickly choose an icon.

  • Murton #190 12 months ago

    "I played the game yesterday and the 'streamlining' is not as bad as made out to be. It's a lot more RPG then ME2."

    That doesn't mean a whole lot though seeing as ME2 was a shooter first and RPG second.

    Here's hoping that Obsidian are cut free from hire work on other people's games and get to make one of their own, they understand what RPGs are meant to be about, maybe they can save the genre before it dies completely. No disrespect to the likes of Witcher, but it's just not really my style, whereas I'd kill for another NWN-like game.

  • linea #191 12 months ago

    I don't get why ONE out of SEVEN games going away from formula is causing all this fuss.

    If you'd played Baldur's Gate 2 you'd know.

  • kraenk12 #192 12 months ago

    i guess you nailed it. a 8/10 is alright since the game is so much less than the first one. thx

  • Raiftel #193 12 months ago

    @ Linea

    I've played Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal. I also played Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment. I've even played Daggerfall, and Fallout 1. I just prefer newer games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Oblivion and New Vegas because I find that the experience is more emergent and the writing is far better. The past five years have seen a real refinement in how games have been written and it seems like Dragon Age 2 with its move away from an all encompassing threat and move towards more Mervyn Peake style politics could be a breath of fresh air for the genre.

  • SvennoJ #194 12 months ago

    @Murton True enough, but after reading the review I was fearing the worst especially with all the praise for ME2 thrown in.

    It would be nice to have fewer, slower paced, more meaningful battles. There's not a lot of room for tactics when you regularly get swarmed by enemies spawning on all sides and most battles only last 30 seconds. It's getting closer and closer to the random meaningless battles of jrpgs.

  • OliverH #195 12 months ago

    @Raiftel:

    Sorry, you SERIOUSLY want to claim that the writing in Oblivion was far better than in Planescape:Torment? That "lather, rinse, repeat" of fetch-quests superior to a deeply philosophical quest into whether a person can truly change in which you actually had the freedom to decide what the answer was instead of being gang-pressed into coming to a designer-planned solution?

    Sorry, again, but I'd say that pretty much disqualifies your judgement on writing. I'd love to see Planescape:Torment with a modern engine and possible as a first-person experience for better immersion, but to say modern writing is better is hilarious. Heck, due to my dislike for D&D, I'd never have tried Baldur's Gate if the premise of P:T hadn't intrigued me so much that I tried it and got hooked on it.

  • Raiftel #196 12 months ago

    Planescape Torment is the outlier, but I still feel like that the game's plot would have been served better as a novel. It feels like an anti-game, always striving to turn the structure of gaming on its head. I get that a lot of people love the plot in the game, but I feel that generally it's concepts built on concepts rather than having any story structure.

    Whereas I think something like the Dark Brotherhood story in Oblivion used assets of the game to help tell its story. The entire second half of that quest line where you're out in the wilds feels far more real because you're literally hiking across the country to do stuff. The scope of the world really benefits the story of game.
    Edited by 3 at 09/03/11 @ 19:04

  • strangerism #197 12 months ago

    citing SvennoJ
    "I don't get this statement "Companion armour is now completely off-limits", I've already replaced the armor of my companions in the first few hours of the game and there is even an achievement for upgrading the armor of a companion."

    well I dont understand why people are so happy with these achievement thing? what that has to do with roleplaying game or entertainment factor? As that having a pop up on your screen compensate with the depth of customizing the capabilities of your team party mages, rogues etc. Its silly and this demonstrate how this game cater for those simpletons who crave achievements so they confident they are playing the game somehow, by achieving a pop up on the screen.
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/11 @ 20:06

  • strangerism #198 12 months ago

    again everybody seems so passionated (obsessed) about politics in DA story, as it is the type of narrative we need nowadays (forgetting our lives are 24/7 surrounded by political propaganda).

    On the other end people seems have forgotten that all classics fantasy and non, since Omer's Odissey if we want to go that back, contains political stories or allegories, including Tolkien classic. So to me is nothing new, actually this type of stories Bioware is pulling off in DA games seems to me less subtle.
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/11 @ 19:41

  • suicidal_penguins #199 12 months ago

    "The past five years have seen a real refinement in how games have been written and it seems like Dragon Age 2 with its move away from an all encompassing threat and move towards more Mervyn Peake style politics could be a breath of fresh air for the genre."

