214 Comments

  1. 22/02/2011 at 17:28 GenBanks says:

    S2TW demo is go too! Just go to the S2TW steam store page and there’s a link.

    • 22/02/2011 at 17:42 Heliosicle says:

      Yea, 6gb though :(

      Will download this after shogun 2

    • 22/02/2011 at 18:06 draknahr says:

      6 gb shogun 2 demo on steam is finished for me and yet the DA2 1.9 GB demo is at 9% going 60kb/s! Luckily DA2 is the one I really want to play.

  2. 22/02/2011 at 17:28 Flobulon says:

    but when get walker thinks?!?!

  3. 22/02/2011 at 17:32 Howling Techie says:

    It only seemed like yesterday when games like DA2, S2TW and bulletstorm were announced, and now they’re all coming out with demo or even being released soon.

  4. 22/02/2011 at 17:54 zoner says:

    Too bad the DL rate is garbage

  5. 22/02/2011 at 17:57 DevilSShadoW says:

    DL rate? I’m getting an error. There is no rate. :(

  6. 22/02/2011 at 17:58 Lifebleeder says:

    Mirrors
    English:
    link to gamershell.com (Torrent)
    link to computergames.ro

    French and German (Presumably English Soon):
    link to fileplanet.com
    link to fileshack.com

  7. 22/02/2011 at 17:59 Jetsetlemming says:

    A whole 220Kbps, wow. I could be getting this 15x faster from Steam.

    • 22/02/2011 at 18:18 kael13 says:

      Wha. My max is 320kB/s.. On a good day. Screw you and your fast connection. ;P

  8. 22/02/2011 at 18:03 Torgen says:

    no torrents?

    • 22/02/2011 at 18:05 Lifebleeder says:

      Yea, it’s on the gamers hell website, not many seeds right now though. Still, the 350KBS is a damn sight better then the 45KBS I was getting with the bioware download.

    • 22/02/2011 at 18:41 jconnop says:

      Got 2MB/s from bioware myself, 10 mins after it was posted. Perhaps I got load balanced to a regional server, where it was 6am at the time.

  9. 22/02/2011 at 18:13 Stitched says:

    It was idiocy to do a direct download.

  10. 22/02/2011 at 18:14 Xanadu says:

    Great timing, as I finally got round to finishing Awakening at the weekend after putting a shocking amount of time (215 hours says Steam) into Dragon Age since it came out. Downloading now. Deeply slow though, 11% in half an hour.
    Wonder if the release of DA2 might coincide with a drop in the price of the DLC for the first one. I know a lot of it is supposed to be a bit pants, but I wanted to try out the story related (Morrigan and Leliana) ones. Not hopeful though – DLC seems highly resistant to the price drops/sales in the rest of the retail and download PC game market. Otherwise I may just wait for the “ultimate edition” to drop in price to the bargain bins and pick it up just for the DLC codes

    • 23/02/2011 at 05:23 Commisar says:

      played the demo, and it looks like a buy, just not on PC, on my PS3. I am a little confused by the semi-stylized are direction, but i love how mages get melee and how the staffs look.

  11. 22/02/2011 at 18:20 kyrieee says:

    Wasn’t there a post about this just slightly further down? Do we need one more, really? Clicks clicks clicks

  12. 22/02/2011 at 18:56 phobic says:

    Just finished the demo. My earlier fears were unfounded. It’s pretty much an improvement on DA:O. I dunno about the tactics, it seemed a bit umm worse. But the combat is fun as hell and looks amazing in DX11. I’ll definitely be buying this, even though they’ll come out with an ultimate edition in a years time, i don’t care! :)

    • 22/02/2011 at 19:28 Eggy says:

      The UI is crap, the menu is crap, dead enemies disappear instantly, plays more like a hack & slash and why is the inventory locked?

      /End rant

    • 22/02/2011 at 20:00 Kryopsis says:

      Other than the incredibly ugly UI and menu navigation that seems worse than that of Mass Effect 1, I am surprised by how little of the core gameplay has changed. The character is voiced, of course, and looks more like a real person as opposed to Dragon Age: Origins’ android. I can’t see this being worse than the disappointing first game, anyhow.

