Review Dragon Age II Is Mediocre, BioWare Is Becoming Terrible

[hoverdog]

this shit isnt funny

It's serious bussiness.

 

[Drakron]

"Dragon Age II is by no means a terrible game."

Stopped reading there

Well ... its not, its playable and in some ways it does have improvements over DA:O but also by "streamlining" they made it having no depth.

Its easy to see how DA:O is superior because even with very bad implementation of mechanics there is some depth to them, DA2 have none.

Its just a unambitious mediocre game, not a terrible game.

 

[circ]

Trust me, it's terrible.

Also, DA: O superior? Time for another shit analogy. If you sprinkle sugar on shit, that doesn't suddenly make it tasty.

 

[Drakron]

Trust me, it's terrible.

Sorry, I playing it and its not terrible as I played far, far worst.

Also, DA: O superior?

Yes, you needed at least a grasp of tactics to proceed in the game ... on paper mechanic-wise DA:O is better even if the execution brings it down, DA2 is so inferior mechanic-wise that even with poor execution it plays better.

Time for another analogy.

And time for me to make a comparison, Alpha Protocol IS far worst that Dragon Age 2.

 

[Xor]

I think they have a point. Like them or hate them, at least Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 are consistent in what they want to be, from tone to dialog to art direction. I can't really say that about Bioware's later games.

 

[Volourn]

"Yes, you needed at least a grasp of tactics to proceed in the game ... on paper mechanic-wise DA:O is better even if the execution brings it down, DA2 is so inferior mechanic-wise"

Bullshit.


"I think they have a point. Like them or hate them, at least Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 are consistent in what they want to be, from tone to dialog to art direction. I can't really say that about Bioware's later games."

Nonsense. How is, for example, JE not 'consistent'? (and also way better than BG1).

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Yes, you needed at least a grasp of tactics to proceed in the game ... on paper mechanic-wise DA:O is better even if the execution brings it down, DA2 is so inferior mechanic-wise that even with poor execution it plays better.

you did not play on nightmare did you? fucking casual. nightmare in da2 is much harder than in origins and i ma not talking about those fucking waves of enemys teleporting just behind your mage^^

Alpha Protocol IS far worst that Dragon Age 2.

agreed

 

[Raapys]

Its high points are undercut by the cynical approach of its developers to appeal to as many people as possible

I wonder though, what exactly are 'its high points'? What does this game do well?

 

[Black]

I love the fresh smell of Westwood in the morning

Hey, xeno-face, it's not nice to summon Westwood's spirit when talking about bioware.

Water: It's Wet - The role-playing game from BioWare. A dumbed down stream-lined popamole shit box console trash designed for the lowest common denominator.

Hehehe, stream-lined, ehehehe.

 

[Virtual Vice]

Putting the focus of bioware on general market appeal aside I find the BG2 evocations laughable.

I dont know about DA2 but how can someone who has a minimum of objectivity consider BG2 a better game than DA:O?? I am not saying there are not plenty of reasons to criticize DA:O, or any other recent offering by Bioware, but comparing it with BG2 is definitely not a good basis.

Seriously, I dont know if its the usual mix of amnesia/nostalgia, putting on those rose-tinted glasses, or just blindness to BG2's flaws. There are almost 0 specific aspects of BG2 that would compare well to its equivalents in DA:O, and the ones that might hold up are arguable to say the least. Not to mention that BG2 at its heart was an adaptation to the PC ( even if a competent one) of an old and quite shallow edition of DnD, a system designed and created for PnP play.

 

[Futile Rhetoric]

6/10, would rage again.

 

[Xor]

Putting the focus of bioware on general market appeal aside I find the BG2 evocations laughable.

I dont know about DA2 but how can someone who has a minimum of objectivity consider BG2 a better game than DA:O?? I am not saying there are not plenty of reasons to criticize DA:O, or any other recent offering by Bioware, but comparing it with BG2 is definitely not a good basis.

Seriously, I dont know if its the usual mix of amnesia/nostalgia, putting on those rose-tinted glasses, or just blindness to BG2's flaws. There are almost 0 specific aspects of BG2 that would compare well to its equivalents in DA:O, and the ones that might hold up are arguable to say the least. Not to mention that BG2 at its heart was an adaptation to the PC ( even if a competent one) of an old and quite shallow edition of DnD, a system designed and created for PnP play.

Graphics
BG2 has colorful handdrawn backgrounds that still look good today. The character models are a bit lacking, though. Good looking spell effects for its time.

DAO has substandard 3D graphics in various shades of brown, ugly textures, and annoying sparkly effects.

Encounters

BG2 had a wide variety of handplaced monsters and NPCs, each with handpicked spells and abilities, and a decade of modding support for people looking for an extra challenge.

DAO has the same encounters copy/pasted ad nauseam, with a handful of interesting bosses.

Combat

BG2 has the advantage of being adapted from a tabletop PnP system, making the rules transparent and giving the player plenty of choices with over a dozen classes (probably close to 30 if you count kits), abilities, and spells.

