Dragon Age 2

[Emp]

Is it Dragon Age?....not quite...the designers seemed to be under the idea that if it worked so well the first time then it can't possibly be right. Therefore they have fiddled and fucked about with things that were perfectly ok (maybe just changing things to justify their jobs).

Is it good?...well,yes the unneccesary tweaks aside its still bloody grat and i have lost about 20 out of the last 36 hours on it.

[Keef Monkey]

I'm torn about getting this. I loved the first one up to a point then about 40hrs in the difficulty spiked and I found it a real trudge to finish, so it ended on a major low for me. This one got 6/10 in GamesTM, they don't reckon it's up to the standard of the first game. I feel like I should because I love Mass Effect so much and it's Bioware, but I guess there's every chance none of the same staff even worked on it!

Will be intrigued to see what you think when it's done so I can make my mind up!

[Zarjazzer]

I gave up on DA 1. I just found it infuriating. Maybe I should go back and have another go as I was always a big RPG/fantasy nerd. This new one does look good.

[mogzilla]

it is good my only minor gripes are theres only one city but its large and most of the dungeons are a direct copy of the last one but maybe with spiders instead of darkspawn. the combats miles better especially with a two hander

[Dan]

Loving it. It's definitely Dragon Age. I won't pretend to approve of every chance they made (the inventory stuff feels quite off to me) but I am not going to get hung up on that when there's so much to like.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

A bad Bioware game is still better than 90% of the stuff out there.

I think 6/10 is a "Godzilla scale" score. It reflects disappointment because more was expected, rather than reflecting the game itself.

[Arkwright99]

There's no getting away from the fact Bioware definitely cut corners on DA2; which doesn't mean they've produced a bad game per se, but compared to DAO (particularly on the PC) there's a hell of a lot missing.

For instance they've removed the micro-management elements of the Inventory, which possibly might not have worked so well on the console versions (don't know though having never played them); thrown Fatigue and Persuasion out the window, which may be a plus or minus depending on your POV; and removed a lot of the interaction opportunities between the main character and the rest of the party, which again players into role-playing may have liked and players into combat might not. Oh, and the PC version of DA2 doesn't have a detachable camera anymore, meaning you can't 'fly around' the screen/field of combat like you could in DAO (although apparently you can on the 360/PS3 (Go figure)) which is a bummer.

On the other hand, combat is smoother, the Talent/Spell trees are more streamlined (though no more 'Mana Clash' spell afaics ) and the graphics, even on low, are superb. I guess I'm about 14 hours into my first game playing a DW Rogue and enjoying Hawke's story but I had my first duplicate cave map last night and I can understand players' complaints because it does take the shine off the experience somewhat. The whole game does feel more console-ized compared to Origins and I'm not sure how much re-playability DA2 will have compared to the first. The other thing is I'm playing the game on Normal and I've only had to quaff two Health potions, cast two or three Heal spells and had one character (Bethany) reduced to 0 HP (excluding the Dog) so far, whereas in DAO I couldn't make it past the Ogre at the top of the Tower of Ishal until I turned the game down to Easy. I suppose that means I should try the Hard setting but that scares me. 

[Dan]

I'm playing on hard and it's closer to the difficulty of Origins I think. 90% of the fights pose no problem at all, so long as you put at least a little thought into tactics. 10% of them will kick your arse but you can always turn back down to normal if it's frustratingly hard - I've had to do this twice and I'm at the ~25 hour point.

Repeating maps is a terrible choice I cannot believe they have been so lazy. A few inconsequential locations I can accept, but we're talking major area maps are literally carbon copies of each other. That was one of the biggest problems with Mass Effect 1, and they've made it again because they didn't give themselves enough time to finish the game properly.

[Arkwright99]

Actually I checked my Gameplay settings last night and discovered that my daughter had turned the difficulty settings down to Casual for her Hawke and, of course, 'Difficulty' is a global setting not a character-specific one so my fights had seemed easy because they were! Anyway I changed the setting back to Normal and then found myself dealing with the Mature Dragon at the end of the Bone Pit quest. That wasn't so easy. I had to consume two health/stamina potions and have Anders cast heal on my Hawke, I lost my entire party (Anders/Aveline/Fenris) to the Dragon, I was *this* close to 0 HP and it was only my Dog that bought me enough time to be able to wait on the sidelines until the Stamina potion cooldown expired so I could boost my Stamina enough to deliver a Backstab and Twin Fangs combo attack and take the Dragon down. *Phew*

Oh, and I underestimated how long I'd been playing for as well; it was closer to the ~25 hour mark also. I've finished off the Year One quests and am just about to head off on Bartrand's Deep Roads expedition.

[mogzilla]

traded it in for £35 !game are doing a trade in this week ...goes towards the la noire pot!

[Dan]

Finished it last night. 55 hours total, though most of my friends did it in sub-30 hour times. I reckon they skipped a bunch of side quests or somethin!

Overall I really enjoyed it and it'll definitely get a second play from me. Several aspects stop this being a "great" game though imo.

[Emp]

Just finished...missed a few side quests but thoroughly enjoyable.

Did spend the last half of the game pulling my hair out cus the choices i had to make were rough (though i suspect thats down to me not picking a side earlier).

Give it a few weeks and i'll probably re-run it....as a bastard i think this time

[mogzilla]

got this again for a pittance as im trying to fill the hole til skyrim... got a warrior on the go and a mage in reserve but the rogue isnt selling it... crappy little daggers.