    • 22/02/2011 at 20:17 phobic says:

      @ Eggy, I agree, the UI is crap but it had a nice feature, quick heal and the stamina boost. Though they could easily have been potions on the last game. But i’m sure there will be a mod to restore the UI to something similar to DA:O. Honestly i didn’t notice the bodies disappearing fast, but possibly because the game is more demanding than it’s predecessor? And the inventory being locked didn’t bother me, it’s a demo afterall.

    • 22/02/2011 at 23:24 Mayjori says:

      Uh, that was not DX11 and did not LOOK DX11 either….
      the demo isnt DX11 capable…… retail/release version will be.
      link to social.bioware.com

    • 23/02/2011 at 00:11 Man Raised by Puffins says:

      I quite like the UI to be honest. Coming straight from a playthrough of Origins, actually being able to read the health bars at a glance is quite the thing. Having health/mana/stamina potions auto-sorted to the right side of the hotbar is also a nice touch.

    • 23/02/2011 at 05:23 Aemony says:

      @Mayjori

      What was it then? Enabling Dx11 in the launcher gives you the ability to play the demo on High, which adds other graphical features such as cloud shadows and probably some more. All I know is that with Dx11 enabled and on High the game isn’t as fluid for me as it is on Medium (no matter the Dx-level).

    • 23/02/2011 at 17:50 Danarchist says:

      It was using dx11 actually, looks COMPLETELY different between my win7 lappy and my win xp (although more powerful, yes im that lazy…) desktop. Everything from reflection off of weapons and armor to the smoothness of character animation was different.

      On another note the UI does not look finished, while mousing over an icon it would occasionally show a placeholder which is a dead giveaway. Also the fact that the inventory screen is nowhere near finished shows that its not the final build by any means.

      The only complaint I had was something others might actually enjoy, the fighting was so fast and frantic I didnt feel like I had time to use any sort of strategy in a fight. In fact if I paused the game to issue orders it almost seemed like I was getting in the AI’s way and actually reducing my effectiveness.

  13. 22/02/2011 at 19:03 mockingbird says:

    I think I’ll download this at school today with their 200 mb/s connection since the download rates seem awful.

    • 22/02/2011 at 19:40 draknahr says:

      Your connection shouldnt make a big difference when their servers are overloaded. I have a 70 mbit connection and I was getting 50-60 kb/s from bioware. My suggestion is use the torrent as I was getting 650-750 kb/s on that.

  14. 22/02/2011 at 19:05 Selix says:

    People are always talking about the changes from DA1, and how they supposedly make the game worse. Now DA1 has a kind of legendary status because of the changes in DA2. This is quite surprising since there was never any real agreement about that game. I’m almost sure I’ll like DA2 more, because short of good intentions and an aura of “classic” dreariness, DA1 was a mediocre game at best. Because my connection is slow I tried it again, and obligatory passages like the Tower of Ishal and the Circle of Magi are among the most boring game experiences around. They wouldn’t even get a 60 rating in another RPG. I like some of the Origins, but lots of this game is so poor and dreary, I cannot force myself to play it twice.
    The streamlining won’t make DA2 a masterpiece, it’ll simply show the franchise’s potential in a truer light.
    Edit:
    Somehow I thought they could vamp up the gameplay, make a more ambitious story and it’ll be fine. But if anything the writing still got worse and the gameplay is practically on auto-pilot. This game looks like a catastrophe and I’ll wait for The Witcher. Although DA:O might be overglorified, this has become utter trash.

  15. 22/02/2011 at 19:20 Cirdain says:

    why do things like traveling at 80kb/s

  16. 22/02/2011 at 19:24 Delusibeta says:

    Getting about 350kb/s over here. Admittedly, my connection is hard-capped to about 500kb/s, but still. Another 20 minutes of downloading or so, and then I’ll get on with Shogun (which is via Steam, so at least I *know* that I can pause and resume that download).

    • 23/02/2011 at 05:25 Commisar says:

      my goodness, is everyone on this forum but me using dial-up, it took me no more than 40 mins to get the DA2 demo off Bioware

  17. 22/02/2011 at 19:24 iSmack says:

    Can’t wait to get home and start downloading the demo :D

  18. 22/02/2011 at 19:58 Lambchops says:

    As much as I’ve been unimpressed by what has been shown so far it may be that the demo sways me.

