Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[JD]

Don't make fun of her balloontitsitus.

[Johnny C]

If the exaggerations are onetime things how would you explain these?

they're slammin'

[cyro]

If the exaggerations are onetime things how would you explain these?

Who said they were a one time only thing?

[Josefbugman]

Camera angle maybe? I dunno, I guess we (or who ever romances fenris) will find out for themselves.

[est]

Perhaps they look normal mostly but then any time she gets them out she casts Lvl 3 Bazongas on 'em.  +2 Cunning, -2 Dexterity.  Characters attracted to females must make a Willpower saving throw against Disorientation.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

there aren't enough dice in the world to save me from oogling boobs

i wish there were, but there just aren't

[KvP]

Just wrapped up the demo. Thoughts:

 - VA is pretty good all-around. I've heard a lot of complaints about female Hawke, but she isn't Mark Meer. Not by a long shot.
 - Like JC says, the character designs get pretty retarded. Specifically, the further away you get from plate armor, the worse it gets. While I can give a free pass to the lip stud, the fact that Isabella is wearing a thong with a shirt flap over her ass, well, even I never thought Bioware would go that far into fanservice territory (that's not even touching her dialog). I'm really disliking the visual direction of the game. The last straw for me is the excessive retconning of everything (Flemeth, the Dalish, the Darkspawn, the Qunari) into designs that, if they don't improve upon old designs, are actually much worse. Flemeth is an anime villain now.
 - Level design is really bad, at least in the demo. Jade Empire bad. Hopefully the brief city segment with the street fighting is an actual hub area in the game itself.
 - Combat is more terribly boring than I remember, on PC anyway. I find it more tedious than DA:O's, which at least had a tactical element. How did real-time DPS-based combat like this ever become an agreed-upon good thing? I'm hoping the console will allow me to insta-kill the trash mobs, at least.

All that combined with numerous review leaks seeming to agree on an underwhelming / undercooked finale and a lack of a clear villain until the climax (both things that tend to hobble Bio's storytelling) have my expectations at their lowest they've ever been for a Bioware game.

[JD]

Oh come on they just wanted to make flemeth look more dragon like. I think that at the very least is excusable.

[snalin]

My biggest gameplay issue was the terrible camera. If you are going to swarm us with enemies, let us fucking zoom out to see all of them. Having to look at the minimap to find stranglers was pretty lame. The menus were also broken horribly, but I'm guessing that you can actually press buttons in the final release.

The abilities worked great, though. They made sense, did cool things, and all had a noticeable effect. Short cooldown forces you to either use pause a lot, or set up a bunch of tactics. It still feels that they've left a lot of the cool tactics options in favour of flashy DPS, but I'm not sure how much the cool tactics from the last game was intended or just me breaking the game (sneak rouge over, open door, close door, place a million traps outside door, aoe everything inside). Mages doing a lot of damage with their standard attack might make every other class redundant, except maybe a tank.

The character design is just... It's possible to make more than one model for male and female bodies for every race. When everyone has the exact same ridicolous boobs, stuff has just gotten out of hand. I can buy Flemeth wearing her war gear or something, which would make sense.

[KvP]

Oh come on they just wanted to make flemeth look more dragon like. I think that at the very least is excusable.

I would agree but 1) she's not really a dragon and 2) it's not just a dubious aesthetic choice, it's a total retcon of the character. I mean, in DA:O you met her as this little old lady who lived in the woods who obviously had something up her sleeve but you didn't know what until you confronted her on Morrigan's behalf. Her appearance made sense - one got the impression that she turned into a dragon under those specific circumstances because she was being challenged, not because she's a badass. It's emphasized repeatedly that Flemeth doesn't want attention from the Templars, which is exactly why she looks and acts and lives the way she does. She relies on her status as a mythic figure to avoid notice.

