So this game is perfect, apart from a few minor annoyances which can be switched off? Nothing at all to criticize, or suggest what could have been improved? What is this, an objective review or an EA bulletin? The problem with DA2 is not that it *has* become a hack&slash, arcade adventure ..... but has taken a huge stride in that direction. There are thousands of changes, any one on its own too subtle to stand in isolation as the 'smoking gun', but when taken together, paint a clear picture. Here are some of these:
* The length of the story, where the main quest takes 12-15 hours and required DLC to fully finish.
* The dialog wheel with emoticons for those who don't want to exert themselves by reading, and instead just want broadly a good, neutral and evil option (or witty, flirty etc). The paraphrasing that this gives rise to cases where you pick "But I'm not working for Cerberus" and Shepard says "I'm just working for Cerberus right now".
* The voiced protagonist, which meant cutting out race and origins customization. Because Bioware decided people lacked the imagination to 'role play' the lines in their minds, incapable of adding their own inflection and personality to the words.
* The cartoon-like combat animations, with back flipping ninja rogues, teleporting party members and exploding darkspawn.
* The removal of equipment optimization for your allies, because clearly deciding if armor offering +1 strength, was better than armor offering +30 Mana, was too complex for the new target audience of this game. Instead there are little stars to tell you which is better.
* Optional pause and play, so that instead of thinking how you'd play an encounter, you could just rush in and "that would be cool too". Pause and play seems redundant anyway given the frantic pace of the combat. Pause for half a second and you probably missed 3 or 4 things, so you just give up and focus on Hawke.
* And finally the tactical camera - basically gone. And the snarky phrase in the review
Greg Tito said:
you can micro manage the tactics *if you have OCD*
. So according to the reviewer, I have to have a *disorder* to want to get out of the scrum and get a feel of the battle?
Brent Knowles, the lead designer of Dragon Age Origins, calls this game a sad inevitability of today's times. He resigned when he saw the direction DA2 was going: lots of cinematics, simplified and shorter gameplay. RPG fans should also read the editorial on hookedgamers.com. So whose opinion is more interesting, Greg's or Brent's? You decide with your dollar today.