Bill Murphy has been playing Dragon Age II and has a few thoughts on the subject in his latest entry into the MMORPG.com Staff Blog. See what Bill thinks of Bioware's latest single-player RPG. Are you playing DA II? If so, let us know what you think in the comments section!

So when Dragon Age 2 was announced, I was excited that the combat was being given a long hard look.  I'm actually somewhat pleased with how it turned out. I can still pause and issue orders if I want, but by and large it feels a lot more like I can control my character in this one.  I like that change.  Others miss the party-management, but really it's still all there.  You can still take control of any character at any time and issue orders.  Similarly you can set their behaviors and never look back.

Read more here.

[Mod Edit]

I personally like having news from RPGs as well, particullarly when they were as enjoyable as DA2. This game needs to be played by everyone.

lol I hafta wonder what that post before mine said before the Mod Edit.

I've made a few posts about what I enjoyed about it.  I also LOVEEEEEEEEE the music.  I got the SE, and I listen to it a lot.  I really enjoy the "Tavern Music" among others.

Forcing you to stay in Kirkwall makes for an incredibly boring story, and none of the characters have any depth compared to what they did in Dragon Age: Origins. The conversation wheel is a lazy move on Bioware's part, and doesn't allow for any real character development or role-play. 

Not to mention that the whole fight system is bugged to hell

You can practically pass the game on hardcore mode. If you just run away from fight and most of enemies never even follow. Than you just pick one by one ranged.

Bravo Bioware !

I'm very wary of these companies offering games and then showering us with DLC. I've stepped into that mine a couple times so I am reluctant to do it. For now Bioware and Bethesda are both under probation (hehe). Bioware with pretty much all their games and Bethesda with the Fallout games.

I can and will wait for the golden edition so I'll get to play the complete game and pay it once. Because I'm patient like this.

Oh, and while I enjoyed the Starcraft 2 story (liked the novels as well), the single player was so short, it didn't warranty (in my opinion) the money I gave for it. So the next installments are on shaky grounds regarding repurchases.

Especially launch day DLC, what used to be taboo quickly became the norm.  This is one main reason I refuse to buy any games until the goty edition comes out, which happens for pretty much every game that even remotely resembles an rpg anymore.  Pretty soon they're just gonna start charging folks $10 an hour lol.

As to StarCraft 2 lol, I'll just wait til they release the whole game instead of this bs 1/3 of the game for an extra $10, if I even bother playing it at all.  DOW scratches my RTS itch :).  On that note, Eff blizzard and the overdone cloned to death crap that they put out (and yes it will tick off all the fanbois but blizzard's last ORIGINAL idea was Lost Vikings).

Originally posted by Xasapis

 

Oh, and while I enjoyed the Starcraft 2 story (liked the novels as well), the single player was so short, it didn't warranty (in my opinion) the money I gave for it. So the next installments are on shaky grounds regarding repurchases.

Starcraft 2? Wrong thread I think. And if you did mean SC2 then you bought that game for the wrong reason, you buy it for the multiplayer, not the single player campaign.

As far as DA2 is concerned, I liked the game. I actually enjoyed the different take they did. Instead of using a cliche save the world type of story like Origins had they went with a more personal storyline that was more political. I really think the combat is vastly improved and I found the characters more interesting. The two things that did bother me though were the constant reuse of areas in their design and using wave encounters for almost every single encounter. The area reuse smacks of lack of development time. If they had given this game some more development time I think it could have been one for the ages. As it is now it's just a good game.

Originally posted by arenasb

Originally posted by Xasapis

 

Oh, and while I enjoyed the Starcraft 2 story (liked the novels as well), the single player was so short, it didn't warranty (in my opinion) the money I gave for it. So the next installments are on shaky grounds regarding repurchases.

Starcraft 2? Wrong thread I think. And if you did mean SC2 then you bought that game for the wrong reason, you buy it for the multiplayer, not the single player campaign.

As far as DA2 is concerned, I liked the game. I actually enjoyed the different take they did. Instead of using a cliche save the world type of story like Origins had they went with a more personal storyline that was more political. I really think the combat is vastly improved and I found the characters more interesting. The two things that did bother me though were the constant reuse of areas in their design and using wave encounters for almost every single encounter. The area reuse smacks of lack of development time. If they had given this game some more development time I think it could have been one for the ages. As it is now it's just a good game.

Nope, sorry, bought SC2 for the single player. Couldn't care less about the shitty, unbalanced, 'who can rush first' multiplayer with a community consisting of immature, overcaffeinated 8 year olds.