    (I’m getting around 450-650kb/s, – hooray for University network!)

  19. 22/02/2011 at 20:00 UncleLou says:

    I don’t like it. The isometric camera is gone (you can zoom out a little now, that’s all, and the camera keeps turning around when you move, so it’s just a zoomed-out 3rd person view), and at least the demo makes it feel like a poor man’s, party-based Diablo clone. Big boobs and lots of blood, though, *sigh*

    • 22/02/2011 at 20:13 Bilbo says:

      Party-based diablo clone. Interesting…concept.

    • 22/02/2011 at 20:16 UncleLou says:

      Well, Dungeon Siege. :)

      edit:

      I’ve only just read that the lack of an isometric camera was confirmed in summer 2010, due to “budget” reasons, completely missed that at the time. Looks like my budget will be tighter this time, too, when it comes to DA.

    • 23/02/2011 at 05:26 Commisar says:

      if you want Baldur’s gate 3 that badly, just go play Baldur’s gate 2, again

    • 23/02/2011 at 06:52 UncleLou says:

      Dragon Age 2 that hasn’t been crippled would do me just fine, thanks.

  20. 22/02/2011 at 20:17 Silver says:

    installing!
    was getting 750kb/s until something happened and it faiiiled, but 40minutes later I got a new try..

    *keeps fingers crossed*

  21. 22/02/2011 at 20:20 Araxiel says:

    The combat is quite the same as it was in DA 1. It’s mostly just extremly fancy and good looking. Swords go *wusch* really fast, enemies go *splat* in two or more halfes, mages go *bam, bam, badam!* with great choreography. It’s, like I said, extremly fancy, but in the core the same. However abilities and stamina/health recharge redicously fast and there are a lot weaker but a lot more enemies you fight at the same time. On the other hand, the cutscenes are exact copies of Mass Effect 2. Every moment I had the feeling somebody is going to call “my”(no customisation in the demo) character Commander Shepard. So, don’t be afraid, it’s quite awesome-o-tastic. Just accept that it reminds even more of Mass Effect than it already did. Also; Isabella has frigging huge boobies and Flementh rose from the dead…I killed her in Dragon Age (1)! And for some reason, it really reminds me of Dungeon Siege 2…and that can’t be good. Well, I’m going to get the DA2 collectors edition (or whatever they call it) for sure, but I still have some sort of collywobbles for this game. I don’t really like the protagonists voice actors and the entire game lacks essence. But one thing for sure: Even the Rogue looks awesome this time. I assume the reason why this demo alone is not convincing me is that one of the most important aspects of the game is missing in the demo: Customisation. Atleast for me, customisation very, very important.
    Btw. I already (kinda) played the demo before. The first 10 minutes are what you were able to play at the GamesConvention 2010.

    Addendum:
    One thing which does bug me though is this trend of “all users have to shout one million time ‘need a dispensa hea’ and we’re going to unlock a new map”. First Bad Company, now Dragon Age 2! What’s next?

    • 22/02/2011 at 22:21 Nameless1 says:

      You have absolutely no idea how combat was on DA, don’t you?

    • 23/02/2011 at 00:45 Noxdomimi says:

      Flemeth is alive because this takes place just after you left Lothering in dragon age as I understand it (timeline not connected perfectly yet). This game kind of skips through time as its recollections of the past mainly, so thats where the odd timings come in.

    • 23/02/2011 at 07:44 Geralt says:

      You actually never “kill” flemeth in DAO. When you talk about it later with Morrigan she says that Flemeth is not actually dead, she’s simply stopped for the time being. In Witch Hunt DLC which takes place after DAO she again reminds the Warden that Flemeth is alive.

  22. 22/02/2011 at 20:33 Nihilille says:

    DA2: Boobs.

    • 22/02/2011 at 20:42 Nihilille says:

      Not that I have a problem with that since large boobs aren’t any less realistic than small boobs.

    • 22/02/2011 at 21:16 quijote3000 says:

      While I certainly enjoy the RPG’s for the story, graphics and characters, among other things, I have to admit: Boobs Forever.

    • 23/02/2011 at 02:52 DrazharLn says:

      I think this song is appropriate.