    That's just the story though. I don't get this "Role Playing = Story" full stop argument at all. The story in Oblivion was quite lightweight and tangential. Which was perfect for a role playing game as it provided the mere framework from where you could go interact with the world, explore and invent yourself. This new Bioware "make it simple, stupid" technique may have a better angle on the politics of the world the game is set in but, who cares? You don't get to interact, explore or discover that world, it is displayed to you to click through, nothing else. I might as well be flipping pages in a book.
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/11 @ 19:59

  • darc #200 12 months ago

    Oh dear, I'd only played the first few minutes (not much further than the demo) and was looking forward to getting home and playing more. But these comments and the user reviews on metacritic (suspiciously less forgiving than the professional reviews) are starting to scare the hell out of me. Did I just burn $60??

    Will know shortly.

  • strangerism #201 12 months ago

    thanks redbarony, your time spent writing wasn't wastage at all. In fact take the negs for what they truly are, an incentive for you to express your opinions more concisely.

  • ExplodingClown #202 12 months ago

    Metacritic ratings may be a dubious evaluation of worth, but DA2 is producing severe polarisation. The paid critics are giving it a tongue bath, the user ratings are more of a crucifixion. Ouch.

  • dirtysteve #203 12 months ago

    'And again, fuck you to the people who negged me for providing a free, comprehensive review. It says a lot about the average gamer and Eurogamer reader. '

    Doesn't it actually say more about your review? You don't see Dan Whitehead in here pitching a fit at the people who disagree with his review. What it says about the rest of us is that we like our reviews in an article and our comments on a comment thread.
    There are opportunities to submit player reviews if you really want to.
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/11 @ 20:41

  • spekkeh #204 12 months ago

    fwiw redbarony I plussed your review. I thought it was nice actually seeing an informed comment for once.
    Getting negged in the comments of this game is something you wear with pride.

  • spekkeh #205 12 months ago

    Metacritic ratings may be a dubious evaluation of worth, but DA2 is producing severe polarisation. The paid critics are giving it a tongue bath, the user ratings are more of a crucifixion. Ouch.

    That's probably because the paid critics actually played the game. Notice how all the user reviews are from the day of launch? Yeah way to finish a 35 hour game in a matter of minutes.

  • immateriaux #206 12 months ago

    Doesn't make "paid critics" any less likely to bring their own prejudice to the table. Dan's review here, for example, has some daft logic altogether, he lists RPG breaking structures, integral to the experience of role playing, and then in a blithe line shrugs it all off as a concern purely for the hard-core gamer. That's as much a nonsense as some kid rushing through the first scenes and posing exaggerated claims based on their initial disappointment of the experience.
    Edited by 2 at 09/03/11 @ 21:19

  • spekkeh #207 12 months ago

    Well of course they bring prejudice to an opinion. If anything, it's a prejudice to what makes a good game. I didn't think there was shaky logic in there though.

  • OliverH #208 12 months ago

    @Raiftel #206
    The Dark Brotherhood storyline in Oblivion was a side story that quite probably, a lot of people never did. It's totally nonessential for the game and if anything, serves to contrast how bland and generic the rest of the game was. Including the countryside....

  • immateriaux #209 12 months ago

    @spekkeh
    The shaky logic was pointed out earlier in this thread:
    [link url=http: //www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-08-dragon-age-ii-review /comments?comment_start=100#comment2191874
    ]http://ww w.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-0...[/link]

    If you think they (critics in general) just bring a prejudice to what makes a good game to the table, you are hugely naive but, in regards to this particular review, as pointed out in the link above, Dan's betrayed a view contrary to the acknowledged facts in front of him

  • Raiftel #210 12 months ago

    Well if we're going to class The Dark Brotherhood as a side story then we have to class the vast majority of content in all Western RPGs as sidestories. The various guilds have always been parallel narratives to the main quest in the Elder Scrolls games and the game is built around them being major parts of the overarching story.

    But that's why I find the notion of what a proper RPG is hard to pin down. Unless we're just talking in esoteric terms the styles of the Bethesda, Bioware, Piranha Bytes, Topware, CD Projetk are all vastly different with different emphasises on character building and side missions. Bethesda have generally shown more care and attention for their guild stories than the main questline, whilst CD Projetk wove sidequests into the main storyline.

  • BlinkeredAxis #211 12 months ago

    I played Baldur's gate 2 so much that I was dreaming about those little green circles under the characters and had to stop.

