Dragon Age 2


Video Games

1 to 50 of 65 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>

Bioware's Dragon Age 2 Trailer - Destiny Extended


marketwatch.com wrote:

Leading video game developer BioWare announced today the Dragon Age(TM) II BioWare Signature Edition. This limited edition of the highly anticipated action RPG will be available at no extra cost for gamers who pre-order Dragon Age II before January 11, 2011. Featuring over $20 of additional content, the Dragon Age II BioWare Signature Edition includes the full version of Dragon Age II, along with a download code for an additional playable character and new missions, the Dragon Age II digital soundtrack, an exclusive in-game digital armory featuring a variety of weapons and other digital items.

The Dragon Age II BioWare Signature Edition will only be available for pre-order and online purchase on or before January 11, 2011.*

Full article here.


I'm really looking forward to this game. Dragon Age: Origins is my favorite game. This one looks to be taking somethings in different directions, but I'm liking those directions.

I'm excited to see how the framed naratvie will play out. The exaggerations, and the re-tellings, and the fact that the game is to take place over a decade of time is very compelling.


Got mine on pre-order!! What I find interesting is that ArchLich is using the Vecna Avatar while the first response to the OP was done by none other then Vecna himself!!!

A dark omen for sure!!!

Sovereign Court

I liked the story and enjoyed the player options of DA:O. However the lack of a multiplayer option was a big let down. Any chance this time around there will be an option for online play?


Pan wrote:
I liked the story and enjoyed the player options of DA:O. However the lack of a multiplayer option was a big let down. Any chance this time around there will be an option for online play?

Very doubtful. Sounds like your looking for somthing that LOTR War in the North maybe offering. DA:O story with on-line grouping. Don't know for sure LOTR:WITN isn't going to release for a couple more months.

Sovereign Court

Lord Vile wrote:
Pan wrote:
I liked the story and enjoyed the player options of DA:O. However the lack of a multiplayer option was a big let down. Any chance this time around there will be an option for online play?
Very doubtful. Sounds like your looking for somthing that LOTR War in the North maybe offering. DA:O story with on-line grouping. Don't know for sure LOTR:WITN isn't going to release for a couple more months.

Thanks long story short I have a friend who used to play tabletop with me every other Saturday night. His new GF forbids it and so he doesn't play anymore. Whats worse is he sits at home now and plays video games while she watches him. Good friend of mine so any chance I can play a game as good as Dragonage multiplayer its a bonus.

Dark Archive

Just an FYI in case anyone didn't know.

If you've seen the Ads for the Signiature Edition pre-order special, it's official now that EA will not be offering the deal through Steam (Although Direct2Drive, impulse and the EA store will) in the event anyone was waiting on that option.

All threads on ea.com and bioware.com asking for the impetus for said decision have been locked by mods.

No word on if Steam will get it's own "collector's edition", but if you're looking for the extra gear, soundtrack and character/quest then physical purchase is probably your best bet.


Hmm so thats why they won't let magus use 2 handed weapons!! :)


1/2 Hour Dragon Age 2 Demo Video.


Paul McCarthy wrote:
1/2 Hour Dragon Age 2 Demo Video.

AWESOME!!!!


Dragon Age 2 is now live on Steam. Get it while it's hot.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Ok, so I get Dragon Age II with all the bonus content.

I go to enter my code and get the soundtrack. Set to DL right before bed.

Wake up this morning and open the zip archieve.

All the songs are in .wav format.

.wav? Really?

Why not mail me a cassette of them while you're at it?

Oh and what's next? Dragon Age III in cutting age 16 bit graphics?
</rant>


Matthew Morris wrote:

Ok, so I get Dragon Age II with all the bonus content.

I go to enter my code and get the soundtrack. Set to DL right before bed.
Wake up this morning and open the zip archieve.
All the songs are in .wav format.
.wav? Really?
Why not mail me a cassette of them while you're at it?
Oh and what's next? Dragon Age III in cutting age 16 bit graphics?
</rant>

Just wait a week, the ost will be online in 320kbps (flac format in a few months). I predict DA3 will be a 2.5D platformer focused entirely around Sandal.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

grrrrrm just got it, and the page to redeem my code is down...grrrr

Edit: And now it works


This will go down as the most disappointing game of 2011. Bioware intentionally set the bar low for themselves, and then put forth just enough time and effort to make their chin-up. This was done so that the game could be finished within a ridiculously short development cycle (12 months between the release of Awakening and Dragon Age 2). The game is such a blatant, cynical cash-grab on the part of Bioware and EA that I actually feel betrayed. I will never purchase another Bioware product on launch day.