    • 23/02/2011 at 12:12 Kadayi says:

      The interesting thing as noted by others is that the voluminousness of your sister varies between the two different accounts of the events (it’s got a kind of Kurosawa Rashomon thing going on). Clearly the Dwarf narrator is prone to exaggeration and embellishments in terms of his storytelling, with regard to the characters. I don’t doubt that the absurd proportions of Isabella in the later scene are probably a resultant of that as well.

  23. 22/02/2011 at 20:44 mkultra says:

    I’m really tired of giant tits in RPGs. The only reason I enjoyed my ten minutes playing the Rift beta was because the elven folks have B cups.

    • 22/02/2011 at 20:50 Mephisto says:

      Tired of huge breasts in RPGs? Does not compute.

      Apart from the aesthetics, you can easily fit a bladed weapon or pistol in there for extra inventory space.

    • 22/02/2011 at 20:57 Hoaxfish says:

      well, they do lead to back pain

    • 22/02/2011 at 23:41 Mayjori says:

      Agreed, not into the overly large breast thing.

    • 23/02/2011 at 05:28 Commisar says:

      oh dear god, the giant boobs were because of bias on Varric’s part when he was telling the story. keep playing the F*CKin’ demo

    • 01/03/2011 at 10:38 d32 says:

      @Commisar
      You try too hard :) And you’re wrong.

  24. 22/02/2011 at 20:52 Tengil says:

    I agree with the sentiments re: boobs. I’d say it shows that you don’t really have any faith in your game when you feel a pressing need to sexualize every female character who gets more than three lines of dialogue.

  25. 22/02/2011 at 21:06 Silver says:

    WTF are those, FF boobs? Oliphant tits?
    I started to play game and all seriousness was gone after seeing FF tits on Bethany.. it’s quite strange..
    so far I don’t like those ultra-fast combat animations, feels very unnatural and strange.
    edit: After first battle I was thinking why the hell he was fleeing?
    If he/she had stumbled to Redcliffe Village battle he would taken all those undead out by himself. I just had some trouble DA:O with party of four, but this guy seems capable of killing enemies on low levels better than my L10ish party …
    Overall it seems bit more actionish, way too fast for me (at least atm), dialogue system and voice-over system doesn’t appeal.
    Gonna play it of course, but we’ll see.

    edit: crash count: 1

    • 22/02/2011 at 21:32 Scorch says:

      If you pay attention to the starting tutorial and the difference afterward you will notice that Bethany’s massive hooters are a product of the Dwarf embellishing the story for his own amusement. When he starts telling the story properly they shrink to an appropriately realistic size.

      That’s not to say that Isabella’s gahongas are small.

    • 22/02/2011 at 23:51 JohnArr says:

      @Scorch Hah, that’s a nice touch.

    • 23/02/2011 at 02:38 Kadayi says:

      Yeah, they seem to be having some fun with the ‘retelling’ aspect. Isabella is ridiculously built though (she puts Kim K to shame on the curves front & back), not helped by her slightly posh English accept either causing a bit of a disconnect. If they are going to go that overboard though they might as well of gotten some husky voiced latin lady to take it to the limit.

  26. 22/02/2011 at 21:13 Cronstintein says:

    Just finished the demo on xbox. I found the combat to be a bit smoother than the first time around, so that’s an improvement. But I really really wish they had unlocked the difficulty because there’s NO way I would be able to play on normal. Freaking snoozefest. The only battle that required even a modicum of attention was the 2nd ogre fight. The rest is just: look for cluster, nuke cluster, wait for CD, repeat.

    I could be wrong but did they take the voice actor from everyone’s favorite sassy witch in DA:O and make her the (female) lead in the sequel? They certainly look & sound similar (which is a good thing, she was cool).

    PS- stop talking about download speeds like anyone gives a shit.

    • 22/02/2011 at 21:41 phobic says:

      If you’re talking about Morrigan, i don’t think it’s the same voice actor.

    • 22/02/2011 at 22:21 FunkyBadger3 says:

      Also worth noting: the female lead isn’t Jennifer Hale. So, not bad exactly, but not great on half an hour’s experience…

  27. 22/02/2011 at 21:24 Azradesh says:

    Anyone got performance issues?

    Edit. It was the lastest nvidia drivers causing the slow down. Rolled back and it’s fine now.

