Razorfist gives his oh so tactful review on DA2

[Mrsoupcup]

A man who wears a Satanic symbol must be honest... Or just full of himself.

I would complain more about DA2 but I played for almost 24 hours straight. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to *****, it held my attention for that long. I say get the game on a rental and see if you like it, it's worth playing though it may not be worth buying.

 

[ShadowyMOON]

Dragon Age 2 is a cash in sequel with a few improvements and several steps backwards, and is mostly viewed as bad due to the 2 at the end of the game. It is an enjoyable and decent RPG if you play it without ridiculous expectations.

The guy is an attention whore who makes a few valid points but ruins it all with witless attempts at humour and ridiculous rage. The video is decent if you don't go in expecting Yahtzee.

Notice the similarities?

 

[Omnific One]

DA2 isn't as much a bad game as it is a blatantly obvious EA-prompted cash-in. No one with any shred of intelligence can deny that.

 

[Xersues]

DA2 isn't as much a bad game as it is a blatantly obvious EA-prompted cash-in. No one with any shred of intelligence can deny that.

Quoted for truth. Played the demo and hated it. Played it at a friends house on a console after I saw what they did to the tired combat they've had since Baulder's Gate. Hated it after 2 hours.

Yeah I've seen the game and I know the ending. All I can say is glad I didn't go through it all, I just watched a cutscene here or there.

Definitely agree with his last statement. It's Bioware, they should know better, this is obviously an EA cash cow ripe with more DLC then you can shake a stick at.

Remember when Bioware really only sold NWN packs for DLC? These were pretty big set pieces and added a lot to the community modding tools. You can't mod DA for shit like you can NWN. That's sad.

Matter o' fact I'mma drop in NWN and NWN2, more content there and the same effect as anything Dragon Age did.

 

[Happy Sock Puppet]

I hate it when people start acting immature. This thread seems to be a perfect example.
It's feels like its become socially unacceptable to want some quality and depth to game.
It's our job as the customer to call a company out when they release a sub-standard product, don't forget that.
Sure, it was never going to be Baldur's Gate 3, but a sequel should build on what a game gave us last time. DA2 just stripped things out.
Never mind the question of whether it was dumbed down. There was just WAY less variety and content. Plus, the awful, sequel-bait ending (which I suspect they'll try "fix" in DLC, at $15 or some rubbish).
But, we still had to pay full price. Or were at least expected to.

But I suppose the issue comes down to a simple question.
At the end of the game, did you have that wonderful feeling of satisfaction?
Origins was one of the best games I've ever played for this feeling.
At the end of DA2, it was empty, sudden, jarring and from Bioware, the masters of great epic tales, it felt like a gut punch.

I agree with you 100%.

But the combat was VASTLY improved. But doing that combat in the same 8 dungeons throughout the 60+ hour-long game...fail. By the 3rd year I knew where all the boss fights and combat was going to happen before it would happen.

Not to mention...the BUGS/EXPLOITS. OMG THE BUGS!!!

I am very solidly disappointed in Bioware. I 100% refuse to purchase the 15$ DLC that will inevitably be coming out soon. I paid 60$ for the game, I want to feel like I actually played it, instead of one long teaser for their DLC.

 

[smeghead25]

Oh yay, another random person giving their opinion on the internet. Thank God for that, it seems like there's just not enough of these guys these days.

Look, if you were expecting DA2 to be much good, then you're a bit of an idiot. It had a one year development cycle, while they have all the other shiot being made there too. I haven't played either of them, so I can't comment on the quality of the game (though I'm about to go and play DAO, it just finished downloading on Steam ) but I certainly am not expecting much from DA2, except more of the same but streamlined and missing content. That's what a 1 year dev cycle does to games.

 

[NotSoNimble]

I just realized something... the razorfisted guy complains about the cut-scenes (same as ffxiii) in the beginning of DA2... He also compares the game to older Bioware D&D games...

If you decide to play any of these old school rpgs, you will find that the first few hours are filled with an incredible amount of text, is it so wrong to replace this with cut-scenes?

Back in the day, we (me myself and I) would have loved for these types of things to be a cut-scene instead of an hour of text reading.

 

[Bobbity]

In relation to the final point made by the OP: Jade Empire had fixed companions, and they didn't try and sell us alternate appearance stuff then. Of course, that was before EA.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

I have mixed feelings about razorfist. I agree with some things he says and disagree with others. Also, his website design is terrible, he's an ad revenue whore (pop-ups everywhere on his site) and he thinks vlogging is a positive direction for a video reviewer to go.

WHICH IT IS NOT. VLOGS SUCK. Vlogs are for lazy hacks who can't edit or do post-production. People only use vlogs because they're too lazy or untalented to create a proper review/video.

As for Dragon Age, I have the original game but didn't get too far because of a semi-early dungeon which basically requires a strategy guide, and Bioware's fetishistic level of mage love (which razorfist mentions, oddly) and how you MUST play as a mage not to be constantly quicksaving and quickloading through the early game.

Keep in mind, dear Escapists, that this website is actually kind of legendary for giving Dragon Age 2 a ridiculously high score compared to the industry and especially the user average. Consider how accusations of bias and poor reviewing skills might cut both ways, even to those who consider themselves "professionals."