We've met Hawke and Lady Hawke, now it's time to meet Demo Hawke, who will look suspiciously like either Hawke or Lady Hawke. There are even some exclusive unlockables available to demo players, which we can now add to our complex spreadsheet of unlockable Dragon Age II items.
Twitter: BeckyCFreelance
The counter is almsot to 300K on the downloads.
I've done my part DLed it for the PC and beat it. Wife is DLing it to the PS3 now.
26 years of gaming and still going strong
and now a Proud Father :D
downloading it now, though i must say the discussion on RPS is making me dread it.
Gold Exclusive for XBOX 360. What a load of BS. I signed up for Gold for 3 months last year- biggest mistake of my life. I barely used the stupid thing and had to jump through so many hoops to turn off "auto-renew" membership (why the hell is it opt-out rather than opt in? Why can't I do it over the net?). And now I actually need Gold for something but I'm too bitter to be bothered. FML :P
Well..... that was.... underwhelming. Has nobody told Bioware about making a good first impression? The first few fights (especially the ogre) are laughably bad, the dialog is terribly written with stilted delivery and there's huge pauses between dialog decisions. If it's like that the whole game it will become very annoying very quickly.
Maybe the demo improves after the first section, but I wouldn't know because the game crashes after character generation every single time. Wonderful.
I didn't know what to say about it really (but that didn't stop me from ranting elsewhere). Suffice to say, I got all 1750 pts. for DA:0 for 360, and also bought it for PC. The gameplay seems comically stupid, your uber-gigantic sword swings lightning-fast like an anime character, all the gravity and realism is sucked out with the new gameplay style and graphics. Your character moved slower in combat in the last one, but these were people huge sets of armor with giant swords. The super-fast swinging makes it seem like the people and weapons aren't real. A non-stop horde attacking while you hammer A and activate skills as they pop is frenzied action, not tactical. Does a dialog wheel with giant pictures indicating intent belong in this kind of game? I know Bioware has access to good writers and actors, I'm not sure what happened here. The actors aren't all bad, but the dialog is terribly stilted in many cases.
I'm conflicted. I love Bioware. I've 100%-ed every game they've released. This seemed painfullly dumbed-down and bad though. Maybe... it gets better? Is that the sort of maybe that's worth $60? Maybe the areas aren't always barren and cartoon-like. Maybe the Hurlocks will go from regular human teeth back to sharp ones elsewhere? Why did they make the darkspawn look less menacing and creepy? Maybe the breasts won't be as comically large in the actual release?
I got past the character generation crash by switching to lady hawke. Seriously Bioware, if this is your opening area then it is a MASSIVE step down from the origins of the first game. There is absolutely nothing compelling about running down a brown corridor being ambushed by trash mobs occasionally. Hopefully the game gets better later but i must say i didn't enjoy the demo at all.
The origins had a slower build, and were about building narrative and introducing us to the world (the origin I guess). It was very effective in my opinion. I was less enamored of both the interrogation (which seemed horribly cliche.. "I'll tell you the REAL story"), and the way the characters and gameplay were being introduced. And when did Lothering become Mars? Nowhere looked like that in the original game, blight or no blight. Even the fade had more going on.Originally Posted by The Doomhammer
Actually we never got see the destroyed Lothering though so that comment holds no basis. The Darkspawn do taint the land causing things not to grow. Also it does look likea fairly basic mountain tome living near one. This is only a demo after all. I think it was mroe to show off the battle systems then anything else.
26 years of gaming and still going strong
and now a Proud Father :D
The game releases on March 8 though, unless there's something I didn't understand.
Demos are usually from an earlier build of the game, not the finished product.
We'll see come March 8th, but I don't think this is indicative of the final version.
I dont know what game you were playing since the first game had the same stilted delivery and pauses that the demo has.
Im okay with it so far. I only played as a Warrior, will play as the other types later to get a feel for them. The battle system is so much more fast paced now than before which is not necessarily a bad thing. I kinda like it since it gives it much more of an action rpg feel to it that the original didnt have. My only complain so far(actually, my complain with Dragon Age II from the moment they started releasing screenshots of the main characters) is that I feel the characters are kinda... bland-looking compared to the Origins characters. Aveline especially just... she just doesnt look right to me for some reason. Neither does Isabella. I dont know. I feel like they are devoid of color. Im hoping the new look will grow on me eventually.
I also didnt really liked the menus. I understand that they streamlined them (since I will admit that DA:O menus were unnecessarily convoluted at best. However, I do appreciate the fact that I can toggle between characters now in the Tactics screen since that was a big annoyance of mine with the first game) but I dont like the overly simplified look of... a black background with a head. I liked being able to look at my entire character and stuff at the menu... maybe I will be able to do that once Im able to equip my character in the full game but so far I dont really care for the menu or the new skill tree.(Also, not crazy about the new 40 second recharge time of Heal!!)
