Poll: Dragon Age 2 Demo Impressions

[Hader]

Now that you mention the geographic location, I think I'm feeling what was so off-putting about the environments: There were no trees. Not a single one.

This is what felt so weird about the first mass effect to me, when you landed on those alien worlds they were all completely devoid of vegetation.

It isn't even the Blight's fault that place is so barren, it's just reaching those lands.

Just feels so...*bleeeaaaggghhhhhhhhhhhh*. Kirkwall also felt a bit drab, but then again we only saw one street really.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

I liked the combat overall, btw in the PC version you DON'T need to tap A to auto-attack, which makes sense. In a hack and slash styled game, if I tapped buttons to attack, there would have to be multiple buttons, so I could use varied attacks and different combos, but if it's just one button I'd rather just press it to activate it and then focus on the area around me and using other abilities. So I agree that tapping the button is silly, but in the PC version you don't have to!

I rolled my eyes at the "dagger slipping through armor and not leaving so much as a scratch" bit too, you'd think a multi-million dollar company devoted to good story would notice something like that.

Overall I like it better so far. I felt like Mass Effect 2 was dumbed down too much compared to 1 in some areas, namely the loot, which was almost removed, but so far I feel like this is a good change.

 

[FlyAwayAutumn]

Well some people will like it some will hate. I personally liked it but I'm one of the console gamers soooo... it was basically made for me. I love the mage but while playing as the mage with your sister, another mage, around it was ridiculous watching them in sync practically dancing. It would be nice if there was more variation. Mage also has the best armor during the "Legend" bit at the beginning. All in all I'm pumped up.

And another thing, how the hell does Flemeth get her hair to look like horns? What the hell?

 

[Paragon Fury]

I really wish they stuck with the Dwarf-addled version of Hawk-e's sister, rather than going to the sober, real version.

It was at least more interesting.

Also, I see major plot derailment if your Origins save has you offing Flemeth. She might be able to still do the beginning part, but "Sword-through-skull" generally has a negative impact on further help.

 

[Polaris19]

My thumb will hate me afterwards, but it makes me feel more involved in the combat.

 

[Mcface]

it was so tedious to play.

very boring mindless gameplay, mediocre voice over.

and the motion capture was just awful.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Because if I'm going to have to stare at a woman for the next 30-40 hours, then damn it she better have a nice rack, because Light knows there is a 99% chance I'll stop giving a damn about the words coming out of her mouth partway through the story, and will need something else to pay attention to.

Also, bigger is better, so.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Because if I'm going to have to stare at a woman for the next 30-40 hours, then damn it she better have a nice rack, because Light knows there is a 99% chance I'll stop giving a damn about the words coming out of her mouth partway through the story, and will need something else to pay attention to.

Also, bigger is better, so.

Thanks for epitomizing the stereotypical console gamer. Ugh.

What?

1: I read a fuck-ton faster than 99% of people on this planet and in games can speak. Which means I've read, re-read 4 times and understood what characters are trying to say before they reach the first adjective. Having to listen to them say it is just annoying, unless I'm confused about the tone.

2: I'm usually four or five steps ahead of the story. I don't need to listen, because I can damn well already tell what is going to happen. I could probably give half the speeches given in games, given enough practice.

3: I have fairly good "useless/uninteresting banter" filter. If its not;

-Vital to the story
-Vital to the quest at hand
-Funny
-Otherwise peculiar or interesting

I ignore it.

And if I epitomize the average console gamer, what does that make the average PC gamer, considering they're the ones for whom the most popular/downloaded mods for games like Oblivion, DA, Fallout etc. are the ones that add ridiculous sexual elements to games.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Because if I'm going to have to stare at a woman for the next 30-40 hours, then damn it she better have a nice rack, because Light knows there is a 99% chance I'll stop giving a damn about the words coming out of her mouth partway through the story, and will need something else to pay attention to.

Also, bigger is better, so.

Thanks for epitomizing the stereotypical console gamer. Ugh.

What?

1: I read a fuck-ton faster than 99% of people on this planet and in games can speak. Which means I've read, re-read 4 times and understood what characters are trying to say before they reach the first adjective. Having to listen to them say it is just annoying, unless I'm confused about the tone.

2: I'm usually four or five steps ahead of the story. I don't need to listen, because I can damn well already tell what is going to happen. I could probably give half the speeches given in games, given enough practice.

