EA got busted trying to inflate the score of DA2.
http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/20...ing-positive-dragon-age-2-metacritic-reviews/
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/03/dragon-age-ii-dev-rates-his-own-game-on-metacritic/
It is interesting that DA2 has a MetaCritic score of 82%, yet I have not heard great things about it. DA:O has a score of 91% by comparison so it would seem from a quick glance that they were both on a similar level as far as the critics are concerned. Certainly DA:O was rated higher, but it isn't like DA2 was down at 50%.
EA got busted trying to inflate the score of DA2.
http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/20...ing-positive-dragon-age-2-metacritic-reviews/
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/03/dragon-age-ii-dev-rates-his-own-game-on-metacritic/
EA got busted trying to inflate the score of DA2.
http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/20...ing-positive-dragon-age-2-metacritic-reviews/
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/03/dragon-age-ii-dev-rates-his-own-game-on-metacritic/
Meh, I completely believe Bioware would have gone in the same direction if they got picked up by EA or not. It's just the way the entire industry headed.
I think it's snobbish of PC gamers to criticize a game just for taking console players into account.
As long as the PC version of games has a good control scheme (which DAII does, retaining much of DAO's controls)
takes advantage of the power of a good gaming PC through higher detail textures and effects (which DAII does)
If a game is somehow less "strategic", that's something I would criticize both the PC version and the console versions for.
With that said, I don't think being more "casualized" is something that can be pinned on DAII.
Does that really make it one of the worst games?
Expectations or how many people will end up playing it have nothing to do with the intrinisic quality of a game. Mindjack was released for the full $60 on PS3 and 360, meaning that Square Enix went through the publishing and licensing process actually expecting to get some sales with that crap. For that $60 you got something much, much worse than Dragon Age 2, period. And there are a lot of games like that, even ones which are more disappointing. Sonic Free Riders. Vampire Rain. Aliens: Colonial Marines. Etc.
I don't think more action or a faster pace is a bad thing necessarily. DA2 was an improvement in some ways from DAO imo, with abilities which made the clearing of 'trash' enemies less time consuming and annoying and abilities that 'shortened' the battlefield so doing the 'in combat slow walk' across the map was less tiresome. I think it addressed some of the more irritating things about DAO combat at least.
I think some people mistake "slow paced" with "strategic" when it comes to DAO. It played like single player WoW to me; I mean you CC the stuff you can't get to right away, kill the squishy enemies first, kill the tanky enemies second, kill the CCed stuff third. I enjoyed it all the same, but I never found "pull stupid AI around corners" or "focus fire" or "healer first" to be all that... strategic.
Go tell Whippersnapper the next Sins game is going to be an FPS and see how that goes over. Call me crazy but sequels should have more in common with one another than the name and a few characters to keep the story connected.
DA:O was a game that focused on challenging the mind.
I don't think anybody is doing that. They are criticizing the inclusion of console players at the expense of quality and playable on a PC.
I disagree; it didn't feel clunky to me, it felt much the same, just a little more fast-paced.Except, DA2 didn't have a good control scheme due to the changes of combat gameplay. The new characer mobility and animation/effects of abilities makes controlling characters from a top-down perspective feel clunky. The players were designed to be controlled by a gamepad first, and the movement/abilities show it. Looking at DA3, not much has changed.
Oh look, a few graphical glitches/overlooked textures on background characters you'll never talk to. Clearly that invalidates the work that was put in to include ambient occlusion, higher definition environment textures overall, tessellation, higher quality shadows and lighting, etc.
Is it? Knights of the Old Republic was released and gained most of its success on the original Xbox. I think another snobbish attitude of PC gamers is the "dirty console gaming peasants" approach, in that all or most console gamers just want brainless shooter games and can't appreciate a good strategy game or RPG. Gamers like that certainly exist, but I'd say they exist on both consoles and PCs, and I would also say that a lot of people who enjoy such shooter games can also appreciate strategy games and RPGs.Yes, both should be criticized for it. The question is whether the game was made less strategic to cater to a console audience, which is undeniably different than the PC gaming audience.
1. I mentioned that, though I also suggested it could have been an artistic choice like with ME2 rather than just a gameplay choice.No companion armor = less things to have to think about
Quests that solve themselves
Press 'A' to win gameplay
Removal of incentive to strategize
Auto-sorting inventory complete with needless 'junk' tab
This argument is pointless.
Obviously Dragon Age 2 isn't objectively the worst game in existence. There are other games worse than it to be sure. However, that doesn't make Dragon Age 2 any less bad.
The difference is that I would have never bought Big Rigs 2, MindJack, or any other trash games.
DA2 is one of the worst games I have bought, though.
Did it really?
Or the teleporting enemies breaking lore.
