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 Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 08:23 Post subject: |
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| pikachupi wrote: | question:
tha spotlight here is on the fights or on the rpg aspects or 50/50? |
oh...i know...i forgot to say please.... 
answer anyone? (i have never play the first one) |
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xExtreme
Posts: 5811
Location: 43 6C 75 6A 2D 4E 61 70 6F 63 61
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 08:53 Post subject: |
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| pikachupi wrote: |
answer anyone? (i have never play the first one) |
 Spoiler: | |
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Leishar
Posts: 356
Location: Ireland
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 09:39 Post subject: |
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The game feels claustrophobic!
The environments are ALL the same, you never leave the same city, the story is "meh"..
What happened to RPGs??? For me the high point in an RPG was the thrill of getting to a new huge city and thinking "wow!! New vendors, i wonder what stuff they have. What kind of people am I meeting here? nice city design!"
| Spoiler: |
There's a part where you go to some mines and i thought "ok, maybe they made different textures for the mine". Wrong! It was just like all the other lame caves i entered. They just rushed this game, they really didn't care about making it epic or non-generic...
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edit: Oh and i found a nice bug! If by any chance your party member doesn't have the "shield and sword" talent but you see a shield available for him to equip, just don't give in to the tentation. Game crashes on xbox and u have to unplug it...
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Bigwood
Posts: 305
Location: Sweden.
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 10:51 Post subject: |
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| GunnerzMate wrote: | | The characters just kiss on top of each other on the bed fully dressed and that's all you get to see. Not that it matters. |
Wait - so nothing awesome happens, even when you press a button?
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proekaan
VIP Member
Posts: 3650
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 11:34 Post subject: |
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| Leishar wrote: | The game feels claustrophobic!
The environments are ALL the same, you never leave the same city, the story is "meh"..
What happened to RPGs??? For me the high point in an RPG was the thrill of getting to a new huge city and thinking "wow!! New vendors, i wonder what stuff they have. What kind of people am I meeting here? nice city design!"
| Spoiler: |
There's a part where you go to some mines and i thought "ok, maybe they made different textures for the mine". Wrong! It was just like all the other lame caves i entered. They just rushed this game, they really didn't care about making it epic or non-generic...
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edit: Oh and i found a nice bug! If by any chance your party member doesn't have the "shield and sword" talent but you see a shield available for him to equip, just don't give in to the tentation. Game crashes on xbox and u have to unplug it... |
Indeed...30 hours in and it's nothing but copy/paste levels and laughable story. It feels and looks rushed. Bodes well for dlc I guess. 
Yes,I love tortuing myself,that's why I'm doing all the sidequests(otherwise I'd be done by now). 
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 4,7 GHz
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Corsair HX1500i Platinum
NZXT H7 Flow
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 11:42 Post subject: |
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So it looks like EA finally got their claws into Bioware 
1 and 2 are still amazing.
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 12:10 Post subject: |
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| GunnerzMate wrote: | | I'm hoping the pc version;s graphics are epic enough to compensate for all of this. |
The PC UI is completely different, and not changed much compared to DA:O.
I agree the console UI is unsuitable for higher dificulty and the more tactile play that comes with it.
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 12:19 Post subject: |
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come on!11 wanna leech this shit so bad!
>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ♪ Viva La Vida ♪ <<<<<< <<<<< <<<<<< <<<
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 12:19 Post subject: |
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 12:23 Post subject: |
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This weekend i finished the second "chapter" of the game on the PS3. I'm doing all the available content, every single major, secondary and rumor quests. Here are my impressions 20 hours in:
Minor spoilers throughout but no specifics, if anyone feels bothered i can hide parts of the texts, feel free to comment.
Story -
. It truly is the story of the rise Hawke and his/her family, its a more personal affair full of tragedy, backstabbing and truly great moments. I have to admit that i enjoy these types of stories more than the "epic kill the dragon" ones (although there are plenty of dragons). 
. I wish Varric was more involved as the "narrator", his involvement is basically at the start and end of a chapter with a couple of other interventions if at all. His account of the Champions rise to power is the best part of the story and his acting and Cassandra's is spot on.
. That leads me to the voice acting and npc's in general. Theres no way around the fact that Hawke's (male) voice acting is horribly cast... there is no passion, no emotion, nothing like the "gravitas" of Shepard in the Mass Effect series. Generally speaking ME had better voice and npc's personalties in general (comparing with ME because both games are similarly styled, in position of DA: O)
The npc companions in general are lackluster, with two exceptions, Isabela and Varric, i always had them in my active group, they are so much fun to watch during their inter-party banter.
