Dragon Age - Classical Fantasy? -ehm- Didn't some of you get the memo that this DA universe was not the traditional classical fantasy a la Tolkien etc. It was supposed to be realistic, dark heroic fantasy, and the keyword here seems to be heroic. I've played the demo once so far. (I'll probabky play it again sometime soon) Here are some of my impressions:
Dialogue wheel: I liked it - a lot. Clear and structured choices. And it was logical what I said. And no, I didn't feel disconnected with my character at all. Whether or not this has something to with me playing adventure games (like Syberia and Post Mortem), I don't know, but the thing is that in these game the main character (me) always speaks.
The user interface: Much better than in DA: Origins. It is now clear why the portraits are in the lower left corner, the pause button or cirkel is now on the screen (much akin to BG2). I felt it a bit odd that you had to press the esc button to level up? but found this actually to be nice. And I especially liked that you now can click directly on a character to get them to move. Although, sometimes they didn't - they ran the other way, stood still, or just refused to do anything at all, I ordered them to do
- it was as if they had a will of their own. And sometimes they were fighting thin air
The interface screen with the abilities and screens:
Much better organised this time around. And at least now it seems they're a reason to why skills and abilities are in the game. It may be as complex as the one in Origins, but it seems organised in a simpler way.
The beginning (Varric's exageratted tale):
I like the idea of Varric telling his tale. And then suddenly we're playing the game.
This functions like a tutorial area where we're playing the game, learning the ropes foreshadowing also (some of) the abilities and skills we learn later in the game. And maybe, it is just me, but I like the idea of coning home with a game, opening the box, and then put the dvd in, it installs - and you - get into combat. And then after learning the combat and what you should do, you get a character creation screen.
The Character Creation Screen:
This again is one of the best screen for character screen I've seen in a rpg (or any game for that matter). The choices are lined up, the descriptions are short and to the point.
The art direction:
I like stylized cartoony games; I'm not that much into games that tries to look photorealistic. For Mass Effect games, I can sort of understand because they seem to be an hommage to the old sci movies from years past, especially the ones made in the 1970's and the 1980's.
On another, yet related note:
One or two threads at the Bioware forums for this game (da2) has been made where people have stated they they didn't know they could level up in this game.
Bioware better start telling the Call of Duty etc. players that - or they will quit after maybe 1 hour or so.
The combat:
Felt OK, somewhat similar to Origins, but faster paced this time around. Many times in Origins, I just clicked on the characters and they didn't move untill I told them to so do again, also they needed to be really close to their targets. Not so anymore. It feelt more responsive in a way. And it does definetely feel faster, very much so. The Rogue isn't a Rogue anymore, it seems. She (or he) is sort of a Ninja-character that now does backstabbing from 30 feet (10 m) away; I really don't know hat happened to the whole idea of moving silently and killing the enemy...
The combat (again):
Combat feels faster definetely. So fast actually that a dec. (stanley woo from the qa team) responded to maria caliban in a thread on the bsn forums about 2H combat. Here's the thread:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6182904&lf=8
While Woo is not directly addressing the quickness of the combat, he is talking about the QA testing of the combat. And it seems that Bioware slowed it down a bit and bu this I mean, they slowed the combat animations down a bit - or lot. This, however, remains, to bee seen in the full game.
As for the difficulty:
I found the difficulty on normal setting hard and difficult. I died many times, especially when defeating the second Ogre. The problem was not the Ogre, but the darkspawn surrounding me. Another problem was that when I clicked on the icons to use healing, stamina or lyrium potions, it didn't work.
As for the dumbing down aspects:
I've been a stickler for smoother, more understable, more userfriendly interfaces from Day 1 of my playing rpg. And no-one has (maybe untill now?) come as close as the userinterface in BG1 and BG2. I don't feel it is dumbing the game down to make the userface more streamlined, more logical or more structured in the way it is presented to the player. Or so that players, also other players than rpg players, know from the start what they're doing, and why.
As for the learning aspects (of the game aspects) - and by that I mean learning how to play the game:
The game, da2, eases you into playing it. It has been proving many times (and as a teacher I also know this) that a) people learn in (very) small increments b) people can't remember more than 5-7 things at a time. For instance, I was playing Drakensang, and although I love this game, I got confused because of the over-whelming stats, abilities and skills in this game. Half the time, I didn't know why the stats etc. were there. Is it really such a crime? that Bioware wants players to be at ease when playing the game;
Just because you drive a car, doesn't it necessarily mean that you know how to fix the car. A mechanic looks under the hood and does the fixing for you. The point being that the rpg mechanics probably still are there in DA2 - just somewhat hidden under the hood.