As to Dragon Age 2, I'm still in act 1 and think it's... okay. Nothing really ground breaking yet, and the combat difficulty ranges (on normal) from laughably easy to ridiculously hard, often during the same encounter. I'm not digging the way encounters just throw 'waves' of bad guys at you; feels like a decidedly cheap way to increase the challenge. Also, bosses have waaaay too much HP and are pretty much just an endurance, rather than requiring you to use any sort of strategy.

It doesn't feel like a Bioware game. Feels much more like an Obsidian game so far. Some good changes, and certainly not bad gameplay (combat on 360 is 10000X better than DA1), but it's done nothing to draw me in. All previous Bioware titles had me glued to my TV from start to finish, wanting to see the story unfold, find better gear, see new environments, etc. This one... I play for an hour or two, then go play STO or Magicka or any number of games I own. I'm not drawn to it or feel compelled to finish it; it hasn't really 'hooked' me so far.

I'll keep playing, and I hope it picks up. If not... well, then I'll finally admit that EA has influenced Bioware for the worse.

Gotta say DA 2 is hard to put down. It's different from DA Origins and Origins was fun. But they have different playstyle. DA 2 traded some of the open world feel and variety of environment for more character cinematics and action combat feel.

Not sure if I could say whether I like DA 2 better or DA O better but they are certainly different, but still both are fun.

DA2 is nothing compared to the first one.. its basically an action game with some rpg bits tagged on.. talk about dumbing down a game waht a big waste of time... Story is ok but again nothing compared to the first one..

I play RPG gaems because i want them to ahve proepr RPG elements not be half arsed action games.. whats so godo about this combat system? nothing..

for me i think i would have rated Dragon age at maybe a 7/10 as sure for an action game its not bad to play through and with the high res texture pack for the pc it looks hlaf decent as well..

I thought the start was a bit rocky but it quickly grew on me though I still don't like the combat speed. Having said that, I hear that the end doesn't really work very well. If that's true then it's a bit of a shame.

Compared to DAO which had hooks to bring you into the story right off, DA2 is boring.  "get 50 gold" isn't as compelling as wanting to kick logain's ass into next week. 

Played DA2 for a few hours, got bored and haven't loaded it since.  Glad I borrow a friend's copy cause I'd feel stupid to have wasted $60.

I hope ME3 isn't going to be as crappy.

I just finished the game. Having invested probably somewhere in the area of two thousand hours combined in the Baldur's Gate series, the Mass Effect series, and the Dragon Age series, I can't say I feel Bioware is moving in the right direction. But they're probably moving in the direction of larger profits, and I guess that argument trumps all others.

I liked some of the changes in DA2, disliked others. I don't like that combat is becoming a no-brainer. There's no reason to ever take direct control of your party members, and you can beat any fight by mashing the "Target Closest and Attack" button. I really long for the combat of Baldur's Gate II. And what happened to healing? All but gone...

I also wasn't crazy about the story. Ignoring BG2 (with which there is no comparison), it's not even half as interesting as the first DA game. I mean, the plot boils down to "You arrive in Kirkwall and then stuff kinda happens one thing after the other." No epic storyline, no clear purpose, just a bunch of short quests, all in one single location (and surrounding areas). Boo.

The changes I liked were mostly smaller, technical improvements. I like that there's just one type of healing and mana potion, but not that I rarely needed them, since fights lasted 5 seconds of me mashing one button and taking no damage. I know I could play at a higher difficulty, but ultimately it's the mechanics that are flawed, not the difficulty level.

I also liked the cameos of past characters. I was particularly happy to see Leliana again, who has become an amazingly interesting character post-DA1. I hope to see more of her in future DLC, which, if the ending is anything to go by, I probably will.

It's still a fantastic game, but I feel it could've been better. But I'm about to go make a second character - a mage this time, for obvious reasons - and beat the game again :)

DAII is an utter disappointment.

It would be OK game if it was spin off, but it does not deserve to be titled "Dragon Age II"as everythng is far far worse and the game strays way too much from rpg genre to be considered a sequel.

GOod game? No. Decent Game? yes. Good Sequel? NO no and no.

Originally posted by Mysticum

I just finished the game. Having invested probably somewhere in the area of two thousand hours combined in the Baldur's Gate series, the Mass Effect series, and the Dragon Age series, I can't say I feel Bioware is moving in the right direction. But they're probably moving in the direction of larger profits, and I guess that argument trumps all others.

I liked some of the changes in DA2, disliked others. I don't like that combat is becoming a no-brainer. There's no reason to ever take direct control of your party members, and you can beat any fight by mashing the "Target Closest and Attack" button. I really long for the combat of Baldur's Gate II. And what happened to healing? All but gone...

I also wasn't crazy about the story. Ignoring BG2 (with which there is no comparison), it's not even half as interesting as the first DA game. I mean, the plot boils down to "You arrive in Kirkwall and then stuff kinda happens one thing after the other." No epic storyline, no clear purpose, just a bunch of short quests, all in one single location (and surrounding areas). Boo.