    Years later, writing this, they've come back. I think that neural pathway is written into my brain forever.

  • OliverH #212 12 months ago

    @Raiftel

    I disagree on all accounts. As for Bethesda paying more attention to their side than to their main quests, in my eyes, they showed they could do otherwise in Morrowind. While the game still left you free reign to pursue the main story at your own pace, once the pieces began to fall together, it was a story anchored deeply in the local mythology making a legend out of the main character. Quite in stark contrast to Oblivion, where you were left to be the errand boy and the main quest was largely repetitive.

    As for the side quests being major parts of the overarching story - they are: for one run-through. The next one might leave them one completely. And by their very nature, the Dark Brotherhood is one of the literally more obscure side lines. If one of these is good but the rest of the game is forgettable, then the effect on the overall quality of the game is hardly significant. That's like saying BG2+TOB is a game full of difficult decisions between good and evil because you can decide at the end whether you will be a good god, a bad god or no god at all and because you can "convert" Viconia and Sarevok to some degree. These are nice gimmicks, but they hardly make or break the quality of the overall game. Likewise, a great side quest line is a great gimmick and may be loved by those who use that gimmick, but if you dropped that one single gimmick from the game, the nature of the overall game would barely change.

  • Megalodon #213 12 months ago

    You haters are freaking unbelievable. You pour so much hate on anyone that disagrees with you, silence every praise with childish screaming that might as well be in ALL CAPS and even cause the reviewers to cower in fear, god forbid that they'll dare say anything good about the game or give it more than an 8 score, or they'll feel your wrath. Instead of letting anyone have fun with an excellent game, you vocally demand that everyone will do it 'your way'. And the worst of it is that you hide it all behind your pseudo-highbrow articulation about what is RPG and what isn't one, as if only you can decide that and no one else should have a say about it.

    Reality check - this is a computer game, and an excellent one at that. It's not much different from the first game in terms of gameplay. It's fun, it's highly polished and it's a very good computer game. And you should learn to accept people with different opinions than yours.

    Immature, whiney, spoiled, demanding, afraid of any change as much as the next religious zealot, hateful and bashful, you guys are the worst the internet has to offer. You've become everything you have grown to hate in the real world. Shame on you, really.
    Edited by 2 at 10/03/11 @ 06:59

  • spekkeh #214 12 months ago

    ^ I negged you so that the discriminating reader knows you are correct.

  • Gumersindo #215 12 months ago

    I think there's going to be a lot of DLC. So I will wait until Ultimate Edition.

  • butler` #216 12 months ago

    well this thread went to shit didn't it

  • geeza2020 #217 12 months ago

    Speedy1982 & Megalodon - Well arent you to a couple of rays of fucking sunshine :) Have a couple of negs, on me.

  • Mr_Fujisawa #218 12 months ago

    I've read the comments, the good and the bad. Read this review and a number of others. I've played many RPGs in my time. I found Oblivion a chore long before I completed it. I loved Baldur's Gate, didn't like the second as much as I died in the first room. I loved Temple of Elemental Evil. I enjoyed DA:o I'm just playing through Awakenings, it's still fun even if every fight is the same (crushing prison, fireball).

    After all this I'm still looking forward to playing DA 2 tomorrow. I do enjoy the RPG lite that Bioware have been making for a very long time now. They're all kind of the same. I only really pay attention to the stats of my char, the rest are auto, I've played it this way since KOTR, knowing that by the time you get to the mid teens you're like a juggernaut
    Edited by 1 at 10/03/11 @ 12:49

  • obscured021 #219 12 months ago

    i have been playing the pc version for the last 4 days and I am about 15 hrs into it, its a great game but no where as good as the first, the graphics are better with the high res pack you can get from biowares website, but an rpg is all about game play and story and this had been dumbed down, if the first game never saw a console release we would not be in this boat now.

  • immateriaux #220 12 months ago

    "Immature, whiney, spoiled, demanding, afraid of any change as much as the next religious zealot, hateful and bashful, you guys are the worst the internet has to offer. You've become everything you have grown to hate in the real world. Shame on you, really. "

    Definitely an eight out of ten for over-reaction that.

    I think a world where it is "shameful" to lay out a series of reasoned arguments around the concept of an RPG, it's history, expectations and overall affect of various constituents and structure is most certainly not a world I would want to participate in. If that's your "real world" you are very welcome to it, count me out.

