Azure79

I agree. Both of them were underwhelming and just plain crazy. At the end, I really wanted to kick them both out and rule the place myself. Is there an option for that if you make certain choices along the way? I sided with the mages because I don't think any group should have the right to 'annul' another group, especially for something they weren't directly responsible for.

Ooo, Prey 2. I really liked the first one. It had some nice emotional impact while delivering a cool story plus some neat gameplay with portals, gravity and spirit walking. I only remember the ending vaguely but it did open up for a sequel.

What made you decide with the Templars Maria? Also I agree Anders is a petulant man-child. He was ok in Awakenings, but in DA2 I kept wanting to hit him, especially near the end.

I finished my nightmare playthrough and have some thoughts. Maybe slight spoilers below. Graphics: I thought character animations were pretty good. Especially the running and attacking animations were a lot smoother than DAO. I was only playing on mid-level settings so I noticed that the textures weren't that great. It looks better with the higher resolution pack refering to Bok's screenshots. It's not noticeable when in combat, but it does stand out in cutscenes and conversations. Other areas were pretty bland. There were some areas that I thought looked good like the Gallows section of Kirkwall, but the other main areas of Hightown, Lowtown, Darktown (yes these are the actual names) and the Docks weren't that impressive. There are some structures in Hightown that give you a sense of scale but other than that my impression is mostly, Hightown was white/gray with tall square buildings, Lowtown and the Docks were brownish and Darktown was more brownish. The main outside areas are Sundermount, The Wounded Coast and the Mines (Bone Pit). Again, nothing too impressive. They are just mostly winding paths leading to a cave or dungeon. I did like the graphics they put for the sky, but the water graphics seemed a bit old. Again this might be because I'm playing on mid-level settings. I won't mention any of the dungeons or caves or warehouses you frequently visit. Like everyone else has said. Copy and pasted. Music: I didn't like the main DAO themes at first, but they grew on me overtime. Nothing stood out for me in DA2. The music doesn't get in the way and does it's job. Nothing memorable yet, but it may grow on me. Gameplay: This is the part I liked the most. I really enjoyed the cross-class combos and in nightmare it was essential that you used them to take down high priority targets first and quickly. In my playthrough I mostly stuck with Brittle + Killer Blow and Staggered + Chain Lightning combos using a mage and 2H fighter combo, but I can easily see how a rogue with a lot of disorient skills and a sword and shield fighter with bash and scatter could also cause a lot of damage. I'm sure there are a lot of other combos between classes that I haven't tried yet. In nightmare you will not win by mashing a button. You need to find choke points, know when to tactically retreat, use every party member's skills to manage and re-direct threat and focus fire on very dangerous targets to take them out first. You also need a lot of micromanagement so you aren't killing your party members with your own AOE attacks. I found it very tactical and very enjoyable, pausing every few seconds to issue orders. If you're into that kind of gameplay, DA2 doesn't dissapoint, at least in nightmare. I mentioned this before, but it also plays like a third person action game during some boss battles. Bosses have special attacks that have tells that you watch out for and avoid. Sometimes this can get tedious because bosses tend to have massive HP and once you learn the pattern, it becomes more of a chore to whittle down their lifebars. One thing that I found very annoying is some bosses have unblockable attacks. If it plays like an action game players should be able to dodge or block any attack bosses use. Still from my memory there were only two bosses that had these, so it's not a big issue. Well the high dragon actually has a homing fireball, but is blockable by having large fire resistance. Like Volourn mentioned, I also miss the lack of non-combat skills integrated into gameplay. Most encounters will end in combat. Also I am still not satisfied with the dialog system. There were many times where I just wasn't sure what my PC would say with the short version being very vague despite the tone icons. I wish they would give us the option to either use the shorthand version or the actual words version. I mean, they have to write everything out anyways. Story: I enjoyed it overall but I got the sense that Bio was trying too hard. Yes I understand that sometimes mages go bad and templars can act like tyrants. You don't have to show me with every side quest. Also the story in DA2 foreshadows some interesting things that are going on in the world, with the Grey Wardens, Chantry etc. DA2 seems like gateway into a larger setting/story and I'm interested where Bioware will take it. I really enjoyed the companion sidequests. Like Maria said, most of them don't end the way you think (Merril's especially) and most of them are pretty involved. I think there might be a lot of C&C here and I wonder if based on your choices certain companion quests can end in different ways. It'll be interesting to find out. During my next playthrough I'll be doing different things to see if there are different outcomes. If so, I will definitely get Alpha Protocol vibes from DA2. There are a few cameos from DAO and most of them were great. They are all quest related and hearing about their past exploits is great for those of you who enjoyed DAO. I think it's through these cameos that we get a lot of foreshadowing of what's to come. They were done well. My main complaint is towards the end. I'm sure most of you are aware that you have to choose between two large factions near the end which serves as a catalyst for larger events, but I was dissapointed at a lack of a third option. Frankly both groups were irritating and I didn't want to help either side. I would have liked a neutral option where I just kick everyone out. So there you have it.

