Crikey- Dragon Age, FC4 or GTA Xbox One.
Discussion
How is DA:I compared to DA2.
I loved DAO, but DA2 was a disaster. ME3 I didn't even finish before I got bored. I don't know if I trust Bioware after how bad those two were...
Also, it needs to have a hard nightmare difficulty, DA2 was too easy.
I loved DAO, but DA2 was a disaster. ME3 I didn't even finish before I got bored. I don't know if I trust Bioware after how bad those two were...
Also, it needs to have a hard nightmare difficulty, DA2 was too easy.
Edited by LandR on Saturday 15th November 23:17
LandR said:
How is DA:I compared to DA2.
I loved DAO, but DA2 was a disaster. ME3 I didn't even finish before I got bored. I don't know if I trust Bioware after how bad those two were...
Everything I've read seems to imply it's a return to form - but then I liked ME3 (haven't yet finished DA:O, it's a stalled playthrough for no particular reason).I loved DAO, but DA2 was a disaster. ME3 I didn't even finish before I got bored. I don't know if I trust Bioware after how bad those two were...
LandR said:
How is DA:I compared to DA2.
I loved DAO, but DA2 was a disaster. ME3 I didn't even finish before I got bored. I don't know if I trust Bioware after how bad those two were...
Also, it needs to have a hard nightmare difficulty, DA2 was too easy.
I thought DA2 was better than Origins. Origins lacked focus. It wasn't up to much. DA2 was more linear and played better for it.I loved DAO, but DA2 was a disaster. ME3 I didn't even finish before I got bored. I don't know if I trust Bioware after how bad those two were...
Also, it needs to have a hard nightmare difficulty, DA2 was too easy.
Edited by LandR on Saturday 15th November 23:17
At the moment though, it's worth picking up Lords Of The Fallen. It's an excellent Dark Souls inspired adventure game. Extremely addictive and challenging. I love it.
Having gone through six hours of Dragon Age Inquisition in what felt like five minutes thanks to EA Access, that's got to be top of the list.
I posted this on another forum, but here were my thoughts following the trial...
Damn. My six hours is gone already, felt like half that.
I did manage to spend some time on the Dragon Age Keep website prior to playing, which allows you to alter major (and minor) decisions from DAO and DA2 to import in Inquisition, and I'm pleased to say it was almost effortless. Load up DAI, the game finds you Keep data and imports it, lock, stock and barrel.
Okay, this is going to be a long post, but before I spend a bit of time and point out a few things for those of us that are hyped for this; yes, you can get excited. It's great.
Firstly, it's huge. The trial basically lets you get as far as the Hinterlands, the first open area, which includes Redcliffe, the town where you recruit Arl Eamon in DAO and may or may not have sacrificed his demon-possessed son in the process. Good times. Anyway, the Hinterlands cover a sizeable area (allegedly bigger than all of DAO!) and there's absolutely loads to do; thanks to recent story events, rogue Templars and apostate mages are everywhere, and bandits are getting fat off all the refugees. Said refugees also require food, shelter, warmth and the Inquisition itself, still in a fledgling state, needs people behind it. All of which involve myriad side quests, ranging from gathering materials (hunting rams for their coats and meat to provide food and clothing for instance) to plain old killing (putting down mercenary and apostate camps to keep the roads safer) all of which keeps the Inquisition in good favour with the locals and ensures the area is easily held. Simply, six hours wasn't enough to do much more than scratch the surface of what's on offer here but it provides a good idea what the rest of the game will have to offer and the variety within. One hundred hours plus? Easily, if you so wished to do it all.
Graphically, like I said before, it initially disappointed, but I was playing it as the game installed and clearly it hadn't loaded all assets at that juncture, as once the install had finished it stopped being an issue. Frame rate is pretty smooth, the character models (barring some generic looking NPCs) are excellent and the Hinterlands are very reminiscent of certain areas of Skyrim, rocky bluffs, cliffs, rivers, lakes and assorted caves to pillage. There's plenty of variety and detail, and I'd imagine it would look glorious on a well-specced PC.
