Dragon Age 2 Demo: First impressions?
polycounter lvl 10
Hey guys. Has anyone played the Dragon Age 2 demo? If yes, let me know what you think.
Here's the link, just in case:
http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/demo/
IMO: The Story and Staging of Dragon Age 2 has lost a lot of epicness and is more of an action adventure stage and story going on there. It has many elements, used in the movie 300: The style, the slow motion scenes etc.
The Dialog system is awesome, i liked that.
In general i liked the game, but one thing annoyed me more than anything:
The Gameplay speed.
I played as a mage and it was really fast. I mean at the beginning I thought it was some kind of processor bug or something until i realized it was meant to be played in that speed.
That really annoyed me. The special style (colour palette etc) of the game is more or less a matter of taste i guess, i personally don't like it that much. I guess the speed part is because they wanted to make the game more attractive to console players, not that i would really know, i am just guessing here. I somehow wanted a setting similar to Dragon age 1.
I don't really know what to think of the game.. What are your thoughts?
Cheers,
Alex
Here's the link, just in case:
http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/demo/
IMO: The Story and Staging of Dragon Age 2 has lost a lot of epicness and is more of an action adventure stage and story going on there. It has many elements, used in the movie 300: The style, the slow motion scenes etc.
The Dialog system is awesome, i liked that.
In general i liked the game, but one thing annoyed me more than anything:
The Gameplay speed.
I played as a mage and it was really fast. I mean at the beginning I thought it was some kind of processor bug or something until i realized it was meant to be played in that speed.
That really annoyed me. The special style (colour palette etc) of the game is more or less a matter of taste i guess, i personally don't like it that much. I guess the speed part is because they wanted to make the game more attractive to console players, not that i would really know, i am just guessing here. I somehow wanted a setting similar to Dragon age 1.I don't really know what to think of the game.. What are your thoughts?
Cheers,
Alex
Replies
I thought it was fun though. graphics seem kinda odd compared to the first one. Maybe not worse, but different. The thing that bothered me the most though was it seems to be suffering from "corridor syndrome" they put you in a huge landscape, with mountains in the distance and such. but you're limited to a set corridor with invisible walls keeping you in. I hope the other areas wont be that restrictive, I love me some exploring. especially in RPGs.
I miss the backstabbing area of the first game where positioning was important.
It does sort of feel like the mass effect-> mass effect2 transition, where stuff has been streamlined, but what's left feels really fast and solid.
I wonder how it plays on higher difficulties, since the demo was locked at normal.
Eld: Yes i agree. But didn't you think it was too fast, or am i the only one?
If it is more like ME2 then I will defiantly pick this up. But if in the end it is too much like Dragon Age 1 I will pass. Also hope the game isnt a crazy 60+ hours to beat it. 30 on ME2 was perfect for a long game without dragging on. Games that are too long suffer the fact that most people will never see the end except for the hardcore and that is a shame.
Hopefully all the data they gathered from ME2 helps them make ME3 and Dragon Age 2 better.
I don't get this mentality at all. But I'm really curious~
What's the difference between playing a really good game for 60 hours and 2 really good games for 30 hours each? How does the long one deteriorate after 30 hours?
I guess its understandable if the next 30 hours was just pure grind or some crap, but we aren't talking about specific games here, we are generalizing that all long games suffer in general for being too long.
Personally I love games that can keep me playing for 60 hours or more. It feels like great value for money and would only give me more reason to buy it.
I always considered "hardcore" gamers to be people who spend a considerable amount of time gaming each week (20 hours+ average per week)
There is no rule that says you must complete the 60 hour games within a couple of weeks so I don't see how being "hardcore" or not has anything to do with it.
Maybe it's a fear that you won't complete the game before the "next big thing" comes out, and you don't want to miss out on that "next big thing" when everyone else is playing it? Or maybe its just some kind of weird mentality where 30 hours of anything makes you sick of it and never want to touch it ever again.
Or maybe I'll just let you describe what it is instead of speculating
And as seen in the introduction, battling underpowered monsters is very much hack and slash, but I felt that the harder battles still retains a bit of the dragon age feel.
Inventory seems intact though, even though it was locked out in the demo.
It's like, even though its sad that the combat was tuned down, the things they made it into are fun to play with in their own way, so it balances out in a way.
It should probably play way better for console players though versus the first one.
Hit the space bar.
I quite liked it myself very fluid. being able to dodge back from the ogre was great. Also I was glad to see that you could customise the character.
Am I going mad or was the dwalves memory of hawks sister somewhat blown out of proportion? :poly136:
eld apart from the lack of backstab areas how did you find the combat tuned down, i just found it faster. which i liked.