So far, nothing announced for DA3 was really resonated with Dragon Age fans.
Morrigan is back, although now we've got the purists saying we can't focus too much on the old god soul thing because that was an optional story point.
Although, and it's been a week or so since I read it so can't find a link, but some article suggested something about just because your warden chose not to impregnate her for the ritual doesn't mean the other wardens would be so disciplined (implying justification for that being the end result no matter what. Presumably because you could get the pregnant Morrigan epilogue even if you chose otherwise).
I disagree; it didn't feel clunky to me, it felt much the same, just a little more fast-paced.
Oh look, a few graphical glitches/overlooked textures on background characters you'll never talk to. Clearly that invalidates the work that was put in to include ambient occlusion, higher definition environment textures overall, tessellation, higher quality shadows and lighting, etc.
I'm not saying DAII is a perfect game graphically, but a couple blemishes do not make something ugly on whole.
Is it? Knights of the Old Republic was released and gained most of its success on the original Xbox. I think another snobbish attitude of PC gamers is the "dirty console gaming peasants" approach, in that all or most console gamers just want brainless shooter games and can't appreciate a good strategy game or RPG. Gamers like that certainly exist, but I'd say they exist on both consoles and PCs, and I would also say that a lot of people who enjoy such shooter games can also appreciate strategy games and RPGs.
1. I mentioned that, though I also suggested it could have been an artistic choice like with ME2 rather than just a gameplay choice.
2. Never encountered that. Can you elaborate?
3. Oh, if only some of the tougher fights had been like that...
4. I disagree that this happened.
5. There were "junk" items in DAO that had no use except selling them off, as well. It does seem like there was more of that in DA2, though they may have been more noticeable since the game actually labels them as junk while DAO did not. Not sure what you mean by "auto-sorting".
Then it's not one of the worst games of all time; that's all I was trying to say. It can be one of the worst games you've ever bought, but that's not the same thing; just because The Last Airbender is the worst movie I've ever paid to see doesn't mean that it's worse than movies like Battlefield: Earth or The Room.
When you are commanding troops from a top down perspective, it is jarring if they decide to teleport, do flips, dash, or other dramatic animations since you feel like you no longer control the character. It feels chaotic and unrefined.
You don't have the same problem from the console perspective, since the camera is focused behind the player. This is why third person action games use that perspective, rather than isometric. It gives you the feeling of movement with the character, while a static camera on top doesn't.
Are you ignoring the develop interviews where they talk about "hot-rodding" (read: toning down detail to provide simpler graphical rendering) the graphics of DA2? This was in response to DA:O looking decent on PCs but less so on consoles.
Lack of assets (leading to the terrible repetitive enemies/areas)
Low res textures
Low poly models
All of these things could be blamed on console-focused development to some degree.
If you take DA2 and compare it to a more PC focused game of the same time, such as Witcher 2, the difference graphically is remarkable.
I'd say some of the impression of the game looking bad just comes down to the art design change being a failure itself somewhat, not a problem on the technical side (which is what I was talking about to begin with).
I have a 360, PS3, Wii, DS, 3DS, PSP along with my gaming PC. I am not some kind of PC elitist. I enjoy a good game regardless of platform. However, Dragon Age 2 is not a good game.
DA2 isn't even a strategy game. It became mindless. Streamlining went to far and what was left was a soulless experience that was a chore to press A through.
Eh, agree to disagree on that pretty much? :thumbsup:
When the developers start throwing around phrases like "Press A and something awesome happens", "visceral gameplay", and "we want the call of duty audience" for a game that is supposed to be a tactical, deep RPG, you know you have a problem.
Yeah...this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV97ozaD4vs
was not a designer for the game. He's a marketing/PR guy. A bad one at that. When you get an actual designer talking about the game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyR1fGMCLXo
It's a different story, as there's obviously thought put into how the game can work as a strategic game. Whether or not they were successful at pulling it off is another matter, but they did give focus to it. I myself had certain strategies which I employed -- I made sure my tank Aveline had a guardian ability protecting my Hawke, Varric would open up encounters with miasmic flasks, etc.
1. I am not buying it as artistic choice. It is streamlining, dumbing down, simplification - whatever you want to call it the end user ends up with less choice, less responsibility, and less to do. It is the same reason Bethesda seems to reduce of number of pieces of armor by a factor of 2 each game.
2. There is no thinking of the quest. Each quest tells you where to go, what to do. Find a mystery doll? Well, there isn't really any mystery since you magically know it belongs to the little orphan girl by the barrels. Just follow the quest arrow and all is well!
3. What tough fights? I didn't even come close to being challenged the whole game. I was too busy pressing A to awesome.
5. They get auto sorted into a junk tab with a convenient "sell all junk" button. Inventory management is too hard for the average player to do nowadays, apparently.