To a lesser degree, Merril with her innocence and deadpan voice (curious for a full out blood mage), is a fun character to have around.
Quests -
. There...are...a...lot...of...them. Feels like the game has a lot more content than the first one, quest wise, but its somewhat misleading...
. There is little to no tile set variation... you get one single map for the dark-roads that reused... you get one or 2 maps for caves which are reused ad-nausea... you get a single forest/mountain map... you get a single cost-line map.
Well you get my point, the recycling of maps is absurd because its so overused/abused. The level designers were either on a tight budget or simply were ordered to "dont give a shit"... because Bioware's idea of a different map is to close off a door and... voila.. you get a new quest zone.
. Anyways, content wise you will get enough to entertain you for about as long as DA: O, unless the remaining acts im yet to finish are ridiculously short.
. As i mention before, the story is tragic and Hawke goes through a lot of shit, one memorable moment with his mother (good job writers). Most of the quests feel grounded on the day-to-day life of a medieval/fantasy metropolis, as you get some sense of the politics behind it all.
. This leads me to the best story element of the game the struggle between the Chantry and the Qunari, its a great plot line with good voice acting all around as well as some decent writing. The Qunari as a race are amazing in this game, their voice acting... you feel the immense power at their fingertips, its really fun to watch Sten's personality taken to the extreme end of the "fanatic" scale and then plunge even farther.
. The dialog-wheel... i like it. It ends up being the same as in DA:O, you about the same response/investigate/instigate options, you get a lot more npc companion dialog intervention options (its fun to ask Varric to negotiate a bribe or fool a couple of templars).
The only difference here is that Hawke's responses are not fully written down like on DA:O, but having a voiced (if poorly) main character is the trade-off, im more than willing to accept it.
There are no dialog skill/stat checks (there are no skills at all)...
Gameplay/combat -
. Theres no way around it, this...is...a...hack...and...slash...Rrrr...Pppp...Gggg. Playing as a warrior(2-handed/reaver/berserker) on "normal difficulty" i had little to do but press (x) and use my own limited abilities. I never once had to reload a fight, never had party members die on me.
. Tactics... there are none. Usual party composition is based solely on DPS with healing left to the occasional potion, there was no need of a dedicated healer like in Origins (Anders is the one filling this role on DA 2)m you just wade ahead and carve everything to a fine mist of red.
. Fun? Most definitely. It reminded me of "Too Human" of all things, as i zipped around the battlefield hacking shit up (the game has a healthy dose of auto-target, auto "dash to opponent")
. The talent trees are well thought out and balanced, but i disliked that you didn't have to earn your specializations like on Origins, you just need to spend a point and then... your a Reaver... yay
. No skills... whatsoever.
. Crafting is streamlined, you just need to keep finding ingredient sources on the maps you visit, and then you can buy potions/runes/poisons right from your Home or Merchants. No weapon/armor crafting so far in the game, so i guess there wont be none.
. Equipment, it feels less epic than in Origins (witch itself had nothing on Baldurs Gate and its equipment descriptions). I'm buying most from merchants, so gold is in short supply, but i never felt underpowered at any given time.
. The "star" system is a bit messed up though, in most cases it works fine to judge an item's quality, but in many cases the same item had more "stars" than a copy of itself (same name and all).
. You end up changing weapons so many times that using runes on them feels like a waste of time.
. Armor apparence feel considerably less epic than what the demo let on. They (armors) look bland and uninteresting, especially companions, im well into the game and almost have all the npc's armor upgrades bought and most look exactly the same as they did at the start. Notable exceptions are Merril and Aveline.
. Inventory. I never felt the need to sell/destroy anything to make space. Its a bit more confusing than in Origins, but i like the "junk" tab and the ability to "sell all junk" at merchants (with a single press of a button).
Graphics -
. Theres no way around it... this game looks like shit on the PS3. The pc demo with locked medium settings looks worlds apart from the console version (for the better).
. The lighting is all wrong, the textures lack definition... but thankfully there is no popup to be experienced (Mass Effect series).
. At least its consistent in its shittiness . The environments, except for being repetitive, are interesting the first time you visit, and are huge (city zones are several times the size of a dragon age zone).
