Dragon Age II has a 3.4/10 on Metacritic, WHY!?
- Thread starter Danpascooch
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1- The game is very different from the first aka fan rage
2- The game on PC had a time lock so while console players could play, us PC fellows had to wait till 12am cali time. There was apparently a lot of rage on the forums about this to the point where Bioware was deleting threads.
3- Some of the DLC was on the disc already
I would say some of the above reasons, I only know #2 because my friend was raging over it, I ...decided to draw till the timer was up and play.
2- The game on PC had a time lock so while console players could play, us PC fellows had to wait till 12am cali time. There was apparently a lot of rage on the forums about this to the point where Bioware was deleting threads.
3- Some of the DLC was on the disc already
I would say some of the above reasons, I only know #2 because my friend was raging over it, I ...decided to draw till the timer was up and play.
danpascooch said:
Well, there isn't really much of a give and take between character development/story and the gameplay elements. There isn't any reason why you can't have both, especially seeing as the two are frequently developed by seperate groups of coders. The guys designing the combat system for example are not the same people doing the voice acting, or making the cinematics. That's one of the reasons why there are such huge design teams involved.
There is no real reason why having voice actors record some decent quality in-character banter, in any way influanced the lack of an inventory system, reduction of the skill system, and transformation of the combat into a shooter when it comes to "Mass Effect 2". Especially seeing as the meat of the character development and storytelling still took place in areas seperate from where the combat and action was happening (ie shipboard conversations, and wandering around in space stations and such talking to people).
There are two reasons why we have seen "Mass Effect 2" and "Dragon Age 2" dumbed down as I pointed out. One is quite simply that the guys putting up the money probably demanded they do so to try and appeal to more casual gamers. Shooters generally outsell RPGs, even if RPGs are still a major market. An investor/producer wants the best possible returns, which is why you see so many attempts to try and hybridize these things. With the shooter market having more people, the development is of course directed to focus in that direction. The other reason is quite simply that "Bioware" has been juggling lots of balls in the air at once right now. Both the original "Mass Effect" and "Dragon Age" games were developed where the entire resources of a more focused team could be directed at them. "Dragon Age" in paticular was developed over a long period of time, which is one of the reasons why they said a lot of the enviroments showed their age. The less depth you put into the game, and the less control/understanding of what is going on with the mechanics that you give the players, the easier a game is to program. "Dragon Age 2" simply put has far less variables involved, and making it easier also means that people are going to spend less time trying to master mechanics to figure out their way past problems. "Mass Effect 2" in comparison was pretty much cake compared to a serious RPG, as shooters are much easier to design, no real numbers involved like "accuracy" to determine hits and misses make it a simple matter of aiming a recticle, the shooter mechanics also let them fudge things like damage, damage resistance, and the like.
The point here being that I don't think they simplified and dumbed down the rest of the game because they had to in order to "tell a better story with the cinematics". Heck, to be entirely honest there isn't even any good reason why voicework for the player character required them to cut down on the options. Games like "Saint's Row 2" demonstrated that they can have multiple voicetracks for the main character, and let you select the one you want. Albiet this DOES mean hiring some extra voice actors, or perhaps having some do double duty.
Probably the biggest excuse that can be made for Bioware, (other than talking about "selling out" to non-RPG gamers due to the demands of their producers) is their involvement with "Old Republic Online". They've hired a lot more people, diluting their original talent pool, and have most of their best talent focusing mostly on the 300+ million dollar project at the demands of their boss doubtlessly. That means that a lot of design corners are being cut. On a lot of levels acting like what we're seeing is the result of them "catering to a more profitable audience" let's them maintain some integrity as talented designers... compared to them simply not being able to do any better in their current state.
I wouldn't be surprised if despite some of the names involved, a lot of the things that gamers have been complaining about in Bioware's most recent single player games were actually crapped out by uncredited interns. "Ooops, well computing the stat variables on every member of the party having seperate armor locations, not to mention ensuring all of those models work with the armor textures is a lot of work and complicated. We'll cut down on the gear, and not let the NPCs wear armor to make it easier, and then claim it's to enhance the characterization if we're ever questioned".
I thought we already did this thread today. In fact I am fairly damn sure I already posted in a thread about the DA2 scores. Anyway it is probably the MW2 thing but regardless of how the people reacted it was important to keep them. So from what I can assume is Bioware has managed to alienate their fanbase somehow.
People have different opinions about different things. If the game still interests you, then play it. Ya, a lot of reviewers were a tad bit lenient on it, but the game is probably still worth it.
Whatever man, I am so obscure that even hipsters haven't heard of me. Haha, I have yet to find out if that is a good thing or not though 0.oLexodus said:But you can't be a hipster, you haven't finished your sentences with 'or whatever' and you haven't said 'Dragon Age used to be cool until everyone started liking it"!Brian Hendershot said:
But yes, the above would also work.
I wouldn't immediately have gave it that low of a score, but after playing for 5 hours I give the game a 6/10. Whenever you take a game as wildly popular as Dragon Age, then make a sequel that's way different from the predecessor your going to get huge amounts of hate and love in pretty equal increments. I played the demo and disliked it so I made sure when I got my copy not to use any of the DLC codes that came with it so I was able to sell it to a friend who didn't pre-order it the signature edition for what I paid for it. The frequent issue I had with it was I very much disliked the pace upgrade it received. Sure the dialogue is nice, but I wouldn't have beat the game to finish the story I was intrigued about buried in a game I didn't wanna play at all which is why I never figured out the last 2/3 of Mass Effect 2.
