So Dragon Age 2 is really bad on the PC and consolized?

[Dumac]

I'm with Mem. 7/10 no doubt.

I would really like to see what games people are playing that give DA2 a 5-5.5, what other games do these people play? DA2 is not that bad, I have played MUCH MUCH worse.

Jade Empire 7/10
KotOR 9.5/10
KotOR2 8.5/10
ME 9/10
ME2 8/10
DA:O 9/10

OoT 9.5/10
Mororwind 9/10
Oblivion 7/10
Witcher 8/10
Diablo 2 9/10
Demon's Souls 9.5/10
Rome: TW 9/10

DA2 5/10

Again, DA2 brings nothing to the table.

The gameplay is OK
The story is poor
The graphics are OK
The dialogue is poor (and the wheel just makes it worse)
Your companion are just OK, not really interesting
Environment is OK, except that they reuse it over and over and over

I don't see why all that OK warrant a 7 or 8 out of 10

 

[datalink7]

No.

DA2 does nothing WELL. It only does some thinigs OK and other poorly.

You are right, its OK.

OK = 5/10

I guess it depends on your perspective on th grading system.

To me, 7/10 is OK. 6/10 is poor. 1-5/10 is varying degrees of bad.

8/10 is good. 9/10 is awesome. 10/10 is Planescape: Torment

 

[JoshGuru7]

Of course everybody wants to have their own rating system, but if you can't give anything a 10/10 then why not just make your scale 1-9 instead?

When you consider how subjective each rating really is, whether you think ME2 or Doom 4 is a better game says a lot more about you then it does about the respective games. In a perfect world, consumers would be comfortable simply putting a price tag on what they thought the game was worth.

 

[Dumac]

I guess it depends on your perspective on th grading system.

To me, 7/10 is OK. 6/10 is poor. 1-5/10 is varying degrees of bad.

8/10 is good. 9/10 is awesome. 10/10 is Planescape: Torment

Yeah, I don't like the school type score system where 1-6 is basically not used.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Jade Empire 7/10
KotOR 9.5/10
KotOR2 8.5/10
ME 9/10
ME2 8/10
DA:O 9/10

OoT 9.5/10
Mororwind 9/10
Oblivion 7/10
Witcher 8/10
Diablo 2 9/10
Demon's Souls 9.5/10
Rome: TW 9/10

DA2 5/10

Again, DA2 brings nothing to the table.

The gameplay is OK
The story is poor
The graphics are OK
The dialogue is poor (and the wheel just makes it worse)
Your companion are just OK, not really interesting
Environment is OK, except that they reuse it over and over and over

I don't see why all that OK warrant a 7 or 8 out of 10

I don't see how you could give Jade Empire a higher grade than DA2. Granted, I've enjoyed both.

I guess it comes down to preference, but far too many of those who're spending their time bashing DA2 are acting as if there aren't differing opinions on the subject. I've personally enjoyed most of the dialogue as well as the combat.

 

[Dumac]

I don't see how you could give Jade Empire a higher grade than DA2. Granted, I've enjoyed both.

I guess it comes down to preference, but far too many of those who're spending their time bashing DA2 are acting as if there aren't differing opinions on the subject. I've personally enjoyed most of the dialogue as well as the combat.

Aye, its all preference, but most of video game forum threads consist of "my preference is better than your preference"

And as far as Jade Empire, I lipthought the setting was good and the battle system fun and unique. Also, the moral choices were really interesting. It had a good number of flaws though, which is why I rate it lower than ME, DAO, or KotOR

 

[NYHoustonman]

I thought the setting was good

I'll give it that, certainly. And (to my everlasting shame) as my first Bioware RPG, I loved it.

 

[Mem]

Getting right back on topic I found a couple of bugs(two buggy quests) which have been confirmed are buggy by websites.


I have now played 40 hours and still have plenty to do so don't know how anybody has finished this with less that that,I try to do all possible quests as I move to each new Act in the game.

 

[Mem]

I can say its getting to be a joke in this game ,wave after wave of enemies(spam fist RPG lol).

I'll be glad when I have finished the game and to be honest won't be replaying it,done 50 hours now so you get you monies worth at least.


Balance varies and some parts are a lot harder,game can be very frustrating and you may have to turn difficulty down,I don't like replaying same part more then 3 or 4 times lol ,mobs can swarm you( yes you and not your party).

Anyway be glad when I have finished this damn game lol,balance is not right in this game thats for sure.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Sooooo sick of seeing the same map over and over and over again. How the fuck did PC Gamer give this game a 94?!?

 

[Mem]

Sooooo sick of seeing the same map over and over and over again. How the fuck did PC Gamer give this game a 94?!?

Hehe well I just did another quest and after 10 minute fight still had like 10 shades,2 rage demons and big boss demon,we got killed at level 20,its a joke lol...I thought my group would be typical balance ie 2 mages,tank and rogue.

I wonder if they actually do any balancing in this game or just say we give them spam full of tough mobs and see how they do,sick of healing potions every few minutes and cooldowns on healing,you end up running around in circles trying to stay alive or waiting on cooldown until you can revive your group if you are lucky then its a case of they die again ,you run around until you can revive or until you say "sod groundhog day let this game die" lol.