DA2 throws all that out the window - she's showboating out in the open for no apparent reason (and dressing like a powerful mage woman), and while it's clear she's set up as a master manipulator and obvs has some plan for Hawke (GUESS the amulet she gives you is some sort of phylactery that prevents her from being permanently slain by the Grey Warden /GUESS) it's still mighty cavalier of her given her shrewd nature in the first game. My guess is since the Shapeshifter cat's out of the bag in the DA:O storyline the devs feel as if there's no reason to act as though her true nature was ever really hidden, which, if it's true, is a really shit way to approach character development. Fundamental changes in the character were instituted to provide action setpieces as well as make the PC feel important (so important that Flemeth takes special notice of him / her and appears in her "true form"), as well as to make her more lonely geek-friendly (hence the silver fox supermodel body).

[Josefbugman]

Well, about 1? There is a fair old amount of speculation as to her being an Old God. So who knows she actually MIGHT be a dragon/sleeping ancient being.

I must admit I don't understand why people are crying "anime", I mean I can understand not liking the change to aesthetic (and personally I don't want to jump around for the new hurlocks) but I really don't see the anime comparisons. Even the weird hair is most likely something they would have given her in Origins had they the tech. Same as the Qunari and horns. And the fact that she eats, or at least is implied to do various horrific things, to templar’s that follow her shows that she doesn't really care as much as she might be trying to keep Morrigan from not getting badly damaged and missing out on her next form. Then again that is fanwank on my part.

And even in Origins they were setting her up as having survived, Morrigan says that she will "be back", so whilst the amulet may play into it I am not sure that she did not already have plans laid out. That and shape shifting in Flemeth's case? Well she might actually have appeared differently to different people, Morrigan mentions that she can appear beautiful to templars who are hunting her, and as a crone in other cases, so why not now?

And if you don't enjoy it then thats awesome. At least you aren't bitching about it like most of the people on the DA forums, and your points (whilst refutable) are all well thought out and smart. Sorry if this comes across as condescending its just nice to have someone to politely disagree with.

[est]

Based on the demo I will not be buying this game.  If I see something later to change my mind then I guess I'm open to reconsidering, seeing as the original was a really fun game.  But there's evidence of so many shit decisions made, pushing the game very far away from what the first one was.  I was overwhelmingly bored within the first 5-10 mins of the demo, while fast-paced fighting was happening.  That is not supposed to happen in a demo.  The fighting is just straight up boring, and the new controls are a bit of a clusterfuck.

[KvP]

Even the weird hair is most likely something they would have given her in Origins had they the tech. Same as the Qunari and horns.

That's an odd rationalization. Based on the Desire Demon design, head protrusions were definitely within their tech capabilities for DA:O. I think Gaider hand-waved the Qunari retcon by saying that "elite qunari" have horns and others don't, which doesn't make a lot of sense, but the character design seems to be based around "cool shit" more than anything (which is why it's compared it to anime, where costumes, hairstyles and tits are routinely exaggerated beyond all practicality or sense). The Flemeth hair thing is just ridiculous and dumb, but the Qunari thing is baffling and dumb, and if nothing else shows Bioware's immense dissatisfaction with the world they created in DA:O, such that they would change so much so quickly.

That and shape shifting in Flemeth's case? Well she might actually have appeared differently to different people, Morrigan mentions that she can appear beautiful to templars who are hunting her, and as a crone in other cases, so why not now?

Fair point. I suppose with the blight and all she probably doesn't need to worry about a strong Chantry response to her presence anyway. But I think on some level it makes the most sense for her to remain a commonly dismissed subject of folklore, which makes her DA2 behavior a little inconsistent. We'll have to see how it pans out, because at present it seems to me like she's being presented in an inconsistent way because she's familiar and formidable.

[est]

Actually no, I take back the part about the controls.  I forgot that I mostly played Mage last time around, so playing the demo as a Warrior felt kinda odd.  Playing again with a Mage character feels a bit better.  It's still a weird, zoomed-in view though, so it's kinda hard to jump from char to char easily at the moment.  Maybe it'll feel more natural with practice.

