Dragon Age sequel official

razarok · 2011-02-22T07:26:18.000Z

Tim James:

My biggest concern is the combat. I don’t mean the mechanics or animations or anything. I want to know whether the encounters are crafted to be difficult and tactically interesting, or merely a few random speedbumps thrown around. That’s how it was in Awakenings. The high-level characters might have contributed to that, so I’d better not get the same feeling early in this game.

Wait, the demo’s not the story/dream sequence part where the character is overpowered, is it?

Only a dozen more posts until codpiece man moves to the previous page.

I agree. Also spamming (A) in lieu of auto-attack got old pretty quickly. Additionally I’m annoyed that they “Mass Effect’ed” the conversation system. They really cut down on conversation options.

I’ll have to see how the PC demo plays, however at this point I think I might skip DA 2 for a while at least. Lots of other games coming out after all, such as yakuza 4, ar tonelico 3 etc.

TimJames · 2011-02-22T07:31:09.000Z

BroadwayJoe:

Yeah, it is a flashback/story sequence in the gray rocky mountains. The character seems pretty powerful, at least in the first part.

Okay, that part will be useless to me. Do they go to a normal low-level party after that? Maybe an ogre fight at the end or something?

razarok · 2011-02-22T07:34:41.000Z

Tim James:

Okay, that part will be useless to me. Do they go to a normal low-level party after that? Maybe an ogre fight at the end or something?

I haven’t completely finished the demo, but after the dream sequence you use a low-level 3 man party, pick up one additional char and then do battle against an ogre and ~10 small enemies.

malkav11 · 2011-02-22T08:44:48.000Z

I found the setpiece encounters in Awakening to be very tense, tactical and challenging. The various minor clumps of darkspawn and similar were little more than speed bumps, but then, they’d already been that for some time in the late game of Origins. Levels make a difference.

TimJames · 2011-02-22T10:09:29.000Z

malkav11:

I found the setpiece encounters in Awakening to be very tense, tactical and challenging. The various minor clumps of darkspawn and similar were little more than speed bumps, but then, they’d already been that for some time in the late game of Origins. Levels make a difference.

I don’t remember any of them. The bosses were pushovers from high-level ability spam, and that’s fine. But even the setpieces seemed thrown together. Desslock mentioned this in his review of Awakening and I wasn’t able to suspend disbelief at that point.

The early power curve and balance might help in DA2. I’ll check out the second half of the demo and see if I notice a certain feel one way or the other.

Nithrakis · 2011-02-22T10:49:22.000Z

I’m playing the PC demo now – god I hate the GUI. Am I alone here?

malkav11 · 2011-02-22T10:55:58.000Z

You didn’t have any trouble with two dragons at once? Or the darkspawn mage and the golem (I forget what they were called) that ended, in my case, with 3/4ths my party down and Oghren overdosing on health poultices just to stay alive long enough to pound the mage’s face in?

TimJames · 2011-02-22T11:07:11.000Z

malkav11:

You didn’t have any trouble with two dragons at once? Or the darkspawn mage and the golem (I forget what they were called) that ended, in my case, with 3/4ths my party down and Oghren overdosing on health poultices just to stay alive long enough to pound the mage’s face in?

No, but straight difficulty fighting a boss or two isn’t what I’m looking for. I liked the battles in DAO with lots of enemies to account for. Think about the altar in the snowy mountain cave in the Redcliffe/urn arc. They spaced things out so the young dragons arrived behind you halfway through the fight as you were climbing the stairs. They applied that same care to a lot of the minor battles too.

They also had some random darkspawn clumps like you say. But it seemed like that was all you got in Awakening other than an occasional tank-and-spank battle.

divedivedive · 2011-02-22T12:48:29.000Z

I liked the demo. I played the original on PC and didn’t think much of it and had no plans to get the sequel. But I may change my mind – I’m one of those guys who likes streamlining the interface, but I can see where people who like to intricately plan and strategize each character’s moves might be put off by what’s been done here.

malkav11 · 2011-02-22T12:49:43.000Z

Well, all I can say to that is that it’s tough to make group fights challenging when there are so many vicious, vicious high level abilities. My mage had a Keeper ability that did something like 400 damage each to every enemy in range, no friendly fire possible. Enough to oneshot most lower-ranking foes. And that was just one ability.

walTer · 2011-02-22T12:59:32.000Z

What I am really waiting for is the pc/360 comparison. I would love to play this on my nice big lcd while sitting on my recliner but not if it looks as bad on the 360 as the first one did and not if it takes so many things out of the console to make it basically an entirely different game.

JetLagger · 2011-02-22T14:22:06.000Z

Are the interface options unlocked in the PC version of the demo? I only had about 15 min of play time before I had to leave for work but those options seem to be locked on the Xbox demo version. I would like to turn on the combat damage numbers.

-Tim

also Press A and sometimes Y.

Killzig · 2011-02-22T14:31:11.000Z

JetLagger:

Are the interface options unlocked in the PC version of the demo? I only had about 15 min of play time before I had to leave for work but those options seem to be locked on the Xbox demo version. I would like to turn on the combat damage numbers.

-Tim

also Press A and sometimes Y.

No, options are just as gimped in PC version. One plus to the PC version is that autocombat works so no spamming of the A button.

Alistair · 2011-02-22T14:48:30.000Z

Am I the only person who can’t download the blasted thing?

stusser · 2011-02-22T14:51:15.000Z

Is the demo part of the full game?

If so, do I really have to play it to unlock the free DLC? I would rather wait for the finished product.

Murbella · 2011-02-22T14:51:21.000Z

Alistair:

Am I the only person who can’t download the blasted thing?

Nope, still waiting for it to be out psn. Although no doubt i will regret trying it on ps3 before pc.

Knightsaber · 2011-02-22T14:53:47.000Z

Totally sold after playing through the PC demo.

Alan_Friesen · 2011-02-22T14:54:49.000Z

What did they do to [PC] Dragon Age?

The camera angle in particular drives me nuts. The demo, the entire 10 minutes that I could stand, gave me motion sickness. In DA:O, you could zoom out and the camera would remain static unless you moved. In DA2, if the character moves, the camera swings around. Plus, the camera is so zoomed in so close that you can’t see what’s behind you. It feels utterly claustrophobic!

Thank God there was a demo.

Killzig · 2011-02-22T14:58:56.000Z

Alistair:

Am I the only person who can’t download the blasted thing?

Try the torrent on gamershell

http://www.gamershell.com/download_70000.shtml

Showing over 1000 seeders at the moment.

Stusser, yes you need to complete demo to get the item.

_Poe · 2011-02-22T14:59:30.000Z

Knightsaber:

Totally sold after playing through the PC demo.

Same here, though I was never really on the fence about getting it. The demo did settle the concern that the game might not work on my aging pc, as DA2 is butting up against the limit of my RAM. Worked fine despite a few loads that were in funny places. Like when the scene switches from the action to the dwarf storytelling, and you get a brief one second pause in the flow of the scene. Just makes it seem awkward, hopefully with some tweaks the full game will run fine.