1881

I don’t know if this applies to Dragon Age as much, since I haven’t played any of the DLC, but I’m currently playing through Mass Effect 2 for the first time, with all the DLC included, and it has a weird effect on the pacing of the game. Without any spoilers or hint of spoilers, I’ll just say that you’re told about a threat early in the game, and told to assemble a team, but not really told much about the nature of this threat. But the length of time it took me to assemble my team and get through all the DLC that’s integrated into the game, it felt like a really, really long time before I even got to know who I was fighting, and if they even had any relation to the enemies from the first game. I’m pretty sure Bioware didn’t intend for people to play for that long with such a weird stasis about the plot, and not knowing who the threat even is.

So that’s one potential negative I can tell you about on experiencing the game for the first time with all the DLC as part of the whole package.

To be sure, it makes for a hell of a bargain. But the game wasn’t really designed like that, or meant to be played in that way as originally envisioned. So it’s not necessarily that the “game is finished” when all the DLC is part of the package.

OTOH, Fallout 3’s DLC was really well integrated into the game. That’s because of the nature of Fallout 3’s plot and quests. Fallout 3 is a game where you go seek out the plot. It’s not necessarily a linear affair like Bioware’s games. So I’d absolutely recommend Fallout 3 GOTY edition every time over the base game. That’s why I’m waiting for New Vegas’ GOTY edition.

1882

Maybe I’m stepping on an established MMO term. By spamming abilities I meant that you could click one off every 4-5 seconds in a pipeline. Does fatigue even affect super moves anymore? I know at level 6-8 in DAO I never would have been able to use that many abilities in one battle. I had to plan carefully for what I wanted to do. The tradeoff is you get more action and less auto-attack.

Hey, did anyone notice that if you teleport-backstab through the charging ogre, you come out the other side doing a knockback animation? The one time I thought I could use the new direct/1:1 combat design in a clever and tactical way, and they don’t support it. Haha. Way to go, guys.

1883

That’s how Mass Effect 2 plays even without the DLC!

1884

My experience with the PC Dragon Age 2 demo:

Part 1: Set up 1900x1200, very high detail, DirectX 11. Run. Everything loads, but before it can get to the “New Game” screen it tells me it can’t find //HardDisk2/something/whatever. Uhhh… what? So I click “Retry,” and, for the first time in the history of Abort, Retry, Fail, it works. Now we’re on the title screen.

New game. Let’s go with, uh, a Warrior. This is supposed to be more action-y right? Watch a minute or two of the cutscene before I start spamming escape. Now I’m in combat. Pew pew. Ok, now I’m in a short cutscene. Man, this is one hell of a dramatic pause. Wait, is it a load time? Oh. It’s a crash.

Part 2: Turn on DirectX 9 (I mean, what else could it be?). It runs, but everyone’s shinier and sharper. Ok. Warrior, go. Mash escape through all cutscenes unless I have to pick a dialog option. Get a suspicious “Loading…” every time I mash escape. Cool story Bioware.

And, oh my god, my voice is queer. Bad theatre major in denial about his sexuality stumbling through an in-class read of Henry VIII replete with tryhard Victorian accent queer. Mash escape. Click options randomly just to get back to the combat demo. Wish my protagonist was mute like in the first one.

Man, this Warrior is getting boring. Shoulda gone a Mage like I typically do. Oh, I leveled. Time to assign a skill point.

What? This is it for skill trees? Ugh.

Let’s try the Mage. Why is my Fireball yellow and my ice gray? Is this the “dark and gritty” post-processing filter?

Mash escape alot. Kill darkspawn at no risk to my personal safety outside of one time when my AI decided not to do anything. Appear in a Dwarf Town. Mash escape. Somehow get into a fight with raiders. Kill those. Go into a Chantry. Mash escape, click a conversation randomly. Boss fight with the fat Chantry owner. Kill 'em at no risk to myself (I don’t think my AI was even using special moves).

That’s apparently it. DRAGON AGE II on my screen, and back to the New Game menu.

I’ll wait for the Witcher, thanks.

1885

I loved the demo. For the story and the camera work, it is leagues beyond DAO. And the combat is insane, but I agree it is a departure from it’s RPG roots. As predicted, it is the Mass Effect 2 we have been expecting.

STILL, I will not buy this game until the Ultimate edition. Sorry Bioware, your DLC scheme is too dumb for me to buy it now :(.

1886

60s cooldown on my mage’s heal spell–so basicly she got to stand around using her staff to do weak single target damage?! Very showy, but ugh. On the bright side, I downloaded the demo to see whether, despite Bioware’s marketing, I might find the game engaging, and it made my decision clear. Sorry to disappoint Frank by withholding my tears, but really, if Bioware doesn’t care to make games I want to buy and play, that’s more time and money to do other things.

1887

Played through the demo once last night and I’m sold. I didn’t really need to be sold since I’ve already preordered, but there you go. I dig the art direction and the graphical style. More stylized than the original, and I like that. Combat is a lot of fun. Responsive, as frank aptly put it. With my warrior I can quickly shield bash one guy to the ground, pommel-strike stun the next, and then spin around and attack the third guy behind me all in just a few clicks. And it works. The fights were very easy (only the ogre gave me any trouble, but nothing a couple health potions couldn’t fix), but then again I expected that in a demo that’s locked on “normal” difficulty.

Overall, I’m excited. Any doubts I had are gone. I’m not 100% sold on the new interface, but I don’t mind it. I’m sure it’ll grow on me. I cannot wait until the 8th.

Whose voice is male Hawke? I recognize it, and I don’t know from where.
edit: Bioware forums say it’s the guy who voiced Vaughan and Ser Bryant in Origins. So there’s that. I thought it was a decent enough voice, and certainly better than the male Shepard voice in Mass Effect.

1888

Does this mean that you can save your brother in the full game? It looked like he was present in some of the later scenes in the in-game movies that they show in between playable areas.

1889

SPOILERS:

Carver’s fate depends on your class. If you play a mage, Bethany dies in his place.

1890

I played both.

I won’t post much because I am basically in the same boat as – on the fence…not sure 60 bucks is a good value yet.

The 360 version just seemed ugly-the shuffling is just horrid but the controls were fine- actually the camera worked well for me.

The PC was much better looking- the animations were still wonky but but it is very pretty. The controls and action- it was mentioned that you were standing knife out next to someone and you are whacking someone completely different. It all seemed a bit confusing but that may just be getting used to the actual combat mechanics. That and my hand really started to get tired from clicky clicky…

If I do get it, I will definitely go the PC route- just for looks alone- which is what really turned me off of the last one.

1891

I played the 360 demo last night, and it was…meh, for me.

I think I really just dislike party based action rpg’s. Felt like I’m watching the computer play

1892

This is the correct answer.

Oh yeah, something else I noticed was the really weird free movement. My character seems to run with a slight shudder. (PC version). And of course the complaints about the bland starting area - wasn’t Lothering just overrun? Shouldn’t there still be some countryside rather than this volcanically glazed barrenness? I’m pretty sure I remember the Wilds being well, wild. Ponds and trees and wolves and whatnot.

1893

I really like DA 2, it took the series where it needed to go imo. For the record I love Mass Effect 2 and DA:O felt clumsy and dated to me when I played it.

My 2 major gripes are:

  1. Everyone has the same 20 yr old body, but their face is what makes them old. Whatever, most RPGs are guilty of this.

  2. The walk animations suffer from some major skating. Sync those footfalls with the run speed guys! And add a little oomph to the steps to make it feel like you’re running instead of gliding on air.

#2 really bugged me for some reason.

1894

I played enough of the demo to get a feel for the combat (through the flight from Lothering) but didn’t feel any need to finish it. I’d rather not have any more plot points ruined before I get my hands on the game. Plus it’s very hard to care about the plot when I have literally no investment in any of the characters involved.

There seems to be very little difference in the combat (as compared to DA:O) save for forcing the player to mash A constantly while waiting for ability cooldowns to expire. I’m all for an active fighting system, but I don’t think replacing auto attack with mashing A results in an improvement over the DA:O system. Sure, it makes combat feel more frenetic and fast paced, but honestly for me having to mash A only served to distract me from managing my party in any way. Sure, I can pause and issue orders just as I did in DA:O, but I feel totally distracted by the plight of the character I’m controlling because I’m forced to press A a thousand times. I just don’t think it adds anything good to the combat. It certainly doesn’t ruin it, but if they wanted to go in a more actiony direction with the combat, they should’ve gone further instead of simply stapling A button mashing onto the existing combat systems.

1895

Oh God not this again.

Even ignoring those of us who liked what was unique about DAO, in no way does DA2 take the series to an endpoint. They only took a small step in one direction. They still have all the underlying numbers, the zooming into position, the knockback animation because a flag said you got hit even if your character is nowhere near. It’s at this halfway point between serious tactical combat and an action game. It does neither very well. They need to throw it all out and start over. Based on the way Bioware reuses game engines, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

They did a much better job faking it in ME2. It might not have been the best cover shooter in the world, but the seams didn’t show as much as they do in DA2 so far.

1896

I agree with Tim. DA2’s demo was fun, but it didn’t exactly set my world on fire. I, too, was annoyed that I got hit by the ogre’s charge when executing my teleport (I actually teleported and then flew in a random direction.) I like the changes, but it would be nice if they could take it further.

1897

Played the PC demo. Some things were less bad than I thought. I’d agree that overall, the environments looks worse than the first game. They don’t look bad, per se, and some of the differences may just be texture and rendering limitations of the demo.

The camera is kind of a surprise, because overall I think it’s an improvement. I do miss the isometric view, and I wish that the camera would let you pull back a little more, or see behind the selected character. But all the new camera feels more consistent. The first game had this weird schizophrenic duality, where you could tell that the game was originally designed to be isometric, and then they tried to shoehorn a 3rd-person camera in at some later date. I ended up playing the whole game isometrically, since it generally looked and played better that way. The camera in this demo, though, works quite well, and does a much better job of giving you a tactical view while still letting you see the game world all the way out to the horizon. The backdrop in the wasteland area had some nice, subtle animation.

I like the new UI quite a bit. It’s minimalist and functional, but still attractive. The skill tree and character attributes UI is also very slick, simple, and informative. I have a few beefs–for instance, I don’t like how it puts all your abilities on the left side of the screen, but then puts the popup help text all the way over on the right. It seems like those should pop up over whatever skill you are examining. It’s a minor quibble, though.

Combat… I dunno. I don’t mind the faster pace–pause and give orders still works just fine. It feels like attacks provide less visual feedback. I used to love the pommel strike ability in DAO, for instance, but in this demo, the cooldown indicator is the only way I can tell that my character even performed it. Is there really no AoE friendly fire in this game? Because that seems like a really terrible change. A game-breaker, even. I loved the tactical aspect of the combat in DAO, and I’m not really interested in a game that’s just about spraying damage everywhere. That’s sort of what the battles in this demo felt like. They were also kind of dull–large numbers of disposable foes charging you in waves. The ogre fight was a pale shadow of the first ogre fight in DAO. As with the visuals, though, this might not be representative of the rest of the game.

So I guess I’m not totally put off by it, but I’m not really sold, either. And I’ve already been disappointed by one $60 game this month, so I’ll likely wait to hear feedback from Angie and others before taking the plunge.

1898

Good points Ben. Friendly fire is in, but only on Nightmare difficulty.

I also agree with Tim, there’s nothing about the gameplay in DA2 that makes the ME2 comparisons feel apt. I suspect this meme will continue though, and that makes me sad.

1899

Seriously?!? It’s not even a toggle but you have to amp it up to nightmare? Wow.

I’m guessing it’s foolish to hope that your fellow characters would avoid wandering into an ongoing AOE on their own, in that case.

1900

Didn’t DA:O have at least some friendly fire damage from spells, even on Normal? If I didn’t, I’ll feel like a fool because I played the game as if it did, making sure to clear guys out before firing off a big spell.