Conclusions -
(+) Its still an RPG, but a bit more streamlined, not to the degree i feared though.
(+) The combat is fun, in a mindless care free way.
(+) The story is more interesting and less cliche than in Origins.
(+) Enchantment! Sandal is back... and he brings the pain to a lot of darkspawn and one unfortunate Ogre.
(-) NPC's are hit and miss.
(-) Crafting just plain sucks.
(-) Poor equipment variety.
(-) Heavy... and i do mean HEAVY recycling of maps/areas. You will get bored of it fast, by the end of the first chapter i was already cursing at Bioware.
(-) Graphics, no way around it... this game is one of the most lack-luster AAA releases i can recall on a console.
Sorry for the long post, but it´s Monday and im bored at work [/list]
Last edited by Kem0sabe on Mon, 7th Mar 2011 12:28; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 12:25 Post subject: |
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Bioware did a good job making an RPG for consoles but they should still be played on PC.
One thing I'm worried about is that on all the pc gameplay footage i've seen for DAII you cant really zoom out as far as you could in origins. Not only does this make all the graphical problems stand out but it also makes it harder to play the game strategically. I prefer having an all out view of the whole battlefield instead of looking directly above your character.
This was actually a problem for me when i played it on the ps3. I couldn't see when my mage or ranged rougue were being attacked so i couldn't prevent it from happening earlier and i couldn't decide when to use taunt.
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 12:26 Post subject: |
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It's funny cause it's how half the DA:O players I know respond ^^
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 12:33 Post subject: |
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Sounds pretty bad.
There is high-res texture mod in the works, that plus some other mods and the nightmare difficulty and it should be playable on the pc.
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Bayerss
Posts: 106
Location: Gimpsville
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 12:54 Post subject: |
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Ive got some quotes for ya all. Seems EA sic'd the lawyers on Skidrow for posting the CLONEDVD. here are a few regurgitated posts I found, contains some information on what is happening:
| Quote: | | "The .exe for this game is 128bit encrypted with Securom and the encryption key won't be made available until the game releases on March 8th, so the chance of a crack showing up before then is very slim. This does not indicate whether this release will work or won't work with a crack that comes out in the future." |
| Quote: | "Last I checked Skidrow's site was down : This domain has been locked due to it being hosting copyrighted contents of Electronic Arts. Please login and check your messages ASAP.
but you still can access the dragon age 2 page at http://skidrowcrack.com/dragon-age-ii-2011ruseng/
and still not playable" |
| Quote: | "I found this serial off releaselog and it lets you get to the installation screen...
25K3-3NO7-L39A-YFN1-320D
...but it says it installs, but not really. I have tried working around it, but have come up with nothing. Someone needs to prevent the dragonage2.exe from accessing the Sony dadc austria ag release control, which I think you can disable via some programming...
ps....the site is getting trolled right now, since skidrow website went down..." |
My advice is to join the trolling of EA's site
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demde
Posts: 6536
Location: Lake Karachay
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Tarek
Posts: 169
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 13:27 Post subject: |
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skidrowcrack.com is my go to site =D
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 13:39 Post subject: |
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| Kem0sabe wrote: | This weekend i finished the second "chapter" of the game on the PS3. I'm doing all the available content, every single major, secondary and rumor quests. Here are my impressions 20 hours in:
[snip]
Heavy... and i do mean HEAVY recycling of maps/areas. You will get bored of it fast, by the end of the first chapter i was already cursing at Bioware. |
Very well written review and I agree with you on almost all points.
I've played about 15 hours now, and I'm still looking forward to continue the story, which is it's best point I think.
And also, the heavy recycling is incredibly stupid, to the point that I almost would stop doing the sidequests. Only reason I don't is that there's some really good story in some of them (like the mage that you escort).
But basically, you get to a new zone, that zone is reused 10 times or more in sidequests, with some minor changes, like doors blocking off paths..
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 13:59 Post subject: |
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How many times does it have to be stated now? You CAN'T crack the game yet since it's time-locked! When the release date check has passed and the correct EXE has been either downloaded or decrypted, then it can be cracked.
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| Posted: Mon, 7th Mar 2011 14:01 Post subject: |
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Well that was an odd thing to do with the recycling... Even ME2 actually went in the opposite direction, making the levels more varied. You'd think they would stick to that idea.
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