Dragon Age 2 - Not As Dumbed Down As Mass Effect

Note the headline comes directly from Kotaku's latest look at Dragon Age 2, rather than my own opinion. Stephen Totilo has an article titled Definitely Not As Dumbed Down As Mass Effect where he describes the depth of the Tactics system. It essentially sounds identical to DA:O, although I didn't know about multi-character combos:

The Dragon Age II tactics can set up combos. One character, for example, might dole out 4x damage to enemies who are made "brittle." Another character might be able to make characters brittle with a certain attack. You can figure this one out: set one character to emphasize the brittle move; set the other to spot that and swoop in.

In other news, the Bioblog has a lengthy post of DA: Journeys, the Facebook game, with producer Ethan Levy answering questions.
More information.

Main question is there enough difficulty level in DA2. Without an appropriate hard difficulty that requires tactics, what's the point of tactics. I hope that's not the case.

Originally Posted by Gokyabgu
Main question is there enough difficulty level in DA2. Without an appropriate hard difficulty that requires tactics, what's the point of tactics. I hope that's not the case.

It has easy, normal, hard and "nightmare." They said that normal is based around being able to beat the game without using pause or tactics, so I would say start on hard at least.

I played DA1 on the Xbox because my laptop wasn't powerful enough.

Yeah so I admittedly played the "dumbed down" version. I will tell you that even the Xbox version of DA required pausing and tactics on default normal difficulty level. You'd be killed over and over if you just let everyone go without pausing.

I'm not comparing it to DA on the PC because I didn't try it. Just saying that it's pretty safe to say there will be need to pause and use tactics.

Originally Posted by Ovenall
You'd be killed over and over if you just let everyone go without pausing.

I'm not comparing it to DA on the PC because I didn't try it. Just saying that it's pretty safe to say there will be need to pause and use tactics.

After finding a few powerful combos (almost exploits) there was a lot less need for pausing on normal difficulty. I didn't like the game enough to replay it so I have no idea how difficult the other options were.

After the first title in the "Knights of the Old Republic" series, I started every Bioware title on the "hard" difficulty, and had a fairly challenging game. Not nearly as ridiculous as the million reloads that I've had to endure in Arcanum or Eye of The Beholder, but I have to keep reminding myself that, at least in the former case, the reason for the reloads was the stupidity of my companions.

Take Fallout, for example. Ridiculously good game, but did anyone who played the game for more than 15 minutes EVER give Ian a fucking SMG? One of the reasons the game might have been so hard was because my "buddy" had a nasty habit of turning me into swiss cheese.

There is no question that, because the games are being made for consoles, that they're not as hard as they used to be. There's only so much that you can do with two analog thumbsticks and colored buttons. I think that DA:O started to get back onto the straight and narrow by introducing the tactics system, and, hopefully, they'll take the next logical step and make the "hard" and "nightmare" modes exponentially harder, so that those of us who are able to use 7-10 fingers to play don't get bored.

Originally Posted by Ovenall
I played DA1 on the Xbox because my laptop wasn't powerful enough.

Yeah so I admittedly played the "dumbed down" version. I will tell you that even the Xbox version of DA required pausing and tactics on default normal difficulty level. You'd be killed over and over if you just let everyone go without pausing.

I'm not comparing it to DA on the PC because I didn't try it. Just saying that it's pretty safe to say there will be need to pause and use tactics.

This. +1. Sorry, needed to be said. Nothing more to add.

Didnt they remove certain puzzle aspects in DA:O for consoles ? I guess they were afraid of the console kids having meltdowns . They should just make DA3 a Leapfrog exclusive.

Yes.

We get it:

You don't like Bioware.

Originally Posted by Captain Buzzkill
Yes.

We get it:

You don't like Bioware.

