Fun Stuff > CLIKC
Dragon Age 2: Fuckin' Bitches, Stabbin' Dragons
Papersatan:
Guys Steve has this game. I watch him play, on account fo he plays all the time now. I just want to say : I would totally bone that dwarf bard guy in the party. That is all.
KvP:
Eyyyyy
Anyway, weird to think that this might be the first Bio game since NWN1 that I don't finish with my first character. There are just so many niggling things. The impression that I'm getting is that this game really, really needed another year of development time. Someone did an interview with Inon Zur recently where he just came out and said "Dragon Age 2 seemed like a rush job, let me know where I fucked up". The gameplay would be imminently forgivable had the narrative and characters been good, but aside from Varric and Aveline (to an extent) I'm not warming to any of the characters so far, and all I'm missing at this point are Isabela and the Scottish DLC Prince.
The biggest thing is that DA2 seems to always tell and never show, especially in the first two acts. DA:O and ME benefited from a choice of character backgrounds that centered the Warden / PC and gave context to the way they acted. Hawke, on the other hand, is a total cypher. We only catch glimpses of his / her story - The in media res opening is exceedingly problematic from a characterization standpoint even with the "it's a story being told" handwave. When you transition from Act 1 to Act 2, there is literally no sense of time having any real meaning, even though it's a central aspect of the storytelling mechanism. The grief of your family over the events of the prologue is as hollow (more, even) than Fallout 3's father-child dynamic, because you spend literally less than 5 minutes with them before you're asked to become emotionally invested in their bland, trite lives. It keeps coming back up and you think "oh yeah, that thing that happened".
Then you get to Kirkwall, you spend a year working for some ill-defined group, the game resumes at the end of the year, and Hawke has "made a name for himself" despite the fact that you never see and are never really told exactly what you did. There is no sense of progression or accomplishment. You run into people who Hawke apparently knows but all they really say is "Oh hey Hawke I haven't seen you since that last time I saw you you sure are making a name for yourself heh heh have a look at my wares". Add to that a severe lack of direction despite the linearity of the game (you want to get to the Deep Roads apparently but it's never explained exactly why you want to, besides the fact that the plot wouldn't work without it) and everything else that seems half-finished and you have a seriously disorienting game experience. I'm really hoping it'll tighten up in the next acts, but from what I've read (even from pro reviewers operating on the 8-10 scale) the ending is pretty terrible.
There are times where the combat is good, at least! Specifically in Act ! there's a quest in a mine where the cheap respawning doesn't occur (and it's actually challenging!) and there's a beach area fight that's well-laid out and manages to be fun even with the standard "wave" combat template. There have been a few instances of potentially interesting choice & consequence, though I won't know how well they'll follow through until I manage to drag myself to the next act.
And I have to reiterate how aggravating the influence system is. Everything about it. They characterize everything as point gain ("Varric rivalry +5", "Aveline friendship +10") despite the fact that friendship / rivalry is one axis and thus, point gain in one is point loss in the other. It seems actively deceptive to me. Like, just call it what it is - DA:O's influence bar with benefits for low scores. And it's still a shitty system!
KvP:
Also hey hey hey guess what
EA included Securom on DA2 while specifically denying doing so despite being under court orders not to do that! lol :D :D :D
KvP:
Also one thing that fucking sucks about combat in this game: There is no line of sight for archers. Try to hide behind a wall? They will shoot straight through it. Try to dodge projectiles? Fuck that, dudes use homing arrows.
ALSO protip: If you're still in Act 1 (after the first year in Kirkwall) periodically drop in to the Lowtown bar that Varric is based out of. I've read that a number of people have completely missed Isabela because they didn't go there at the precise right time in Act 1.
Ikrik:
This game seems to actively illustrate how messed up review scores are nowadays. I really do not see how this game has gotten 9's and even a perfect score. The game has problems and from everything I've read it seems to have quite a lot of problems. How much do you think Bioware's reputation is influencing review scores?
And wow, reading the user reviews on metacritic is making me cringe, I will never make that mistake again.
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