    (PS Kind of ironic use of "bashful" in this context though for a comment on a button basher game)

  • Murton #221 12 months ago

    "Immature, whiney, spoiled, demanding, afraid of any change as much as the next religious zealot, hateful and bashful, you guys are the worst the internet has to offer."

    Not to be a grammar Nazi, but you realise that bashful means shy right? The rest of the sentence would imply that you think bashful means we like to bash stuff, which as immateriax points out is quite ironic considering that a once proud king among the RPG genre has released a sequel in which you "bash A" to win.

    As for being the "worst that the internet has to offer", you clearly haven't seen very much of the internet, some of what I've seen here is among the good that internet has to offer, reasoned well worded arguments from people passionate about their interests, there's much worse out there if you go to the right, or wrong sites, much much worse.

  • absurdio #222 12 months ago

    Let this thread commence and thrive, and be the longest subject discussion eva! As for people being hateful - ??? I may be naive, but being "negged" to me simply means that someone disagrees with me... If I am black and you call me a shit because I acted like shit, do I scream "racist" right back in your face? No.

  • Nameless-001 #223 12 months ago

    This game doesn't deserve 8 out of 10 at all. Especially on PC. It's almost shameless how they dumbed it down compared to the first chapter.
    This game is the dumb and ugly brother of dragon age origins, and they made it like this on purpose. This is the last time I spend my money on a Bioware product.

  • Gromit #224 12 months ago

    I got the impression he was taking a swing at the rpg elitists who refuse any form of change and belittle anybody else for accepting it.

  • strangerism #225 12 months ago

    here's some funny quotes from DA 2 Edge's review

    "You can't have an epic adventure in a single city any more than a child will be content to endlessly explore their own back garden"

    "The lack of visual imagination persists throughout the experience, an unforgivable fault for a fantasy title with such a broad canvas on which to paint"

    "Starting a new fantasy RPG only to spend most of your time in a beige, boxy castle town is like getting socks for Christmas"

    "After nearly two dozen hours spent completing quests in Kirkwall's various precincts we were anxious for the Deep Roads expedition, which would surely serve as a bridge to a fresh new city or locale.
    Imagine our horror, then, when an all-too brief Deep Roads interlude spat us unceremoniously back out into Kirkwall to spend the remaining 25 hours settling a dispute between the ruling heads of the city's templars and mages, leaving our wanderlust to smoulder unfulfilled"

    "Visual problems extend to a character level, too.
    Your party's escape from Lothering is followed by a tragedy that, jarringly, seems to elicit no emotion from Hawke whatsoever, as the waxen, seemingly Botox-numbed facial expression gracing our character model keeps it from ever feeling emotionally three-dimensional"

  • unacomn #226 12 months ago

    So having a predetermined character doesn't make it half of an RPG, like The Witcher?

  • milki-tea #227 12 months ago

    OH GOD, I F**KING HATE RPG FAN-BOYS, go and f**k your mother, instead of crying when 'your favourite game' gets a face-lift and becomes playable by the majority of video gamers. Dragon Age: Origins was a total drag, i loved the story, but it wasn't worth the the totally boring and horrid gameplay.

  • OliverH #228 12 months ago

    @Megalodon

    "Immature, whiney, spoiled, demanding, afraid of any change as much as the next religious zealot, hateful and bashful, you guys are the worst the internet has to offer. You've become everything you have grown to hate in the real world. Shame on you, really."

    Says the one whose argumentation skills are limited at throwing insults at others. But you get creativity points for suggesting people who've started playing CRPGs with the early parts of the "Ultima", "Bard's Tale" and Wizardry" series are "afraid of change". The opposite is true: They're afraid of being presented an actual regression into earlier times as "progress" and "streamlining" just because they're covered with so much eye candy that no one would dare say that Ultima IV-VI was in comparison a downright compelling storyline with comparatively complex gameplay...

    The point is not being afraid of change, the point is having been there and done that. It was great at the time, but today, we expect more.

  • Darksjeik #229 12 months ago

    I've been told it's an okay game, meaning I'll pass. No bioware rpg should be an "okay" game.

  • king26 #230 12 months ago

    Demon's Souls

  • Ruinous_Amos #231 12 months ago

    This is what happens when you glorify garbage.