  28. 22/02/2011 at 21:27 Hunam says:

    I thought the controls were very poor in the pc version, a lot of time I got hit like once or twice and my character would just stop attacking. The tactics menu barely worked and clicking on portraits seemed to do a bunch of different stuff depending on how the game was feeling. Does look very good in DX11 but the underlying art can be very ugly, which oddly enough looks better on the consoles because of the less clean image you get with them. Kirkwall looked fantastic though, really great lighting and mist. SSAO just outright kills my PC though.

    I think I might just wait for the ultimate edition on the 360 though, the controls were so much better and the interface was not working against me as much as it was on the pc.

    • 22/02/2011 at 23:08 Mana_Garmr says:

      I noticed the thing with the portraits too. About half the time when I clicked on another portrait in the character menu I got kicked back out to the game instead of switching to that character’s information.

  29. 22/02/2011 at 21:29 Coins says:

    Wow, that was the most conflicting demo ever. Some bits were really good, some were less good and some I’m just not sure about. The decrease in graphic quality everyone was going on about was, well, absent, so that is a good thing. I did notice that some of the characters looked more textured than others. (the chantry dwarf in the first bit wasn’t very detailed/blurry, or was that just me?).

    The new camera was odd and took a lot of getting used to, and I think it’s not as good as the originals one. The combat was more fitting for an action game than an RPG, but I can certainly see this work very well, although I did only try a mage. The voices were nice enough, and so were the cutscenes, but my heavens, does every female -need- a coathanger to go with that sword?

    • 22/02/2011 at 21:57 Rinox says:

      I agree. I’m very conflicted about this demo. The camera has definitely deteriorated, without a clear isometric overview from the original. But the combat and the dialogue were either streamlined or at least as good as DA1. The atmosphere was ok too.

      Can’t really tell from this demo whether it’ll actually be an RPG or just a succession of fights though, because at certain moments during the demo it most definitely felt like it could be the latter. Let’s hope not.

      Pet peeves though:
      – giant swords ugh
      – ‘press any button’ at the start ughhh

      Gonna wait and see what the reviews say. As much as I loved the world of DA, I’m probably not gonna buy this on release. I’ll likely wait for a sale.

      EDIT: also…am I the only one to constantly have small and annoying loading times in dialogues? Like when switching from character to character? Made absolutely no sense as the actual gameplay and loading times were very smooth.

    • 22/02/2011 at 22:20 bleeters says:

      @ Rinox

      No, I had that too, mostly when there was banter between Varric and Chantry Lady. It’s both confusing and annoying.

    • 22/02/2011 at 22:35 Blaq says:

      Ugh, after reading the reactions so far it seems DA has gone through the transformation I feared it would, streamlining of EVERYTHING until it’s a console RPG. Or nearly anyway.

      Of course streamlining is good, but when it stops being that and starts being simplifying or even dumbing down, just to accomodate people who prefer to play games with an innacurate and archaic controller on a TV, that’s when I stop caring about the game. I really, really hope I’m wrong about this, that the people commenting on the demo were just extremely picky and that the full game will be more like NWN and less like, umm Darksiders?

    • 23/02/2011 at 05:32 Commisar says:

      AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH….. enough with the moaning for Baldur’s Gate 3, “the cameras isn’t isometric” well, we knew that was coming for months. The developers aid that DA2 is NOT going to be like DA:0 control wise. No need to hate if it ain’t Baldur’s Gate

    • 23/02/2011 at 10:46 bleeters says:

      Thing is, when they cut a feature that people liked there’s generally going to be disappointment over it. This isn’t some terrible, bewildering concept.

      So yes, I miss the isometric camera too.

  30. 22/02/2011 at 22:05 FunkyBadger3 says:

    A curate’s egg (on Box 360 anyway, going to check the PC tomorrow) – some excellent voice work and drama, some awful – almost placeholder – stilted rubbish. The combat is more actiony, hopefully there’s enough depth to make it fun, and the textures, particularly the hair were pretty crappy. And the magically floating swords were a bit rubbish…

  31. 22/02/2011 at 22:09 Silver says:

    I had some audio issues, but guessing that’s only me.