[Josefbugman]

Could be destiny, could be that the party was nearby and she keeps a track of templars near her hideout? I dunno, it probably is a bit inexplicable but I don't mind all that much, imagine how many failed stories of parties a bit like Hawke's in the wilderness.

It was more "head protrusions and helmets", they can do head things, but they couldn't do it with helms and other headgear. Hence why the Ogres had horns but Sten and his Qunari friends did not (as a side note, totally optioning "Sten and his Qunari friends" as a cartoon for Nickelodeon). I think they were dissatisfied with the tech and with the place they set it in. They had created a large world then had a generic "gather your army and fight the dragon" set up, which whilst not BAD was not as interesting,

And from a lore perspective some Qunari are born without horns (they are usually put into units together and are considered different but not worse) and some of the Tal'vashoth (the Qunari rebels) remove theirs.

And you might not like it, seems fine by me though I am sure some of the more rabid areas of the fanbase would disagree. I am getting the Special edition as a Christmas present though, so I might be a tad biased.

[est]

Ok, just tried giving it another go with a mage as main character, but I had to stop, because I encountered three new bugs that made the game unplayable:

1. the voice acting and music cuts in and out, especially during cutscenes
2. occasionally when I have all chars selected none of them listen to movement commands, and when I switch to individual characters the others run around randomly
3. every character moves at about half-pace compared to previous attempts to play the game

This is what they serve up as a demo?

I have to admit though, what I could play of the game felt a lot more enjoyable as a Mage.  Perhaps I'll wait and see how the final game pans out.  Also, if someone releases some sort of FOV/zoom change, or if we can change something in a settings cfg file to make it zoom farther out I will probably feel a bit better about things.

[Josefbugman]

Check the bioware feedback forum, they usually have good advice. I personally haven't seen people encounter these problems specifically, so I do not know how to help.

And don't worry, people are already going to start modding the camera. I am pretty sure it will be the first one avaliable after release.

[cyro]

I don't get all the hate for the new art style. Yeah, sure, the new Darkspawn are a little naff, but it's not like they're the main villains any more and the hills near Lothering seem to have been tainted a touch quickly. However Mr. Gaider has been pretty straight up that most of the work in the game has been put into Kirkwall and I think it shows. From what I've seen of Kirkwall so far, especially in the DX11 screen-shots, it looks bloody marvellous.

The human models I think are an improvement overall and barring a few questionable judgement calls (pants will not reduce Isabella’s sex appeal any, I assure you, or did she lose them with her ship?) there are no game breaking issues for me. I actually particularly like Anders new model and Varric's as well.

As for the combat, well its far from the best system I've played, but at normal compared the DA:Os normal, I have no real issues. If it gets too easy, I'll switch it up to hard. I play Bioware games for the story and dialogue mostly anyway. From what I've seen the dialogue and VA's are anywhere from decent to very good. The story has yet to be unveiled but as I've yet to but utterly disappointed by any Bioware story I'm not especially worried.

In fact, the whole personal story rather than the whole "epic world saving adventure" shtick seems an improvement to me.
To put this in comparison, I prefer KoTOR2 (even broken and half finished) to the originals twist/shock ending.

To me at least, DA2 seems to have shaped up okay. I'll let you know if the story changes my mind.

The following error or errors occurred while posting this message:
Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post.

 

Est, if you're running on the PC, you may want to turn DX11 off, it's horribly broken for the demo.

[KvP]

Ok, just tried giving it another go with a mage as main character, but I had to stop, because I encountered three new bugs that made the game unplayable:

1. the voice acting and music cuts in and out, especially during cutscenes

Does it flicker or does it periodically hitch? Because for some reason DA2 seems to load between spoken lines, and that might be the culprit. It definitely disrupts the flow of conversation.

[Josefbugman]

This is what happens when you use and older build for your demo :/

A demo done well is the Shogun 2 demo. That was a game I was not interested in (much) and now want, this is a bit too normal/fighty for it to draw new people in.