DAO has 3 classes, each with several spells or abilites, however many of those abilities tend to be passive or useless outside certain builds. DAO also has specialties, which were an interesting idea with an utterly botched execution.

Story

BG2 has a fairly simple story about a mage seeking godhood and revenge, with each step being fairly easy to follow and making logical sense.

DAO has a retarded story about saving the world from an army of darkspawn that everybody knows is coming but ignores until you do a quest for them. Also nothing the antagonist does makes any sense at all.

Writing

They're both about equal, really.

Companions

BG2 wins here just from sheer choice, but both games have decent characters as well as annoying ones.

So yeah. Also sup Drog.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Putting the focus of bioware on general market appeal aside I find the BG2 evocations laughable.

I dont know about DA2 but how can someone who has a minimum of objectivity consider BG2 a better game than DA:O?? I am not saying there are not plenty of reasons to criticize DA:O, or any other recent offering by Bioware, but comparing it with BG2 is definitely not a good basis.

Seriously, I dont know if its the usual mix of amnesia/nostalgia, putting on those rose-tinted glasses, or just blindness to BG2's flaws. There are almost 0 specific aspects of BG2 that would compare well to its equivalents in DA:O, and the ones that might hold up are arguable to say the least. Not to mention that BG2 at its heart was an adaptation to the PC ( even if a competent one) of an old and quite shallow edition of DnD, a system designed and created for PnP play.

Graphics
BG2 has colorful handdrawn backgrounds that still look good today. The character models are a bit lacking, though. Good looking spell effects for its time.

DAO has substandard 3D graphics in various shades of brown, ugly textures, and annoying sparkly effects.

Encounters

BG2 had a wide variety of handplaced monsters and NPCs, each with handpicked spells and abilities, and a decade of modding support for people looking for an extra challenge.

DAO has the same encounters copy/pasted ad nauseam, with a handful of interesting bosses.

Combat

BG2 has the advantage of being adapted from a tabletop PnP system, making the rules transparent and giving the player plenty of choices with over a dozen classes (probably close to 30 if you count kits), abilities, and spells.

DAO has 3 classes, each with several spells or abilites, however many of those abilities tend to be passive or useless outside certain builds. DAO also has specialties, which were an interesting idea with an utterly botched execution.

Story

BG2 has a fairly simple story about a mage seeking godhood and revenge, with each step being fairly easy to follow and making logical sense.

DAO has a retarded story about saving the world from an army of darkspawn that everybody knows is coming but ignores until you do a quest for them. Also nothing the antagonist does makes any sense at all.

Writing

They're both about equal, really.

Companions

BG2 wins here just from sheer choice, but both games have decent characters as well as annoying ones.

So yeah. Also sup Drog.

Basically all of this.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

the usual mix of amnesia/nostalgia, putting on those rose-tinted glasses

Using these phrases unironically should be grounds for an auto-dumbfuck.

 

[waywardOne]

kevin costner as lead VA for Water Age 2: The Wettening.

 

[deus101]

But will it have romance?

There will be sex on the beach.

 

[deus101]

Lotsa

I want to add however that the isometric view and simple character models is a plus in BG's favour.

When you add 3D the bioware faggots wants to be cinematics masters and ruins the entire story and dialouge with shitty exposition.


Seriusly...a few lines of quality voice acting there and 3D rendered cinematics there and i can imagine the rest when the text turns interesting enough.

Personally...RPG's should allways have a narrator, some real evocative guy...you know....the ....GM

 

[sser]

There's no effort needed by high-profile game developers. As it is, they've bought out gaming's "journalists" and get waves of free high scores for garbage. PC Gamer, once a pretty solid mag, is now a pathetic ad-filled rag devoted to cocksucking the big time developers and publishers. In their review of DA2 they devote about a paragraph to gameplay, then by the end crown it the king of RPGs for the decade and call it the best RPG combat ever. What reason does BioWare have to fucking try if this is the treatment DA2 gets? No wonder developers release garbage games and then give them sequels, because the gaming community just allows it. There is no love put into these games. It's just cinematic bullshit. See how many explosions and sex scenes can be shotgunned blasted into a reviewer's face before he keels over and grades it a 99/100.

/rant

 

[Raapys]

Putting the focus of bioware on general market appeal aside I find the BG2 evocations laughable.

I dont know about DA2 but how can someone who has a minimum of objectivity consider BG2 a better game than DA:O?? I am not saying there are not plenty of reasons to criticize DA:O, or any other recent offering by Bioware, but comparing it with BG2 is definitely not a good basis.

Seriously, I dont know if its the usual mix of amnesia/nostalgia, putting on those rose-tinted glasses, or just blindness to BG2's flaws. There are almost 0 specific aspects of BG2 that would compare well to its equivalents in DA:O, and the ones that might hold up are arguable to say the least. Not to mention that BG2 at its heart was an adaptation to the PC ( even if a competent one) of an old and quite shallow edition of DnD, a system designed and created for PnP play.

