TheForgetfulBrain

Reviews are starting to pop up (I really don't get why reviews rarely come out BEFORE games anymore, it's stupid) - rave reviews from PC Gamer and the Escapist. http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/03/08/dragon-age-2-review/ http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8701-Dragon-Age-II-Review.2 The most disappointing thing I gleaned is that you spend most of your time in Kirkwall - which sounds constrained. However, they say it actually ends up being a kind of good thing. Hrmmm... UPS truck! Arrive! EDIT I'm playing now. Took a while to get it working and all the DLC etc transferred over properly. First thing to note - ugh. Hawk's voice does NOT fit the character I made at alllll. EDIT FFFFFUUUU That first fucking ogre fight is not easy playing on Hard as a Rogue - and it crashed on me TWICE when I'd almost beat the fucker. FUCK. EDIT So I've been playing a little and I quite like a lot of things about it. There's things I miss, but I think I'll enjoy it just fine. EDIT DAII kind of reminds me of Final Fantasy XII somehow. With exploding bodies. Anyone else?

See, and that's an interesting thing to do. My issue with it is that if they're going to experiment with trying to change things up so much, do it with a new franchise. I can't speak for everyone, but I liked DA:O for what it was, and I wanted more of that. I'm not saying that franchises need to stagnate, but I think that if you're going to make such fundamental changes then you need to either pick a new franchise, or at the very least do a reboot rather than a sequel. I dunno. DA:O's storytelling wasn't the strongest. It wasn't what I liekd most about DA:O by a loooooooooooooooooong shot. I'm much more miffed at Bioware for borking companion outfits than by the change in narrative style. I think it's wonderful and appropriate to experiment within the same series. I mean, it still feels like a Dragon Age game, just with a different approach to storytelling. In fact, I feel that this style has a lot of promise. If it lives up to even half of its promise, it'll be a far better narrative than DA:O's sort of generic "Save the Realm!" narrative. I haven't had a chance to play it yet (UPS, hurry up, damn it!), but I can echo a lot of the things being said. From playing the demo, I can say I was immediately a little concerned about the color of the companions, who were just outstanding in both Origins and Awakenings, but I'm gong to give the game more time on that front. Gameplay wise, I'm disappointed in two things: 1) The nerfing of companion equipment, 2) There's no dual-wielding for warriors anymore (my favorite gameplay style in Fantasy RPGs). That said, after playing through Awakenings this weekend (and the crappy DLC), I can say that while I ended up LOVING Awakenings, it made me realize what I want is not just more of the same. As I have been from the beginning, I've been excited for the level of change they're bringing to DAII. I know everyone says, "If it ain't broke..." which DA:O certainly was not, but at the same time, I get disappointed by the fact that sequels so often don't feel like sequels these days - they often feel like expansion packs, with just a few changes and tweaks, new setting, new story. And we already got that - with Awakening. Sure, I think they should have done one more expansion before DAII, but at least we got that. I think radical change in gaming is far more interesting, and though I'm going to miss the 'fantasy' tone of the UI in DA:O, as well as some of the visuals and gameplay styles, I'm far more excited for something that is both radically new, but also carries the spirit of DA:O. But I guess this is nothing new - you all know I'm super excited for DAII and have been since the get-go. I'm just saying that after playing Awakening, I loved it, but I would rather have something that feels new, and I'm excited to have that.

Wait - did that happen tonight? Too weird! I didn't even see you join. I just popped on for a few matches before bed, did horribly as I drank and talked on the phone and thought everyone on my friend's list was offline. Crazy! But yeah - there's nothing as frustrating as getting a very, very satisfying victory ripped from you for something that is the game's fault. Argh.

Whaa- http://kotaku.com/#!5779150/how-to-make-dragon-age-ii-look-a-lot-better-on-pc They've released a patch for high-res textures? Weird... That seems like something that would just be an option on disc. Anyhoo - downloading for tomorrow! P.S. - Golems and Witch Hunt blew.

I am most definitely a lifetime cracker, despite many suggestions that this is not a good thing to do. The lady cracks her back constantly - mostly her lower back, in a twisty move I can't do. She has serious back problems constantly. Es no bueno.

And Pir, with the rebound! I'm getting it in the mail tomorrow - anticipation is high.

True - I just do it because I get obsessive about doing everything in games, and kept hoping I'd fine some super secret hidden in the scanning, which I'm sure there is on one of the planets, but I could just look at a guide for that. I'm silly.

First image of Heather from the new SH movie: http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/42982/silent-hill-revelation-3d-starts-casting-first-image-adelaide-clemens-heather-mason Cautiously optimistic about this film going ahead. The first one looked the part, but I hated the acting and dialog and how the story tried to 'make sense,' when the strength of the SH series is how it leaves you to interpret events, and that's where some of the true horror comes from. I need to see more shots of this girl too, before I decide what I think of her. The girl from the Signal would have been perfect for the role, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, but that was never going to happen.