The game itself isn't bad, but it's not good enough or long enough to warrant the premium price ($60 on PC). It should have been a full-blown expansion to the original Dragon Age like Throne of Bhaal was to Baldur's Gate II.

Dark Archive

Playing it enjoying it and not really seeing the problem.


I said it wasn't a bad game. It just doesn't measure up to Bioware's standards and it certainly doesn't measure up to the $60 dollar price tag. Also who ever came up with this "day 0 premium DLC" crap needs to die in a fire. There is no way to justify charging players more money for something that should be included in the full game (in this case an "extra" character). It's pure f!*@ing greed.

Here's my beef with the game itself:

Spoiler:

--Character creation is a direct transplant from Mass Effect. Gone is the first game's incredibly diverse character creation system. Instead, you are Shepard--er, I mean Hawke--the human refuge from Lothering. period. You can be nothing else.

--The environments are nothing but dull, copy-pasted corridors. I can't think of a single interesting set piece in the entire game. As a result exploration is non-existent as your party is rail-roaded from one bland corridor to the next. You spend 80% of the game in the same city with the same beige and off-white textures, the same boring architecture, and the same generic NPCs.

--Combat is visually impressive but ultimately unsatisfying and repetitive. The game throws wave after wave of trash mobs at you with no regard for tactics. Enemies will literally materialize out of thin air behind your party. This renders tactics even more redundant because no matter how carefully you position your party its all for nothing if enemies can just spawn from out of a SOLID WALL next to your casters. And they will.

--The story arc lacks focus, or any real purpose for that matter. Most of the missions are nothing but simplistic fetch quests padded for time by repetitive combats with a very limited range of enemies. One quest has you fighting an entire dungeon full of nothing but dragon whelps whose only tactic is to charge in and melee. This is the sort of poorly planned tripe you'd get from a novice GM.

--The soundtrack is a forgettable rehash of the first game.


Haven't played the game myself yet, but I've read stories about a required internet connection during installation to verify the game, followed by irregular connection check-ups during play.
Is this true?


I'm giving this a Miss and waiting for Elder Scrolls V.

And Shogun 2: Total War is out on tuesday so thats another reason my cash flow is not going to reach to this.


I'm playing it, but not very impressed.Elder Scrolls V is dated for this December i read :-(


December is ok by me I have LOTRO and Field of Glory Digital to fill my time till then.


Orc Bits wrote:
This will go down as the most disappointing game of 2011. Bioware intentionally set the bar low for themselves, and then put forth just enough time and effort to make their chin-up.

DA2 has received favorable reviews. I'm pretty sure it's going to be far from the most disappointing game of the year. Most nerdrage-inducing game? Perhaps.


Gandal wrote:
I'm playing it, but not very impressed.Elder Scrolls V is dated for this December i read :-(

Has Skyrim been pushed back from its target November 11th release date?


Scott Betts wrote:


DA2 has received favorable reviews. I'm pretty sure it's going to be far from the most disappointing game of the year. Most nerdrage-inducing game? Perhaps.

What constitutes disappointing? Expecting greatness and getting much less? Because all those favorable reviews are what contributed to my disappointment.

Check user reviews for DA 2 on Metacritic and you will find they are much less favorable. Gaming journalism is nothing but a hype machine for the big publishers.


Orc Bits wrote:
Scott Betts wrote:


DA2 has received favorable reviews. I'm pretty sure it's going to be far from the most disappointing game of the year. Most nerdrage-inducing game? Perhaps.

What constitutes disappointing? Expecting greatness and getting much less? Because all those favorable reviews are what contributed to my disappointment.

Check user reviews for DA 2 on Metacritic and you will find they are much less favorable. Gaming journalism is nothing but a hype machine for the big publishers.

Or (the more parsimonious alternative) people with primed expectations are unable to reasonably judge something on its own merits.