It's also pretty difficult. I started on hard mode, and basic fights are easy enough but to take on bosses you will need to use the tactical camera, which, as in DAO, switches the camera to a full overhead view and pauses the action allowing you to issue commands individually to your party to ensure they're working in unison. Squishy mage in trouble? Get your warrior (DA2s Cassandra in this case) to use a taunt, drawing aggro then use the mage to use AoE to nuke several bad guys at once. Is your warrior doing her best to tank, but being overwhelmed? Order her to retreat or lead your enemies to a more defensible position. Even closing basic rifts, which is something it appears you'll be doing a lot of, is a strategists delight. Do you try and beat the mobs down individually, or do you try and use the Inquisitior player-character to manipulate the rift and stun all the baddies in one go? The latter is effective but requires lengthy preparation during which time the character is defenceless and a single hit will end that attempt. It takes planning to make it work against tougher mobs. It's all possible, and it works. Hell, on the higher difficulties, I'd say it was absolutely necessary, and that is a tremendous relief.
Do I have any concerns? Well, yes, a few. On normal or lower difficulties, you can easily ignore the tactical approach entirely and simply hold the trigger to use your normal attack over and over. I can see this getting very tedious and may cause some players to declare the combat boring, which would be missing the point. Speaking of using the tactical camera, it's not perfect in itself, sometimes getting 'stuck' for want of a better word on bits of terrain and making it needlessly difficult to orchestrate the battle in precisely the manner you wish. There were also a couple of bugs I experienced, nothing game-breaking, but it did freeze during cut scenes on a couple of separate occasions, though both were while the game was installing so that may have been due to that. It throws a lot at you very early on; my quest log had thirty or more entries in it when my timer expired. While that's not necessarily a problem, for those like myself who like to see and do as much as possible it is going to be difficult to tell which quests are potentially important and which are not. Extra content is great, I just hope it is quality content and not DA2s mindless fetch quests, though based on what I saw during the trial period, there's plenty of variety so hopefully that shouldn't be an issue.
I actually found a dragon too, though the encounter was short lived. It flew up and away as soon as it saw my party. Then it flew back over us, and immolated us all in a single pass. Oh goodie.
In short, it has addressed every criticism thrown at DA2 and then some. It also reunites us with Leliana, who was my preferred LI in DAO for a male Warden. Suffice it to say, she looks amazing.
I posted this on another forum, but here were my thoughts following the trial...
Damn. My six hours is gone already, felt like half that.
I did manage to spend some time on the Dragon Age Keep website prior to playing, which allows you to alter major (and minor) decisions from DAO and DA2 to import in Inquisition, and I'm pleased to say it was almost effortless. Load up DAI, the game finds you Keep data and imports it, lock, stock and barrel.
Okay, this is going to be a long post, but before I spend a bit of time and point out a few things for those of us that are hyped for this; yes, you can get excited. It's great.
Firstly, it's huge. The trial basically lets you get as far as the Hinterlands, the first open area, which includes Redcliffe, the town where you recruit Arl Eamon in DAO and may or may not have sacrificed his demon-possessed son in the process. Good times. Anyway, the Hinterlands cover a sizeable area (allegedly bigger than all of DAO!) and there's absolutely loads to do; thanks to recent story events, rogue Templars and apostate mages are everywhere, and bandits are getting fat off all the refugees. Said refugees also require food, shelter, warmth and the Inquisition itself, still in a fledgling state, needs people behind it. All of which involve myriad side quests, ranging from gathering materials (hunting rams for their coats and meat to provide food and clothing for instance) to plain old killing (putting down mercenary and apostate camps to keep the roads safer) all of which keeps the Inquisition in good favour with the locals and ensures the area is easily held. Simply, six hours wasn't enough to do much more than scratch the surface of what's on offer here but it provides a good idea what the rest of the game will have to offer and the variety within. One hundred hours plus? Easily, if you so wished to do it all.
Graphically, like I said before, it initially disappointed, but I was playing it as the game installed and clearly it hadn't loaded all assets at that juncture, as once the install had finished it stopped being an issue. Frame rate is pretty smooth, the character models (barring some generic looking NPCs) are excellent and the Hinterlands are very reminiscent of certain areas of Skyrim, rocky bluffs, cliffs, rivers, lakes and assorted caves to pillage. There's plenty of variety and detail, and I'd imagine it would look glorious on a well-specced PC.