Graphics
BG2 has colorful handdrawn backgrounds that still look good today. The character models are a bit lacking, though. Good looking spell effects for its time.

DAO has substandard 3D graphics in various shades of brown, ugly textures, and annoying sparkly effects.

Encounters

BG2 had a wide variety of handplaced monsters and NPCs, each with handpicked spells and abilities, and a decade of modding support for people looking for an extra challenge.

DAO has the same encounters copy/pasted ad nauseam, with a handful of interesting bosses.

Combat

BG2 has the advantage of being adapted from a tabletop PnP system, making the rules transparent and giving the player plenty of choices with over a dozen classes (probably close to 30 if you count kits), abilities, and spells.

DAO has 3 classes, each with several spells or abilites, however many of those abilities tend to be passive or useless outside certain builds. DAO also has specialties, which were an interesting idea with an utterly botched execution.

Story

BG2 has a fairly simple story about a mage seeking godhood and revenge, with each step being fairly easy to follow and making logical sense.

DAO has a retarded story about saving the world from an army of darkspawn that everybody knows is coming but ignores until you do a quest for them. Also nothing the antagonist does makes any sense at all.

Writing

They're both about equal, really.

Companions

BG2 wins here just from sheer choice, but both games have decent characters as well as annoying ones.

So yeah. Also sup Drog.

Also far better and more interesting locations. And the best and coolest spells of any game made to date, which makes playing the caster-classes a blast compared to how utterly dull it is in the DA games.

 

[Country_Gravy]

this shit isnt funny

It's serious bussiness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjmYee2ZfSk

 

[Azarkon]

Bioware has been mediocre since at least the NWN days, if not before. Their characterization, storytelling, and writing have always been mediocre. What saved BG/BG 2 was 1) almost every other RPG at the time had even shittier stories/characters and 2) they stumbled onto gold with the RTwP AD&D hybrid (flawed though it might be). The latter point is important, as one has to remember that Bioware originally set out to make a RTS game, and only switched to making RPGs on the advice of Interplay/BIS, at which point they decided that instead of making a whole new engine they ought to just use their existing one. Ka-ching!

Once Bioware stopped milking this idea, their gameplay summarily took a dive into pop-a-mole territory, driven more by market studies and the will to dumb down than the desire to create a truly great RPG system. They ended up having to present themselves as makers of "epic roleplaying experiences," but we know well and good Bioware was never more than mediocre in spinning a yarn. Whether it's high fantasy, George Lucas fantasy, faux-Asian fantasy, science fantasy, or grimderpery, they were never masters of anything but made-for-disposable-bin-fiction. By contrast, as much as people might hate Obsidian and Troika for their production dumbfuckery, these companies know what they're doing when it comes to storytelling. Some of the worst Obsidian games had more interesting writing than many of Bioware's best.

EA wasn't so much a nail in the coffin as a natural transition for the good doctors' profit seeking ways. It's taken the general public this long to realize because Bioware literally had no competition in this genre of AAA SRPGs, and when you have a monopoly over a genre that people remember like their first youthful crush, you'd have to fuck up - hard - to lose your do-no-wrong aura.

Of course, this makes Bioware's self-important talks about the downfall of JRPGs in-reference-to FF 13 all the more ironic, as they just derped themselves into a FF 13 literally months after they bashed Square Enix for rail roading the player.

And the worst part of all this is that they're so used to the sycophany that they don't even seem to realize when the music's stopped. David Gaider was the guy who once released an entire end-game for TOB to make up for the expansion being rushed. Today he's talking down to players like some corporate jackass - "no, I'm not going to tell you what happened, because guess what, you little shits can't possibly understand!" I mean, he's always had an egotistical streak to him, but this is disgusting in light of the very real screw-ups his team has made. I understand if his lips are sealed, but in that case, he should just keep them sealed.

Anyways, Bioware has done something worse than make a more mediocre game - they've made a game more mediocre. DAO was mediocre but was tilting towards the good side of mediocre, and with some polish and thought could've become a good game. DA2 was a rushed, transparent attempt to breed ME2 and DAO into some kind of abomination.

 

[waywardOne]

never has one written so much with so little i can refute.

 

[commie]

What's this Gaider ending to ToB?

 

[kris]

What saved BG/BG 2 was 1) almost every other RPG at the time had even shittier stories/characters and 2) they stumbled onto gold with the RTwP AD&D hybrid (flawed though it might be).

BG2 was also like a work of love as in how much things they had in it, how many things they tried. How well crafted each area was.

 

[Roguey]

What's this Gaider ending to ToB?

Ascension. You can talk the monk out of fighting you/get him to join your group and the final battle's completely changed so you have to fight Melissan and every Bhaalspawn at once plus Bodhi (who you can get to join your group if you couldn't get the monk) and Irenicus. That last aspect seemed like bad fan fiction to me (Well, it is Gaider...), but they were already on that track with Sarevok coming back, so eh.