Let's see if I can resist looking at spoilers for a few days.

(Also, please remember to tag if you're going to post them...)

 

No spoilers, I'm not that evil .

Edit: So, got an hour of sleep before my stupid fucking roommate set off the fire alarm trying to make pancakes at 1 AM. Can't get back to sleep, have been playing DA:2.

My earlier impressions be damned, after the very slow first half hour or so, I'm really starting to enjoy the game. The voice acting has gotten bounds better, and the story is actually engrossing.

On top of the the graphics in Kirkwall are damn impressive, even on the PS3. I can't wait to see it on my PC.

Edit 2: It's very clear that this game was made with console users in mind.

I say that from playing the PC demo, and the PS3 game. The PC demo is clunky. The hotbar worked in DA:O because the moves took a while to execute. You had time to select an attack, target it, and then repeat with the slow movements. Even in real time you could do it to a certain extent.

In DA:2 everything is extremely fast. That doesn't work well on the PC hotbar style, because it takes a fairly significant amount of time to hit a hotbar selection correctly, target it, and then move on. You need to stay paused far longer than I really like to be. It felt extremely awkward to me on the PC, and I really didn't like it.

The moment I started playing the PS3 version, I understood why they implemented it. Unlike on the PC, all your attacks are literally a button click away. You can rapidly cycle between each ability by just smacking square, triangle, circle. It's a very intuitive system, and feels natural. On the PC it took me about 10 minutes of kiting to kill that fucking ogre in the demo as a human mage, because I couldn't cycle through all my people and use their attacks extremely rapidly.

On the PS3, it took me a minute. Maybe. Why? Because I could switch to my mage and immediately fireball the ogre. I then quickly switched to my warriors and just hit my special abilities very quickly, before switching back to my mage and just pounding him with spells.

This game was designed from the ground up to be console based, and it very clearly shows.

Edit 3: Five hours in and I've gone through the same section of a map four times now. Not because I keep redoing a quest, oh no they're all different- it's just that Bioware was too cheap or lazy to make new parts! Seriously, this one little cave section has been reused for at least six quests now, and the only difference was the enemies and a few random corpses.

This release feels fucking rushed man.

 

Mass Effect syndrome. Hrm. The first one had some difficultly with that too, in Denerim.

 

If you insist on using a mouse for everything on a PC, then yes, it will be awkward. There's a reason why the hotbar is mapped to the number keys.

 

So, you'll remember the mapping of 10-15 skills on 9+ characters?

That's damn impressive if true, I can barely manage my SCII hotkeys .

Nah man, there might have been *some* reusing in DA:O and ME:2, but not nearly to this level. I'm about 7 hours in (I fell asleep playing, so not quite sure how accurate the save time is), and I've gone through these same two cave portions on missions and side missions, at least 10 times.

 

Gah, sounds like I'm going to have to find my old MMORPG mouse. WIth like 15 programmable buttons. I got pretty good with it, before.

 

I meant the first Mass Effect, not ME2. You have to know what I mean. Every damn interior on planets besides the main story worlds looked exactly the same.

 

..... .... .... I fucking hate EA.

There's several games that are impossible to play without using a joystick on the PC, but they're far enough between that I don't mind it. If I have to forgo the kb and mouse and start using the controller for everything I'm going to rage.

 

http://dragonage.bioware.com/x/webcast/

Webcast answering lots of questions. One big one that got answered; Yes the pc version will control drastically different than the console version. No hack and slashy, more like Origins. Hopefully they will put this up later so you all can go look for yourselves.

 

Jesus Christ... I'm about to fucking just be done with gaming.

Fucking... If you're gonna put out an awesome game, keep some damn standards and try to at least match it. Don't fucking dumb it down to bring in new customers because your bosses are fucking cash hungry whores.

Anyone know how far we could get, suing EA for ruining the market? >_>

 

EA = Gaming vampires.

Finding the healthiest and best targets and draining all the money out of the franchise before moving on.

So we wouldn't get very far in suing them, they've probably got a legion of lawyers for that occasion. >_>

 

I would have said private death squads but this is probably true as well.

 

I was going to write up a nice long review of the game, but it seems that once again Adam Sessler is channeling me today.

No spoilers here, I'll be very general with all of this.

The biggest problem with the game isn't the combat. Yeah sure, it's not perfect, but really it's not too terrible. You can deal with it if you want.

