So far on Dragon Age 2, I am a few hours in. There doesn't seem to be any main plot, just a bunch of mashed together side quests. I guess the main plot of the game is to somehow become this awesome rich and famous warrior, but somehow that doesn't quite do it for me. The whole point of the first game: stop the blight, save Ferelden and the world, was just such a huge goal that the goal of this game seems kind of mundane. If you actually care about story or motivation in the slightest, this can be a big deal. I also agree that fighting feels like mashing the attack button, but I am also a two-handed rogue, and I think that is just a downfall of the class. They're supposed to attack quickly, so mashing attack is how they're most effective. I feel like if I were a mage, the gameplay and fighting would be significantly different, and more in line with DA:O. Even a Warrior, as a tank or two-handed fighter, would likely be less button mashing than the Rogue class. I've also noticed that I am leveling up, what seems like, really really fast. I felt like I was level 3 before even finishing the prologue, and I'm up to level 9 and I haven't even started the 'main mission' of the first act of the game, all I am doing is completing a bunch of side quests and companion quests. It seems like it took much longer to level up in DA:O, but there, your level capped at 22 or 23. If this is the same, I feel like I'd hit the level cap by the end of Act II, with an entire Act of the game left to go. The good: I don't mind the stripped down armor mechanics as much as I thought I would. In DA:O, I'd find an armor type, and just assign that to someone (for example, Oghren wore the Black Legion armor, and that was it). There is still customization, and there are upgrades for your companion's armor, you just have to find them (so far, I've found three upgrades, two by shopping and one by doing a side quest). Runes also make it possible to upgrade weapons and armor, if you can find everything necessary to create them. While there is a lot of button mashing, I actually like the battle system. It feels more immediate, and like there are less phantom hits from a guy who is swinging a sword, but is thirty feet away. I've not had to use a healer so far, but I think that is more a product of being over-leveled for some of the quests I'm working on. Overall, I agree that it is about a 3/5. In terms of graphics and interface, it is a step up from DA:O, which felt old and sluggish in both respects. In terms of storyline and actual gameplay, though, it feels like a step backwards.
I'm still barely into the game, but looking at the talent trees for DA2, I was hoping this was the case. I noticed that just one of the trees (With the upgrade talents) has 10+ 'nodes' on it. My thinking was that a good, high level character would have a mixture of several of the trees, going deep into at least 2 of the basic ones and one of the advanced classes, with choice talents from other trees here and there. But then I remembered that in DA:O I seemed to max out around 20, which would leave you with very few talents in DA2. So I'm hoping the general "cap" is much higher in this one. EDIT: well look at that, 1000 posts. I figured I would make some sort of "1000 posts, bitches!" post in the drunk thread or something, but I guess it's pretty fitting that it was in the video game thread.
Now that I'm well into Act III, the story does seem to pick up some momentum. However, it doesn't feel as immediate or epic at DA:O. In fact, I care more about doing my companion's endless side-quest missions than anything in the main story. Plus: Spoiler Based on some of the events and dialogue from "cameo" characters (the Grey Warden you run into at the end of Act II, Sandal's future plans, etc), I feel like this game is simply setting everything up for a bigger story in the sequel. I'm playing a sword and shield warrior like I did in DA:O and it is significantly less fun in DA2. No matter how badass my equipment is, I seem to do piddly shit damage to enemies (conversely, even high dragons barely touch my health bar). This wouldn't be so bad except that your basic attack requires me to mash the A button over and over instead of auto-attacking. 10-15 minute boss battles where I just wear their health down slowly after my entire party has died gets really annoying. It seems like a max'ed out defender/shield skill level makes your warrior invincible at the cost of doing no damage whatsoever. In DA:O, this setup used to still do some decent damage and crowd control (especially with "massacre"). Now it is a pure tank.
I've been researching the Unreal Engine as part of my efforts to start developing my own game (I have most of it drawn up already, conceptually speaking; now I need to start putting it together on-screen) and I was checking out their user-created games today. This one looks fucking bonkers: Be sure to check out the video. My head hurts just watching it. I may give it a download later, just for kicks. It's 320MB, but it's a free download.