The changes I liked were mostly smaller, technical improvements. I like that there's just one type of healing and mana potion, but not that I rarely needed them, since fights lasted 5 seconds of me mashing one button and taking no damage. I know I could play at a higher difficulty, but ultimately it's the mechanics that are flawed, not the difficulty level.

I also liked the cameos of past characters. I was particularly happy to see Leliana again, who has become an amazingly interesting character post-DA1. I hope to see more of her in future DLC, which, if the ending is anything to go by, I probably will.

It's still a fantastic game, but I feel it could've been better. But I'm about to go make a second character - a mage this time, for obvious reasons - and beat the game again :)

lol, you might want to say "spoiler" because I didn't even see that you blacked out your "spoilers'. on my screen it looks like you just "left off". For some reason what I quoted above comes out as "blacked out" but your post just looks like you left text out as the "black is the same color". Wonder if others have that issue as well?

Very interesting second spoiler!

I'll be honest, I agree wiht your assertion regarding the plot.

i for one was pretty happy that the game had a demo...  stopped me wasting money buying it... needless to say.. even the demo is no longer on my system.. if anything.. the game is so bad, that now i will be waiting to see how good or bad ME3 is before rushing out and buying it.. and im really keeping my fingers crossed that ME3 is not of similar quality to DA2.. really really hoping they don't mess up on ME3, ME2 was not as good as ME1, but it was still a pretty solid game, even if there was no replayability in it.. 

Originally posted by Phry

i for one was pretty happy that the game had a demo...  stopped me wasting money buying it... needless to say.. even the demo is no longer on my system.. if anything.. the game is so bad, that now i will be waiting to see how good or bad ME3 is before rushing out and buying it.. and im really keeping my fingers crossed that ME3 is not of similar quality to DA2.. really really hoping they don't mess up on ME3, ME2 was not as good as ME1, but it was still a pretty solid game, even if there was no replayability in it.. 

Well, in my opinion the game is far better than the demo.

Still, it was a "demo" so its job is to grab you. If it didn't then "bad demo".

edit: Here is a post by a guy named "Reinveil" regarding Bioware acknowledging some of the less than stellar reviews:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/315/index/6734725/15

"Eurogamer:  The Metacritic score for Dragon Age II (at the time of writing) is 82 per cent. Is that in-line with expectations?

Mike Laidlaw:  It's a little bit lower than we were expecting. We knew going in that this may not sit around the same spot as Origins on all platforms (86 for the 360). There's been, I would say, more strongly negative
reviews appearing on Metacritic than I expected. I'm a little surprised by the 6/10s and they have a fair amount of weight early on. If the Metacritic isn't where we want it to be, and honestly our goal as a studio is to try and aim more for 90, then our next step will be to, very easily, go through those reviews, go through fan feedback,
especially over some time - as opposed to the day-one initial response -and look at that in a measured way and say, what didn't work, what did work, where did we go too far, where did we not go far enough, where was
there just an inherent dissonance, and try to refine the experience and try to move forward for any future products."

www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-10-biowares-mike-laidlaw-a-defence-of-dragon-age-ii-interview

There was another quote that I can't find at the moment (can't remember from whom) that basically said "we tried some new things with DAII that we probably won't be doing again".

So they're aware that many fans are disappointed.  The first quote makes me think he's expecting the negative feedback to taper off as time passes, which it often does for sequels to popular and well-received games.  I don't think that's going to be the case this time around, however.

Originally posted by Sovrath

lol, you might want to say "spoiler" because I didn't even see that you blacked out your "spoilers'. on my screen it looks like you just "left off". For some reason what I quoted above comes out as "blacked out" but your post just looks like you left text out as the "black is the same color". Wonder if others have that issue as well?

Very interesting second spoiler!

I'll be honest, I agree wiht your assertion regarding the plot.

I'm sorry, I didn't consider the possibility that the blacking out wouldn't work for everyone. I hope I didn't ruin anything for you :(

Originally posted by Mysticum

Originally posted by Sovrath

lol, you might want to say "spoiler" because I didn't even see that you blacked out your "spoilers'. on my screen it looks like you just "left off". For some reason what I quoted above comes out as "blacked out" but your post just looks like you left text out as the "black is the same color". Wonder if others have that issue as well?

Very interesting second spoiler!

I'll be honest, I agree wiht your assertion regarding the plot.

I'm sorry, I didn't consider the possibility that the blacking out wouldn't work for everyone. I hope I didn't ruin anything for you :(

Oh no! I am happy I discovered it. I'm usually a person who doesn't want a spoiler (meaning I don't seek them out) until it's offered. Then I'm all over it.

I'm complex that way.