danpascooch said:
Zaik said:
You keep citing metacritic user reviews, but you know I could put 5-10 of those up an hour if I wanted to, right?
Sure, and you would put up 5-10 out of over 1000
It's not all trolls, the denial has to stop, when's the last time Game Informer has given an 83 to a major Bioware RPG? It's not a coincidence that it's scoring badly, it's not a paradox, the universe is not imploding, it's just not very good.
Okay there are a little over 1500 ratings at Metacritic
But still, if you had taken any kind of class that taught what makes up a proper sample to determine information, you would know that a little over 1500 is not a good sample to determine stats from a few hundred thousand people or more. A reasonable sample would be in the 25,000 range at least.
I haven't seen one complaint about the game that can be placed in the fact column, which from what I have seen of the user reviews on Metacritic and some of the comments on here, people are acting like their opinions are fact.
On top of that way too many of the poor raters are giving the game a 0 or 1. Those are scores that reflect a game that is totally unplayable and not even by opinion standards. The only time a game should get that low a score is if the game had total game breaking glitches where one would have to start from the very beginning of the game to try again and then it breaks again. So under that I'm going to count all 0's and 1's as trolls, even 2's are under speculation. Heck, most of that weren't even going by the standards you put in your opening post criticizing Greg Tito. Most of them are just throwing out obscenities saying, this was bleep, that was bleep, or the even less creative just plain the whole game was bleep. Did they give any reasonable explanation of why whatever part or the whole was bleep, no.
What I wonder is have you played the game yourself, because all I saw in your first post was the criticism of Greg Tito, but nothing to back it up but the low user review scores and a couple other reviews.
Be really, never in my life have I ever trusted a review, especially not the fanaticism of people on the internet. If I did I wouldn't have the awesome game collection I have today that I enjoy. If I had, I wouldn't have pre-ordered Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, I would have missed out on one of the best gaming experiences I have had in years.
Now I and all my friends pre-ordered DA2 to get the Signature Edition. From what I have played of the game and from what I have seen of my friends playing of it(spent the night at a friends house, we all brought our TV's into the living area and played, three people playing it at the same time), everyone of use was laughing and having fun. The game gets a 10 out of 10, and my friends would agree with me. Now I didn't play it the whole night, I like space out my playing and switch off and games going back an forth, but the two friends that were there that day and night, played around 3 hours straight, stopped to eat, and played for another 8 hours straight. I stayed the night and when I got up the one friend whose house it was, was already up and playing more, I stayed for another 3 hours while he played. His words were, "This is amazing, I can't put it down."
Now my 10 out of 10 opinion is based off of several things.
Dialogue: This is the biggest improvement. It isn't exactly like the Mass Effect dialog wheel but it is similar, and that is a very good thing. It is easy to tell where the dialog might go with what I choose. Instead of sitting for 2 or 3 minutes or more making choices on what to pick in the dialog like I did with DA:O, I can quickly pick the choice I know I want and the dialog can move fast and the game can stay at a nice steady pace. It relatively removes the "make a choice and then go back to an old save syndrome" like I did with DA:O because I didn't like how the conversation came out.
My friends and I laughed our asses off at the joking remarks that have been put in as the neutral choice in the dialog that gives a more entertaining choice if you don't want to be good or evil.
And on the random side things that party members say, the Cheers joke that Varric makes in the bar is one of my favorite things so far. I love it when creators throw shout outs that usually only the older crowd would understand.
Graphics: The game is no Castlevania: Lords of Shadow in this department but it is definitely not as one 0 voting trolls on Metacritic put it, "The graphics look to be from 2003" From what I looked up the games I use to play back then, the graphics of DA2 are 500% better. Back then in games of 2003, I could barely make out what faces looked like, there was absolutely no smooth curves to the graphics, very straight lines and pointy edges. To get smoothness and expressions in games, it had to be cartoon-like, usually cell-shaded, like Legend of Zelda Windwaker. Some would point out Ocarina of Time, but even that was cartoon-like in my eyes compared to today's standards.
But still, people from what I can tell didn't complain about DA:O in this department, but then people complain about DA2's graphics, when they are an improvement. I really can't count that as an opinion, because I have seen looks and movements of the face and eyes that I never saw in DA:O. The facial movements are more fluid.
Combat and Leveling: Combat is faster paced and just more fun because of it. Special abilities recharge much faster in DA2 than before. My guy can actually run in this game instead of what I would call a "sort of fast walking" in DA:O. A movement to get around and behind an enemy or get out of range of an enemy in DA:O use to take 10 to 15, sometimes more seconds, and other times it couldn't be done at all. In DA2, it can be don in 5 seconds, sometimes less. I'm glad that they didn't put in an auto attack mechanism, and if they ever update it in, I will turn it off. I want to be in control.
The decision making on how to choose stat placement when leveling is easier because the descriptions are a little clearer than last time about what stat effect what. I love the tech trees that give a wider variety to chose from than in DA:O. I also don't mind that they changed the stat for lock picking for rogues to cunning instead of dexterity.
Characters: I finding that many of the DA2 characters have just as much depth if not more than the one from DA:O. I definitely like few of the characters more when compared to characters from DA:O. Just compare Isabella from DA2 to what she was like in DA:O, that would even bring us back to the graphics debate and show the graphics are definitely quite close to first rate in DA2. Varric is hilarious and all around likable.
That is all I have to say for now, I believe it is enough. Dragon Age 2 is a great game in my opinion. Though there will probably be people trying to refute my opinions with their opinions, but it won't mean anything.
