Dragon Age II: Demo

[Mo]

Playing on Nightmare difficulty.  Pretty hard so far lol I've been wiped 5 times on the first few battles heheh.  My game crashed (wtf?) after that first Ogre battle, which took me a few tries to beat now I have to do it again.  Man it's harder than the first game, enemies AI seems smarter and they send in waves from all sides so your mage gets ganged rapped from behind a lot. 

Luckily I like a challenge.

[Soul Sojourner]

Uhh...360 version over PC version? Lucky for you I work at a hospital so I'm sure I'll find a good head doctor to recommend for you

Well, at least on the 360 I get achievements! Woohoo!

You don't care?

I know, it's okay, you'll be alright. Just lay down for awhile, you'll be fine.

[Mo]

Well, at least on the 360 I get achievements! Woohoo!

You don't care?

I know, it's okay, you'll be alright. Just lay down for awhile, you'll be fine.

There are achievements on PC too.

[Soul Sojourner]

There are achievements on PC too.

Which in no way affect your gamerscore.

[Soul Sojourner]

How do you like it so far? Better or worse than the first.

Well, I guess my pre-order got completely assfucked. Some shit about the vendor having an inventory issue (which is why it was taking so long) and they couldn't find an alternative source. So I'm just supposed to be satisfied with getting a refund and buying the original game when I was supposed to be getting the signature edition and extra pre-order goodies. They're giving me a $10 gift card in addition to the refund, but even with that it would cost me more to buy the version of the game I was supposed to get and still not get the extra shit I should have gotten for pre-ordering.  Plus they're giving me that extra $10 as a gift card so I have to spend it there rather than giving me the extra $10 on my refund so I can buy the signature edition elsewhere (which I won't).

I know I've been pretty loyal to Newegg for some time now, but this is the second incident in a month... at least this time I'm not out any money. Last time I was out shipping costs and ended up with nothing.

Anyway, I'm kind of feeling pretty "fuck it" right now, so I don't think I'll even bother buying it again. EA pisses me off anyway.

[Mo]

Ouch that sucks.  Umm better or worse?  I haven't played long enough to make that call yet.  If you read critic and user reviews it's a pretty universal opinion that DA2 falls short of DAO.  Biggest complaint is the Mass Effectification of DA, an opinion I share.  They changed a lot of the mechanics making it more action less tactical, they also dumbed down the skills and made NPCs armor none customizable.  All changes for the worse.  Game play is still fun.  Loot sucks, almost not even worth the time to look into crates, chest and mob loot, it's all useless.

Last complaint is the main character is waaaaay less customizable than in DAO where you had a whole different first few hours of game play depending on race/class choice.  Here it's only human rogue/wiz/war all the same story.

Nightmare mode is decently challenging so far, I recommend that mode, otherwise it may be too easy.

[Soul Sojourner]

Ouch that sucks.  Umm better or worse?  I haven't played long enough to make that call yet.  If you read critic and user reviews it's a pretty universal opinion that DA2 falls short of DAO.  Biggest complaint is the Mass Effectification of DA, an opinion I share.  They changed a lot of the mechanics making it more action less tactical, they also dumbed down the skills and made NPCs armor none customizable.  All changes for the worse.  Game play is still fun.  Loot sucks, almost not even worth the time to look into crates, chest and mob loot, it's all useless.

Last complaint is the main character is waaaaay less customizable than in DAO where you had a whole different first few hours of game play depending on race/class choice.  Here it's only human rogue/wiz/war all the same story.

Nightmare mode is decently challenging so far, I recommend that mode, otherwise it may be too easy.

Yeah, that's what I've heard so far too. Some people saying it's been pretty "consolized." "Mass Effectification" yeah, that's about my thoughts after playing the demo. I like what they did with the dialogue, but not the menu.
Yeah, it sucks that I'm not getting it but maybe it's for the better. I figured I could be done with DA 2 before spring came, but it's not looking like that would have happened anyway. Snow is melting and I got a lot a shit to do this summer, which means I gotta stop playing video games so much so I can get shit done.

[420]

Sounds like Newegg can't get their shit together. So far I've had pretty good luck ordering from Best Buy online but their store here in San Francisco sucks. I was in there last month and the employees there had never heard of pre-ordering a game even though I've pre-ordered games from there in the past. D'oh?!

Anyway, you have to wait a few days after the release date but you do get the special pre-order bonus so at least their web site knows what the fuck they are doing.

