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[umiman]

If you've been curious about Dragon Age 2 take heed about some warnings. I just finished the game and while it's quite impressive, there are some things I think marr the experience quite a bit. And no, I'm not talking about things like graphics.

Keep in mind that for some strange weird incomprehensible reason, almost everything marketed about the game plotwise is misleading. I think the only true thing from all the ads, trailers, hype, etc. is the fact that you become the champion. Very freaking irritating considering how much they showcase certain characters in all the Hype (A certain dragon lady comes to mind...). I think the story team was trying to be clever or something... "Aha! We got you there! I bet you thought you'd get to do this but instead you get this completely different thing instead!"

Second, this game suffers from a serious case of Inevitable Sequel. It even features a cliffhanger ending Halo 2-style with a huge amount of unanswered questions left over for the sequels. People looking for an epic adventure like Dragon Age Origins... this is not it. This is... hrm... this is more like a JRPG. Well... half a JRPG. At least most JRPGs have endings. This one doesn't even have an epilogue.

Thirdly, I really need to emphasize that this game is drastically different from Origins. Origins took me more than 100 hours to complete. It took me 20 hours to finish this. In other words, I completed DA2 in the same amount of time I finished Orzammar. When I got to the ending of DA2, I was asking myself out loud "Is this the end already? It can't be the end yet right?".

Lastly, if you run an Nvidia card, you may need to update your drivers before you play this game or you might encounter some pretty crazy stuttering issues.

It's still a good game but I think many people should know these few issues before they go in and get disappointed when they discover them first hand.

[woose1]

Lastly, if you run an Nvidia card, you may need to update your drivers before you play this game or you might encounter some pretty crazy stuttering issues.

This was in the first game as well, along with extremely prevalent sound-card issues that were never addressed by Bioware.

However, good to know. I was going to give it a miss anyways, though, because I really don't like the whole prettyboy ALISTAR look of the main characters. Hopefully a third game can redeem this series. :L

EDIT: Apparently everything from the trailers is wrong?

[Domenique]

It dissapointed me, it was short and most of the features I liked were missing. The save from origins is useless... It looked promising in the middle, but in the end it felt dissapointing. I hope they'll make an expansion like Awakening. Also, even though I tried to do as many quests as possible, I only spent 15 freaking hours playing this. Talk about short.

The bright side, this game ran much much much more smoothly than Dragon Age Origins (I've finished it to 80% and quit because too much sluttering, it was lagging so badly, that the damage i've dealt didn't always show up), i rarely encountered lags on low with GForce 7900GS.

[Deon]

Actually they told in interviews that they globally cut out side quests "and other unneeded content which confuses players", so that was quite expected by me.

And yes it looks like a jRPG, if you didn't know it before buying, well, then you didn't watch developers' videos on youtube.

I think they delivered everything they promised. And trailers... Well, who believes trailers these days? And by interviews they told directly that they go away from the "boring" baldur's gate-style theme and move on into "hollywood action movie" area.

The cliffhanger ending is a bit too much though.

[woose1]

"and other unneeded content which confuses players"

I'd like to see which game sells more copies.

[Deon]

Yeah, they literrally said that fetch quests and side missions distract players and make them forget about the "main epic plot"... I can even find the youtube video about that if you really want it.

After watching that I decided that I'd better stick to DAO.

[Domenique]

"and other unneeded content which confuses players"

They must be taking us for idiots.

[Deon]

Well, they are quite right. I don't mean US, but look at all these "oh this game is now a rpg but hack and slash movie" posts all over their forums... When they said that it is.

They play on the fact that many people will still buy it. And they've made a really high-quality game, they just didn't want to spend time on "old school" RPG elements and decided to emphasis the "movie" elements.

[woose1]

That's really depressing. Though, I've never worked in the gaming industry, so maybe they're right about this. (In terms of sales, I mean. Not overall game quality.)

[Cecilff2]

The effect EA has on the development of games is amazing.

[Earthquake Damage]

"and other unneeded content which confuses players"

Translation:  It's cheaper and quicker to churn out sequels this way.

Clever business strategy is clever, provided the games still sell well.  They can sell twice as many half-games at full-game price.

And by interviews they told directly that they go away from the "boring" baldur's gate-style theme and move on into "hollywood action movie" area.

If I want Hollywood action movie in my game I'll play Halo 12.

[Ozyton]

side quests "and other unneeded content which confuses players"

fetch quests and side missions distract players and make them forget about the "main epic plot."

Perhaps, but that's why you're supposed to make side quests interesting and have their own background. It's supposed to be something you do when you want to explore, or take a break from one single quest, or just get more backstory about the game world and characters.

At least, I think so.

If the player gets 'distracted' from the main plot you could always nudge them back towards it in the form of someone, perhaps, sending a letter asking why the hell you haven't been saaaaaaving the wuuurrllldd, or hearing news about the super evil guy completely leveling a town as he expands his territory...

[Deon]

Don't tell me, tell them . And yeah, they just focused on the main plot without spending resources on external stuff. You cannot blame them for that. Time = money.

[SeaBee]

I was really looking forward to this after spending over 100 hours in DA:O. I purposely stayed away from spoilers and trailers so it would be a complete surprise, but before buying it I took a look at some spoiler-free reviews ... and nearly all of them admitted that the story was not very good or focused.

Then I get on the BioWare forums and see the polarized rage exploding everywhere.

DA:O was a successful and good game. It was a nice compromise between the old school and the new. But I think they've created a game that NO ONE likes. Dragon Age fans can't seriously like this, can they?

I am disappoint.

[Deon]

Yeah, I knew I won't play it for a long time. I don't know what struck them, maybe they fired their best game designers?

I guess they were just too greedy this time.