Fuck it, there are complaints to be made about the demo, but ninja rogue has me totally sold. I had so much fun playing as dual-wield rogue. I’ll try the other classes later, but opening boxes + teleporting and being generally hilarious means there’s no way I am playing anything else first.
I am fine with the UI. It tells me exactly what I really need to know and stays out of the way. I hate UIs with skulls and dragons and leaves on them.
It does feel kind of inelegant all around. The camera going back to a default angle after cutscenes, the way cutscenes load in, not getting really firm feedback on whether or not I have successfully changed my target people getting wide, crazy eyes in the middle of conversation for no reason… there are areas for improvement. But fuck it, I cartwheeled all the way down a hallway trying to hit someone and it made me laugh like a crazy person, I’m not even mad.
The differences in the reaction to the demo are interesting, to say the least. D/l it now after getting home from work.
Sarkus
1823
People, please mention which version you are trying when posting impressions. There are a lot of indications that the two versions (PC vs. console) are different in a number of ways. If I’m playing it on PC then your impression of UI and control issues on the 360demo do not necessarily apply.
This demo is shit. Half the time, I can’t cast spells and I don’t know why. Spells that are cast can fail with no real feedback. Jesus, what have they done?
Yeah, I’m not understanding the positive feedback regarding the demo (PC version here).
Technically it’s a bit of a mess. I experienced several odd graphical glitches and the awkward loading pauses during and prior to cut scenes were awful. Nothing kills a dramatic cut scene like having it pause while a loading message appears.
The dialogue is amongst the worst I have heard in a BioWare game and the emotional moments in the demo only left me flat. I didn’t care one iota for any of the characters.
The narrative cuts between the gameplay and the Varric scenes felt very abrupt it really screwed up the pacing for me. Hopefully this is simply a side effect of the demo.
The graphics are terrible considering the upcoming competition. The level design and encounters were what I’ve come to expect from BioWare – narrow corridors with waves of spawned in monsters. No exploration whatsoever. It all feels very artificial.
I have this pre-ordered but I"m not feeling good about it. Luckily there is a bunch of RPG goodness coming out this year.
I really like the demo( which seems to be basically the PAX demo), it seems a major improvement over the first game. At PAX the PR guy spoke about three buckets of improvement: story, graphics and combat. It’s impossible to tell from the demo, but given that BioWare is basically the Valiant Comics of the video game world I have no doubt the story will be fantastic. As for graphics they seem much improved. It may not be the prettiest game out there, but they have certainly shaken of the medievel puppet show thing. Art direction and character animations are much improved and the visuals now seem to enhance the experience rather than detract from it.
My only real niggle lies in the combat. It certainly is improved, but pressing A faster does not totally revolutionize things. I really think this game needs a block/dodge mechanic that essentially trades stamina for taking damage for the melee classes. It would be cool if the rouges could dodge for better position while the fighters blocked. Perhaps with thye two moves having different stamina costs to reflect the advantage gained as well as create more variety in the character classes. it seems like this could be easily mapped to one of the shoulder buttons, instead of having two buttons to scroll through the characters.
All in all though this seems to be a major improvement over the first game, at least for use console players.
Tried the PC version, i’m sold.
There are some flaws of course but this was my demo experience:
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“loading…” between scenes and dialogue sequences/choices… really? And it’s not a matter of graphic overload or whanot, it’s just… something odd with the coding I guess?
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graphic wise it’s more of the same, nothing new besides MASSIVE CLEAVAGE on all females so far (I’m not on the “graphics must be awesome” crew but it does seem like a DLC for DA1 instead of a brand spanking new chapter)
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Flemeth got… younger? Come on, that’s way too much retconning, I can accept the whole qunari-to-draenei thing and the new darkspawn actually look better in my opinion but Flemeth turned from an old hag into a semi-sexy MILF? Really?
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MASSIVE CLEAVAGE, makes me want to roll an incestuous lesbian Hawke (I kid…)
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Combat feels more hectic, more… console-ish. Lots of stuff was disabled in the demo, I got that, but some stuff like damage, misses, etc, should be present at the get go.
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Passive party wide buffs not displayed on other characters besides the one casting it; I had Bethany with the Nature buff thingy which supposedly buffs the entire party but there was no buff indication on Hawke or anyone else and no indication on the character sheet thingie.
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MASSIVE CLEAVAGE! Even Hawke’s mother is a hottie.
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Male Hawke rigging seems odd; he’s way too thin where he shouldn’t be and there’s something just wrong with that anatomy, hope in the full game we can make a more balanced/realistic physique.