2. DAO did much the same thing. That, or you randomly ran into something on the road.
3. The templar who tortures some Qunari comes to mind. I'm not sure what difficulty you play on, but I play on Normal and my perspective on that level of difficulty is that it should give you a good challenge but never really frustrate you so much that it overly interferes with you enjoying the progression of the game. It did that well for me, and it felt like if you wanted more of a challenge, bumping it up to Nightmare could easily do that.
5. Oh, so you're talking about just one thing, the junk inventory tab.
Add to that the simplistic conversation wheel, with token replies placed at known spots so you don't even have to read what you say before you say it.
Also smaller, more hallway-like environments. Can't have the player confused about where to go, now can we?
I liked the implementation of the conversation wheel; it was improved over how the Mass Effect series uses it. It allowed you to put some personality into your responses, and the game kept track of your responses and used it to determine the tone of your characters' banter. It also let you call on your party members if it fit the context of the conversation.
I didn't notice much of a change in the layouts of the environments.
Sorry, wasn't talking to just you. I meant the argument as a whole since both sides seemed to be talking about different games.
I agree with you that DA2 isn't one of the worst games of all time literally. That would go to some speck of code that doesn't even compile. But I think when most people say "worst x" or "worst y" they mean relatively in their sphere of experience.
When people talk about bad games I generally assume they're talking about games with a fairly prolific publisher, made it through console licensing, or are initially priced in the $60-40 range (similar to how when I say "worst movies ever", I'm generally talking about movies that saw widespread theatrical release, not "movies" kids make in their parents' basements or whatever). Even in that group, I wouldn't say Dragon Age II is one of the worst games ever. Like I've mentioned, there are games like Mindjack or Sonic Free Riders which fit the bill much better
That timeline doesn't really represent things realistically. They state that Mass Effect 2 is the beginning of their departure, but ignore that Jade Empire is as much an action game as it is. They gloss over Mass Effect, as if it's clunky inventory and repetitive loot system is enough to claim it stays true to Bioware's past depth. They also ignore that Knights of the Old Republic's gameplay is derived from a simplified Baldur's Gate model, but go on to use that same style of simplification as reasons why Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age II are showing EA's influence.
Yeah...this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV97ozaD4vs
was not a designer for the game. He's a marketing/PR guy. A bad one at that. When you get an actual designer talking about the game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyR1fGMCLXo
2. DAO did much the same thing. That, or you randomly ran into something on the road.
3. The templar who tortures some Qunari comes to mind. I'm not sure what difficulty you play on, but I play on Normal and my perspective on that level of difficulty is that it should give you a good challenge but never really frustrate you so much that it overly interferes with you enjoying the progression of the game. It did that well for me, and it felt like if you wanted more of a challenge, bumping it up to Nightmare could easily do that.
5. Oh, so you're talking about just one thing, the junk inventory tab.
I liked the implementation of the conversation wheel; it was improved over how the Mass Effect series uses it. It allowed you to put some personality into your responses, and the game kept track of your responses and used it to determine the tone of your characters' banter. It also let you call on your party members if it fit the context of the conversation.
Did it really? I didn't find that it was a particularly difficult game, the "strategy" is fairly evident to anyone with a moderate amount of experience (or a three step flow chart), and the player had access to a number of overly powerful abilities and pieces of equipment.
I dunno, maybe that's what 'strategy' is to players, simply controlling characters on a 'micro' level and coordinating their actions. I guess to me strategy would imply a greater degree of complexity, prescience and planning (and maybe even "disaster recovery") to be involved rather than "here's what I see, follow the 'flowchart', go to the next room, repeat".
You can't see much in the preview video but I'm interested nonetheless. I think having the environment more involved and more unique properties for enemies (that react/behave correspondingly) would be a good step forward to making the combat a little less dull.
I do hope we see a return of the more detailed behaviors/tactics (whatever they were called) for party members though.
As per PAX, the tactical view is back, and it's actually going to be on all platforms this time around.
You mean this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aK0z8xeAus
We don't see the interface in this video or how the game is actually controlled. At 1:15 we see a mage setting up a area of effect spell. But overall the video seems more like a graphical showcase than a control showcase.
You mean this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aK0z8xeAus
We don't see the interface in this video or how the game is actually controlled. At 1:15 we see a mage setting up a area of effect spell. But overall the video seems more like a graphical showcase than a control showcase.
Wow, I hadn't seen that video. It looks like they are pushing 3rd person action even more than I thought, complete with twitch rolling to dodge hits.
They should just go full all out and make it a decent 3rd person action game. Although, I don't know if Bioware has the cops to make deep non-button-mashing action.