Nope, noticed the same
Personally thought DA2 was fun. Looking forward to the release. Liking the new combat. Hate that I can't be a dwarf anymore
Personally if I read a review of a good game and it says "rather challenging" or "60 hours of play" this puts me off. You could say Im an intermediate gamer, I dont like casual games because they are thin and have no story most of the time, I dont like uber hardcore games because they are too laborious for someone like me who only has a quick 30 mins every few days to play some games. I want fun play mechanics with an intriguing story, I dont care about difficulty, I used to think it matters a lot but now Im not really bothered setting my games to ultra super wimp mode.
Ged: the think about Mass Effect and dragon age is you could finish them in about 20-30 hours. Its kind of up to you how deep you get.
The game-play, i felt, was slow. I always felt as though I was stuck in the middle of an animation or something. I don't know. It was strange.
So far, Dragon Age 2 feels more..fun.
The speed seems to improve on it, because after a while, fights became a chore. Even easy ones. Mage here. Fire there. Archer shoot.
Etc.
I dunno.
Its not exactly oh this is a 60 hour game its bad. Not at all, its just most gamers are not going to put in that amount of time to one game. Not even put in 30 hours. So it becomes disappointing when you dont get to see how things wrap up if you get invested in the story.
With a ton of amazing games out its either playing 2 different but great 30 hour experiences or 1 great 60 hour experience. And even then most games are around the 10 to 15hours mark. So with that in mind you could play 4 to 6 games in the time it takes most to finish Dragon Age or any equivalent game of that length.
Im not saying I dont like long games either. I put over 100hours in both pokemon and FFX and the number of days, DAYS I have spent playing WoW is sickening.
Oh and just as a point of reference. Mass Effect 2 which has more broad appeal then Dragon Age, is only about 30ish hours for a play through was only completed by roughly half of the people who started it. So if only half of the people who start your game see the ending thats kinda lame.
amen on the pokemon!
pokemon sucked up a lot of my free time too... shamefully speaking.
It's an interesting style - I noticed that when it shadow or gloom, characters had little to no lighting or shading on them at all, being just the diffuse. On account of that, everything in the diffuse is painted and shaded. Kind of interesting compromise.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the first Dragon Age a little, so I'll be playing this one too... But overall, this just feels like a huge let down. There was so much potential for such an awesome game. bummer.
That way both casual/hardcore whatever gamers get to enjoy the game.
Kinda gets tricky when the best parts of the game are the sidequests, eg. Oblivion
Played the demo last night on PS3 and got really worried when it starts with the close up of a lantern made out of a box primitive almost with super low res textures
Character models I really liked although the main dude looks like Daniel Faraday from 'lost' lol, I like that hes stylised slightly aswell, character design is really nice so far, didnt like the gypsy/pirate chick though (seems out of place and cliche almost) but loved the witch/dragon woman and theres a few seams popping around a few of the characters aswell, like his mothers chest
I honestly didnt think I would get this due to me not getting on with the first game but yea I will definetly get it now. the reviews said console gamers got a shit version anyways of the first game, might have another go
Sadly when i pre ordered the bioware edition i did for the 360 and was unaware of future me purchasing a beautiful desktop to run game likes DA2 beautifully on full highest graphics.
Love the new character look!
I like the cleaner art style and the default Hawke looks much improved. Armor looks much better and the blood seems to be toned down as well.
Combat was awesome! The new speed is great and more importantly the characters respond much more immediately. In DA1 the characters moved around a bit on their own so it felt more like issuing commands to an RTS unit. DA2 it feels like I'm actually controlling the character which opens up some very deep gameplay.
The rogue for example has a quick retreat ability where they dash backwards so when the Ogre winds up his big attack if you are quick you can dodge it. This is so much more fun then just increasing a dodge stat that randomly dodges an attack.
Overall I love the changes and I'm very excited for the game. I do wish they had a Mac demo so I could see if I should pick it up for Mac or PC, but I think the boxed version comes with both clients so I might not have to worry about it.
Anyone able to run it maxed?
Really? when I played it I didn't see that option and I have a Nvidia GTX 470.
kaze: switch renderer to DX 11 and mouse over the high setting. each setting level has a tool tip
I also didn't like that tactics didn't allow for self healing with items. Also, Carver won't use healing items. I love the new combat animations though. The battle seems much more fast paced over DAO.
I'm glad not everyone has the same views, or there would be no variation in games. I'm very disappointed that they do seem to be going in this direction. Mass effect is a different series but they seem to be trying to make them more and more similar and that's a real downer. Mass effect is a great series, but I don't want Dragon age to be the same thing in a fantasy setting; that's just redundant and frankly, boring.