    In case you didn't notice, I'm talking about Mass Effect 2, which was a devolution in almost all respects from the first game. A barely-there plot, two dimensional characters, tedious planet scanning, and an experience that was so stripped down it all resulted in the game tumbling from epic RPG to dumb shooter.

    The rhetoric thrown at us was "streamlined," but I'd prefer the term "eviscerated." For never before have I encountered a game that made me feel so hollow.

    But multiple 9/10 reviews, game of the year accolades and cries if "BEST GAME EVAH!" later, BioWare think they can pull the same wool over our eyes by adopting the ME2 model with Dragon Age 2. Hey, they had the precedent. However, this has now failed.

    Thankfully, people are finally waking up to how mediocre BioWare's releases are becoming.
    Edited by 1 at 14/03/11 @ 11:12

  • raduciu #232 12 months ago

    DA2 does not deserve to be called a RPG it is a console party action game with RPG flavor. Story is bland and non immersive. Dialogues are laughable. Character development is weird to say the least. The most advanced strategy you need to employ is to press each lit button and aim, at least as mage. As for replaying... no way!

    I was not expecting much DA and Origins although not anywhere near the top RPGs list were better.

    I would rather they would not make a PC version if they were going to dumb it down so much for the sake of consoles, certainly i will not buy any more Bioware titles until i get to see if they change their policy.

    I am really concerned about Knights of the Old Republic now. If the same design philosophy was used i'll skip it. Certainly i won't rush into buying it like i did with DA2.

  • fongy #233 12 months ago

    I have to say... ADORED DA1 - and bought the expansion, was nice to see a mainstream "old school" RPG - I'm not an endless menu-fiddler, but it was nice to tinker around and experiment with different loadouts, etc. it all helped with the immersion and gave a meaning to all the loot you were collecting...
    The demo was horrendous, playing it several times, it almost felt like a more in-depth Dynasty Warriors game (not a good comparison really, although I enjoy those!) but, as someone else pointed out, and the absolute killer for me was Edge's statement (which has been echoes throughout reviews)

    "After nearly two dozen hours spent completing quests in Kirkwall's various precincts we were anxious for the Deep Roads expedition, which would surely serve as a bridge to a fresh new city or locale.
    Imagine our horror, then, when an all-too brief Deep Roads interlude spat us unceremoniously back out into Kirkwall to spend the remaining 25 hours settling a dispute between the ruling heads of the city's templars and mages, leaving our wanderlust to smoulder unfulfilled"

    There's pros / cons to streamlining (I have to say, I felt that the streamlining in ME2 went too far too - but the killer for me with ME2 and it is, I suspect for DA2 - is the lack of storyline..) ME 2 seemed to degenerate into just a sequence of "recruit 8 people and then go and face the final boss" - reducing the citadel to a 4-level generic looking interior typified that I think...
    With DA1 at least there were many different locales (yes, primarily in brown, but hey, there was variety!) and the mere thought about spending 50 hours in one town to me suggests that the Bioware team are either pushing themselves too hard and have lost their creative juices or EA is forcing them to release these games far too quickly in succession.. I think if DA2 had had another year to concentrate on plot / story / locales then it would have been up there with the first...

  • darren1976 #234 11 months ago

    Never played the first DAO as I was too busy replaying ME 1 and then playing ME 2 (not sure which one of those I preferred to be honest, story was much better in ME1 and the Citadel was interesting but the action was a little cumbersome at times, in ME 2 I preferred the scanning to driving round evey planet sub game and and the some parts of the combat I preferred such as improved cover system but some I disliked ie it was a bit too much run and gun at times). Hoping ME3 will move back towards ME1 a little.

    Tried the demo of DAO 2 and hated it, as many have suggested seemed like Dynasty Warriors which really surprised me as I was expecting a serious RPG. Shame, but I still have Oblivion to complete as well as Demon Souls. Maybe I'll just pick up DA1 as from what most of you guys say that was a really good game.

    As an aside just completed Half Life 2 (orange box, had for ages) and loved it, wish I'd played Half life back in the day.


    Edited by 1 at 15/03/11 @ 22:41

  • ryven11 #235 11 months ago

    I had to register just to comment on how much I entirely disagree with much of this article. The points are too numerous to mention, but primarily the comments on the characters - these are the best Bioware RPG character/companions they've ever done. Not for a minute did I miss the companions from Origins (and they were great) because the ones here were generally so good. Unlike Origins, there wasn't a single party member I hated and never used, and Varric/Isabella/Fenris easily outmatched Morrigan/Alistair/Sten.