I've still got to play through ME2. Because of what we've been discussing, I think I was hesitant to play ME2. This, because I played through Mass Effect on 360, and have ME2 on PC - and even though I found a saved game pretty close to my character and made him look similar, it still wasn't exactly 'mine,' you know? That, and I spent like eight hours scanning fucking planets instead of the game and just kind of stopped playing for a while. So ME2 has shuffled back into my game queue.

I think you're one of the few people that I know of that's like me in this regard - can be pretty ridiculous sometimes, and it's what keeps my game queue stacked to the heavens. I buckled down and beat Awakenings this weekend, as well as the Golems of Amgarrak DLC. Now I just need to beat Witch Hunt. If you're playing the expansions and DLC and want to import them to DA2, I guess you're supposed to do a single save chain, so import your Origins End Game save into Awakenings, import your save-before-final-boss from Awakenings into Golems, then do the same thing into Witch Hunt, and supposedly Witch Hunt has a game-end save you can use to import into DA2. Almost there - ahh!

Naww, it's still gonna be good, just different, I've got the faith!

The epilogues in Awakenings made me sniffle a bit, even if they were just little blurbs of text. Boy, DA is good.

I don't know why, but I always imagine that Notch looks like Moot, even though he doesn't at all. Probably that whole 'super influential 1 unusual word name' thing.

Whoa! I guess you have a pretty nice PC. It's not amazing, but it runs most stuff pretty well. I should run FRAPS and see what frame rate I'm getting at some point. The real strength is the Radeon 5870 card - runs most games with max settings and frame rate at or around 60fps, except of course for the original Crysis and Metro 2033, etc. The card's not too ridiculously priced either! I'd highly recommend it, or one of the new 6xxx line that's similar performance.

To film? Off-topic, but film what? Curious. EDIT http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/info/pennyarcade/ Looks like Penny-Arcade's doing another comic leading up to release.

The IGN review is super weird - http://ds.ign.com/articles/115/1153589p1.html I've never seen this in HTML coding before. Pretty interesting.

Hmmm... if you still have them, could they possibly be in the wrong folder somehow now?

Yeah, considering this game is supposed to span ten years, your decisions should have some pretty far reaching consequences. Also, if you looked at just how many of the decisions you made in Mass Effect imported to Mass Effect 2 (some in smaller/larger ways than other), chances are, there's going to be a ton of stuff that imports to DAII in similar smaller/larger ways.

I know what you mean - I'm reaaaally bad about shit like that, and thus why I'm trying to blast through Awakenings right now. For those who are curious, here's the specific details on importing you character, from a Bioware employee on the DA forum: "You import a single save file into DA2. If you want to know what data is being imported, trace that save game back to its genesis; that is when you created a new character. If you created an Orlesian Warden then that is a new character and the genesis of a save game. There is no import history for such a save game. An Origins save game imported into Awakening does however have a full history of Origins decisions. If you took your end of Awakening save and imported it into Golems, then took your Awakening save and imported it into Witch Hunt, the new Golems save game would have no knowledge of Witch Hunt data and the Witch hunt save would have no knowledge of the Golems data. You must import your save games in a single chain tracing all the way back to origins to be able to import all data (Origins->Awakening->Golems->Witch Hunt). Think of the decision data like an item in your inventory. Jokes aside about DLC items and Awakening imports, imagine you got an item at the same time you made the decision and never disposed of it. If the item would be in your inventory in the save file you import into DA2, then the decision will be imported. If the item wouldn't be there because it's in a different branch of your save game tree, then it will not be imported. There is no world state/decision tracking on a per character basis that transcends individual save files."

I believe you fooz missed the edit on my last post - the DA Wiki seems to think that Awakening, Witch Hunt and Golems of Amgarrak are the DLC that effects DAII. http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Age_2 I am currently feverishly playing through Awakenings, and then those two DLC.

The comparison to a first person Ratchet and Clank with the weapons is a very interesting comment. I never looked at it that way, but I guess it makes sense. I wonder if I would have enjoyed the single player more, had I played it one-player instead of co-op. You would think it would be the reverse in most cases, but I may have not been able to take in the entire gameplay experience as well as I should have.

I was actually severely underwhelmed by Resistance. I never thought the graphics looked that great when it was sort of the Playstation 3's "Halo" (prior to Killzone 2) and the debut PS3 shooter, and never understood the buzz around the game. Still, I bought it when I bought my PS3 because it seemed like a must-have title, but I don't know, I just didn't really enjoy it. I played through the entire campaign co-op with my roommate at the time, and never really found myself enjoying it, just wanting to finish the damn thing. Multiplayer I also really disliked - the characters felt too small and moved too quickly for my taste. I'd like to give the second game a shot at some point though, just in case the third one turns out to be amazing. I heard the PSP entry was quite good, too. P.S. - Sorry for hating like a hater.