If anyone was planning on getting Homefront (I definitely was), you might want to give this quick video a listen. For those of you unfamiliar with Woodysgamertag, his channel is primarily Call of Duty-based, and he's a very level-headed individual who doesn't toss out knee-jerk opinions (both good and bad). He's usually very objective when it comes to this sort of stuff, and he's up at PAX right now with a bunch of other COD-YouTube guys: That's unfortunate. It looked so promising, especially visually, in the trailers. I'll hold off on what other people have to say before I write it off, but WGT's thoughts on these sort of matters mean a lot. Also, here's an in-game demonstration of the game mechanics. The resolution isn't up to par, but the guy does a good job talking about certain framerate issues and animation hiccups: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GrUa-6iUkc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GrUa-6iUkc</a>
As a dps two-handed rogue build, my character absolutey dominates in doing damage. Some of the skills kill many characters very, very quick. When I take control of my tank, she doesn't do shit for damage, but she doesn't die. Now I know not to do a main character tank build. Better to go two-handed and off-tank when necessary. I can honestly say I feel like they over-compensated with the rogue build. In DA:O, it was the toughest build to play with. In DA2, it almost feels over-powered.
I am going to have to agree with all of you on the 3/5 rating for DA:II. I loved the story line in DA:O, like it was said before it really was in depth and each quest was reveling more story, you were really moving forward. Now i am stuck in the city running around trying to make my 50sov to i get out of the city and really doesn't feel like i am really working to any real story line i am just killing time. I am playing a mage. After level 5 or 6, you can have two aoe fire spells and cone of cold, right now i can basically kill off a good sized group provided they are fairly close together with those three spells. edit: i forgot about the spam fest. I really cant remember the combat from DA:O to much, but since most the spells have something like 15s + cooldowns, i find myself basically spamming the X button, casting a few spells, then spamming the X button again.
I repped you my appreciation for the info but I just want to reiterate as much. Coincidentally, a few days after this post, one of my former co-workers came in to my store and mentioned that he was selling his PS3 and all his games and accessories but that Gamestop wouldn't take the 500GB hard drive that he had in it and did I know anyone that would buy it for $50. Of course I jumped all over that shit and you were right, it was a cinch to swap out. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. Thanks again! If anyone wants to add me to their PSN dealybob, my SN is jlmgr19827. We did not back up the data first so I have literally zero save files and trophies yet (we just swapped it out last night) but I'll be getting back to it tonight.
If you're using the same PSN name, you should be able to Sync and keep all your trophies. All I did was go to check my trophy list and it downloaded the info on what trophies I had before I lost all my saves, and I got them all back. It's a good thing, too, as I am a trophy whore. Sadly, I'm one of those people that tries to get them all. PS: keep your original hard drive handy. If you ever need to send your ps3 in for service, they will throw out your 500gb HDD, and you'll lose it. If you need to have it serviced, put the original HDD back in, first. The reason is they don't actually fix your system, they just send you a refurbished one that is the same model, so the HDD will be lost.
Yay on the trophy thing because I am racing (and currently behind) someone for Dead Space 2 trophies. Now we're having connection issues. With the new hard drive in, it is saying that the drive needs formatting which is fine but it automatically tries (and fails) to connect to the internet for some reason which oddly also renders the controllers useless, so we're in this third circle of hell where we can't tell the damn thing to stop trying to connect to the internet until we format the hard drive but we can't tell it to do that because the fucking controllers don't work. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! <a class="postlink" href="http://community.eu.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-Network/Help-Connection-error-80010201/m-p/7392686" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://community.eu.playstation.com/t5/ ... -p/7392686</a>
Oh yeah, I'm a huge achievement whore on the 360. It's a big reason I choose the 360 over the ps3 on a lot of cross platform games.
I have to say, the epic feel of all the previous Bioware games has been the one thing that has turned me off the most. The entire world is sort of a big place and having to constantly save it, I find it really hard to care enough to play till the end boss. I much prefer the deeply personal stories of games like the old Black Isle ones. Now keeping that in mind, would DA2 be worth picking up? Is the story just different to that of Bioware's previous ones or is it really just mundane and boring?
I just finished the game. Yes, pick it up. Spoiler After seeing the ending, I can confidently say that DA2 is simply setting everything up for a sequel (or two). My guess is that this is the first game in a three-game series surrounding Hawke. Flemmeth is still a huge loose end and the constant references to the problems in Orlias (sp?) seem to hint at what is to come in the next game. Oh, and if you max out your "friend" status with Isabelle and have sex with her at some point in Act II, she will stay at your side in the epilogue. I thought that was kinda cool since everyone leaves The Warden at the end of DA:O. Also, if you download the Black Emporium DLC, you can re-roll your character for 1 gold at any time. I re-spec'ed everything at level 15 from a sword and shield warrior to a two-handed ultra death machine. The game became significantly easier and more fun with that class. In fact, I'd go ahead and say Bioware has basically engineered the combat to make that the most entertaining class to play. I was still spamming the A button, but I wasn't hacking at any single enemy more than twice. A two-handed warrior can mow down groups of enemies with minimal effort.