Everytime I see Bok's screenshots I want to buy two more monitors Planning to upgrade my rig this year. My current one is getting old (3). Do you actually see more when playing in that resolution or is the screen stretched out? I was never too sure.

Maybe the ogre scaled the tower from the outside? I do agree with a lot of what's being said here, mostly regarding the changes that were made from DAO. I would have preferred an improvement/evolution on the overall design of DAO. I vastly prefer the inventory and item system, how you could talk to your companions at your own pace, the non-combat skills that were part of encounters and mostly I prefer the non-voiced w/ exact dialogue choices PC. On top of that I wanted more exciting locales, better strategic combat/combat set pieces and more coloful and varied graphic design. However I do enjoy the combat more in DA2 though. I can agree with Starwars and others who don't like the wave system. It is aggravating at times to have enemies spawn right on top of your party, but I also enjoy the challenge in figuring out ways to get around that. I've found numerous ways to utilize my mages and rogues to get out of tricky situations and it's always great to win a fight that I thought was lost. If they can take that system but give us better encounters (whenever I think of improved encounters I think of that one battle in IWD1 or 2 where your party needs to cross a bridge which is fortified on the opposite side by orc and yuan-ti, I've always liked that one) and add in more non-combat skills to use in dialog I'll be happy overall. Just on pure gameplay aspects.

I know the fight you're talking about Maria. I think it was the hardest fight I've faced so far. I eventually got lucky with a stagger + chain lightning combo and I had everyone retreat into the corridor while my warrior Hawke blocked the door. I am liking the game so far. You are given a lot of choices in regards to apostates and templars and I like seeing the consequences of my choices. I do get the feeling that Bioware is trying too hard and beating me over the head with all the 'See the Chantry is oppresive!' or 'See! free mages will become EVIL!' thing, but overall it's a good story. I look forward to see how everything comes together. My main complaint is that there are no diplomacy related skills. Every encounter seems to end in a fight and while I do enjoy the combat, I would also like other options to solve an encounter. I want the option to talk someone down or convince them to surrender, lie, deceive, cheat etc. This is definitely a step down from more traditional RPGs and something I miss in this game. Every ability in DAO is combat based so every encounter ends in combat. @Tale: that murder mystery ending is pretty morbid.

Well, the serial murder mystery came to an end and not the way I expected. Very morbid.

I'm in South Korea at the moment and been watching the news for the past hour. The footage of that massive wave wiping out everything in it's path is incredibly scary. All I could think was, OMG, there could be people in there. I can't even begin to manage how many lives have been lost. You can actually see people desperately driving away from the wave. Man, I hope they made it.

This is all disappointing news. The fact they blatantly lied about Securom is crazy. Did EA forget about the lawsuits they lost? Interested in seeing where this is heading.

Most of the sidequests I've encountered are the go there, kill this variety, though the motives and setup are different. I guess the most interesting one I've run into so far is when you're party gets sent into the Fade and I thought this was a interesting little quest and something you can skip over entirely (I think) if you're so inclined. There is also a serial murder mystery that has started to unravel. I think I know who the culprit might be, but I don't think the game will tell me until later acts.

Somewhere in Act 2, some complaints I want the DAO camera back please. I had thought it was ok, but in close quarters it's a hassle trying to get a good view of the battle. I keep trying to pan out more than I can and sometimes the camera becomes wonky or spins like crazy. Also because of the limited camera angles, sometimes I just can't get AOE abilities right where I want them. This is frustrating and I think Bioware needlessly nerfed the camera. The itemization is pretty bland. There are unique items with backstories, but a lot of the stuff I pick up are just named 'ring' or 'amulet' or 'armor' etc. Also why all these junk items? You can't use/equip em, you can just sell them for a pittance. Seems like they could have spent the time making more interesting items players could actually equip. I'm tired of traversing the same city and the three or four outside locations again and again. Especially when a lot of these areas are cut and paste jobs. More variety in locales would be most welcome. Really missing that iso-camera view

@Tigranes I pause a lot. It's necessary in nightmare since re-positioning and avoiding enemy attacks is crucial. I usually have party members on hold so they don't go running off willy nilly on their own. Sometimes kiting is necessary, but it's more like when threat is transferred to somewhere I don't want it so I take control of that character and run around avoiding attacks until threat is gone. I haven't found any pure spell combos like there were in DAO. It's exactly like Nepenthe said. Each character class has special skills that put enemies in certain states. Other classes can take advantage of that. @trulez Yes, the game was pretty hard in the beginning on nightmare. I also found myself kiting a lot with a mage. I was pretty dissapointed at first and thought about just playing on normal, but as I upgraded abilities a lot of stuff started opening up and it started to get fun. Aveline was a lifesaver in the beginning as she can tank and survive really well. This gave me some time to take out enemies on the flanks and learn some of the combos. Hope you aren't too put off. It definitely gets more interesting as you go along. @MrBrown I went exclusively two handed and vanguard. Seems to be working out very well. I'm thinking of taking some battlemaster skills for the stamina regen later plus some from the berserker tree for more damage.