3: I have fairly good "useless/uninteresting banter" filter. If its not;

-Vital to the story
-Vital to the quest at hand
-Funny
-Otherwise peculiar or interesting

I ignore it.

And if I epitomize the average console gamer, what does that make the average PC gamer, considering they're the ones for whom the most popular/downloaded mods for games like Oblivion, DA, Fallout etc. are the ones that add ridiculous sexual elements to games.

I didn't say you were dumb, now did I? Maybe just focused on the wrong aspect of things. You can skip each line of dialogue by pressing escape, so that's not an issue. I'm just wondering what kind of person plays a video game for the boobies, rather than interacting with an actual person or simply watching porn.

I don't play for the breasts; but the version with the bigger breasts was more interesting to watch.

Besides, porn is boring, and most women in real life don't have breasts even worth mentioning.

 

[Miss_Nel]

*Shrug* I really quite enjoyed it. Found it easier and smoother to play than the first.

 

[cainx10a]

Disappointed. Even Wesker bites the dust, he couldn't handle the potency of the D-Virus

Totally skipped all the cutscenes and dialogues, and didn't bother watching any videos prior to playing the demos. I felt like information I gathered from the preview in the first game spoiled countless encounters and made them less interesting.

All I know, BioWare won't let us down on the storytelling.

 

[Hader]

All I know, BioWare won't let us down on the storytelling.

Unless other aspects are horribly inconsistent...I don't think their reputation for telling a good story will help them here.

 

[Zaik]

After actually playing it, I was surprised to find it wasn't nearly as bad as the first one.

It still wasn't good enough to be buying it at release, but once the "Ultimate" version comes out with all or the most relevant DLC attached, I'll probably buy that at full price.

It's more or less the same thing as DA:O, just with what seems to be an extremely well detailed polish. There's not much that seems to be actually new, but things seem to work so much better than they did. Also tons of things *didn't* get removed for the sake of one feature like in ME2.

Edit: One thing I didn't like is that the dialogue got Mass Effect-ized. There doesn't seem to be anything keeping track of how red/blue you are to determine being able to talk people into crap, but adding symbols to explain what act you're doing on top of the
.........................................Nice
Information-----------------------------Indecisive
........................................Jerkface

system seemed a little silly. Also, some of the more obscure symbols don't seem to clearly represent anything at all. There were weird squiggles and arrows going in three directions for dialogue that seemed like it would fit under the nice-confused-ass pictures.

 

[Smooth Operator]

It went casual, all the strategy was cut out to make it easy to the one button pressing monkeys it seems.
I'm sure it will sell extremely well, but I prefer some depth with my games.

 

[DenofLions]

I'll just copy what I wrote on the steam forums:

Remember how DA:O was supposed to be a return to the glory days of PC RPG's?

Well if this demo is anything like the game, I take this as Bioware saying "I DIDN'T MEAN IT LOL".

This.

The demo is like Vindictus and Diablo 2 had a child with ADD. So much for being the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate 2, more like the successor to the watered down ps2 hack and slash versions.

Console twitch-gamers win again. Not that there is anything wrong with liking twitcy games, but I'd like to see one RPG make it into this decade without being molested.

 

[Icarion (aka Stockholm)]

Because if I'm going to have to stare at a woman for the next 30-40 hours, then damn it she better have a nice rack, because Light knows there is a 99% chance I'll stop giving a damn about the words coming out of her mouth partway through the story, and will need something else to pay attention to.

Also, bigger is better, so.

Thanks for epitomizing the stereotypical console gamer. Ugh.

What?

1: I read a fuck-ton faster than 99% of people on this planet and in games can speak. Which means I've read, re-read 4 times and understood what characters are trying to say before they reach the first adjective. Having to listen to them say it is just annoying, unless I'm confused about the tone.

2: I'm usually four or five steps ahead of the story. I don't need to listen, because I can damn well already tell what is going to happen. I could probably give half the speeches given in games, given enough practice.

3: I have fairly good "useless/uninteresting banter" filter. If its not;

-Vital to the story
-Vital to the quest at hand
-Funny
-Otherwise peculiar or interesting

I ignore it.

And if I epitomize the average console gamer, what does that make the average PC gamer, considering they're the ones for whom the most popular/downloaded mods for games like Oblivion, DA, Fallout etc. are the ones that add ridiculous sexual elements to games.

I didn't say you were dumb, now did I? Maybe just focused on the wrong aspect of things. You can skip each line of dialogue by pressing escape, so that's not an issue. I'm just wondering what kind of person plays a video game for the boobies, rather than interacting with an actual person or simply watching porn.

