Dragon Age 2 - News Round Up # 2

Some news about DA2 has popped up from varying sources on the net, so I'll collect them here. First up is two reviews from German Magazines, then we have a story about a DA2 event in London and at last we have something about a DA2 demo FAQ.
On the Bioware forums, there's a thread about reviews from two German magazines started by Estel1978. Maria Caliban made a post on Obsidian's forums citing the German source. Here's what Estel1978 has to say, first the review from PC Games.

I don't have the print magazines myself, got those infos from a german board. I'm trying my best with the translations.

PC Games gave it 88, pros and cons:

+ very well told hero story
+ varied followers, each with their own stories
+ great dialogs with moral decisions
+ exciting boss battles
+ martial-arts-fans should have great fun with possibly the fastest (or fast paced) battles in a fantasy game

- …but old-school RPG players might have their problems with the flurry of activities in battles
- limited class progression with fixed skilltrees
- poor level design with one-to-one copy-pasting of whole quest areas (do they mean, some areas are a carbon copy of each other???)*
- unsatisfying ending

Then he talks about the review from Gamestar.

Gamestar gave it 87, pros and cons:

+ thrilling storyline
+ great dialogs and quests
+ coherent / consistent game world

- some fiddly battles
- less epic as DAO

Their conclusion: great RPG, slightly weaker than DAO

Yesterday, on the 19th of February, there was a small DA2 presentation in London, open to the public. A Bioware, forumite, Maria13, made this thread about it. Here's a snip about what she had to say:

Well, a podcast was taken so no doubt it will be posted somewhere on BSN soon. There weren't many of us, I'd say about 50. Mike Laidlaw was questioned by The Guardian games critic. Most of the discussion was about the difficulty of writing such complex games. Mike was a very calm, informative and humorous interviewee.

Christ Priestly made a FAQ thread about the demo released this Tuesday, the 22nd of February 2011. Here's some selected snips from it:

What time will the demo be available?
For PC – February 22 at 9am PST
For Xbox 360 – February 22 between midnight and 2am PST
For Playstation 3 users in North America – February 22 between 4pm and 8pm PST
For Playstation 3 users outside North America - February 23 between 4pm and 8pm GMT

I have a Silver Xbox Live account. Does that make a difference?
Slightly. The demo is available for free through both Silver and Gold Xbox Live accounts. The Xbox Live Gold account will have teh demo on February 22. The Xbox Live Silver account will have it one week late.

Where do I get the PC version of the demo?
We will have a link to the demo download on the Dragon Age 2 demo page.

How do I get my Hayder’s Razor” item for finishing the demo?
After you finish the demo if you have logged in with or created an EA account you will get an entitlement called Hayder’s Razor which is a Dwarfen Sword which they can use in the main game.

Is Hayder’s Razor available for all platforms?
Yes.

And so, this counts as one of the more than 600 items* you can get if you pre-order, buy the game at certain places, play Dead Space 2 and much more*
* May not entirely be accurate…
More information.

- …but old-school RPG players might have their problems with the flurry of activities in battles

I wouldn't have any problems with fast paced action. I can button mash with the best of them. I just didn't want that in this game.

Oh well, it looks like this is one of the first RPGs I'll buy when Steam, Impulse or GamersGate slashes the prices to next to nothing during a holiday sale in a few years time.

As much as I love DA:O, and I really did love that game, nothing about this game makes me want to play it. I'm still playing Dungeons and Red Dead Redemption and having a great time. Why would I want to buy a watered down Dragon Age?

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
I wouldn't have any problems with fast paced action. I can button mash with the best of them. I just didn't want that in this game.

The fast pace has nothing to do with "button mashing." The characters still auto-attack and you can still pause and give orders at any time. Basically the animations and charge times have been greatly shortened, that's all. It is not suddenly a hack n' slash game because of this.

I really think the demo for this game is going to surprise people. So many seem to think this game has been turned into God of War when that is very much not the case.

I already disliked DA:O for the simple gameplay. This time I wait until the game is at the Bargain Bin

Originally Posted by Fenris
I already disliked DA:O for the simple gameplay. This time I wait until the game is at the Bargain Bin

Simple Gameplay? I didn't think it was all that simple….it was pretty complex compared to most of their recent offerings.

Originally Posted by DoctorNarrative
The fast pace has nothing to do with "button mashing." The characters still auto-attack and you can still pause and give orders at any time. Basically the animations and charge times have been greatly shortened, that's all. It is not suddenly a hack n' slash game because of this.

I really think the demo for this game is going to surprise people. So many seem to think this game has been turned into God of War when that is very much not the case.

I've seen the gameplay footage. I know what to expect and will still be waiting till this goes on sale for ten bucks in a year or so.