I'm interested by this, because when I watched videos of people fighting the first ogre, they could win on Normal by sitting there and smashing A A A A A A A then hitting whatever ability is avialable when the cooldown is over. After about 20 seconds of hack hack hack hack hack their health would go down and they'd shove in one healing potion, which would put them up to full. But now I'm hearing DA2 does feature enemies that are both faster to kill and do more damage. I would like that if that were true. Which is it? I'm also interested to know how DA2 combat can be more fun and tactical if you have waves of enemies that just drop on the screen. I mean, sometimes being ambushed is fine, but if you can't ever plan your approach, or plan how many enemies are remaining, but constantly just have to smash through enemies that drop on top of you, what's fun/tactical about it? Enlighten me. I can't say for the lower difficulty levels, but when enemies spawn there is usually a mix of low level grunts and more tougher lieutenants. The lower level grunts are easily dispatched. They do not have tons of HP. Usually one or two AOE attacks from my warrior or a few concentrated shots from my mages and archers will take care of them very quickly. The challenge is using your abilities accordingly to take them out quickly because those low level thugs are still a threat if they manage to concentrate their attacks on weaker party members. At the same time you have to threat manage the lieutenants and continuously keep them on the defensive so they don't break through your line. A typical encounter for me goes like this. I usually have my two handed warrior, two mages and an archer. When I run into a combat encounter I first charge in with my warrior, usually using a special AOE attack so I generate threat. If there are archers I will head to them next hopefully carrying most of the crowd with me. When I'm surrounded I position my warrior so my next AOE ability hits the maximum of targets. This usually takes out most of the lower level thugs and most of the lieutenants are down to less then half health. At the same time my mages and archer are focus firing on lone enemy archers or mages. If warrior type enemy happens to go for my mages, I use the archer abilties to pin them or knock them down while my mages take them out with spells. Usually the next wave jumps at this point, leaving me surrounded. What have to do is reposition my party and use the appropriate skills to get most of the threat back on my warrior. This can mean retreating to an alley or doorway that I can use as a choke point, or using rogue smoke bombs/mage spells to disorient large groups of mobs while my mages and archer retreat and my warrior advances again. I repeat the pattern I did before and usually the first wave of lieutenants will die while the second wave of lieutenants is again significantly weakened. During this entire thing, I will react accordingly when opportunities for combos arise. If my warrior staggers multiple opponents I have my mage cast chain lightning which does a significant amount of damage to staggered opponents. My archer will use an ability that also does more damage to staggered opponents. Or my mage might petrify or freeze lieutenants. In that case a mighty blow from my warrior will cause huge damage and also hit any surrounding lesser enemies sometimes staggering them, so I can start a chain of combos again. You do have to upgrade some ablities before combos become really fun to pull off though. The only enemies that seem to have a ludicrous amount of health are boss enemies and fantastic creatures like golems, dragons and demons. These enemies also have special skills that you have to adapt to. For example the Hayder battle (last battle in the demo) works a little differently in the full game. Hayder's default attack is able to knock you down with each hit, even warriors. So during that battle you have to kill all his underlings first then tackle him like an action game boss. You have to watch for his attacks, evade then rush in with attacks with your own. My party had been wiped except for my warrior and that's how I eventually beat him. It took a long time, but that was because I couldn't initiate any combos to speed up the process. Of course the above scenario is the ideal approach. Usually is doesn't go that well I scramble to manage threat and take out enemies quickly. But it is rewarding and fun when you manage to pull of a fight really well.