User reviews are terrible.

The Exchange

Orc Bits wrote:
This will go down as the most disappointing game of 2011.

Don't I feel like a complete goober. Here I was, having an absolute BLAST playing the game and enjoying it greatly.


Scott Betts wrote:


Or (the more parsimonious alternative) people with primed expectations are unable to reasonably judge something on its own merits.

I've clearly stated every major problem I have with the game. Repetitive combat, an over-abundance of fetch quests, launch day DLC, and bland environments are generally regarded as negative points for a game.

Scott Betts wrote:


User reviews are terrible.

If you ignore the raving lunatics (on both sides) then user reviews are the best source for unbiased info on a game. If the major publications give a game 90% reviews, and the average user review is 50-60%, that's a good indication something is wrong. Personally I'd rate the game a 7/10.

Quote:
Don't I feel like a complete goober. Here I was, having an absolute BLAST playing the game and enjoying it greatly.

I enjoyed the first 10 hours or so, and then it slowly dawned on me how shallow the combat is, how bland and repetitive the environments are, and how some of the best aspects of the first game have been completely abandoned for no apparent reason.

If you're getting your $60 worth, then more power to you.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'm having a grand time.

This is the first time I felt like I've been in Athkatla since Baldur's Gate II. Lots of sidequests (I agree they can get repetitive, but I've come to expect as much from any game since 2000).

In any case, the action is there to keep the rhythm between brilliant dialogue and meaningful choices.

I actually liked the Mass Effect 2 influence on Dragon Age, it creates a far more immersive experience - the first game gave you plenty of choice but lacked any good art direction and suffered from a need for system mastery that just didn't need to be so deep.

I have complaints, don't get me wrong, but my complaints come from judging DA2 to a table top game.

Besides how could I hate a game that lets me sarcastic and snarky in EVERY conversation? I am GIDDY - finally a PC that gets to be the funny one.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Still fine tuning my Awakening game before I plug in DA2.

From playing the demo, though, it seems Mages are no longer the cakewalk.

Heck, I enjoy the campaign world a lot actually. Qunari, slave elves, Dwarves the ones with the lost civilizations and great magic...

Dudemeister,
DA:O can't require too much system mastery. I'm playing a rogue on hard w/o much trouble.

Spoiler:
Sleep/Mass Paralysis are your friends when you're using Morgaine/Anders as your mages. Also Miasma/Elemental Aura for the same reasons. Anders mass paralyzing, Sigrun and my rogue close combatting with Opportunist and Nathaniel bow shooting do wonders.


Played the demo, and until they add a mode that removes the inventory management I'm not going to partake. The lack of inventory wrangling with limited number of backpack slots is the reason I keep playing Mass Effect 2, over, and over, and over again. I know its the opposite of how I like to manage D&D but for a video game I have limited time to play, I don't want to spend it having to counter my "old school" pack-rat instincts. It's also not like Neverwinter Nights where I could (like any good adventure) acquire increasing amounts extra-dimensional storage to meet my pack-ratty needs.

In the demo the changes to the combat layout made it difficult to control accurately (compared to the first game). Now if they had turned DA2 into a melee focused 3rd Person game in the same way Mass Effect is an over the shoulder shooter I'd have been happier (but still a no go with inventory management). You can feel the Console to PC port in this game... and not in a good way.

Lastly their lighting and texture engine bugs the hell out of me. The light blooms, shininess, and high contrast of their implementation of the Unreal Engine works fine for SciFi but feels wrong in fantasy. Honestly Epic Citadel and Infinity Blade on iOS look better, so I know it's an artistic choice by Bioware.

For those that are having fun playing DA2 are you playing it on your PC or on a Console?

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Dorje Sylas wrote:
For those that are having fun playing DA2 are you playing it on your PC or on a Console?

I will be playing it on the PS3*

as to inventory management. Since Warden's keep introduced the Cache, and Awakenings has the cache in Vigil Keep, I'm assuming that your base of operations in Kirkwall will have the same thing.

*

Spoiler:
I think I hit geek implosion point yesterday. I was playing Awakenings and getting caught up watching Castle on Hulu on my PC.


DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

I'm having a grand time.

This is the first time I felt like I've been in Athkatla since Baldur's Gate II.