Is it a shock that people do. Im getting tired of hearing its bioware they cant do me or anyone wrong. Just go to there forums and see how there fans are. There worse than the haters.They make me want to .

kotaku—not quite as dumbed down as gamespot

Well of course they're going to be loving on Bioware titles on Bioware's fan site. What would you expect? You must have a very selective optical nerve if you can't detect the reasonable and objective (and not all positive) critiques of their games on this site. Saying:

Originally Posted by rich ruffo
Didnt they remove certain puzzle aspects in DA:O for consoles ? I guess they were afraid of the console kids having meltdowns . They should just make DA3 a Leapfrog exclusive.

isn't a legitimate criticism of a video game, in my book. It's just a snarky way of saying, "I hate Bioware." Is it not patently obvious that the reason they might have done away with some of the puzzle elements in DA:O (if, indeed they did so) on consoles is because of the inherent limitations of a console controller, as compared to a mouse and keyboard? I'm fine with:

"Bioware's titles have just gotten stale to me. They're consistently the same hackneyed 'Hero's journey' style of story, played out via melodramatic voice acting, and instead of real C&C, we're given the 'choice' of who we want to romance, and not necessarily because we feel some kind of connection between the characters, but because we want a new pseudo-sex scene and it's accompanying achievement. If Bioware just focused more on an engaging story and more believable relationships between the main protagonist and his/her companions, the cutscenes, voice-acting, and pretty engine would function more like the icing on a cake, rather than just a pile of icing with no substance within it."

Running around, shouting, "BIOWARE SUX, AND ALL THE FANBOYS ARE FAGS!" is obnoxious and sophomoric. What are we, 12 years old?

Well Buzzkill we know your not having kids, relax im just joking . Im not going to pontificate about Biowares ways ,We ALL KNOW THEM. Like you i am also tired or the formula .

Ha…fair enough…

And you're wrong about the kids thing. My daughter just turned one last week.

Originally Posted by rich ruffo
Well Buzzkill we know your not having kids, relax im just joking . Im not going to pontificate about Biowares ways ,We ALL KNOW THEM. Like you i am also tired or the formula .

I find there formula to be two steps forward and take one back in there games .
Personally I have never found any game to be the greatest game ever. How there games are given a 10/10 baffles me since there is no perfect game. Bah whatever for some reason I still play them.Everyone have a nice night.

[QUOTE=Captain Buzzkill;1061051128]After the first title in the "Knights of the Old Republic" series, I started every Bioware title on the "hard" difficulty, and had a fairly challenging game. Not nearly as ridiculous as the million reloads that I've had to endure in Arcanum or Eye of The Beholder, but I have to keep reminding myself that, at least in the former case, the reason for the reloads was the stupidity of my companions.
[QUOTE]

I'm playing every RPG in the highest difficulty possible since I think 2004. On hard difficulty Dragon Age Origins was a very satisfying game (requiring micro managing and such). But there are some games even highest difficulty was a piece of cake. Kotor games, NWN2 comes to my mind. In those games combats are a joke for a professional roleplaying gamer.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Is it a shock that people do. Im getting tired of hearing its bioware they cant do me or anyone wrong. Just go to there forums and see how there fans are. There worse than the haters.They make me want to .

I don't know what happened to you, but you got a personal problem with Bioware, ok fine.

But do you realize it means that this influence any of your comments on any Bioware game, and this makes your comments void but as one more example of Bioware hater? And that you aren't isolate but a part of a mass don't make it more significant and make it less interesting and quite tedious because already seen too often.

And don't throw me in a supposed pack of Bioware fan, I hated KoTOR fights, found ME1 awfully boring (but know I'm not fair), won't try ME2 until I get it free or perhaps for less than $3, and so on.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I find there formula to be two steps forward and take one back in there games .
Personally I have never found any game to be the greatest game ever. How there games are given a 10/10 baffles me since there is no perfect game. Bah whatever for some reason I still play them.Everyone have a nice night.

This has been said a million times over, so I'll keep it short:
10/10 != perfect

Originally Posted by curious
kotaku—not quite as dumbed down as gamespot

Great sentence !

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
This has been said a million times over, so I'll keep it short:
10/10 != perfect

The problem is that in my mind, and I'm sure many others - I spend a lot of time marking papers - 10/10 *is* perfect/with no flaws/no errors. The game industry reviewers may have redefined it to mean something else, but obviously this not widely understood/accepted. If a game couldn't (reasonably) have done anything better, then sure, give it 10/10. I have yet to play such a game however, by a long shot - even games I really like. When you read reviews, the reviewers gripe about this or that aspect, and then proceed to ignore that when assigning a score. Then you get all sorts of different scoring systems - its a mess. I wish they'd throw away numbers and give games some overall thumbs up/thumbs down type rating with a detailed list of pros/cons and "if you like X… you will like this", "if you didn't enjoy Y", you will not enjoy this" and so on etc.