Dragon Age 1 felt like a modern revival of the huge PC fantasy RPGs like baldurs gate etc. to me. It took my 80 hours to finish and I enjoyed just about every moment of it. If Dragon age 2 doesn't take me as long, I'll be a bit disappointed. The demo was good, but I have still have some doubts. We'll see...
r_fletch_r >> TBH I think they've gone way overboard with the T&A. Mass Effect 2 was pushing it with the Samara's ridiculous outfit (at least Miranda had good reasons for her appearance) but DAII is going nuts with it. I'm sure the characters will still be written well but it's hard to take them seriously with the enormous breasts and silly outfits.
Im willing to ignore her though haha as the rest was really good.
That she's black? (dark skinned complexion)
I think they were pushing it with Miranda, The bred to be sexy thing was all well and good but her costume and the constant lingering ass shots ruined her for me. Atleast they finally address this in the latest DLC.
http://www.ieldra.eu/masseffect2/Miranda177.jpg
I hope they treat her with a bit more respect in 3.
Given the rest of his post im thinking he was talking about the fact shes got stupidly big boobs and a silly outfit.
Klumpmeister >> Agreed
I'm not trying to be racial or anything. I just think it's funny that she's like the only dark skinned person in the game(so far). I don't think her breast size is that bad and it is possible to have a natural above average breast size. just sayin.
DA had characters of skintones other than white.
I'm sure you can custom make Hawke non-white in the full game too.
I'm sure this game isn't a covert racist white people only club.
... Crazyfool's post was clearly a response to acc's post previous.
I'm not having a go, but to say you're not being racially minded in such a post when that is indeed the sole subject of said post... Auch.
Greevar - for the PC version 'r' by default is 'action nearest target', if it's a corpse you go loot, if it's a live enemy you attack.
Personally I love the game thus far, having played the demo on 360 and PC.
The visual style gets a thumbs up from me, they managed to make it cleaner without hitting the "stylised/cartoony" barrier.
I'm most interested in how the story pans out in this with regards to the later DA DLC. Really digging the Flemeth re-design.
To say this is like ME -> ME2 is poppycock in my opinion.
It genuinely feels to me like they kept the best of DA and cut away the fat, making it more streamlined and responsive and not a dumbing down.
Backstabbing still counts for rogues and your enemies if you don't have the ability to negate the effect.
There's still friendly fire on harder difficulties and I found myself cycling through characters and dishing out the abilities/tactics as much as the last game.
I'm looking forward to this with the one hope that it lasts as long as DA did and that this game isn't just about gathering a party for 4/5's of the game for one small showdown at the end like ME2 was.
haha no, its the boobies, they are massive
why do you assume I think the game was trying being racist? But let's not get a head of ourselves and that just because you can make Hawke or Shepard non-white, that automatically makes the game diverse.
Extra Credits: Diversity
Extra Credits: Sexual Diversity
And I'll end it right there because I'd rather discuss that issue in another thread.
I'm sure the other white girls are jealous:) And pornstar boobs kick ass anyway.
As ex character artist I'm very happy they finally upped the resolution on some of the clothing pieces. A few of them were seriously low res in DA1. Although all the female chars still have this annoying scarf or bracelet thing that hides where the head is attached. You'd think in 2011 we would have a better solution for a problem like this...
You all seem to be talking about improved combat and feels more like action rpg etc, I thought one of the things that made DA's combat interesting was the FF12-like gambit system thing?
I never played it so I don't actually know, but that gambit-combat system thing (called tactics in DA) was the main thing that I was interested in when I was reading about it - do most PC players think differently?
I was reading through the skills and some of them mention flanking and I'm sure when I played melee-rogue Hawke started doing different attacks & more damage from behind (and no, I'm not talking about the Backstab skill). So for the people earlier in the thread... backstab/flanking is still there.
kaze369 >> Having one character with pornstar boobies is fine. It happens. It's hot.
Having every female in the game be totally stacked kills immersion. I mean honestly: look at Bethany, look at her old grey-haired mother, and then look at Isabela and tell me it isn't overkill. Dragon Age is a fairly serious game; I think the character design should match that a little better.
I think the best bet would to roll with it the way Vindictus and many other korean MMO's do in character gen, and have a booby slider. From Small, to normal, to porn star.
I think dragon age would benefit greatly.
@Yozora
The tactics system is interesting, but I don't feel as though it was as well developed as it could have been.
Perhaps I wasn't using it properly, but I don't feel like any of my characters were all that useful aside from Morrigan. I was playing on Normal, and she could handle a majority of encounters entirely on her own, based on the way her tactics were set up. I just had Leliana and Ohgren there to do some additional melee damage/draw fire away from her. I like the idea, I know that it could be done better though. hopefully DA2 tidies it up.
edit: OK, scratch that, Avaline is packin some heat.
So where are these Dx11 tessellation settings?