Angry Joe LOVED Pillars Of Eternity

[Stun]

You have to take it for what it is

...a turd.

 

No, I take that back. That's too generous. Unlike Dragon Age 2, turds are actually diverse by nature. There are different colors and textures to turds. And sometimes it feels good to sit at the toilet and let one out. And turds are free. Dragon Age 2 offers no such qualities.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Stun

[Jasta11]

it sucks that your descisions in DA:I requires your DA:O and DA2 Combined savegame to proceed

 

No. There's no savegame import in Inquisition, you use the Dragon Age Keep, it's a web-based app, you don't need any save from either game to craft a world state.

 

DA2 was decent in concept; instead of embarking on an epic journey, stay in one ciy and its surroundings and see it change over time. Instead of a save the world story like in the vast majority of RPGs, it was replaced by a more personal and local one. 

 

Of course, in execution it failed big time. Combat was not very good, wave-based encounters should die in a fire, the companions were melodramatic nutcases even by Bioware standards (Durance looks sane compared to Anders and Merill), Kirkwall was ugly and didn't change at all, the plot went from one stupid, fanatical NPC ****ing **** up to the other, your choices don't make any difference by design, it severely lacked polish, and even as someone who doesn't care to scream ''Dumbed down!!'' usually, the game was too simple. At least it had Varric, Aveline and the Arishok as cool NPCs, that's basically the only good thing that came out of that game. The Legacy DLC was nice too.

 

As for Angry Joe's review, he's pretty much on point. Personally I would still give the game a 9 (or maybe 8.5) but whatever one can say of his review style, his criticism is valid.

[barakav]

I had two main problems with dragon gay 2 : The first one is that the game was way too short and small in scope for an RPG and it felt rushed and the second one is that this was the only "gay friendly" game that made gay fans of the series sue Bioware for having gays look like disgusting perverts.

 

If you wanted to learn about the history and origin of your companions you came to a point in which you were forced have sex with them or you would hurt their feelings and it felt like you couldn't enjoy the role playing experience without  suffering sexual harassment...

Edited April 11, 2015 by barakav

[Ohioastro]

Dragon Age 2 used the same environments over and over and over and over.  Positioning was useless because enemies parachuted from the sky on top of you.  Normal mode was designed so that you could auto-attack with companions and perhaps click an occasional button with your main.  Hard mode left the enemies as stupid as on normal mode, but gave them ungodly hit point totals so that battles took forever without being challenging.  You could side with the Nazis or the demons, but you couldn't kill both, sadly.  Fortunately, it didn't actually matter - because you had to fight exactly the same encounters either way.  It had the aesthetic of a fighting game with big flashy explodey things all over the place.  The Quinari in Act 2 were the only interesting concept in the whole mess.  Did I mention that the city was empty and didn't change?

 

God I hated that game.  Enough so that I didn't buy Mass Effect 3 or the Dragon Age sequel.  And I'm usually remarkably tolerant of RPGs and try hard to take them in the spirit that they're intended.  DA2 was sloppy, lazy design by a studio that knew better.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Ohioastro

[Excalibur_2102]

oops... I honestly did not mean to turn this in to a DA2 hate thread, lol

[PhantomEidolon]

Some of his complaints i disagree with, but overall i think it's a pretty fair review.

[Zorfab]

oops... I honestly did not mean to turn this in to a DA2 hate thread, lol

DA2 had exactly one thing better than PoE or most other RPG games for that matter: Ally scripting. Rest of the design was all over the place and showing signs of extreme rushing and lack of budget. Perfect example of Electronic Arts spanking the studio until it started bleeding from every orifice.

[Pighardia]

Like PoE, Angry Joe isn't for everyone, but when you get past his over-the-top theatrics (which I actually do find entertaining) --he has a lot of substance in his reviews and they are very much worth viewing.

 

Probably why he can regularly get millions of hits for his videos.

I agree. He has the reputation of being OTT, but get over the theatrics(which I usually find funny) and he is actually a very fair reviewer, who I more often than not agree with on games.

 

Also, it is hilarious when he does blow up about a game that really gets to him. His review of Ride To Hell:Retribution is one of the funniest things I have ever seen!

[RedSocialKnight]

I'm actually getting curious about DA2. Never played it, as I didn't particularly care for DA:O and heard it was even worse...

 

One friend who disliked Origins liked DA2 a lot better -- but that's because he doesn't really enjoy rpgs and preferred the streamlined, more action-y style.

 

That said, it's certainly worth trying and has some features -- like the dual friendship/rivalry system -- I wish had been carried over into Inquisition.

 

For someone who did like Origins, there's no denying that the reduced scope and ambition of the second game came as a disappointment. I'm glad the fan backlash was strong as it was because it got us the bigger budget and development time for Inquisition.