  • Naster #236 11 months ago

    Eurogamer reviews should really have a tag that clearly tells on which platform(s) the game was reviewed. PC and console versions can differ a lot when it comes to graphics and controls. Just an idea, not aimed at just this particular review.

  • BriellaDaniery #237 11 months ago

    DA: O left me feeling complete. I loved how free I was to speak to my party at my own choosing not Biowae's. If you completed a task of one of your companions early nothing further happens. I felt DAII should have been DA 1 and DAO felt like a step up from this game.

    Don't get me wrong I played it twice and did the various options. But lets be honest the game forces you to make certain decisions. We are attacked instead of given the option of speaking with Mage's. The ending leaves you shaking your head. No matter which side you choose it seems as though you still fight the Mage's. Mage's no matter what turned to blood magic and proved you wrong any ways. So your decisions to fight for their side in the end untimely meant nothing.

    Lets just say this game felt very put together in some cases. I would have gladly waited a year longer for Bioware to get their stuff together. Recycling maps, no witty fun conversations back at your 'camp'. There's just so much that they went away from that made them who they were with DA:o. I realize this may be my opinion but it is something I've seen echoed on the internet by many.

    I didn't feel 'together' with my team. I didn't feel like the ending was satisfying. It left a clifhanger sure but one begins to wonder if the decisions they made in DAII will really effect possible future games.

    Bioware needs to go back to DA:o and realize what made the game pinned for by many. In DA:o I felt so immersed in the story line. I truly felt like I what I did made a difference. Sure there are times in DAII where I get the option of having a few party members leave but I feel many times things are 'forced'.

    I did like how we now had a voice to our character. It did make for a bit more of an interactive game throughout. There are certainly perks to DAII but to me it doesn't compare to the time and effort put into DA:o. It just felt cheap. Yes some of that had to do with the recycling of maps. Really more attention to detail could have been made.

    Overall I bought DA II thinking that DA: Awakenings was just a 'fluke', with how you interacted with party members. You want to make it real. You should be able to talk to them at any time. I loved hardening characters and seeing how that played out in the end. I truly felt like I shaped the ending and who was king/queen. In this game everyone has the same ending... No one's differs from the other. We all have 'champions' that fled.

    You can't equip your characters with any of the equipment you accumulate over your journey. You're stuck in one place never really venturing outside of kirkwall. It lacked serious depth. I found myself with a inventory full of junk I couldn't use. What ever happened to the gifts? That was rather fun. We found out what happened to our 'hero's'. We got to speak with our party members when the final battle was over. (or not if we chose to die). We had some semblance of closure.

    All in all I feel the best way to summarize my bantering is DA II lack's choice. Each story line in DA:o was different pending on the class, species, etc that you chose. You got to choose elven kings who ultimately caused problems or didn't. The common goal is what to me tied everything in. While the Arishok battle proved to be fun and at times hard. Where was the final boss? I was left with wanting more. It felt like what I did really didn't do anything other then just create another mess. I liked how when I played through a second time I was given an entirely different story line. I was who I chose to be not who Bioware wanted me to be 'hawke'.

    I can hope for a possible come back if they do a DA: III but I won't be wasting money on DLC's. Nor will I be pre-ordering as I did with this game. Overall a big let down. Sure some fun gaming but nothing close to what it should have been.
    Edited by 2 at 01/04/11 @ 03:39

  • sirtacos #238 11 months ago

    I really tried to like this game. I gave 20 hours waiting for it to get immersive, for the characters to get interesting, for the story to draw me in - for ANYTHING that would hook me. But I had to give up. This post's tone is undoubtedly melodramatic, but there's no other way to fully express my disappointment. DAII is a charmless pile of wank. A sequel in name only.
    Edited by 2 at 05/04/11 @ 04:41

  • Daikon #239 10 months ago

    8/10? Seriously?
    Soulless design by committee, extremely weak characters and plot-points and totally forgettable story and locations.

    After spending 20 hours trying to like, hoping it would get better (it didn't) it I just threw in the towel.
    This game is below average, 4/10 at best (and then I feel I'm being generous).

    Dragon Age: Origins wasn't perhaps perfect, but at least it had wit, charm and a story that one could actually care about.