Dragon Age 2 Demo
Feb. 23rd, 2011 01:18 amShort version: I am disappoint.
I don't like it.
Combat sucks for me. I'm a control freak, and I like being able to pause and then tell everyone where to go. This moves so fast that all I can do is click icons and hope I didn't just choose "kill entire party". The rogue backstab thing literally makes me dizzy. I don't like that I can't pull back as far as I did in DAO so that I can see most of the battlefield, and the transparent mini-map makes it hard to see red dots against a reddish-brown background. Targeting is much more difficult than in Origins, at least for me.
And WTF is with the recharge time on Heal? Makes the spell largely useless. I hope there's going to be a way to swap weapons, because going back to click on a corpse? Not on.
I don't like the female movement animation. They all look like they're going to tilt over, maybe because of their MASSIVE RACKS. I mean, I like boobies as much as the next bisexual girl, but these women are going to throw out their backs. And the new, improved graphics? The people all look like Sims 3 characters, with their pudding faces. The darkspawn, IMO, were creepier in Origins; I won't say I "liked" the rotting-flesh look, but the way I went "Ew!" at the hurlocks made them feel appropriately monstrous in a way the redesigned ones don't.
I HATE the fully-voiced character. HATE. Female!Hawke has a perfectly nice, bland, voice, but it's not the voice I would ever choose for a character of mine. I also hate the dialogue wheel. I LOATHE the dialogue wheel. "Perhaps we'll get lucky and they'll run out of darkspawn" != "Neither can they" I hate having the words my character is saying be something other than what I chose. And "He won't be alone" definitely isn't what I'd have chosen if I'd known she'd say, "At least Father will have company." WTF?
As far as Carver dying? Meh. There's not enough there for me to care, honestly. I cared a hell of a lot more about Shianni and my Cousland parents than about this guy who had like, two lines. I really didn't care about Aveline's husband dying, because he was a complete dick. The only character I really cared about was Flemeth.
It's possible that when I can customize the look, it'll feel more like "my" character, but right now, it's like playing Leliana's Song, where I felt like I was playing out someone else's story and my choices didn't matter, because the whole thing was running on rails to a specific destination. If I want that, I'll dig up FFVIII and install it--which makes sense, since the combat reminded me very much of the things I hate about console games.
Things I did like: the opening. I really liked Varric, actually. And I kind of liked what we saw of Cassandra, although it was jarring when we got to the trailer and her hair changed color.
The skill tree is kind of cool, although I had a hard time actually getting things to select, and there doesn't seem to be a way to change your mind, though that could be the demo.
I decided to do a second playthrough, this time with male Hawke as a mage. Fortunately he sounds more like Ser Bryant than Vaughan. Unfortunately, the default appearance makes him look like Brian Wilson, the relief pitcher for the SF Giants. Fear the Beard!
The combat is just as bad as on my first playthrough, although at least I don't have a teleporting rogue this time. My problem is that the animations are so fast that my eyes can't track what's going on, and so I get motion-sick; pausing doesn't help that. I'm really missing my isometric view, as well. I also hope that the keyboard commands are usable in the full game; I'm a fan of using my mouse as little as possible.
The environment is okay. I strongly dislike the font,and the icon graphics and the character portraits being at the bottom. The people still look pudding-faced to me, although I will say that the lip syncing is much better. The fire graphics didn't look like fire to me for some reason, and again, it was hard for me to look at.
I liked the skill tree for rogues; mages, not at much. I want to shoot lightning bolts at people, but I can't because the Primal tree is locked.
Okay, this kind of bugs me. When your family decides to go to Kirkwall, your mother says "We'll take ship from Gwaren. Huh? Gwaren is southeast, and at this point, you don't know that the road north has been cut off. The closest Ferelden city to Kirkwall is Highever, so WHY ARE YOU GOING TO GWAREN?
Wow, the combat is really making me dizzy. I'm going to have to shut down and try again later, when I'm feeling better. I'm going to be really unhappy if this turns out to be a persistent problem. I will try to play it through once--assuming the combat doesn't prove to be a migraine trigger--in hopes that there's a good story underneath all of the action-oriented mechanics. For now, though, I'm going back to my Brosca.
