Divinity 2 - Reviews @ IGN

Dhruin

Dhruin

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IGN has reviews for both the PC and X360 versions of Divinity II. The PC review is the main one, with Charles Onyett keeping the main text and adding a different summary for the X360 version.
On the PC, the rating is 7/10, which they list as "decent":
The more you play, the better it gets. Such is the way of things with many role-playing titles as their gameplay systems evolve, narratives progress, and new items and skills become available. It's especially true of Larian Studios' Divinity 2: Ego Draconis since it starts out so slow. The next in the line of Larian's Divinity games, this is a Western-style traditional high fantasy setting filled with fireballs, wizards, goblins and dragons. It's the type of fantasy world we've seen plenty of times before, most recently in Piranha Bytes' Risen and BioWare's Dragon Age: Origins, though those examples contain a greater breadth of distinguishing qualities that make them stand further out from the pack than Larian's effort. Still, there's plenty of satisfying content to dig into in Divinity 2, provided you're willing to overlook some of its generic and underdeveloped aspects, of which there are quite a few.
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On the X360, however, the score is a lowly 4.8/10:
I can’t recommend the Xbox 360 version of this product to anyone. The occasionally glitchiness of the PC version was much more pronounced on the console, particularly when it came to enemies getting stuck in the environment. The aiming mechanic is cumbersome and confusing when dealing with more than one target, which happens frequently, the menu system and interface are a chore to sift through, and character movement and control is more imprecise. An inconsistent framerate, low level of detail compared to other Xbox 360 releases in this genre, and jerky animations combined with the already unoriginal art style makes this an unpleasant experience for anyone. Even worse, at one point a door disappeared from the environment so I couldn’t actually exit and had to reload a previous save (which didn’t solve the issue), and in multiple instances save files I overwrote multiple times didn’t load correctly. That’s pretty poor, and part of the experience you should be aware of if the Xbox 360 version is your only option.
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Thanks to EvilKoala for the links.
More information.
 
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Guys, I know there's a forum thread about this here, but I've still got to ask: Is the 360 port really that bad or this another review that's overreacting? I mean, everyone denounced the Risen port as unplayable aswell and I've been playing it for two days now and I think it's not that bad at all. I really want to buy Divinity II, but all these confusing reviews make me unsure :-/
 
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Ouch. Yeah, that review makes it sound bad.

Opinions seem to differ pretty substantially on this stuff, and a lot depends on how sensitive/reactive you are to technological imperfections (I tend to be pretty oblivious or indifferent). I know a half dozen people who are playing through the game, enjoying it quite a bit, and no one is complaining about those things. I think they are like me, they are not particularly hung up on these technical things and enjoy the core gameplay.
 
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Well, at least it isn't the usual copy-n-paste reviews those guys usually do for the 11/10 console games that are crap on PC but get high scores anyway (GTA 4 most recently)
 
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Caveat: I haven't even seen the X360 version.

The score seems fair to me. If the PC version is worth 7/10 (which seems roughly on target to me), the X360 version must rate much lower considering save game corruption and regular reports of poor framerate, muddy textures and targeting issues.

As I said, I haven't seen it personally and the save corruption does have a fix (albeit one that would annoy me) but I were reviewing it, how could I possibly give a good score to a console game that corrupted saves?
 
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PCGamer UK February 2010

Mass Effect 2
Verdict: Faster-paced action and difficult ethical decisions make Mass Effect 2 even more immersive than the excellent original. 90%

Bioshock 2
Verdict: Similar and slightly improved mechanics make this a worthy sequel, despite a sadle less memorable sory. 90%

King Arthur - The Role-playing Wargame
Verdict: A supreme strategy game, rich with incident and detail. Finally some worthy competition for the Total War series. 86%

Divinity II: Ego Draconis
Verdict: Not the best fantasy RPG available this year, but good enough to sate those looking for more quests and characters. 71%
 
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Thanks Kroto. Good to see the score for ME2; surprised to see Bioshock 2 scored so well; Div 2 score sounds typical.
 
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I have becoming a monster, a stranger in the planet I believed to be my native planet. That's weird. Bioshock bored me, I tried a lot first on PC then on a marvelous Mac port, no way, it bores me.

Mass Effect didn't grab me at all, the encyclopedia is the most boring stuff I ever read in my life, the action was tedious.
 
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Dasale said:
Bioshock bored me, I tried a lot first on PC then on a marvelous Mac port,
Click to expand...

The Mac port is good? I never grabbed it (already own, too little time).
 
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I played only the first few levels, and the speed was amazing, it seems run as fast than the Windows version and in term of performance that's an impressive game in Windows. But I only played a tiny part of the game.
 
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Anderson said:
Thanks Kroto. Good to see the score for ME2; surprised to see Bioshock 2 scored so well; Div 2 score sounds typical.
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Bioshock 1 scored 95% ….

… and now the last part of the review by Dan Stapleton (Mass Effect 2)

' Where Mass Effect 2 completely won me over was in the amazing climatic mission, easily one of the best game endings I've played in recent years.
Without giving anythnig away, you must make difficult command decision that put the lives of your crew on the line, knowing that the game is totally willing to kill them off at any time if you make a wrong move.
It ends on a high note that leaves us exactly where BioWare want us: primed and ready to import our characters into Mass Effect 3.'
 
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A part of the Divinity II: Ego Draconis review by Quintin Smith:

'Sadly the story dithers around your rise to power, and it takes at least 12 hours before you get to the dragon form. Ego Draconis finally opens up like a scaly flower once you can go flapping around the world with runners, an alchemist, an enchanter end even a necromancer at your beck and call. In a bigger game it wouldn't be much of a problem, but by the time that happens a third of the game has passed. Between that lovely first town and finally getting your dragon form, there are some unforgivable issues: monotonous, awkward combat with little weight or complexity; a dire lack of autosaving coupled with unskippable cutscenes; vague quests with no map indicators. Much of the time is spent out in the field, watching a monster's health bar tick down or dry dragon combat.'
 
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This is the first time I've heard about save game corruption on 360, but that's unforgivable if true, of course. I've certainly not run into it; the most serious technical issue I've seen was a freeze on a loading screen early in the game--once. Other than that, it's all down to taste and ability to overcome minor niggles. Controls and framerate are fine in my opinion and I don't think the game looks that bad at all. I don't have a problem with being able to become a dragon only after 10-15 hours of gameplay and I have no problems with the lack of map indicators. But apparently some people furiously disagree.

But I've said this before already.
 
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Thaurin said:
This is the first time I've heard about save game corruption on 360, but that's unforgivable if true, of course. I've certainly not run into it; the most serious technical issue I've seen was a freeze on a loading screen early in the game—once. Other than that, it's all down to taste and ability to overcome minor niggles. Controls and framerate are fine in my opinion and I don't think the game looks that bad at all.
Click to expand...

Good to hear. As for the Save bug, just make sure you create new saves, rather than rewrite over old saves, and you should be okay. That's the word anyhow.
 
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It certainly took me more than 15 hours to gain dragon form, but I'm a completist and once you do get dragon form, all outstanding quests are cancelled.
 
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