I've played until right after the deep roads expedition. I am playing on nightmare with a two handed warrior, mostly because I wanted friendly fire. The biggest change I noticed from DAO is that DA2 plays like an action game. You can avoid enemy attacks by physically not being there when they swing. Bosses have special attacks that they charge up and unleash. You look for those clues and avoid accordingly. Managing threat is very important. In DAO I never really felt in danger when warriors approached my mages. In DA2 warriors can stagger your weaker party members if they hit with enough force. This renders mages helpless unless that threat is directed somewhere else either through rogue subterfuge or through a warrior's brute force. Archers can also stagger weaker members so it becomes very important to know which enemies can do what and plan combat accordingly. I can understand how waves can look silly, but I don't particurlarly mind it. I found it forces me to re-position or re-group my party and keeps combat from getting too stale. I think the abilties are mostly the same from DAO, just revamped and re-organized. There are some new things, mostly from the rogue tree and I'm having fun finding out which skills complement each other. It becomes really thrilling when you hit a combo like - mages freeze/petrify spell makes enemy mini-boss brittle, your warrior does a killing blow that does 3 times more damage to brittle opponents while staggering lesser enemies in the area, then your rogue rushes in with attacks that are extremely deadly to staggered opponents. Suddenly a fight that was frustrating becomes is over in a flash. It's even more rewarding in nightmare because you have to position and time everything more closely so you don't kill your own party with friendly fire. I do find it a lot more tactical and fun than DAO combat. I can't say much about the story so far. It is a slow start and I just finished Act 1 (I think). The writers hit you with so much 'Are mages/chantry good/evil?' that I can tell where the story is heading in general. I think it will get a lot more interesting in general. There are some interesting sidequests and secondary quests. Some that even develop as you advance in different stages of the main story. My main complaint is that while the environments look nice they are very repetitive. You'll be wandering around in the same cave or warehouse design for a lot of the quests. I do think certain sections of Kirkwall look very nice, especially the Gallows. I wish Bioware could have spent more time making each area more interesting and unique.

I was going to ask about these. Anyone else have experience with Ninja Gaiden? Is it a constant hack & slash, or is it more like God of War (i.e. mixed with some puzzling)? It's not quite like GoW. It's more go from point A to B killing everything in your path. There aren't any puzzles aside from a few jumping segments. Actually you can look at the combat like a puzzle. It's fun to figure out which weapon and moveset works the best against certain enemies. It takes some practice and skill to really get into the flow of things but once you reach a certain level, it's a joy to play.

I also recommend Ninja Gaiden Sigma 1 and 2 if you're into action games. Also second Demon's Souls.

I'd suggest skipping AC1. I did finish it, but only by doing the minimum amount of side missions. I found the assassin missions themselves interesting and the city landscapes are great, but everything leading into it is dull. If you can, play AC2 instead and just catch a summary of the events of AC1 somewhere. I really enjoyed Uncharted. It was like a great B-movie, lots of action, good 3rd person shooting mechanics and some nice driving sections. The climbing and jumping is also fun. Uncharted 2 is a great game as well so definitely play that after 1.

Thanks for those files Maria. I tried nightmare with a 2 handed warrior, and it was pretty good. I wasn't expecting melee AOE attacks to have friendly fire but I found it refreshing. I had to be careful in positioning my fighters and make sure they weren't getting in the way of each other. Aveline in the center with Hawke and Bro on the flanks worked well. I also noticed that sword and board could also inflict damage to multiple opponents with their default attack if the animation passed over multiple enemies. Aveline was doing her stabby move and two enemies happened to line up together. They both were damaged and eventually fell. Overall it wasn't noticeably more difficult than normal. Just positioning, timing and cross class combos were more important and I had to pay more attention. I didn't get the feeling that the enemy HP had been artifically inflated. I enjoyed it over normal a lot.

*Thinks about cake* MMMM

So you have a three monitor setup now Bok? I am jealous.

I liked it overall. I ran into a few game crashing bugs, but putting everything on low settings seemed to solve it. I also have the slowdown in cutscenes problem. I hope these kinds of bugs have been ironed out in the shipped version. I thought the combat was fun enough. I ended up using a lot of cross class combos like ice spells + mighty blow/scythe, mind blast/glyph of repulsion + shield bash/scatter. Overall I enjoyed the faster pace. I didn't think the camera was that bad. I could pull back then adjust the height of the camera and it gave me an acceptable view of the battlefield. The running animations ARE jolly. I laughed when I first saw Lady Hawke running. I will be turning off the tactics when I play. After seeing Bethany launch a fireball into a crowd of nothing continuously, I will be using pause liberally while I give specific orders and place my spells exactly where I want them when I want them. I never felt the need for the tactics in DAO, and I don't see the need for them here, despite the faster combat pace. I didn't much like the voiced PC or the dialog wheel. The voice acting seemed stilted and Bethany's voice was over-dramatic. This is my biggest annoyance.

I can't read this because I'm started playing myself.

Maria, can a warrior take skills from both the sword+shield and two handed trees? Or are they mutually exclusive? I liked playing a warrior with a nice mix of all weapon skills in DAO. Also is there weapon swapping on the fly?

Yup, good times with Adept Shephard with Miranda and Thane. Warp bomb is awesome. Still I had more fun with a Vanguard.