Overall I can say that it felt like the beginning of a new DLC to DA1 and that, for me, is a good thing, I was actually afraid my rig wouldn’t run it and it run splendidly on max settings (although I have my doubts about the “loading…” in the dialogue choices, either bad coding or memory hogging or whatever, not technically savvy enough to understand what’s wrong with it).
Yeah, I’m buying it.
From what I can tell, you’re buying it for the MASSIVE CLEAVAGE!
Considering my RPG role model Geralt is now no longer a misogynistic, philandering manwhore I have to turn to other games for the MASSIVE CLEAVAGE… and enthusiastic fighting in between.
They’ve already said on the forums that the Loading… between cutscenes is not in the final build, so that would help a lot with presentation.
But I take it that the “MASSIVE CLEAVAGE” cited by Sir Digby, would make it into the final build?
Dhruin
1832
Mildly disappointed in the PC version. I knew they weren’t improving what I wanted from DA:O but it’s lost the tactical aspect for me almost altogether. With the speed, lack of feedback and the camera whipping around, I don’t feel as comfortable switching characters in the chaos. I’ll keep my preorder and just mow through for the story with the lowered difficulty.
Also, honorable mention indeed to the rogue class; just trying it feels like I’m actually playing a ninja assassin; lobbing a miasma bomb with the kick them the smoke, disappear and appear behind the enemy to stab at them while they are disoriented… brilliant.
Which reminds me, compared to DA1 the combat animations seem VERY fluid and pretty good.
Also, about the lack of feed back some people are mentioning, keep in mind the demo has lots, and I do mean LOTS, of options locked, stuff like floating combat damage, the (I assume) unit health bars popping when you use TAB, etc.
And apparently the demo HATES that I alt+tabbed to write this so, restarting my rogue experience. :)
Also, those brilliant minds at the DA forums (HA!) have conducted scientific research and concluded that The Witcher devs must have felt the game was too puerile so they toned down the female forms while the exact opposite occurred with DA; proof of the matter:
Ergo, Sir Digby was right about the MASSIVE CLEAVAGE.
Edit:
I felt the need to add this: I seriously don’t see what’s so wrong with having large breasted female characters; provided the game doesn’t go on a wild tangent and suddenly every single female in the game is large breasted, really, what’s so wrong about it? I really don’t get the crowd that considers players like me “immature” because I’m not bothered by a pair of digital breasts and provided the game entertains me I couldn’t care less if my female sidekick would certainly float in mid air given a strong wind.
Oops, high video settings are DX10+ only. I’ve been too lazy to install Windows 7 until I get my new PC in April/May.
Strongly disappointed with the PC demo. The game looks like a step backward from DA:O in both art assets and UI, the animations are clunky as hell, and combat is a frenetic, console-twitch-kiddie mess. Probably going to cancel my pre-order, too many other RPGs coming out to throw $60 at this one.
It’s this kind of stuff that bugs me about demos:
The PC demo has known performance and stability issues with DirectX 11. These have been fixed in the final game.
We recommend that all users disable DirectX 11 while playing the demo, including those with high-end machines.
from here.
Too, loading between cutscenes not in final game? I mean, if the demo isn’t showing off the game to its best, then what exactly is the point of the demo other than to give people the wrong idea, and likely a worse one at that? Very bizarre. No wonder I’ve always skipped demos and I’m not really eager to install this one.
More and more, I’m honestly starting to think someone at Bioware is deliberately trolling PC gamers.
I’m waiting, myself; if a demo is half-baked, then what’s the point in trying it?
I don’t get this. I was pausing constantly to reassess the battlefield and give orders when necessary. It was just way more fun to watch after I unpaused because I didn’t have 3 seconds of shuffling into place before abilities started firing.
I agree.
I seem to have found a bug, maybe it’s on my end though: whenever I finish the starting story with a rogue character, after killing the ogre, and I get to the customization screen the next screen turns black and I crash to desktop. Pity.
Edit: not on my end it seems, lots of people with the same issue, kinda makes one think that Bioware is riding on the hype and not checking stuff before releasing it…
Also, I fixed it by disabling v-sync.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/Dragon-Age-II/Dragon-Age-II-Demo-Technical-Support/Crashes-6148016-1.html
Dhruin
1840
Just different opinions? I didn’t really notice the “shuffling” when I was playing DA:O but the pace and chaos of this makes it hard for me to keep track. Yes, I can pause - but then characters blink in and out and the camera whips around when I release.