Oh, c'mon now. It's one thing to like the game, but DA 2 is nothing like BG II. They are very different animals. I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, though. I wish I could say the same.

Quote:
In any case, the action is there to keep the rhythm between brilliant dialogue and meaningful choices.

I agree that DA 2 is best viewed as an interactive novel, rather than as a game that you play and explore.

Quote:
Besides how could I hate a game that lets me sarcastic and snarky in EVERY conversation? I am GIDDY - finally a PC that gets to be the funny one.

Yes, but even here they failed to import the best feature of Mass Effect 2:

Spoiler:
Qunari "air quotes," anyone?


I'm with Orc bits on this one. I made the decision months ago when I heard about the changes coming in this game. I loved the original, the expansions, and I played all the DLCs except for one of the early ones with the battlefield (I forget the name),as I didn't want to just face waves of creatures.
For this type of game, I'll wait for Skyrim.


Orc Bits wrote:
If you ignore the raving lunatics (on both sides) then user reviews are the best source for unbiased info on a game. If the major publications give a game 90% reviews, and the average user review is 50-60%, that's a good indication something is wrong.

Yes, it is. User reviews are a terrible way of evaluating a game's value.

By way of example, Yelp makes a huge deal out of user reviews. They form the core of the Yelp experience. One of the most oft-cited criticisms of any restaurant is a lapse in service. People are generally okay at rating quality of food, but give them poor service and they start chopping stars off their review left and right.

That sounds fairly harmless, until you realize that this suddenly provides a huge boost to restaurants that don't feature waitstaff. By removing something from the equation that does more harm than good to customer perceptions (wait service at your table), they can generate stronger reviews, even though a lot of people prefer to eat at a place that features a waitstaff.

Your average person is fickle, prone to rate too high or too low, prone to judge based on personal desires rather than accepted industry standards (allowing for a more generalizable review), prone to review without a substantial playthrough, prone to misunderstand basic concepts, and prone to any number of other factors that go hand in hand with being just some guy who decided to share his opinion on something he's probably not all that qualified to judge.

Professional reviewers know to avoid these common confounds and are thus able to produce more consistent reviews.


I think I'll hold off on this one. I really don't like the way Bioware has changed, espcially with DLC content available on release date not being included in the game. That just bespeaks of greed. The reviews seem to be extreme for DA2; some love it, others hate it and no in between. Unlike the original, where just about everybody agreed it was a great game.

I think the user reviews are important; after all, aren't they the ones buying the game? I can't help but feel a little deceit has crept into the professional's reviews. Especially with such an extreme margin of difference. I never check out a professional reviewer's book recommendation, I hit the forums and boards and listen to the general public.

They seem to have taken some great aspects out of the original and changed it just for the sake of making it different. The inventory aspect is what really rankles me; I love to micromanage and best suit my heroes in the best gear possible. Why would they even go in the direction they did? Is it to introduce an inventory DLC mod that allows full use of armors and items for extra cost? That wouldn't surprise me one bit with the direction Bioware has recently taken.


Paul McCarthy wrote:


They seem to have taken some great aspects out of the original and changed it just for the sake of making it different.

I agree with your entire post except the above. I think its for the same reason someone above posted, to get it out quicker.

It seems like they figured.... we have the mass effect engine/coding, change the art and textures from sci-fi to fantasy, release it. The thing that bugs me is that the original was a smash hit, why change the formula?
Its a fast buck riding the momentum of the Original and Mass Effect 2.

Aside from that User reviews are awesome to guage a game. You can tell from the tone of user reviews if they are nerd-raging fanboys most of the time and avoid those. You can also tell when some people are being genuine based on the content of their review and their reasons for liking it or hating it.


Ok, seems a bit of froth of negativity on this, while I can sorta understand the impetus of it, I think its kinda getting out of hand. Dragon Age 2 is a good game.

Is it as good as DA1..it really depends on what you like your game to be. My first impression was that EA and bioware had "consoled" the thing, dumbing it down and eliminating a lot of goodness that makes a killer RPG. So no, it is not a sequel to DA1.