I don't like it.
Combat sucks for me. I'm a control freak, and I like being able to pause and then tell everyone where to go. This moves so fast that all I can do is click icons and hope I didn't just choose "kill entire party". The rogue backstab thing literally makes me dizzy. I don't like that I can't pull back as far as I did in DAO so that I can see most of the battlefield, and the transparent mini-map makes it hard to see red dots against a reddish-brown background. Targeting is much more difficult than in Origins, at least for me.
And WTF is with the recharge time on Heal? Makes the spell largely useless. I hope there's going to be a way to swap weapons, because going back to click on a corpse? Not on.
I don't like the female movement animation. They all look like they're going to tilt over, maybe because of their MASSIVE RACKS. I mean, I like boobies as much as the next bisexual girl, but these women are going to throw out their backs. And the new, improved graphics? The people all look like Sims 3 characters, with their pudding faces. The darkspawn, IMO, were creepier in Origins; I won't say I "liked" the rotting-flesh look, but the way I went "Ew!" at the hurlocks made them feel appropriately monstrous in a way the redesigned ones don't.
I HATE the fully-voiced character. HATE. Female!Hawke has a perfectly nice, bland, voice, but it's not the voice I would ever choose for a character of mine. I also hate the dialogue wheel. I LOATHE the dialogue wheel. "Perhaps we'll get lucky and they'll run out of darkspawn" != "Neither can they" I hate having the words my character is saying be something other than what I chose. And "He won't be alone" definitely isn't what I'd have chosen if I'd known she'd say, "At least Father will have company." WTF?
As far as Carver dying? Meh. There's not enough there for me to care, honestly. I cared a hell of a lot more about Shianni and my Cousland parents than about this guy who had like, two lines. I really didn't care about Aveline's husband dying, because he was a complete dick. The only character I really cared about was Flemeth.
It's possible that when I can customize the look, it'll feel more like "my" character, but right now, it's like playing Leliana's Song, where I felt like I was playing out someone else's story and my choices didn't matter, because the whole thing was running on rails to a specific destination. If I want that, I'll dig up FFVIII and install it--which makes sense, since the combat reminded me very much of the things I hate about console games.
Things I did like: the opening. I really liked Varric, actually. And I kind of liked what we saw of Cassandra, although it was jarring when we got to the trailer and her hair changed color.
The skill tree is kind of cool, although I had a hard time actually getting things to select, and there doesn't seem to be a way to change your mind, though that could be the demo.
I decided to do a second playthrough, this time with male Hawke as a mage. Fortunately he sounds more like Ser Bryant than Vaughan. Unfortunately, the default appearance makes him look like Brian Wilson, the relief pitcher for the SF Giants. Fear the Beard!
The combat is just as bad as on my first playthrough, although at least I don't have a teleporting rogue this time. My problem is that the animations are so fast that my eyes can't track what's going on, and so I get motion-sick; pausing doesn't help that. I'm really missing my isometric view, as well. I also hope that the keyboard commands are usable in the full game; I'm a fan of using my mouse as little as possible.
The environment is okay. I strongly dislike the font,and the icon graphics and the character portraits being at the bottom. The people still look pudding-faced to me, although I will say that the lip syncing is much better. The fire graphics didn't look like fire to me for some reason, and again, it was hard for me to look at.
I liked the skill tree for rogues; mages, not at much. I want to shoot lightning bolts at people, but I can't because the Primal tree is locked.
Okay, this kind of bugs me. When your family decides to go to Kirkwall, your mother says "We'll take ship from Gwaren. Huh? Gwaren is southeast, and at this point, you don't know that the road north has been cut off. The closest Ferelden city to Kirkwall is Highever, so WHY ARE YOU GOING TO GWAREN?
Wow, the combat is really making me dizzy. I'm going to have to shut down and try again later, when I'm feeling better. I'm going to be really unhappy if this turns out to be a persistent problem. I will try to play it through once--assuming the combat doesn't prove to be a migraine trigger--in hopes that there's a good story underneath all of the action-oriented mechanics. For now, though, I'm going back to my Brosca.
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