Review Dragon Age: Awakening Review Bundle

[aleph]

Everybody here whines how all BIO games are the 'same' yet everybody here also has BIO games they like more than others?

You do know that MotB and NWN2 are not BIO games?

MOTB doesn't change NWN2 fundamentally enough to be considered truly different. The game play, the dialogue system, the combat, et al. are fuckin' the same. The onlym real difference mechanics wise is the spirit meter and it's not enough to be considered a wholly different game. FFS

Well, how can I formulate to not shock you to much... apart from the mechanics there is something else most games have, it is called a narrative*, you might have heard of it.
And here, the differences between MotB and NWN2 are huge, separating a good from a mediocre game. Or to phrase it different, that the dialogue system is nearly the same is not what matters, but what is expressed with it.


*ah yes, all these big, complicated words, narrative is story for pretty princesses such as yourself, volly.

 

[JarlFrank]

MOTB doesn't change NWN2 fundamentally enough to be considered truly different. The game play, the dialogue system, the combat, et al. are fuckin' the same. The onlym real difference mechanics wise is the spirit meter and it's not enough to be considered a wholly different game. FFS

Fallout 3 doesn't change Oblivion fundamentally enough to be considered truly different. The game play, the combat, et al. are fuckin' the same. The only real difference mechanics wise are VATS and the dialogue system and it's not enough to be considered a wholly different game.

See what I'm getting at? Setting, game design, writing, story etc are also parts of a game. A game consists not only of mechanics. Otherwise every D&D campaign ever would be considered exactly the same. Heck, you could even say that NWN2 is just Icewind Dale 2 with upgraded graphics because the mechanics are so similar.

FFS.

 

[aleph]

Heck, you could even say that NWN2 is just Icewind Dale 2 with upgraded graphics because the mechanics are so similar.

If it only were..

 

[Volourn]

"You do know that MotB and NWN2 are not BIO games? "

You managed to figure that out all on your own? You impress me.

Bottom line is MOTB is an expansion to NWN2, and it shows. It's fuckin' the same game. Fuckin' deal with it.

 

[aleph]

"You do know that MotB and NWN2 are not BIO games? "

You managed to figure that out all on your own? You impress me.

Clearly, since you seem to have trouble distinguishing Bioware and Obsidian.

Bottom line is MOTB is an expansion to NWN2, and it shows. It's fuckin' the same game. Fuckin' deal with it.

:facepalm:

I slowly get the impression you don't actually play the games you are constantly talking about...

 

[Volourn]

NWN2... NWN2OTB

Yup, smells the same, shits the same, is the same.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

*glues nose to monitor*

I...can't smell it. WAHT IS WRONG WITH ME

 

[Felix]

People should stop quoting Volly.

 

[Volourn]

Oh please. You sound like a crybaby. WAAW WAA! The big meany said soemthing I don't liike so wa waa please make him stop waa waa. LMFAO

 

[SuicideBunny]

I'm actually agree with Volly. Don't know what you guys found in MoTB

the most satisfying "evul" story path with nice c&c that can totally come back to fuck you over ever present in a mainstream game/add-on.

 

[racofer]

Doesn't matter what you people say, MotB still runs on the same piece of shit engine NWN2 runs, therefore the same dumbfuckery design decisions still apply:

• Delayed right mouse click: what. the. mother. fucking. fuck. What kind of moron hardcodes a delay for right clicks, and a hundred patches later still doesn't offer a way around it? I can't fucking right click to open the actions menu, I have to hold the damned button because some Obsitard thought this was good design decision. Where did he came up with this bright idea? Initially, this was set to 0.5 secs delay, and only many patches later we were given an option to change that, to as low as 0.1 secs, but never fucking ZERO. Instead, if one wants to instantly open the menu it's necessary to hold the shift key along with the right click. FOR FUCKS SAKE WHAT THE HELL! GIVE ME NO DELAY ALREADY OBFUCKINGSHIT!
  