What it is a another game entirely set in the dragon age universe. If you liked Mass effect 2, and I assuming most here did, then you should find DA 2 enjoyable. Yeah, I am wondering why they nerfed NPC armor options. I suspect it is because of all the graphics required and yea, EA wanted to pump this out. DA 1 took 5, I repeat 5, years to make. It would be unreasonable to expect the same depth in a sequel out in year and a bit. Would I have waited for a deeper game, yeah, since I am still mucking around with doing all the possible combos in DA1 and could have waited another year.

But EA and Bioware likely felt that they needed to be more aggresive in feeding the masses, and so we have DA 2. The game looks gorgeous and the story seems interesting. Yeah, they should have done more original tiles, but for the hand wringing about how Bioware has changed, I seem to remember Neverwinter Nights having scores of repetitive looking dungeons.Even the 3 official additional modules suffered from that.

As for the premium DLC content, I agree its a bit in your face. Then again, wardens peak was premium content available right when DA1 came out, so why is DA2 being picked on for that.

In short, played about 20 hours of DA2 and enjoying it. The gorgeous graphics and the story are so far overridding any dissapointment with the fact that gameplay has been dumbed down.


Dragon Age 2 is a good game. No, it’s a damn good game.

There are only two significant departures from Dragon Age: Origins – the inability to have as wide-ranging flexibility in character creation, and NPC customization of gear.

I’ll take them in reverse order.

The removal of NPC customization on par with the main character customization is definitely a shortcoming, and unnecessary one. However, it is similar to the reduced NPC customization choices seen in Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 2’s overwhelming critical acclaim clearly had influence over the Dragon Age 2 design team, mostly to provide a better, more immersive story. Overall, however, the ME2 influences are positive.

This particular issue, however, is likely to be rectified in future installments of the series as it’s the one universally cited in every review I’ve seen. Clearly, this design choice was a poor one.

While I loved the flexibility of choosing your origin story, character class & gender in DA:O, DA2 is telling a different kind of story. Would I have loved to have 10 different origin stories that all led to Kirwall ala DA:O? Sure, who wouldn’t? However, DA2 is telling a different kind of tale, and I’m willing to do without that in order to have better characterization (through Hawke’s ME2 style dialogue) and tighter story integration. Plus, the ability to import “outcome data” from DA:O is an excellent tip to setting/game continuity.

Some games lend themselves to wide open choices in character creation. Others are strengthened by a narrow selection & tighter integration. Just like table-top RPG campaigns. I’ve done dozens of campaigns over the years that allowed unfettered PC choice – sometimes to the detriment of the tone and/or longevity of the campaign. Campaigns that allowed for tighter integration into the setting/campaign from the get go, however, had much more staying power.

Ultimately, will I like DA2 as much or more than DA:O? I don’t know yet. I can say, DA2 hooked me from the start and Bioware’s ability to interleave elements of DA:O into the story and providing a continuity bridge despite being set in another part of the DA world is very impressive.

As for the DLC, while I’m not a fan of DLC in general, I find Bioware’s stuff to be very, very good. With DA2, it was very clear that rather than providing DLC to provide a “complete game experience” (Assassins Creed 2, I’m looking at you…), Bioware was shrewdly using out-of-the-gate DLC to help drive pre-order sales. So far, the content has been good and is integrated into the game well. I’m glad that I pre-ordered.

Sovereign Court

How many other people sold the armor of allies who were going to die in the next cutscene on their second playthrough in Origins?

Thanks to Black Dougal for mentioning the production schedule; this is a fantastic game considering the development time that went into it.

Thanks to my wife I have DA:2 on both PC and PS3, so I have been able to directly compare them.

My overall impressions are, in no particular order:

-The lack of customization for your allies in DA:2 is both good and bad. It means I don't have to worry about assembling 3 to 8 sets of amazing but obscure gear. It saves disk space for more of the other great stuff. But it's also a limit to your options, a change the typical RPG fan will not applaud.

-The environments get to the point of being recognizable/memorized in layout even in some cases where your character "hasn't been there before". This hasn't made the areas feel tedious (yet), and there are many new environments/layouts as you advance through the story. The element of discovering new places is still here.

-The appearance of the environments are well-rendered, especially in regard to space. Outdoor areas give a feel of vastness, though most of the explorable ground is narrow trail.