Everything from the 600+ super bonus items to the "fast paced" action just annoys me. It may technically not be a button masher, but they sure as hell have tried to sell it as one or have you forgotten the 1000s of previews/media junk that was done for the console version of this game and we PC gamers were left in the dark.

There are plenty of other games out there that I don't have to even worry about this diluted Dragon Age.

Edit: There is one way I would buy this game when it was released and that is if a few people here started to sing its praises after they have played it. I'm already expecting the 10/10 nonsense from the major gaming websites. They've been bought and paid for from EA, but if a few people here actually like it then I might try it out. Who knows? Maybe all this fury is aimed at their PR campaign, but I doubt it. I really don't like the fact they are "streamlining" a lot of what made DA great. Especially the damn races. I really don't like playing humans if I don't have to.

Skavenhorde thank you for saying in words what I and many other feel about dragonage 2. I have a hard time writing how I really feel into words but your post sums it up perfectly. Most of my posts come out to negative.

I have it pre-ordered. I have similar misgivings to you, Skavenhorde, but I loved DA:O and figured curiosity would get the better of me, anyway. Fingers crossed it's better than it looks.

I more or less completely agree with Skavenhorde. I loved DA:O (hated Awakening) but the change in emphasis both as marketed and what I've seen in the gameplay has left me unimpressed. I have no plans to check this game out until it gets hugely marked down on a future sale unless I hear enough positive buzz from people who've played it that I consider to have decent taste in RPGs.

I understand that EA/Bioware is pursuing shooter and action game fans. I don't really understand what they hope to gain by alienating their traditional fanbase, though.

[Edited for poor wording.]

I've preordered it as well. I liked DA:O and I really don't think that DA2 will be all that different. And even if it is: As long as I have fun playing it I don't care if it's "streamlined" or "dumbed down" (god, how I hate those phrases, both from fans and from developers and publishers. Why is it so difficult to say: This is the game, we did what we thought was cool and fun to play and we hope you like it?).

I'm going to buy the game, but I have no hurry, to many other games to play on the list.
Prefer to wait until I can get it with all DLC, for me it was worthless to have minor DLC coming out months after finishing the game.

I loved DA:O, I have Awakening installed but haven't played it.

I'm just a teeny weeny bit irritated by the marketing for DA2 and all ploys employed.

I think a lot of the visitors here share similar feelings.

But on the other hand, were not the target group for the PR. They are trying to bring in gamers unfamiliar to RPG, which have a slight possibility to bee good for all of us. even the grognards.

C

Originally Posted by mediocrepoet
I loved DA:O (hated Awakening)

How is that even possible? They're the same exact game.

Anyway, the marketing of Dragon Age: Origins was terrible and aimed at little kids who like action games. The game itself though? Nothing like that. There is no reason to judge this game by marketing at all, or even by developer comments. The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and the long unedited walkthrough videos look to me like a fine tactical RPG with very fast animations so as to make it seem more exciting. That's fine with me, I like exciting games and tactical games both.

Tried the german demo, and I wasn't impressed.

Hard to say what the actual game will be like - but the demo was an endless action-fest with zero challenge or need for tactical decisions. Not sure what difficulty it was set at, though.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Tried the german demo, and I wasn't impressed.

Hard to say what the actual game will be like - but the demo was an endless action-fest with zero challenge or need for tactical decisions. Not sure what difficulty it was set at, though.

They have said bluntly that normal mode is setup for never needing tactics or pausing. If you want a challenge you need to play on hard or nightmare.

Originally Posted by DoctorNarrative
They have said bluntly that normal mode is setup for never needing tactics or pausing. If you want a challenge you need to play on hard or nightmare.

Normal is meant to be zero challenge then?

That's a great perception of the average player - but it certainly fits with my perception of Bioware

I even played Dragon Age 1 in "easy" mode, since I'm *far* more interested in the story than in the combat … But I realize that I'm a minority in that respct anyway.

But yes - I played tactical in that mode. I just wanted to.

I even set up individual tactics fields/scripts/whatever these thingies are called …

So there's a demo already? Is this a legit release, or some leak that has to be torrented?

Originally Posted by JDR13
So there's a demo already? Is this a legit release, or some leak that has to be torrented?

I think it's a leak - and I had to google for it. Didn't torrent it, though, just some .rar files on various public file servers.

The english demo is supposedly out tomorrow, so I'd recommend waiting if you're worried about trying a leaked demo.

I'm not in a huge hurry to play DA2, so waiting another day is no big deal.

I don't think I'm interested in trying to fumble my way through the menus in German anyways.

I'll try out the English version of the demo (if here'll be different languages anyway), first, and then compare it to what I've seen at the Games Com.

I'd almost bet for 10 Euros it'll be exactly what could be played at the Games Com. However, I'm not sure, of course …