  32. 22/02/2011 at 22:15 bleeters says:

    Loading…

    Loading…

    Loading…

    Golly gosh, there’s an awful lot of loading. Never for longer than a couple of seconds, perhaps, but s-

    Loading…

    -till enough to be a little jarring, especially when switching back and forth between pre-rendered and in-game all within the-

    Loading…

    -same overall cutscene, and occasionally within the same conversation. It got a little annoying.

  33. 22/02/2011 at 22:15 Nameless1 says:

    I seriously think this is the shittiest sequel they could have done.
    It is itself one of the worst games ever. It was already clear, but not in this extent.
    Please do not fund this garbage or they will only make more.

  34. 22/02/2011 at 22:34 Binman88 says:

    I like it. Really excited now for the full game. I like the UI, the speed of the combat, the dialogue… one thing I don’t like is the disappearing mouse pointer when you hold right click to move the camera. That added to the fact that the pointer is tiny on my screen, leads to a bit of frustration when trying to spin the camera quickly and then choose an enemy to attack without pausing. I always lose track of it for a moment.

  35. 22/02/2011 at 22:35 El_MUERkO says:

    Crashes after the intro :/

    • 23/02/2011 at 00:01 Edawan says:

      Same here.
      And by intro, I mean it crashes when I click Start at the (non-customizable) appearance screen.

      Before that, I found what little I could play very unsatisfying.
      Placement and targeting are very clunky without the strategic view.
      Most annoying, there was constant small load times everywhere, sometimes even between two lines of dialog or every time a new enemy appeared. That’s a huge immersion breaker.

  36. 22/02/2011 at 22:36 Mayjori says:

    Thank you consoles for screwing up another bloody game…….

    • 22/02/2011 at 22:52 Kaira- says:

      I’d say you should thank the developers instead. Consoles, as they are, are quite lifeless pieces of electric wires and chipsets, just like computers. On their own, they are quite uncapable of anything.

    • 22/02/2011 at 23:15 GHudston says:

      That’s just what they WANT you to think.

  37. 22/02/2011 at 22:39 kublakhan says:

    Mindless combat punctuated by meaningless cutscenes. Weird. (Also, did Hawke kill that guy by pushing a knife through his chestplate?)

    • 22/02/2011 at 22:49 Shubb9 says:

      My female mage had no trouble piercing thick steel with a tiny dagger. The exposed throat looked like too much of a hassle

    • 23/02/2011 at 16:13 Koozer says:

      My thought process:
      “Drama! Oh he’ll need stabbing now won’t he. I guess she’ll just cut his throa…oh no, wait, she went through the breastplate with a dagger. What a shame”

      I guess Bioware think steel has the same properties as damp cardboard going off how bendy it it in cutscenes too.

  38. 22/02/2011 at 22:53 captialJ says:

    Well, here’s to anticipating The Witcher 2!

    • 23/02/2011 at 00:36 Ultra Superior says:

      YES. After playing the demo I know for sure which one I won’t be buying:

      DA fuckin 2

      My Witcher 2 expectation level just maxed out.

      (until deus ex hr comes around)

  39. 22/02/2011 at 22:54 Silver says:

    + Combat is more fluid, even ultra-fluid.

    ++ Characters seem more detailed.

    + UI is better; and I really love skill trees.

    – VA itself is okay, but too ME2ish, and for me doesn’t fit into med.fantasyRPG.
    I don’t like those narrow choices I can make. They feel so far apart and strange. (e.g. wanna be sarcastic and dude is plain evil idiot)

    – Didn’t relate to cutscenes that much.. because of VA ? or shitty cutscenes?

    +- far less details on backgrounds etc, makes game go more faster (and takes less room = consoles can handle it:P)

    — Big swords weight birdshit and fly around like really fast birds.

    +- Rogues are really cool now and I really loved the skills, now it’s an unique (and possible most liked) class. But those leaping jumps are bit toooooooo much.

    – Mages swing with their staff and do 360, 540, and maybe even Tony Hawk’s 720, tho they should have “basic” know-how with fighting with those odd pieces of wood (at least on low levels)

    personal fleim:
    — Bethany seems such a bitch,(I’d like to sacrifice her for some better good)
    Corvan or whatever dude seemed very coool, shitty he had to die!? (or does he if u play female/other class?)