It's also pretty difficult. I started on hard mode, and basic fights are easy enough but to take on bosses you will need to use the tactical camera, which, as in DAO, switches the camera to a full overhead view and pauses the action allowing you to issue commands individually to your party to ensure they're working in unison. Squishy mage in trouble? Get your warrior (DA2s Cassandra in this case) to use a taunt, drawing aggro then use the mage to use AoE to nuke several bad guys at once. Is your warrior doing her best to tank, but being overwhelmed? Order her to retreat or lead your enemies to a more defensible position. Even closing basic rifts, which is something it appears you'll be doing a lot of, is a strategists delight. Do you try and beat the mobs down individually, or do you try and use the Inquisitior player-character to manipulate the rift and stun all the baddies in one go? The latter is effective but requires lengthy preparation during which time the character is defenceless and a single hit will end that attempt. It takes planning to make it work against tougher mobs. It's all possible, and it works. Hell, on the higher difficulties, I'd say it was absolutely necessary, and that is a tremendous relief.
Do I have any concerns? Well, yes, a few. On normal or lower difficulties, you can easily ignore the tactical approach entirely and simply hold the trigger to use your normal attack over and over. I can see this getting very tedious and may cause some players to declare the combat boring, which would be missing the point. Speaking of using the tactical camera, it's not perfect in itself, sometimes getting 'stuck' for want of a better word on bits of terrain and making it needlessly difficult to orchestrate the battle in precisely the manner you wish. There were also a couple of bugs I experienced, nothing game-breaking, but it did freeze during cut scenes on a couple of separate occasions, though both were while the game was installing so that may have been due to that. It throws a lot at you very early on; my quest log had thirty or more entries in it when my timer expired. While that's not necessarily a problem, for those like myself who like to see and do as much as possible it is going to be difficult to tell which quests are potentially important and which are not. Extra content is great, I just hope it is quality content and not DA2s mindless fetch quests, though based on what I saw during the trial period, there's plenty of variety so hopefully that shouldn't be an issue.
I actually found a dragon too, though the encounter was short lived. It flew up and away as soon as it saw my party. Then it flew back over us, and immolated us all in a single pass. Oh goodie.
In short, it has addressed every criticism thrown at DA2 and then some. It also reunites us with Leliana, who was my preferred LI in DAO for a male Warden. Suffice it to say, she looks amazing.
Edited by SimianWonder on Sunday 16th November 09:45
Edited by SimianWonder on Sunday 16th November 13:08
Baryonyx said:
I thought DA2 was better than Origins. Origins lacked focus. It wasn't up to much. DA2 was more linear and played better for it.
At the moment though, it's worth picking up Lords Of The Fallen. It's an excellent Dark Souls inspired adventure game. Extremely addictive and challenging. I love it.
I got Lords of the Fallen, thought it was OK. It wasn't challenging at all though. I did one playthrough and haven't bothered going back to it.At the moment though, it's worth picking up Lords Of The Fallen. It's an excellent Dark Souls inspired adventure game. Extremely addictive and challenging. I love it.
I'm going to agree with pretty much everything the Simian one said up there about DAI. I've got about 90 mins or so left on my trial and I've fallen for the game in a big way. My hero looks great, the characters and story-lines are picking up wonderfully from my Keep import and it feels like I've come home a little. Mages and Templars are now in open combat which is adding an interesting background to the plot line.
I currently have no meetings on Friday so think I'll use a day's holiday to sit and immerse myself. I know I'm going to be frustrated when my 6 hours runs up later today!
I currently have no meetings on Friday so think I'll use a day's holiday to sit and immerse myself. I know I'm going to be frustrated when my 6 hours runs up later today!
LandR said:
I got Lords of the Fallen, thought it was OK. It wasn't challenging at all though. I did one playthrough and haven't bothered going back to it.
Well, when I say challenging, it challenges more than most games do these days. Mainly because it gives you the freedom to explore, or to balance risk and reward with your kill streak. You can bungle into some very high level enemies, or lose a big killstreak and it feels punishing. But fun!
t.Gassing Station | Video Games | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff