I don’t see ME3 making any big changes, but I wonder if Bioware will go back to the drawing board for DA3. TW2 has nearly the same core style of outdoor dungeons and dialogue, but everything feels much richer and more vivid.
Maybe they’ve been working on engine improvements this whole time and just tossed DA2 out there in the interim.
I don’t even want to compare W2 against DA2, the failings there are so clear that you don’t need to compare it with W2 to see them. I was thinking on the Mass Effects, which is were they were clearly pushing the action/rpg angle. I own both, but imho ME1 failed as an Action RPG because the mediocre shooting (and not that interesting setting, but that can’t be fixed now), and ME2 had better shooting (and even then as a pc player i have to say it was still a bit meh, not on the same level as a real shooter) but maybe they dropped too much the rpg aspect, and while the side quests were very good the main plot was forgettable. It seems they can’t get the mix and quality of action, rpg and story right, and The Witcher 2 has shown it’s possible.
But i am straying too far with this, this is not a Bioware thread.
Returning to The Witcher 2. Another minor complaint. The music is good, but they didn’t use it as much as i would like it! There were occasions of running in an empty forest where i thought it would be a good moment to have the music in the background… but the music wasn’t there. There was also a few cutscens with key moments of drama, mistery, whatever… and they felt a bit empty, they lacked a dramatic music track while i was watching it unfold.
I really liked the actual forest sounds of the wildlife and such, so I’m happy they didn’t feel the need to constantly waste all the great ambient sound by covering it up.
Hell, I’d take the Witcher 1 against Dragon Age 2 any day. W2 versus DA2 isn’t even a fair fight.
Man, CD Projekt RED bitch slaps BioWare up and down the block, but I was thinking the EXACT same thing when I played The Witcher, which used BioWare’s Neverwinter Nights engine.
I would say Mass Effect 2 already showed it’s possible with shooting, but my opinion of ME2 is clearly several light years higher than yours. The Witcher 2 proves it’s possible with melee combat, which Dragon Age failed to do twice already. I think the argument could definitely be made that Witcher 2 is about as good a hack-and-slash as Mass Effect 2 is a shooter, which is to say not tremendously great on its own, but mitigated by the presentation and other trappings of the story and gameplay structure.
Wrong. Dragon Age: Origin never tried to be an action RPG so it could not have possibly failed at it.
But nice try trying to loop it in with Dragon Age 2’s failure though. It would be more appropriate to cite Jade Empire as BioWare’s first foray and complete failure in the Action RPG space. Boy did that game’s combat suck.
I’m enjoying TW2 a lot but I’m also not dripping drool like I was when playing ME2 which is still my favorite game of the decade. I think CD Project still needs to work on their character development but they are getting there.
Ended another 2 variations. I suspect the “16 endinds” is a bit hyperbolic, there are 4 ‘main’ endings, with extra variations depending of the fate of two characters (4x2x2= 16). Still it’s nice to have four ending and i like not being forced into killing some characters because the writer says they have to die.
Ahaha, awesome line on Chapter 2, the shop assistant in camp
“At first I was going to say “go away, emo” but then I saw you were a good chap Geralt”.
It didn’t try very hard, but it certainly wanted you to think it was. At least until you’d already spent money on it.
But nice try trying to loop it in with Dragon Age 2’s failure though. It would be more appropriate to cite Jade Empire as BioWare’s first foray and complete failure in the Action RPG space. Boy did that game’s combat suck.
DA2 is indeed reminiscent of JE’s failures in many respects, that’s a good call. I think I’d blocked JE out almost entirely, otherwise I would have mentioned it, too.
I preferred Jade Empire much more than DA2. At least JE had a somewhat interesting story and setting.
Not at all.
Dragon Age was announced way back in 2004 after the release of KotOR, BioWare’s first console RPG as a bone to their core PC fan base at the time. BioWare always touted it as a party-based spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate from as far back as I remember…not an action RPG. I remember them doing a series of Baldur’s Gate retrospectives leading up to the release to drum up nostalgia. Not sure how you could think otherwise…unless you’re telling me the terrible EA marketing actually fooled you.
Didn’t fool me because I had followed the game and played it in the months leading up to release. But it was portrayed as a fantasy version of Mass Effect by the marketing, which most certainly counts as the game trying to be something it’s not, even if that was coming from EA rather than BioWare. This applies in particular to the console versions, which even had the camera viewpoint defaulting to a more Mass Effect POV.
It was terrible regardless, so it’s pretty much a moot point, and DA2’s problems were entirely different beasts on top of that. I just hope The Witcher 2 can positively influence the next installment in the DA series.
Ummm, you definitely sound fooled given what you’ve already posted. Your statement above makes me laugh. But marketing said so…really?! Marketing is for the errant masses, not us in the know. And who could forget the embarrassingly bad and misleading appeal to joe gamer that was Dragon Age: Origins marketing? The “New Shit”…etc.
Fact: Dragon Age: Origins was thought to be a PC only game and spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate for years…not mere months up to release. I can’t speak to the bastard red-headed step children that were the console versions which were farmed to a different studio, but porting a near-finished PC only developed RPG to a console = shit can’t be as good.
And dude, I already know you hate the game, but I cannot abide you creating revisionist history with my '09 GOTY!
Arguing that Origins was bandied around by marketing as a action RPG, let alone even designed as one, is like arguing that Duke Forever is a tactical, squad-based shooter.
But obviously arguing for reality with Matt is a waste of time here. As my 7yo daughter would say, “yuh huh!!”
I just finished The Witcher 2 and I’m very impressed. I had high hopes for this game and it managed to surpass my expectations, I loved the setting, characters, decisions… Of course there are some problems with the game (inventory, a few minor bugs, combat maybe a tad too difficult) but they didn’t detract from the overall quality IMO. My favorite RPG in a really long time (sorry Mass Effect 2!)
Jab
2058
The bug I was talking about earlier has now become repeatable . What is happening is if I try to use a bomb either on an enemy who is moving around a lot or after a roll, the game gets stuck in the zoomed in bomb throwing mode and I lose all control over Geralt except for movement. The only way to get out of it is to get hit on purpose.
Since I’m focusing on alchemy and bombs the game has become almost unplayable for me. Any idea if this is going to get fix with the new patch or am I the only one reporting this?
Razgon
2059
Say…whats up with all the food vendors selling food there’s no use for?