[Johnny C]

I would agree but 1) she's not really a dragon and 2) it's not just a dubious aesthetic choice, it's a total retcon of the character.

that's the thing for me, they haven't just changed how she looks, they've changed how she looks and acts and they've done it for reasons that aren't really clear to me. she's like a much worse character now. i'm seriously so scared about what they'll do with the quanari, too.

[ackblom12]

I am not sure I can get behind it being a total change of character for the reasons Josef stated. I'm also not sure I can make this judgement on her character in such a short scene.

[Josefbugman]

Complete change of character? I am not sure it is complete... she still appears to be talking in a circular way, still seems to be able to transform into a dragon and still seems to have Janeway's voice.

But then I am a fan. Probably best to take my opinions with salt.

[cyro]

I would agree but 1) she's not really a dragon and 2) it's not just a dubious aesthetic choice, it's a total retcon of the character.

that's the thing for me, they haven't just changed how she looks, they've changed how she looks and acts and they've done it for reasons that aren't really clear to me. she's like a much worse character now. i'm seriously so scared about what they'll do with the quanari, too.

Actually, she acts like that in the books they released with the first game. It was kinda of a weird dissonance back then more than now if you read them.

[Josefbugman]

Had a listen to the PC Gamer podcast, and in general they thought that the game was excellent, with one noteable exception.

The ending. Now I am not sure wether this means cliffhanger or something odder, but it as this appears to be a large niggle that has turned up in a few reviews I think anyone whose planning on renting/buying it should be ready. In my own case I don't mind as long as the story overall is fun.

[KvP]

I imagine it's an abrupt and underwhelming boss fight, which is something that most developers, including Bioware, struggle with. Dead Space 2, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Alpha Protocol (had several). It's just hard to pull off.

One of the reviewers let slip via Twitter or something that there's a repeat of ME2's "split up the team and assign roles" sequence, which might be cool. I'd be more excited if I didn't suspect that whatever implications it has for DA3 will be glossed over in favor of fleshing out DA:O's choices.

[Ozymandias]

I'm actually having difficulty thinking of the last time I had a really satisfying boss fight.

[LTK]

Slightly offtopic: Have you played Painkiller? That game had some epic bosses. Here you can see the first one.

[JD]

I'm actually having difficulty thinking of the last time I had a really satisfying boss fight.

Shadow of The Colossus?

[Alex C]

Painkiller is good example of how a boss can be fun to look at but sorta shitty to fight. Towering bosses tend to feel "off" in such games because even the best fps features a pretty damn limited field of view and sense of depth perception. Thus all that looming above you and dropping their fists in from outside your field of view stuff just makes for a somewhat cheap and disorienting experience as they trundle about taking damage but not really reacting much to what you do. Even 3rd person perspective games like Shadow of the Colossus can have a hard time wrangling these fundamental issues-- And Shadows was a game that was practically about size disparities. God of War is another example of a series that managed often managed to pull of the normal dude, HUGE BOSS dichotomy without making things too cheap but oftentimes they did it by keeping the player on a short leash and concentrating the fight onto one plane at a time.

[look out! Ninjas!]

Yeah, something like the end boss in ME2 might have been great but it was really just a big hitbox with lots of health that sent minions to attack you so it played like every other fight against the collectors. You hardly even fight it, really. It's just a thing to shoot at between waves of mooks.

[snalin]

Shadow of the Colossus has a simple button click that centres your sight on the colossus, and shows the entire thing. I've just played through the first six of them, and I never had any problems seeing anything at all.

[Lupercal]

So I played the demo - was DA: O just button mashing too?

[snalin]

Nope, not at all - it was a pretty good, but partially flawed tactical RPG, pretty much Baldur's Gate only not D&D nor as awesome. I'm not sure about the xbox version. I didn't really feel that the demo was button mashing on the pc either, but if you have to press for every attack on the console, that must be the worts gameplay decission ever.

