Susan Arendt said:
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Oh, I know it, do I? Gosh! Also, we don't do scores out of 10. Just a minor nitpick.
We gave it the score we did because we believed it was an excellent game. We never said it was perfect - we've never said any game was perfect. We didn't feel pressured to say it was good because of review copies or invites or any such bullshit like that. We actually just genuinely liked it.
If you can't accept that because your friends all hated the game, there's really not much else to be said.
I'm sorry I did upset you, Susan, but I scpecifically stated that my friends have specific tastes and I focused on opinions of fans (or rest of the gaming press for that matter) trying to remain objective.
What I hold against the DA2 review is not a strong opinion of the reviewer, such things are to be encouraged, and I like how I basically know what reviewers like Greg or you (and I particularly enjoy your reviews for example) are going to say.
The problem of DA2 review is that it's not informative, out of respect for you I actually went back to read it once more. There's not a single mention of recycling areas, and by the end of act 1 you've seen
one goddamn cave at least five times. That's just attrocious and how a reviewer could fail to mention it?
"In fact, like Uncharted 2 and Empire Strikes Back, Dragon Age II is the rare sequel that improves upon its already excellent predecessor. " is such a stretch it's almost funny. I kept reading for any proof of such a huge improvement but the first proof of it is that... diague wheel has been brought from ME series. Not only it is insignificant after drawing a comparison between ESB and DA2 but this wheel is famous for often giving you little information on what you are actually going to say. But what I'm really baffled by is that the reviewer openly states that you need to have "consistency" to recieve bonuses. What does it mean? That means that the game basically foces you to constantly pick "up up up" or "down down down" in dialogue (to get bonuses) killing all the roleplaying in a roleplaying game!
After that we learn that the combat has been simplified and tactical elements became optional and that apparently liking BG2esque tactical combat is having OCD nowadays. But to be honest this is not true, you could get DA2 combat in DA1 by... turning down difficulty level. And reviewer once again forgets to mention one of the bigger gripes fans had with the game - endless waves of monsters appearing all round you, often going *poof* out of thin air.
"Any complaints I may have about Dragon Age II are minor annoyances, easily ignored for the leaps made in other areas" - again, where are those leaps that this game with
one year of development time made? All I see is recycling content and cutting corners (but maybe it's just me)
"Not only does Dragon Age II play better, it looks absolutely gorgeous." - it doesn't, it simply does not look better. It looks the same at best, and it looks crap at worst. It's the same engine with one year development time.
And finally:
"
Bottom Line: A pinnacle of role-playing games with well-designed mechanics and excellent story-telling, Dragon Age II is what videogames are meant to be."
I'm glad that ultimately it's gamers that proved this review to be false. After the first week, sales generated by marketing hype and reviews like yours hit the bottom. DA sales were rising throughout
months and led to bigger sales than DA2. I think that this fact coupled with the news that EA just axed the expansion is the best testament to the accuracy of your review.
You have to understand, people are not mad about you for having a positive opinion an a game. It's about letting this opinion completely blind you, devoiding your review from any true substance and critique. At the end of the day, what differs a true review from a marketing ad is not who writes the cheque, but rather objective and proffesional analysis of a game that gamers expect from a critic. And in that respect, DA2 article was a failure that indeed damaged your reputation severely.