• Game code optimization as good as Java: Seriously. The first sign something is about to go bad in a game, is when it requires .netFramework whatever version to run. And NWN2 excels on this regard by requiring version 2.0 to install the game and with future patches, at least version 3.0 or 3.5. This is no problem for me any longer since I run Win7 now, which comes with that. However any XP or earlier user was forced to download this piece of crap for NWN2 alone. I'm not sure what use NWN2 makes from .net, however, judging by how well this game "performs", I'm inclined to believe it needs that development platform for more than just the toolset. We can have quad cores and gtx gpus bent over and shoved it up its asses by a horse cock when trying to play this thing. And for what? NWN 1.5 graphics quality, YAY! Only NWN ran on a pentium 3 with a geforce2 card.
  
• Butchered Multiplayer Support:The main thing about NWN was the multiplayer. You could easily create a persistent world, and have dozens of people play on it. You could constantly update it to add new features, fix bugs, improve existent content. Then every player automatically downloaded the map files on the fly, automatically. Everyone was happy. The only requirement some of these worlds had was a hakpack for some additional content that could not be fit into the maps files. D&D online with content being constantly developed for everyone's enjoyment. Heavan!
  Then NWN2 comes, and throws all that into the shitter, rapes your mother and molests your furry friend. Every user now has to manually download map files, and manually keep them updated. Plus the hakpacks. Oh, did I also mention that every file now is like 800% bigger than NWN's? That's right, fuck you player, we're Obshitian and our way is the right way. Can't take the heat? GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN!
  
  
• Camera and User Interface: AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! FUCK YOU OBSIDIAN FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!! Welcome to NWN2, the cameraman simulator. Enjoy adjusting your camera angle every two steps your character takes, every room you enter, every enemy you attack, every fucking time you leave this fucking game running. Try playing any other game with a sheet of paper covering the center of your screen and you will experience what this "game" camera system delivers. The field of view is too narrow, so at top-down you need to zoom out way too much, losing important details. Remember all that hardware you need to have mediocre graphical quality? Guess what, not only the game will perform like shit, but you're zoomed so far out that you will not get to see all those shaders in action. Not to mention the available camera angles make it next to impossible to properly give your character orders. It requires inhuman effort to click on what you want to click because you need to shift the camera around through all possible angles until you find one which allows you to perform the desired action. Hell, even its pseudo-third person camera is flawed since the camera doesn't follow the direction your character is facing, requiring you to, again, constantly re-re-re-readust it. Give me a KotOR1/2 camera system over this piece of shit any day.
  
  NWN's interface was fucking great for what was required from the game, as in the windows were properly sized, the action bar had 36 slots (switchable by the ctrl and shift keys), plus the radial menu, although not the brightest of interface decisions, allowed you to access any action from a single place, and with practice it was fast enough to allow realtime multiplayer gaming sessions. What did NWN2 copy from that working, well established interface system everyone was already used to and expected to be equal or improved for the sequel? NOT A FUCKING THING! FUCK YOU OBSDIAN! Instead, Obsifuck remade the whole thing covered in shit. A interface system so flawed it had no reassignable commands on the initial version (patched later), and no possibility to easily access non-bindable actions, in part thanks to the marvelous right-click delay featuretard. Oh, and there's also the amazing idea of displaying active enchantments/effects on the top bar by an icon. Without description of what it is. Yea...

 

[racofer]

Your reading skills are remarkable. I envy you immensely.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I'm not sure if he's being sarcastic, or just being russian

 

[fastpunk]

I am very angry about NWN2.

Careful racofer, you might strain your neuron when shift + right clicking to bring up the menu.

 

[Sceptic]

I am very angry about NWN2.

Of all the things that are wrong with NWN2 you picked... delayed right click? Really? 0.1s too slow for you? Fuck, I know we live in the era of instant gratification but I hadn't realized it was that bad.

And what is it with people constantly complaining about the camera? In terms of options it's the best system I've seen in a 3D RPG. Everything is fully customizable. If you have your perfect overhead setting but want to briefly switch to OTS you can do this then go back to your perfect overhead settings with two clicks. Don't like the default settings on any of the modes? just change your OTS mode so that it acts like the strategic one, takes less than a minute in the options. Or did you find it so hard to understand the meaning of obscure options like "rotate camera when mouse hits edge of screen"?