[Alex C]

Shadow of the Colossus has a simple button click that centres your sight on the colossus, and shows the entire thing. I've just played through the first six of them, and I never had any problems seeing anything at all.

It's the kind of thing that really only gets put into a game because you're a smart enough developer to realize just annoying the problem they're trying to fix is. Don't misunderstand me-- I loved Shadow of the Colossus. Team ICO are some of the best devs going, hands down, but I don't really trust anyone but them or SCE Santa Monica to do a gigantic boss without it being one of the more boring/shitty parts of the game.

[KvP]

Nope, not at all - it was a pretty good, but partially flawed tactical RPG, pretty much Baldur's Gate only not D&D nor as awesome. I'm not sure about the xbox version. I didn't really feel that the demo was button mashing on the pc either, but if you have to press for every attack on the console, that must be the worts gameplay decission ever.

Huh, I was hoping the button-mashing would be more intuitive than "click, watch health bar drain" PC combat.

Naturally I pre-ordered DA2 for PC :I

Ladies & gentlemen, the Bioboards

[David_Dovey]

John I'm beginning to think you've got Battered Spouse Syndrome

[David_Dovey]

P.S; Are we absolutely sure Gaider isn't a gag account?

[KvP]

It would be pretty funny if it was.

The Bioboards are like the Westboro Baptist Church of the internet. I can't look away. Apparently somewhere deep within the ME2 board is a chart someone actually made theorizing what all the different characters' sweat tastes like. You can't help but marvel at that.

[David_Dovey]

God help me do I ever want to see that chart. Wowza

[JD]

I thought the westboro baptist church was the westboro baptist church of the internet.

[Johnny C]

God help me do I ever want to see that chart. Wowza

this alien sweat is makin me thirsty. jerry

[cyro]

Nope, not at all - it was a pretty good, but partially flawed tactical RPG, pretty much Baldur's Gate only not D&D nor as awesome. I'm not sure about the xbox version. I didn't really feel that the demo was button mashing on the pc either, but if you have to press for every attack on the console, that must be the worts gameplay decission ever.

Quite a lot of people seem to like it.

[est]

A lot of people like a lot of shit things.

[Josefbugman]

Artistry and entertainment are considered "good" or "bad" dependent on how and why you enjoyed it. Not by how many people liked or disliked it.

There, that should stop that particular line of arguement by putting the basics out there for all to see.

[cyro]

My point was more that if more people like it than don't, then, from a profitability stand point, it's pretty much a success.

Besides apparently the console versions have an option to turn auto attack on if you prefer to make it more like DA:O it's just disabled by default.

[Tom]

Oh come on they just wanted to make flemeth look more dragon like. I think that at the very least is excusable.

She's an ancient abomination/witch/seductress/kidnapper/etc., the vamp get up/guise(probably) seems par for the course.

I just played the demo this morning, it wasn't all that crash-hot so I probably won't preorder it. I couldn't make sense of Isabella's design except maybe she likes to get super tanned every where and she has big tits (great if you like that, I s'pose). I got more than a little annoyed with the radial menu not showing up for a while when switching between characters in it. The menus are certainly better designed than on PC DA:O and I'm glad that the loot notification doesn't pause the game and take up the whole/most of the screen.  Mashing A to keep attacking is unnecessary (the enemy is still targeted and alive, just attack him) so I hope you guys are right about this being toggled.

As someone who plays mage half the time, the option to toggle helmets made me squee.

[KvP]

For those interested, a hacker over at SA came up with a mod for the demo that unlocks character gen and higher difficulties. git it. Just extract to My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age 2 Demo\

[JD]

Ah, that didn't take long.

[KvP]

Dude's pretty good at this stuff. He usually just unlocks console-only DLC for PC versions of the game (managed to add all the stuff in Dead Space 2 the devs left out) but this time he just wanted to see what he could come up with. He also found the dev console that spoils pretty much the entire game.