Overall tho Im cautiously optimistic about the game since the demo was indeed fun to play, if kinda manic. We'll see. Im thinking that this whole Varric (and his delicious chest hair) telling the story will only be up to a certain point in the game and then we will play the storyline in the present, instead the whole game being a story being told by the dwarf. One thing though, Im happy that dwarfs are somewhat attractive in this game since I thought they were obviously jipped in the looks department in the first one.
“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it and it will never be used to hurt you.” - Tyrion Lannister
I never said it didn't. The pauses i mentioned though are clearly a performance issue since they apparently don't happen for everyone, it just seems rather unoptimized.I dont know what game you were playing since the first game had the same stilted delivery and pauses that the demo has.
Last edited by The Doomhammer; 02-23-2011 at 07:29 AM.
Played through the demo (PC). Not going to buy the full game.
It's not like it's awful or anything, but the demo presents a game that's worse than Origins in pretty much every way that matters. I guess it might be worth something to all the people who thought that what DA really needed was characters who bound across the battlefield like they're a ****ing Jedi or something, but I want a tactical RPG with decent role-play opportunities, and what I saw in the demo was pretty miserable. No hard feelings Bioware, but I already got burnt on Awakening. I'm not buying another DA game until you make a real sequel, not whatever you could churn out in 18 months.
Last edited by Drav; 02-23-2011 at 09:32 PM.
I have to admit that the whole jedi-thing really did rub me the wrong way. Half the time I thought I had hit a skill button by mistake because my character, upon pressing attack, just flew across the battlefield to attack my targeted enemy. Take your time running to him to attack like any normal person would! I completely forgot about how much that bothered me until you mentioned it.
“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it and it will never be used to hurt you.” - Tyrion Lannister
I liked the new battle system, but I was never a fan of the old one.I agree that the story presentation in the prologue was lacking, and am hoping that there's more/that it's less disjointed in the final game, but overall I'm still excited. I like the look of the new characters and think it's cool that Aveline is a kinda-homely looking woman on purpose (rather than all the women being kinda homely previously because they never bothered to make a female character model).
I'm a bit worried that it'll be harder for me to get attached to Hawke than it was for me to love my human noble in DA:O, though I think it's pretty neat that I got treated like a smartarse by the NPCs when I spoke like one.
Edit: Note that I played the PC demo. I suspect that makes a difference.
Last edited by Ocelot; 02-23-2011 at 07:37 AM.
Twitter: BeckyCFreelance
I'm really digging the new combat system. It's a little jarring at first to see your character strike with quick exaggerated motions, but it grew on me after about an hour and I'm digging it now. The rogue is fun to play, and looks really cool with all of the acrobatics as you jump into combat and switch between enemies. Backstab is super satisfying as when you reappear behind an enemy he just explodes in a bloody mess of armor and limbs. The skill advancement system is much MUCH more interesting than in the first game. I have to put thought into where I want to advance my character and it feels like my choices directly affect my gameplay besides "just another dps button to press".
My only problem with the combat is that it seems much less tactics oriented, and more action oriented. Which, in the final package, may not be a bad thing for this game. But if you're hoping for this to be your Baldur's Gate Revisited, as it seemed that was kind of the direction with the first game, it seems they're are taking Dragon Age in a different direction. I like it. I also like the voiced Hawke and conversation wheels. Dragon Age 2 has a lot of improvements that resonate with me, but it is poised to disappoint a lot of people who enjoyed the first game, I think.
I was going to hold off buying it until a Steam super sale, but after the demo I don't think I can temper my want for that long.
Combat system as i said was definately the focus. And it was easy to tell that the story was disjounted especially after wacthing some of the other trailers. I think the interigation portion is to lead up durng the break time when the hero "disappears" and then comes back as the game is susposed to span 10 years. This is also shown by the fact some of your characters gain like 6 levels when they start the second portion of the demo.
Now I will say I found a issue with the PS3 version is that some of the armor effects are *ahem* SPARKALIE. Especially in comparison to the PC version which both my wife and I have gone through on seperate computers. Also like how the system for questing works. Tells ya sorta of the style your character is like for each choice. Wife and i are both digging the upgrades and this is now a day 1 purchase indeed. Not a Midnight release .... never again doing another one.
Now I will also state that playing both PC and PS3 version my characters never jetted themselves across the battlefield except with those abilities that were designed to. otherwise I had to run up to them and hit them. Also they removed the actual autocombat approach (for PS3) so now you have to keep hitting your basic melee attack. Now the wife and I were both playing rogues. I went Archer style (which does still autoattack on PC) and my wife was doing the duel wield style. However, yeah some abilities could indeed rush you.
Last edited by TheAnimeMan; 02-23-2011 at 10:08 AM.
26 years of gaming and still going strong
and now a Proud Father :D
sometimes reality is over-rated. I like how frantic the action feels.
Downloaded this yesterday but didn't get a chance to try it yet. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow?
Heh. Reading the Penny-Arcade DAII (which isn't PC specific) thread I almost feel like there's two demos or something floating around. Really bizarre.
So long & thanks for all the fish!
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