-420

[Mo]

Hmm ok so DA2 is a love hate relationship.  Lots good about the game but lots of points that are sooo annoying it hurts.  I'll just mention annoying parts now cause I'm annoyed by them presently.

1) Enemy reinforcements.  Prior to game release the devs mentioned that they would change up battles by sending in new combatants to spice things up.  Well spicing things up is well and good but they pull this "trick" in EVERY freaking fight.  It gets old soooo freaking fast.  To make matters worse, most of the time the reinforcements just appear literally out of thin air, normally right on top of you.  Tough to plan a fight when your enemies can phase in.

2) Nightmare difficulty is WAYYY harder than Hard.  Hard is too easy but in Nightmare I'm wiped 5 times per battle.  That's freaking annoying.  The AoE friendly fire is insane on Nightmare (doesn't exist on Hard).  If any other character gets anywhere near a two handed fighter on Nightmare they'll be 1 shot killed by just about any attack.  The AoE dmg is so bad that there definitely should be AI that instructs NPCs not to use AoE attacks if there's an ally near by, but that would suck cause 80% of skills are AoE.

3) Enemy rogues and mages are stupidly overpowered.  On Nightmare at least.  They have dumb amounts of HP and can easily one shot kill ally squishies.  A rogue's backstab is unblockable and it recharges very fast, basically an auto hit for very high dmg.  Mage AoE spells on NM is just about an insta kill for anyone near it.  Every mage is like an Elminster or something, that's just dumb.

4) Worst of all.  There are only a handful of maps that are re-used like crazy.  Makes Hellgate: London's areas seem fresh and exciting and thats' a bad thing.

That's it for now.  The story is very good and combat is otherwise very well paced.  The game overall is very good but compared to DAO which had no faults save for being too short, this is a step backwards in many ways.

[420]

I haven't played DA:O or DA II but I had a feeling that BioWare was fucking up. A friend of mine who is strictly a console gamer loves the Mass Effect series (which I also have not played) but I just feel like BioWare switched to consoles and I have no desire to play a ported console game on my PC.

BTW, has anyone played Jade Empire? I was thinking about getting it because it's really cheap now and I'm looking for something new in a RPG.

-420

[Mercy]

I haven't played DA:O or DA II but I had a feeling that BioWare was fucking up. A friend of mine who is strictly a console gamer loves the Mass Effect series (which I also have not played) but I just feel like BioWare switched to consoles and I have no desire to play a ported console game on my PC.

BTW, has anyone played Jade Empire? I was thinking about getting it because it's really cheap now and I'm looking for something new in a RPG.

-420

I've got it for xbox and I like it.

[Razor Blade]

Got DA II out last weekend, was a nice game.

On a sidenote ME 3 got announced and will be out most likely at the end of 2011

[Mo]

Finished DA:2

Verdict: Very disappointed.  In fact I don't think I've yelled at a video game as much as this one.

[Soul Sojourner]

On a sidenote ME 3 got announced and will be out most likely at the end of 2011

That is an exciting prospect indeed. Although I am wary, to be honest, because I am afraid that they will fuck up what should be a good game. I sincerely hope that this is not the case, because ME is a excellent [soon-to-be-trilogy] thus far, and so I hope the third installment does not disappoint. Also, I want more Seth Green, so those fuckers better keep him as the voice actor for Joker.

As for the topic, "very disappointed" is actually music to my ears. I feel even better about not receiving the game in the end, and feel that this result is better knowing that the game would not have been worth it in the first place. It is only disappointing in that I now worry for future Bioware titles.

[Mo]

That is an exciting prospect indeed. Although I am wary, to be honest, because I am afraid that they will fuck up what should be a good game. I sincerely hope that this is not the case, because ME is a excellent [soon-to-be-trilogy] thus far, and so I hope the third installment does not disappoint. Also, I want more Seth Green, so those fuckers better keep him as the voice actor for Joker.

As for the topic, "very disappointed" is actually music to my ears. I feel even better about not receiving the game in the end, and feel that this result is better knowing that the game would not have been worth it in the first place. It is only disappointing in that I now worry for future Bioware titles.

Definitely worry for the future, I blame EA.  So you actually never received it in the end? You got refunded?

[Soul Sojourner]

I now have GameFly, so I can rent this piece of shit if I want to see for myself and not worry about wasting any money on it. (well, if time is money, not as *much* money)

If I ever get to it... other games are more important, obviously.