    Darn, let’s see what pro reviewers from RPS say about demo, let’s fleim that guy if he is uberpositive and buys console and starts new blog rockpaperandbuttonsmash. !!!!!

    but really, there was much I could see was upgraded and game was smoother/more fluid, yet there seems to be much annoying/game”mood”destroying in it.

  40. 22/02/2011 at 23:07 Lambchops says:

    I was on the fence before and I remain on the fence now.

    I’ve always preferred Mass Effect “guns and conversation” thing, largely because I tend to find RPG combat somewhat tedious. In general when it comes to more traditional RPGs it’s the appeal of the world, story and chharacters that needs to be good to allow me to tolerate the combat and I just didn’t get much of a flavour of those things from the demo (unlike the demo for the first game which helped persuade me to buy it when you could play through a couple of different Origins and see how things were different). Strangely enough I actually grew to kind of like the combat in Origins. I know a lot of people describe it as MMO like but as I hadn’t played any MMOs I hadn’t reached any sort of saturation point with it and I quite enjoyed figuring it out.

    I really hope the game has an option to have friendly fire on normal difficulty level as without it it just deduces any semblance of tactics and the combat becomes just a dull clickfest a la the action RPG genre, which I’ve never got on with. Also from the demo the rogue seems to have become just another warrior, I kind of miss having to be careful with their positioning to use them to maximum effect, now it’s just mash backstab every 10 seconds to get out of trouble and kill someone.

    So yeah, from the demo, the combat, while looking nicer, seems more a clickathon and less tactical which means the game has to do a lot more work in other areas to keep me interested.

    Aesthetically the character animations are a lot better but I’m not so convinced by the background art so far, whcih is all a bit dreary, though what little could be seen of the city looked a bit more interesting.

    We’ll see if reviews nearer the time shift me from the fence but I have a felling this might be one for the sales rather than a day 1 purchase. As I’ve said before, I m far more excited about the Witcher 2 (which I’ve already pre ordered).

    • 23/02/2011 at 03:00 Lilliput King says:

      Slightly worried about TW2. Part of the reason the first is so renowned is because nobody expected shit from it, especially because it only received a middling critical reception (pre-EE, natch). The second is gonna be good, I reckon, but it’s not going to be able to live up to the ludicrous pedestal it’s being placed on.

      Idle clueless speculation, of course. Fun, though.

  41. 22/02/2011 at 23:14 Nimic says:

    Well this thread doesn’t give me much faith. It sounds exactly like what I feared it would be (essentially an action RPG with very much focus on the action and very little on the RPG. I’m not sure I even want to play the demo, I’m afraid my fears will be confirmed.

  42. 22/02/2011 at 23:16 Xanadu says:

    Screwed up DirectX on install, but once fixed it ran ok. It was fun, but I don’t think I liked it as much as the original. Lots of teeming hordes of weak goons, little need for tactics. Reminded me of playing Baldurs Gate:Dark Alliance on a console a few years back. Whilst I liked some of the Rogue combat abilities that reminded me of ME2’s Vanguard charge, it was all a bit in your face. This wasn’t helped by the demo being a long linear set of battles linked by cutscenes and a few dialogue choices – I’m sure the full game has more subtle RPG bits, but they were mostly absent from the demo.
    Lack of ability to change the camera angle was frustrating – sometimes you need an isometric view. Music in combat was awful. I liked the branching ability trees, but there didn’t seem to be many of them, so it looks like character customisation may be slimmed down also.
    Some peculiar design choices – Flemeth seems to have turned from wrinkled crone into the Valsheress from Hordes of the Underdark, complete with cleavage. Dual knives float 10cm off peoples backs. 2H weapons seem a bit supersized.
    The most unsettling thing was as soon as I finished the playthrough with my female Hawke, it cut straight to the promotional video with generic male hero, ruining any sense of immersion that had built up in the previous hour.

  43. 22/02/2011 at 23:34 Bhazor says:

    Christ but that interrogator’s voice work was awful and the main character’s (female) wasn’t any better.
    What the hell has happened to Flemeth?
    Why isn’t Isabella wearing any pants?
    Why is the combat suddenly so easy?
    Why did they use Alistar’s voice actor for an unrelated character? Surely they know that’s just confusing as hell? Or did they just think no one would remember the main party member from the last game?
    Why can’t I zoom out anymore?
    And they’ve completely nerfed crushing prison, my favourite spell.