-The gameplay has been well-adapted to the console. Depending on your character build choices, you can have just three special attacks, or you can fill up six buttons and still need the radial menu to use potions and constant abilities (auras and battle stances).

-The questing, or fetching, part of the game is typical in length of time to complete to other RPGs. Where it tries to set itself apart are the plot twists. In more than half of the "bring me that box" quests, you can follow your orders or investigate deeper. Yes, this is used to set up chain quests, but that isn't all. In some cases you can choose to return to the quest-giver and explain the new circumstances, or you might choose to work for someone else midway through. You usually get rewarded in some fashion either way, so these are often bonus bits of lore to investigate. Sometimes it takes a bit of digging and negotiation to earn something special, like an item or new ally. Whatever decisions you make will change the game for your character in small and large ways, just as it did in Origins.

-The expanded dialogue options for your character are fantastic. To build on this, your character will change their wording based on which type of response you typically chose in the past. In many situations, a character with a history of kindness offers more soothing words than would a character who who usually responds bluntly or jokingly in exactly the same encounter. NPCs also change their reactions based on the personality you've constructed. If you're a bully and prone to violence, a smuggler might offer you some work. If you're more altrustic, a party member might find you approachable about a problem they're having.

-The reputation system is a little different. There aren't a pile of gifts to shower on whomever you're hoping to romance; you have to impress them by bringing them along with you and choosing words and actions that are compatible with their ideals. I like that the Friendship/Rivalry bar opens up more options for your characters too, instead of feeling like a tacked-on gimmick for story immersion. Overall, more effort involved if this is your focus, but not neccessary at all. I find this a very fun part of the game.

-For the more strategic player, I recommend the PC version. The mouse lends itself better to quickly changing camera angles than the thumbstick, and you can manage 10 hotkeys without resorting to the radial menu. For the action fan, DA:2 is a great fast-paced gore-fest on the console. I've been enjoying both styles on different difficuly settings.

-Definitely worth the money. I'm expecting a lot of replay value too, as I try characters of different classes/morals/motivations.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Vendle wrote:

How many other people sold the armor of allies who were going to die in the next cutscene on their second playthrough in Origins?

I've done that, but at the same time I've taken the Seeker's Amulet in Awakenings for myself, even though I have better 'bling' available. It just seemed to fit since my character ended Origins in a romance with Lelianna...


This is so relevant I almost couldn't believe it: DA2 dev posts a fan review of his own game to Metacritic.

User reviews are terrible.

Dragon Age 2 has a critic aggregate of 80 (out of 100), and a fan aggregate of 4.2 (out of 10). Even the Kotaku article makes fun of how worthless fan reviews are:

Kotaku.com wrote:
It seems like a valid concern, but have you looked at the user reviews on Metacritic? This is not a place to get a fair and balanced idea of how good or bad a game is. Those upset with the slightest flaw in a title will rate it zero out of ten. Then folks defending the game from those people will give it a ten out of ten. It's more like a war than any sort of organized system.

Don't ever use fan reviews - especially aggregate fan review scores - when it comes to making a decision on whether or not to purchase a game. Professional, industry reviews will give you a much more accurate overview of the game's bright and rough spots without the frothing foaming nerdrage that people hiding behind the internet and anonymity just love to bits.

I'm not even sure why sites like Metacritic track fan review scores, other than for novelty. They do far more harm than good to the consumer population.

The Exchange

Scott Betts wrote:
Don't ever use fan reviews - especially aggregate fan review scores - when it comes to making a decision on whether or not to purchase a game.

I agree and I disagree.

Generally, Scott is correct because these "reviews" are not based upon a critical eye of the product but rather or not it met the user's often-unrealistic expectations. User reviews can often provide kernals of truth that you may not get in a professional review. In other words, ignore all the "this is crap" and pay attention to things like "16 hours of playtime", etc.

On the flip side, many professional reviews are also questionable. I read one review of Champions Online by some supposed guru of the MMO genre in which he fusses about not being able to get past level 3, and some other factors that made me wonder if he even removed the shrinkwrap before he wrote the review. His credibility in my eyes went down to Zero pretty fast, as well.

In the end, it is a complete "caveat emptor". Only you (insert Smokey the Bear sound bite here) can decide.


