Greg Tito said:
I honestly wonder if you guys are playing the same game that I am. You are all entitled to your opinion, of course, but I honestly loved the game and enjoyed all of the features I discussed in the review. Many of he complaints you have, I describe in the review, but they just weren't dealbreakers for me.
I want to clear up a couple of things:
First, The Escapist received no money for my review and I am not a corporate shill. If I were, I would be a lot more comfortable financially than I currently am. Alas, I'm poor as dirt, and only give good reviews to games that I love. I made the class party guides because I thought it would be content you guys would like. They are not sponsored in any way.
Second, I did make a mistake regarding the auto-attack. As I was putting the finishing touches on the review, a source that I trust made sure that I say the option was there and I included it without verifying for myself if the feature was indeed on the shipped game. I take full responsibility for the error, and I've removed it from the written review. Hopefully, BioWare will patch it in later, but I doubt it.
For that, I apologize. I do not apologize for loving a game that you had probably decided to hate even before reading my review.
Thank you so much to the people in this thread who have tried to keep it from being a hatefest. I respect that although you might not agree with my opinion, you see no reason to accuse me of being on the take, or that all gamers will agree with my personal thoughts on a game. Thanks for that.
Greg
I did not decide to hate the game prior to reading or playing through the game. I decided to hate it when the credits rolled at the worst spot for a cliffhanger. Nothing being resolved and your involvement destroying the city you became a part of seems counter productive and plain silly. A much better game would have been cutting all the previous acts other than the final battle and a few lead in battles to get the flow of the game. Also, Bioware kicked its PC audience in the balls when it decided to make it more console friendly, in turn removing all that contributed to the great gameplay on the PC.
All my thoughts can be found here:
I heard it is much more console friendly. The first one was awful trying to play on the xbox 360. Too many spells too few hotkeys. The spell amount in this game is reduced severely so that should help. Gameplay wise it is not bad, way too easy past the major boss in the first major plot event. Other then that everything falls flat, character dialog is restricted and limiting. The options at the end return the same outcome regardless of choice. The story is an unframed wreck. By the end I was happy that I no longer had to deal with the constant barrage of pointless conflicts exacerbated by my futile efforts to intervene upon a purely linear and closed story. Linear story telling is not always a terrible thing, but presenting the illusion of relative freedom of choice only to disregard your decisions creates a reprehensible dynamic story.
To sum up further:
Dragon Age 2 has an awful story and the game takes a difficulty dive so severe the last encounters are equivalent to mowing down helpless civilians in a Russian airport. 30 hours of act one waiting to get to the important parts of the overall interesting premise which abruptly ends just as a true catastrophe happens (and the primary story arch being revealed) is piss poor story progression. In which a company, primarily concerned with setting up future expansions to generate revenue, will resolve this conflict over a two year period in which dollars will funnel to an undeserving development team. The lack of depth to the final choices within the game reflects the inept writing and hurried finished to an overall lackluster game. Bioware's narrative concerning Hawke's rise to "power" is beyond abominable and conveys blatant disregard for the genre and Bioware's strength: Well written literature.