I agree with optimization... to a point. Yeah NWN ran on a Geforce 2... if you turned everything to low and the resolution to 640x480. NWN will STILL stutter on max settings on a GTX 260, that's some great optimization for an 8 year old game. The .NET faggotry OTOH is just that, pure faggotry, and there's no excuse for later patches requiring 3.0 and the last one 3.5, with no warnings anywhere in the patch notes (and it's not as if the game gives out an error or anything if you don't upgrade .NET. No, it just doesn't start with no explanation)

 

[Lesifoere]

NWN will STILL stutter on max settings on a GTX 260, that's some great optimization for an 8 year old game.

Ding ding ding. NWN was about as well-optimized as a Russian arthouse... aw, who am I kidding. It was worse, and looked like shit (even for its days) to boot, so there really was no excuse for the lag then and certainly not on today's hardware.

DA's camera is worse than NWN2's, btw, while we're at it.

 

[racofer]

I never implied that NWN was some sort of marvelously optimized piece of code. On the context of my aforementioned post, I was merely comparing the differences in system requirements from both games to measly improvements in graphical quality.

Even the KotOR games (which derivate from the same engine) failed to perform properly on earlier hardware. Before upgrading I had a x1950, which suffered to run both KotOR games with anti-aliasing turned on, and often dipped as low as 10fps in some areas even without any anti-aliasing at all. That card was fucking overkill for that game, yet it failed. Only now with my gts250 I can finally play kotor with max settings (1440x900, 8xAA, 16xAS) without slow downs. That is just too much hardware for such lacking graphical features, and nothing justifies that other than shitty engine. Hell, I maxed out the Jedi Knight series on my Ti4200 for fucks sake.

 

[Serious_Business]

Dragon age

 

[Sceptic]

I never implied that NWN was some sort of marvelously optimized piece of code. On the context of my aforementioned post, I was merely comparing the differences in system requirements from both games to measly improvements in graphical quality.

Even the KotOR games (which derivate from the same engine) failed to perform properly on earlier hardware

You're making a pretty good point about the base engine actually. Every single game made with it performs poorly if you compare hardware requirements to graphical quality. I agree with you that NWN2 is the worst offender but even Dragon Age (back on topic hurr) slows down to a crawl in some open spaces and doesn't look that impressive. Hell Mass Effect 2 looks better and manages to maintain a consistently higher frame rate, and let's not even go into the mess that was Witcher pre-patch.

As for the KOTORs I thought they were better optimized than both NWNs (still not great optimization). The problems you describe are typical of that era: ATI cards were shit with anti-aliasing and Nvidia cards were shit with anisotropic filtering. Of course it doesn't excuse bad performance on x1950 with AA off.

 

[racofer]

Indeed. I firstly played Mass Effect1/2 before DA:O. The performance was excellent throughout and some of its areas looked great, almost photo realistic. The character models had proper proportions and moved gently. The Unreal3 engine delivered and hardly taxed the computer.

DA:O, however, was much different. I expected the game to look at least as good as Mass Effect 1, but it reminded me of NWN2 some times. I didn't have performance issues with it, but some areas had some noticeable slowdowns. I still don't understand why Bioware couldn't just use the unreal engine 3 as well, possibly because this game was in development for so long that there was no easy way to simply migrate to UE3 once it became available.

 

[Lesifoere]

I still don't understand why Bioware couldn't just use the unreal engine 3 as well, possibly because this game was in development for so long that there was no easy way to simply migrate to UE3 once it became available.

Oh, they could've used UT3E and the game would've ended up like Duke Nukem Forever. And, what's more, nothing of value would have been lost.

 

[Volourn]

Bullshitz butthurtz

 

[Arcanoix]

Expansions are almost alwasy rated lower than the original.

Also, whining that it's 'more of the same' is retarded. What did they expect an expansion to do? Turn the game into a whole different? The whole point of expansions is to 'give more fo the same' for those who liked the original. FFS

I do laugh at all the butthurt over at the BIOm baords 'cause the lack of romances and for BIO having the gall to kill off a character. HAHHAHAHA!!!

The expansion makes me LOVE the original, and I didn't even really "like" the original, so the end result is that the expansion, just like my earlier posts pointed out, fucking sucks ass.