It's the worst BioWare game I've played. Considering that I am not a big fan of most of BioWare's other games, this is going to be pretty negative. Haven't even bothered with finishing it. There are your typical BioWare fake choices in full effect, which basically involves the choice to say "yes" with varying degrees of politeness so that the story can continue. The dialogue wheel makes things even worse, it basically boils 90% of your responses to "nice/neutral/asshole", and it just feels very crude. The other 10% is cheesy BioWare romance bullshit. Since you mentioned Black Isle, one of the greatest gaming companies of all time, I thought it was only fitting to post this picture comparing Planescape: Torment with Dragon Age 2: (spoilered to avoid stretching the screen) Spoiler So yeah, don't expect interesting writing and atmosphere on the level of Torment, to say the least. The usual BioWare staple of going to 4 quest hubs and collecting Star Maps before heading off to a grand finale where you save the world was never good to begin with, but the alternative here is even worse. Most of the action takes place in Kirkwall, and locations are recycled. What's worse is that they pad things out with so much filler combat by spamming waves of weak enemies with lots of HP at you in order to make it seem like the game is longer than it actually is. This was a huge flaw in Origins, but here it's even worse. And lastly, the story in Origins was never good to begin with - basically, save the world from orcs. It was cliche ridden as hell, but it did have a few cool parts (Redcliffe, Urn of Sacred Ashes). Much like the last game, most of the characters are your basic BioWare archetypes that the writers seem determined to keep using, though they're probably a bit worse here. Varric was pretty cool, but that's about it. I had really hoped that after Origins and the financial and critical success it had, BioWare would have realized that there is a market out there for real RPG's and then decided to make their games more complex, not less. I mean, if you're the kind of guy who only plays Call of Duty and sports games, then chances are that you don't give a fuck about RPG's to begin with, so I am at a complete loss as to why the guys at EA streamlined things to a point where they could target specifically that kind of market. It boggles the mind.
It's a cross-platform game. In other words, people need to be able to play it with their thumbs and 12 keys. The plain truth is that console games generate more money and are easier to develop from a technical standpoint.
I don't think the problem is the platform though. Some of the best RPG's ever were on the console and people had a ton of fun without the need to "drive" their character during combat. I enjoyed the DA2 demo, but was shocked at the amount of interactive control that was required in combat. I was going to pick up Origins and am glad to hear that it's a little more pure RPG in that most things are around your build and your equipment. I don't mind selecting actions and I even enjoy a good Action-RPG game, but sometimes I just want story and character builds without having to "drive."
Invitations for the Socom 4 Multiplayer Private Beta are going out tonight sometime. I'm silently praying to all known deities that I receive one. If I do, I'll have an extra code from my copy of Killzone 3 that will gain you access in a couple of weeks, if anyone wants it, shoot me a PM.
Shogun 2: Total War is like the second coming. I was a huge fan of the original and the other ones up until Empire, glad to see these guys dialed down the ambition and scale and decided to just make an excellent game. Without a doubt the best improvement has been the campaign map AI. About twenty turns into my first game all of Japan hated me, apparently stabbing your alliance-mates in the back was frowned upon in a culture that praised honor and shit. If you like strategy games and are looking for something with a bit more depth than Starcraft 2 look no further. In my opinion though, the best thing about the Total War games is the modding community, I'm sure in time Shogun 2 will get some fantastic tweaks.
Just got KZ 3, played online for an hour. The game is beautiful, I feel like most of my deaths were my fault, except for the fact you can't prone is getting to me. There are spots on maps where if someone has the right low/high ground, they can squeeze bullets though a 1 inch slot and kill you and you can't even see them.
Seems like the league of legends talk has cooled down. Anyone still playing? I took a bit of a break and came back to find that one of my favorite champs to play, Ryze, has been completely changed. Seems like a change for the better, but it's a completely new champ now (build orders, item sets, skill order have all been changed) and I'm finding it hard getting back into the rythm. The new champions that have been released seem pretty sweet, though. If I had all my runes, I'd definately want to try out that new nightmare guy. Here's hoping he'll show up in next weeks rotation.