TigerDave wrote:
Scott Betts wrote:
Don't ever use fan reviews - especially aggregate fan review scores - when it comes to making a decision on whether or not to purchase a game.

I agree and I disagree.

Generally, Scott is correct because these "reviews" are not based upon a critical eye of the product but rather or not it met the user's often-unrealistic expectations. User reviews can often provide kernals of truth that you may not get in a professional review. In other words, ignore all the "this is crap" and pay attention to things like "16 hours of playtime", etc.

On the flip side, many professional reviews are also questionable. I read one review of Champions Online by some supposed guru of the MMO genre in which he fusses about not being able to get past level 3, and some other factors that made me wonder if he even removed the shrinkwrap before he wrote the review. His credibility in my eyes went down to Zero pretty fast, as well.

In the end, it is a complete "caveat emptor". Only you (insert Smokey the Bear sound bite here) can decide.

Certainly, there are a handful of poor "professional" reviewers out there, but by and large they do their jobs. The difference is that an aggregate score (like the one provided on Metacritic) tends to smooth out such outliers when it comes to professional reviews. On the other hand, an aggregate fan review system just tends to cause the score to settle near a 50/5.0. As the hundreds of laughably low reviews are balanced out by the hundreds of laughably high reviews, it becomes the actually decent fan reviews that get smoothed over, because those are the outliers.

The result? Aggregates favor review fidelity when it comes to professional reviews, but do a poor job of preserving that same fidelity when it comes to fan reviews.

Also, for comedy's sake, I pulled one of the hundreds of "0" fan review scores off of Metacritic:

A Fan Review By Someone Named "Shodan" Who Gave DA2 a "0" Score wrote:
At the time of writing this, the user score (based on 143 ratings) is *3.6*; the critic score (based on 12 ratings (11 "positive")) is 8.4. You could not have a more embarrassingly obvious exposition of the vapid, dead vacuum-of-integrity that is games journalism. Really, it should be obvious to everyone now that the people who wrote these reviews don't have a single atom of sincerity or regard for truth. As far as the game itself is concerned, it's a lobotomized, bordering on the retarded, dumb-down of a game which was itself a lobotomized rehash (of the Baldur's Gate series). You really could not remove more depth from this if you were desperate to. We're at rock-bottom here, and hopefully that means the only way is up. Generic, unremarkable, uninspired, utterly forgettable fast-food for the masses. Nobody who worked on this should be proud.

How you can call game journalism a "vacuum-of-integrity" while giving Dragon Age 2 a "0" is totally beyond me.

The Exchange

If you look at a lot of negative reviews for games involving EA, you find that most of them are about DRM and not about the game as such. I haven't looked widely, but if you look at Amazon this is often the case. Personally, I don't care about DRM so a lot of that is irrelevent. There has been a lot of comment about how DA2 is a bit dumbed down (though DAO wasn't exactly Shakespeare) and people getting in a flap about the lack of NPC inventory, but again (having played ME and ME2) none of that bothers me either. The only thing that would bother me if the story is duff and the set-piece encounters dull. Not so easy to find many comments about that.


Comparing to the first game there are ups and downs. The combat system more enjoyable. I wish it had other options. The greatest fault is that the areas repeat, and there's an illusion of choice in the conversations, meaning the game has no replay value. It ends with enough mystery to want the expansion. I want the story from the Awakening to continue. I don't really care about any of the sides, nor the sidekicks. The boss fights are epic, most fun moments.


Scott Betts wrote:


Certainly, there are a handful of poor "professional" reviewers out there, but by and large they do their jobs.

The reviewers aren't the problem. The major game publishers (like EA) provide the advertising revenue that keeps the gaming magazines and websites afloat. There is an obvious conflict of interest when a gaming journalist submits a review on a website that is covered in ads for the game he just reviewed. As a result, review scores for heavily marketed games (like DA 2) are artificially inflated. If you don't believe me read this.

The Escapist website was dominated by Dragon Age 2 ads leading up to the game's launch. No surprise that they gave the game a perfect 5/5.

Quote:
On the other hand, an aggregate fan review system just tends to cause the score to settle near a 50/5.0. As the hundreds of laughably low reviews are balanced out by the hundreds of laughably high reviews, it becomes the actually decent fan reviews that get smoothed over, because those are the outliers.