DOA balance was far better then this game thats for sure.

Btw found another quest that is bugged(checked website and they confirmed it) its called "Who Needs Rescuing"...found 3 or 4 now so far.

 

[Mem]

I'm thinking 6/10 now since balancing issues is bad further you go into the game and it becomes a spam fest(wave after wave) with you hopelessly outnumbered,maybe by end of the game it will be 5/10 lol oh well glad only got to play it once then I can move on to Arcania.

 

[mb]

Anyone try fighting the high dragon?

Holy f***ing s***!!!!!! I thought the big fight at the end of act 2 was hard!!!

 

[Mem]

Anyone try fighting the high dragon?

Holy f***ing s***!!!!!! I thought the big fight at the end of act 2 was hard!!!

Yeah its tough ah heck lol ..btw you got more tough fights a head,look at the bright side there is always casual level .

 

[NoSoup4You]

I remember being excited when I first heard DA2 would take place over a span of many years, I've always liked the idea of getting to see how your decisions turned out...etc.

Little did I know it would be an excuse to continually re-use the same levels.

I just finished the Deep Roads, it took me 29 hours to get here playing on Hard and switching to Normal at the 27 hour mark. I do feel I've gotten my money's worth even at this point - the game is not without it's high points. For one, playing a mage is quite glorious. You get to absolutely rain fire from the heavens and it's something that has yet to get old. They do magic right in DA2. The constantly spawning enemies are annoying as all hell but then you remember they're just an excuse to launch another fireball.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Yeah its tough ah heck lol ..btw you got more tough fights a head,look at the bright side there is always casual level .

Indeed. The High Dragon pissed me off for a while...


...Then I remembered DA:O, equipped my mage with a staff that *doesn't* rely on fire damage, used some fire protection runes and such, and forced my rogue (main) to use a bow even though he's set up for daggers - the healing was just too much with two melee characters. Killed the damned thing this morning.

 

[ParadoxDenmark]

I think the game is alright, but it's also my favorite genre. Wasn't as good as the first game, and I probably expected they'd improve on the original formula (like Mass Effect)

Everything looks the same, which ruins the immersion/atmosphere for me. Slightly dull characters and the writing is a step down.

A lot of the important lore and important places is taken directly from the first place. Of course, it's happening at the same time, in some of the same areas, but could have done more to build upon it.

I had fun with it. Was worth buying for me. Slightly disappointed because it's BioWare and probably expected more.

I'd give it a 7/10

 

[NoSoup4You]

I expected more, except that the sequel came so damn quickly after the original - what was it... 15 months??? - that I knew this wouldn't be anywhere near as long as DA:O. And yet, considering the development time, the game IS quite long... all things considered. Granted, it's because they re-use all the levels ad nauseum. That aspect truly sucks.

Considering how rushed the game HAD TO have been, it's quite good. I just wish they'd taken some mroe time, what was the hurry? These franchises are too important... take your time! Hell, if they did all this in 15 months, imagine what they could have done with an extra 6 months to polish/add content.

 

[mb]

Indeed. The High Dragon pissed me off for a while...


...Then I remembered DA:O, equipped my mage with a staff that *doesn't* rely on fire damage, used some fire protection runes and such, and forced my rogue (main) to use a bow even though he's set up for daggers - the healing was just too much with two melee characters. Killed the damned thing this morning.

I had to quit fighting him after about 10 minutes.. I ran out of lyrium potions, stamina droughts and quick heals! I was going to wait until I level up some more but maybe I'll throw some fire protection runes on, stock up on potions, and give it another shot tonight.

 

[Mem]

I finally finished the game,end battle(final one) is easier then some of the previous battles.

I got about 55 gaming hours out of this game so a good average if you do all possible quests would be 50-60 hours,shame I encountered 3 or 4 bugged quests (confirmed on website since I did check)that can't be completed until they release a new patch or two.

Think I'll be generous and keep my 7/10 rating even through the game does have a few issues,however I can't complain on stability which was excellent since I did not get a single crash.

There was one video cut scene near the end that keeps looping,so if you get that just hit escape key to continue.

I'll have a little break before I start Arcania.

 

[Liet]

I'm SO unenthused about starting this game. Why, oh why, did I preorder?

 

[Jeeebus]

I guess I'm somewhat entertained by this game, though there are some glaring issues that I just can't see the reason for.

Is there a story to this game? I'm rich now (though who would know - still everyone's errand boy), and I'm down a few family members, but I haven't seen any sort of compelling endgame that I'm working toward.

The lack of companion armor is fairly stupid. They're not making anything easier on us - just annoying when I find "Helm of the Badass Badassness" and see it's only for mages/rogues and have to trash/sell it.

If they actually were trying to streamline the game, they would get rid of the jewelry/belts for companions and let us keep the armor. Or hell, get rid of it all.

I'll finish the game, but definitely not glued to my chair like the first one.

 

[mb]

The lack of companion armor is fairly stupid. They're not making anything easier on us - just annoying when I find "Helm of the Badass Badassness" and see it's only for mages/rogues and have to trash/sell it.