The problem is the lack of any overarching plot. There's absolutely no motivation in this game. DA:O had that motivation. Defeat the darkspawn, get revenge, etc, etc. DA:2 lacks that. I've said this on irc, and I'll repeat it here. It feels like an endless series of side quest after side quest.

The game was rushed, and it very clearly shows. Fuck EA for ruining what could have been the best RPG of 2011.


Edit: Here's a good question. WHERE THE FUCK IS ALL MY LEWT?

DA:O Had tons of it. epic ring of this and that. Epic sword of power-power, you get the idea. Want to know what the names the equipment are now?

Ring. Robes. Armor. Belt.

No, that's not a classification, that's a name. Besides for a very small amount of equipment, they actually name the drops like that! Oh yeah, that gives me an incentive to go kill some people! I might get a four star ring!

Did I forget to mention that they rate their items on a 5 star system, depending on the stats? Yeah, it's like fucking WOW, only without the purple text.

 

I really want to look forward to this, but I'm not seeing positive reviews anywhere. Sadly, I think pre-ordering the game might not have been my greatest idea ever. I'll still give it a try, and I'll edit with comments later, but I expect I'll wind up corroborating what everyone else has said.

 

I completely agree and I thought the same thing about the plot, where everything felt so damn pointless and there was nothing drawing you back in. The Mage AI is still godawful on the higher difficulties where friendly fire will kill you, meaning you have to micromanage, which can get tedious after a while. Graphics are meh for 2011 and I expected better, to be honest. It feels like to me that the number of skills has also decreased dramatically, whether or not that's true, I'm not sure but it just feels that way to me.

The lack of loot also sucks. Though, I guess that really doesn't mean much when the DLC equipment is the best anyway and your companions can't wear customized armor besides accessories. Still, a terrible system.

All in all, game was totally rushed and I'd rather they have waited another 8 months to release it (and make it perfect) at the same time as ME3 or what not. Overall, a decent game but the potential of what it could have been irritates me more than the game itself.

 

Fuck, this thread is making me angry. I haven't played #2 yet, and I'm not sure I want to tarnish the memory of #1 by doing so. What you guys are saying about the loot system is really bothering me. It sounds like they did the exact same thing they did with ME2, and apart from the tedium of harvesting planets, that was my least favorite change to that game. And if they did the same to DA2, I might not even buy it. It's one of the essential elements to any rpg.

 

Oh, forgot to mention, but like 90% of the whole game is set in the same damn city, which is retarded as fuck. Sure, there are different subsections to the city but you're pretty much still going to the same places over and over, which can get really monotonous.

Also, the new opening chests system is annoying as hell, since it's based only on cunning, which makes it a bitch since even as a rogue, you won't be able to open a good portion of the chests you come across, needing 30+ cunning to do so, which takes a while to get up to. Fuck backtracking just for chests.

As a side note, although I haven't done any thorough exploring on equipment, I haven't seen anything to suggest that 100% crit is possible for archers. There is a passive skill that allows 100% crit chance for flanking but that's all I saw. If anyone sees anything to the contrary, feel free to point it out. Not that big of a deal but it does mean archery is no longer as overpowered as it was in Origins.

 

There's no real point to getting those chests open, or getting items anymore either. The whole point of it in the first game was to sell those extra items for coin, which you would then use to buy better items.

I have 75 gold. I've had it since essentially the second chapter. I haven't bought anything besides potions. Why you might ask? Because there's nothing to fucking buy. As a mage, I'm limited to these stupid fucking robes, which most shops don't carry, and some staffs, none of which I've found are better than the staff I've been using since I killed a fanatic for it!

Fuck this game.

 

Ok, just got it, and I am outraged by the character customization.

Fuck everything else that anyone complains about, I am literally speechless by the decision to not only not let us alter the base preset, but also then locking away that hairstyle. You literally cannot use that hairstyle unless you use the preset.

What. The. Fuck.

I know it seems like a small thing, but it managed to set off my instant psychotic button. I just wanted to change the females eye color to green, and now I'm stuck with a long list of vastly inferior hair styles.

:fire

 

Wait until you find out that almost every single piece of armor or robes looks almost identical. You'll really start raging then.

So, I'm not even going to bother with my PC version of DA:2. I bought it because I wanted to be a good guy and support the devs, and it totally backfired on me. I wonder if Amazon takes returns?