I do admit to my 6/10 being out of disappointment otherwise I would probably give it a 7/10. I just felt the speed was of an unnecessary pace to the point of being silly with a greatsword swinging almost as fast as one can tap the X button. In combination with the over flashy animations which seemed so needless and took the fun out of the finishers at the end after seeing such a display like being given way to much cake and feeling sick at the end of it all (though I do give credit to the skill and time sunk of the dev team for the animations.)I just had a hard time taking the game very seriously and combat really just urked me the wrong way. In the end I just felt if I wanted to play an action rpg with alot more emphisis on the action I would have popped in Demon's Souls which would give more emphasis on various aspects of combat. I felt it was far more engaging then repeatedly tapping x button and adding in combos I just found myself playing with one hand on the controller and sighing while taking a look out of the window every once in awhile or getting up and stretching. I just didn't find the same satisfaction I did from overcoming the battles I had in Dragon Age 1 where I found myself using all the characters and constant rotations to keep me frantically busy with the style and flash at the end of the enemies life on occasion which made it all the sweeter.
I do admit to my 6/10 being out of disappointment otherwise I would probably give it a 7/10. I just felt the speed was of an unnecessary pace to the point of being silly with a greatsword swinging almost as fast as one can tap the X button. In combination with the over flashy animations which seemed so needless and took the fun out of the finishers at the end after seeing such a display like being given way to much cake and feeling sick at the end of it all (though I do give credit to the skill and time sunk of the dev team for the animations.)I just had a hard time taking the game very seriously and combat really just urked me the wrong way. In the end I just felt if I wanted to play an action rpg with alot more emphisis on the action I would have popped in Demon's Souls which would give more emphasis on various aspects of combat. I felt it was far more engaging then repeatedly tapping x button and adding in combos I just found myself playing with one hand on the controller and sighing while taking a look out of the window every once in awhile or getting up and stretching. I just didn't find the same satisfaction I did from overcoming the battles I had in Dragon Age 1 where I found myself using all the characters and constant rotations to keep me frantically busy with the style and flash at the end of the enemies life on occasion which made it all the sweeter.
Butthurt Fans of Outdated PC RPG's that complain when anything strays away from the same damn formula they love so much. A new art style? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THEN IT MIGHT ACTUALLY LOOK NICE! IT MIGHT NOT LOOK GENERIC ! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Something has actually been done to make the combat exciting? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Damn I hate these kinds of people. Hard to know who many of them have actually played the fucking game.
Damn I hate these kinds of people. Hard to know who many of them have actually played the fucking game.
The tricks is quite simple once you notice the new mechanic, you can run away from melee attacks, so using that to your advantage suddenly you can beat the entire demo with only 1 guy.uanime5 said:
I'll go out on a limb here, I'm guessing you can pretty much beat the entire game that way aswell.
OT: People need to learn metacritic scores are useless, even the worst piles of dog dirt will get into the 70+ range, and with spamming fanboys the user scores are just pure random.
I've put maybe 10 hours into it so far.
Gameplay mechanics ARE simpler than Dragon Age Origins, but thats not necessarily a bad thing.
So far its a very solid game, so far as I understand the game will span 10 years in Kirkwall and those 10 hours I've played I'm still in my first year, with lots of interesting sidequests.
Gameplay mechanics ARE simpler than Dragon Age Origins, but thats not necessarily a bad thing.
So far its a very solid game, so far as I understand the game will span 10 years in Kirkwall and those 10 hours I've played I'm still in my first year, with lots of interesting sidequests.
First off I played Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2. I didn't like the first game very much, it felt a bit "stiff" and the plot seemed to move at a slow pace.
However Dragon Age 2 really improves and actually skips over the boring parts and gets you right in the action. There's always something to do and it's nicely made so that you're always gripped to see what happens next.
As for the battles there's clearly an element of strategy involved but the difficulty is rather "all over the place". I found myself easily taking down groups of 1-4 (or even bosses) much easier than I would take down a group of 20-30 less skilled individuals. That being said the new combat mechanics are very cinematic and less involving.
Personally if you want a good RPG this is it. It may not be the best, but what's there is nicely made, humorous and filled with good ideas. The implementation may need a fix, personally I had hoped for a more action oriented control scheme and I hope that in the future we will only control the main character and center the action more on him/her.
I'd say it's an above average game, if you want numbers I'd go for 8/10.
However Dragon Age 2 really improves and actually skips over the boring parts and gets you right in the action. There's always something to do and it's nicely made so that you're always gripped to see what happens next.
As for the battles there's clearly an element of strategy involved but the difficulty is rather "all over the place". I found myself easily taking down groups of 1-4 (or even bosses) much easier than I would take down a group of 20-30 less skilled individuals. That being said the new combat mechanics are very cinematic and less involving.
Personally if you want a good RPG this is it. It may not be the best, but what's there is nicely made, humorous and filled with good ideas. The implementation may need a fix, personally I had hoped for a more action oriented control scheme and I hope that in the future we will only control the main character and center the action more on him/her.
I'd say it's an above average game, if you want numbers I'd go for 8/10.
Really?
Wow. And its not like spore were they all got angry about something not actually the fault of the game?
Odd.
Wow. And its not like spore were they all got angry about something not actually the fault of the game?
Odd.