If they actually were trying to streamline the game, they would get rid of the jewelry/belts for companions and let us keep the armor. Or hell, get rid of it all.

I'll finish the game, but definitely not glued to my chair like the first one.

Seriously. Even the stuff I get that is for my characters class is either weak and worthless, or so advanced that I can't equip it until I level up 5 more times. And by the time I level up enough, I'll probably have stored it and forgot about it and it just keeps looping like that, because I'll never pick up something I can or want to use right away.
It's the same with the stores. I've finally got enough money for the ridiculous mage staffs, but I need like 42 magic to equip them! I think I'm only at 32! That's four more levels of adding magic attribute points.

And my 100 inventory slots are mostly filled with stupid jewelry and belts. The star system is meaningless for that too since the 5 star stuff isn't necessarily better than the 0 star stuff.



Now that I think about it, I'm kind of glad they did away with the companion armor since they did so terrible with all the other weapons/armor/jewelry. We'd have to waste so much time comparing armor stats for everyone every time we pick some up.



I also should say that the game has gotten better for me. I think Act 1 was absolutely horrible. It should have been shorted to maybe an hour or two of the game because it was so dull. Act 2 and 3 are much better. At this point I still can't rate it higher than 5.5/10 though. I can't ignore how bad Act 1 was and the glaring inventory and repetitive stage problems are. And I think some of you are taking that as the absolute worst rating since most game sites give "good" games 9s and 10s all the time, but really this game is not that great. Good, but not great.

 

[darkewaffle]

I'm SO unenthused about starting this game. Why, oh why, did I preorder?

The better question is why oh why are you listening to all the negative press without even trying the game first

I think I'm probably about half-way to the Deep Roads expedition. It's not on the same level as DAO but I still think it's an enjoyable game. Playing on hard and I've had two difficult battles so far, the very first ogre fight and now a big room of spiders/corpses in a quest, though I could probably benefit from respeccing my party as well. Enemy mages hurt as always, and AI seems more cognizant of targetting your vulnerable characters first than DAO. Also fights with more enemies make it more difficult to control them all with a Taunt or CC.

The graphics with the high res textures and DX11 enabled look great to me, first game I've played that makes me want more than a 5770 so I can AA it.

Characters are pretty good so far. I love Varric, and Fenris is cool if kind of predictable. Anders was one of my favorite characters in Awakening, and I wish he was his old self still, but when you learn what's happened to him it makes more sense. Even if it is a downer. I installed the Exiled Prince DLC, and I ran into him (the prince, though his name escapes me) once so far, and he does look pretty badass but I have no idea what he's like. Evidently which sibling you end up with is random or based on which class you choose; Carver is a douche and Bethany is kind of a wimp, but I still prefer her certainly. I'm guessing there's at least 2-3 more to come as well.

The dialog system has gotten a lot of flak for being dumbed down so far, but I think it's made some improvements as well. The symbols give you a better idea of how the person you're speaking to may react and help you predict what impact your statement will have. And despite fewer choices, I think at time's there's actually more breadth to your decisions. In DAO most dialog choices could be broken down to "good" or "bad" with "diplomatic" ocassionally an option by way of Coercion or Intimidation. Whereas now there's a spread between those three options as well as the "smart aleck" (essentially) which is something that was missing from DAO oftentimes. With Awakening and DA2 I think the writers have managed to include humor to the game, which to my memory was pretty vacant from DAO aside from ocassional Shale comments. It's a nice touch, it adds something more to the characters and the world, rather than painting everyone as the "stoic warrior".

Pet peeves include characters we've seen before sounding/looking slightly different than before and some NPC textures/models looking very 'phoned in'. Last night was the first night I'd actually left Kirkwall so I don't think I've seen the much maligned "dungeon" over and over, but I think I'll manage. Also the 'idle' character animations for [human] female companions are so silly, they're practically misogynistic. I don't mind not being able to equip my companions gloves/armor/boots/helmet, but it does feel kind of silly finding nice items and not being able to do -anything- with it.

Also despite so much of the game taking place in Kirkwall, it's not a small city. I remember in Awakening being completely underwhelmed by the size of Amaranthine and even Denerim in DAO was little more than the Market, brothel, inn and a few alleys. Kirkwall might be only one city, but there's a lot of nooks and crannies.

All in all, it's not DAO and I expect I won't be as "wowed" as I was by it, but I think a lot of people are much too quick to dismiss this game or overreact to it's flaws and miss out on what's still a good game, just not a superb game.

 

[skace]

*Modified*

Jade Empire 6/10
KotOR 9/10
KotOR2 8/10
ME 8/10
ME2 7.5/10
DA:O 8/10

OoT 9/10
Morrowind 7.5/10
Oblivion 7/10
Witcher 8/10
Diablo 2 9/10
Demon's Souls 9/10
Rome: TW 8/10

DA2 5/10

Wow Dumac, I completely agree with your scores as they compare to other games. However, I knocked most of them down a point as I'm critical. I don't see a problem with a good game scoring an 8/10 if it has actual room for improvement, as far as I'm concerned anything nearing 10/10 is nearing perfection.