    But still you can’t judge a 40+ hour RPG on a 40 minute demo and I will probably still get this but I think I’ll wait for a bundle this time.

  44. 22/02/2011 at 23:54 Ludden says:

    @UncleLou
    I’d rather they had cut the third person camera because of budget constraints. I loved the isometric view and all the other throwbacks to old-school RPGs. Really something that they should’ve expanded on, as those games are just lovely.

  45. 23/02/2011 at 00:14 James G says:

    Did miss the isometric camera, and got a bit of interface weirdness when trying to level up, but overall I’m not getting the massive simplification vibe others have complained about. Combat is more responsive, but I still took a pause and play approach. I’m assuming they tweaked the levelling rate for the demo slightly.

  46. 23/02/2011 at 00:29 Ultra Superior says:

    Oh my it’s so much worse then my worst expectations.

    I can’t believe it’s Bioware.

    Its just

    SO

    CHEAP.

  47. 23/02/2011 at 00:31 Vayl says:

    Really, really bad :(

    fight > cutscene > fight > cutscene > fight > cutscene and so on, way to many cutscenes in such short period of time.

    Combat is awfull without the the isometric view, waiting to see if there is a difficulty with friendly fire if not is a joke of throwing fireballs into the party like on this demo.

    Cutscenes are extremly annoying with the “loading” appearing several of times (no idea why), completly breaks the flow of the “dramatic” moments.

    Graphics compared to what is coming with Witcher 2 are absolute garbage.

    Game is in now way, shape of form optimized for PC, console ui, console graphics, and shitty performance (“loading” on cutscenes is pathetic).

    Would really like to see the opinions of the RPS Hive mind on this demo played on a PC.

    • 23/02/2011 at 05:36 Commisar says:

      well, then don’t get it for PC duuuuuuurrrrrr…. this game has been console optimized because Baldur’s gate is so frakin’ old. Don’t disparage the game just because it isn’t perfect on the PC

    • 23/02/2011 at 07:58 MrMud says:

      Why wouldnt you disparage the game if its shit on PC?

    • 23/02/2011 at 08:47 Vayl says:

      Don’t say the game is bad on the PC (despite being) because it might be good on a console? Is this a console gaming site or a PC gaming site?

    • 23/02/2011 at 18:07 qrter says:

      Jesus Christ, commisar, is Baldur’s Gate your only reference point?

  48. 23/02/2011 at 00:57 Man Raised by Puffins says:

    Overall impressions: pretty good. The demo seems littered with small bugs, but I’m hoping that’s down to it being an early build. Otherwise the responsiveness is a huge step up from Origins (where, while the animations were nicely meaty, it could take seconds for sword swings to actually connect), the UI is a hell of a lot clearer and the daft embellished version of events at the start brought a grin to my face.

  49. 23/02/2011 at 01:01 mkultra says:

    Haters gonna hate before release date, mate.

    • 23/02/2011 at 05:37 Commisar says:

      SO true, just look at the Battlefield 3 page. even when the devs say they are optimizing EVERYTHING for PC, haters still find something to hate

    • 23/02/2011 at 11:55 cheesetruncheon says:

      We are the Glorious Pc Gaming Master Race and we will hate the Console Peasants, and all video games that do not require unnecessarily complex menus.

  50. 23/02/2011 at 01:08 Bodylotion says:

    DA1 tried to be like Baldurs Gate 2 which they only managed to accomplish a little. DA2 takes the game to a whole other level and i’m not sure that’s a good thing. The game is much faster and feels like some sort of Diablo hack ‘n slash game, it even made me think of Devil May Cry i dont know why.

    I think console gamers are happy with this version of DA2 ofcourse but PC gamers get left in the cold.

    I already preordered the game which ofcourse is my stupidity but right now i think of canceling my order. I’ll try to play the game again tomorrow maybe i get more excited then.

    • 23/02/2011 at 02:58 dhex says:

      it even made me think of Devil May Cry i dont know why.

      the combos + giant sword, probably.

      definitely more than a bit wack-a-mole.

      for whatever reason none of the voice acting played for me. don’t know if that’s good or bad.