This is simply not true. Mass Effect 2's aggregate user review score is 88 compared to an average critic review of 94. When a game is genuinely good the user score will also be good. When a game fails to live up to its own hype it gets hammered. This is a good thing.

Liberty's Edge

Orc Bits wrote:
The Escapist website was dominated by Dragon Age 2 ads leading up to the game's launch. No surprise that they gave the game a perfect 5/5.

Just as a small note about this, I'm a pretty avid reader of the escapist, enough so that I follow a number of their editors on twitter. They were excited enough about DA2 that a few of them held a contest between each other to see who got to be the one to write the review.

I think the perfect score had more to do with the fact that the game really fit what the editors prefer and the fact that they review out of 5 stars. If the review was out of 100, maybe he would have given it a 95, but when you break that down to five stars its obviously closer to 5 than 4.

Anyway, I think its a great game and still fall pretty firmly into the Bioware fanboy camp even though I do agree that EA really seems to be losing its mind and is being a bad influence on all its developers as a result, primarily through some of its DRM and advertising attempts, but even if things are different in the game it doesn't make it bad.

Honestly, just about every change is something I am mixed about. I like simplifying inventory but I miss the customization. Crafting is much smoother now, but I enjoyed the complexities too. I think on a whole, I would grade it just about equally to what I would grade DA:O, which is pretty high marks indeed. Keeping the story and the overall fun of the game while making it a smoother experience isn't a bad thing.


Quote:

First up, Reddit user "GatoFiasco" did a little poking and prodding after suspecting the highest rated and since deleted Dragon Age II user review at Metacritic as having been written by someone associated with Bioware instead of a regular joe shmoe. It turns out he was spot on, and had caught Bioware Engineer Chris Hoban as the culprit behind the review. Not only that, but Project manager Benoit Houle got in on the action as well.

EA gave an official comment to Kotaku on the matter, stating:

"Of course the people who make the game vote for their own game. That's how it works in the Oscars, that's how it works in the Grammy's and why I'm betting that Barack Obama voted for himself in the last election."

Just saw this at Ve3d.gin.com "got busted"? Lol

Eff the reviews, trust your own tastes and judgement. :)


Orc Bits wrote:

The reviewers aren't the problem. The major game publishers (like EA) provide the advertising revenue that keeps the gaming magazines and websites afloat. There is an obvious conflict of interest when a gaming journalist submits a review on a website that is covered in ads for the game he just reviewed. As a result, review scores for heavily marketed games (like DA 2) are artificially inflated. If you don't believe me read this.

The Escapist website was dominated by Dragon Age 2 ads leading up to the game's launch. No surprise that they gave the game a perfect 5/5.

Again, yeah, there are a couple of bad ones. That's the point of an aggregate score - it smooths out the outliers. But as was pointed out above, you're assuming that it's not possible to appreciate the game on its own merits for professional reviewers - a laughable stance to take, given that people who rate a game like Dragon Age 2 a 0/10 are the ones you're assigning all the credibility to.

Orc Bits wrote:
This is simply not true. Mass Effect 2's aggregate user review score is 88 compared to an average critic review of 94. When a game is genuinely good the user score will also be good. When a game fails to live up to its own hype it gets hammered. This is a good thing.

Really? I mean, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, a game that received stellar professional reviews and more than lived up to its own hype has a 5.6 fan review score.

It's not a good thing when a game that fails to live up to the hype gets terrible reviews. You know why? Because a review is not supposed to be a measure of how well a game lives up to its hype. If people paid attention to user reviews, they'd be under the ridiculous impression that Titan Quest (a fairly run-of-the-mill Diablo 2 clone with an 8.6 fan review score) is a tremendously better game than Dragon Age 2. If aggregate fan review scores are given any credibility whatsoever, they reduce the value of reviewing a game to meaninglessness.

I mean, the crux of your argument boils down to the idea that a handful of highly publicized cases of corrupt review practices outweighs the general idiocy that you get when you let people anonymously share their wildly inflamed opinions of a game over the internet and then assign those opinions some actual meaning.

1 to 50 of 65 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Gamer Life / Entertainment / Video Games / Dragon Age 2 All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.