I don't play for the breasts; but the version with the bigger breasts was more interesting to watch.

Besides, porn is boring, and most women in real life don't have breasts even worth mentioning.

Hey, lets not be unreasonable. Spend some time around really small breasted women, then go hang out with normal sized ones. Its a pretty cool effect.

OT:It was differet. The rogue was sweet, I completely fought the Ogre hit and run, like a rogue should. Mage wasnt bad but I couldnt stand playing as a warrior, as it was in Origins. So, the combat could go either way for me, although I do miss the option to zoom out. I played on the PC. The first area looked like it came straight out of the Alpha build, with its lack of backround. The second area was quite nice. And, by the looks of it, they finally got the beards right. I got so mad when the Dwarves beards would go through their chestplates. But not now, Hawke's beard is beautifully rendered, and 3-D, as opposed to the old ones, which were jsut flat pictures of a beard. Small point, but a good one.

 

[Thanatos34]

The graphics are shit.

That is honestly the first thing I thought of, and I couldn't STOP thinking of it the whole way through the demo.

The demo is supposed to make me want to buy the game. It didn't. At all. I probably still will, because, hell, it's Dragon Age, I have quite a bit of money and nothing else to spend it on at the moment, but still. Wtf is with the background scenery?

And why is there no option for DX10? It's either DX9 with medium graphics and low everything else, (see: shit), or DX11, for which you need to have Windows 7 or Vista. For those of us who prefer our XP, that means we're stuck with shitty graphics.

Maybe there's something I don't know about that DX10 can't handle and DX9 can. Kinda pissed because I upgraded my video card a while back specifically so that I could use DX10, and now it appears I have to have DX11.

And the voice acting for FemHawke is kinda... meh. MaleHawke is good, but I suppose replicating Hale's superb job voice acting FemShep was like asking for lightning to strike twice.

Edit: Went back and looked at the original Dragon Age- I think the graphics are actually better in DA:O.
I guess we know why the game is only 7 gigs now. They screwed the graphics department over.
As far as the original question, I like the new combat mechanic, but the dark, gritty feel of the first one is gone. Entirely. Even the

******SPOILER******death of your brother/sister depending on your arbitrary class choice was meh.******END SPOILER*******

Maybe they'll fix some of that in the real DA2, and maybe the graphics were just compressed for the demo. But again, the demo is supposed to make me WANT to buy the game. If I had never played DA:O, I would not be buying DA2 based on that demo.

 

[Light 086]

The Dragon Age 2 Demo has just been released on xbox 360 today and I?m disappointed. I loved DA:O. One of the bests features of DA:O was that I could micro-manage my party members special moves while each member performed basic attacks automatically.

My problem with the DA2 demo is that I have to constantly keep pressing the basic attack button. It makes the game feel like a hack n slash button basher rather than a deep and rich RPG. I can understand that by doing this bioware has opened up a wider audience, but I think that will alienate some of the fans of DA:O.

Anyway, I guess I will find out whether this can be changed in the options menu of the final product.

I'd like to know others opinions on the new mechanic. Do you think it will improve the overall experience? Or do you think that it is an unnecessary addition?

I prefer this combat rather than sending in my squad and have the time to read a few pages from my book, get a drink, make a snack... etc will the combat is raging on in the background.

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

I just finished the steam demo and by far im impressed with the new system. i never liked the old system as it just made the combat much longer. sure i wouldnt mind if there were an option to choose which combat styles you want.

At the end at the day though i originally never though about getting it but now i may just do that because it looks and feels alot better... and just from the cutscene the with dwarven dude.. THE DORFS ARE AWESOME NAO! HELL YEAH!

Next: On the to do list : QQ on WoW forums to nerf mages -check
play the DA2 demo again -check
watch some anime -check
sit around eating jaffa cakes - in progress.

 

[StBishop]

Also, what's the deal with the diablo-esque class picker? They sure splurged on the background in that one; A SOLID BLACK FILL! You're blowing my mind Bioware, don't put them in a nicely rendered castle courtroom or anything, a quick old screen fill will be just as good.

I think this is only for the demo. There's also discrepancies between the male and female descriptions for rouge and mage on 360.

There's a comma in one gender but not the other for mage and the rouge has one saying when and the other saying whenever.

I think if this had been for the full game they'd have polished that out.