 

The focus on a single location over an extended period of time was an interesting and creative way of dealing with the development's limited resources -- but it wasn't enough to stop the game having a slapdash, cut-n-paste feel. And certain aspects of the writing (that ending -- yeah **** you too, Gaider) were simply misjudgments separate from any financial or time constraint.

 

But play it. Dragon Age isn't perfect, but it's the AAA attempt to do the same thing PoE tries to do on an indie level. Anyone who enjoyed the old Bioware should at least know what the new Bioware is up to.

[Rosveen]

If you want to see new Bioware, play Mass Effect, which is still an epic emotional story regardless of its flaws. Dragon Age treatment is just sad. Each game is trying a different take at the RPG genre and it really doesn't work out well for them. Which is a shame, because I loved the concept of DA2.

[BruceVC]

I'm actually getting curious about DA2. Never played it, as I didn't particularly care for DA:O and heard it was even worse...

Its not that bad, its entertaining not amazing so you really should play it. Just don't  be too critical about the obvious shortcuts like the reused dungeon designs 

 

Plus you will get to Romance the lovely and vivacious Isabela 

[eggdogg]

DA2 is such a strange game. It was the sequel to one of the best rpgs ever imo but for some odd reason it changed almost everything that made the first one great. For me the one thing that I really enjoyed about DA2 was the 'humor' option in dialog. I found it entertaining to crack jokes during serious moments. Usually you get good, bad, neutral type of responses in rpgs and it was refreshing to crack a joke. It was really hard to play DA2 and not feel like Bioware was assuming you were a moron. One of the best traits of OE is the respect they show their audience. OE assumes you can think for yourself. 

[Marceror]

Well, geez, if a guy named Angry Joe loved it, who am I to argue!?

 

Um, incidentally, why do we particularly care that he liked it again? I must have been absent from class the day this was covered.

 

I happen to love the game too, but this is irrespective of the opinions of Angry Joe and his sidekick Other Joe.

[Stun]

Dragon Age isn't perfect,

Yeah, neither was Chernobyl

 

but it's the AAA attempt to do the same thing PoE tries to do on an indie level.

No. God no. PoE didn't strip naked its gameplay in order to spend its small budget on voiced protagonists and cutscenes. PoE didn't skimp on its level design work in order to give us a cinematic experience on a shoestring budget. PoE didn't look at its small budget and say: "Ok, we're going to have to make due with 4 maps, no race choices, no choice and consequence, and an unfinished storyline."

 

 

But that all being said, I'm not ready to blame DA2's crappiness on Low budgets and time restrictions. Instead I'll blame it on mis-management of time and money. If they were looking at such a low budget, then why did they Overhaul the combat system, overhaul the art design, overhaul the UI, and overhaul just about everything else from DA:O? Wouldn't logic (and plain old good business sense) dictate that if they were pressed for time, and short on cash, that they'd leave everything as it is and just plug a new story into the game? After all, DA:O was no failure. It was their biggest selling game.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Stun

[BruceVC]

 

Dragon Age isn't perfect,

Yeah, neither was Chernobyl

 

but it's the AAA attempt to do the same thing PoE tries to do on an indie level.

No. God no. PoE didn't strip naked its gameplay in order to spend its small budget on voiced protagonists and cinematics. PoE didn't skimp on its level design work in order to give us a good narrative on a shoestring budget. PoE didn't look at its small budget and say: "Ok, we're going to have to make due with 4 maps, no race choices, no choice and consequence, and an unfinished storyline."

 

 

But that all being said, I'm not ready to blame DA2's crappiness on Low budgets and time restrictions. Instead I'll blame it on mis-management of time and money. If they were looking at such an low budget, then why did they Overhaul the combat system, overhaul the art design, overhaul the UI, and overhaul just about everything else from DA:O? Wouldn't logic (and plain old good business sense) disctate that if they were pressed for time, and short on cash, that they'd just leave everything as it is and just plug a new story into the game? After all, DA:O was no failure. It was their biggest selling game.

 

 

You see Stun thats why if you had appreciated and participated  in Romance arcs more you would have enjoyed DA2, that's  a good example of Romance enhancing the RPG experience 

[Marceror]

You see Stun thats why if you had appreciated and participated  in Romance arcs more you would have enjoyed DA2, that's  a good example of Romance enhancing the RPG experience 

So that's where I went wrong!

[Suen]

I'm actually getting curious about DA2. Never played it, as I didn't particularly care for DA:O and heard it was even worse...

Before playing Dragon Age 2 watch "The Usual Suspects".

Unfortunately is a very flawed game. The critics regarding certain combat mechanics and dungeons reuse are valid.

[Zorfab]

Honestly, Bioware is not known for mis-management of that type. DA2 is pretty much the only game to display those symptoms to such degree. We will never know the specifics (those pesky NDA:s), but looking that BW track record nothing else seems to make sense.

 

Inon Zur (composer for that game) did give out a small comment: http://kotaku.com/5780870/ever-wonder-why-dragon-age-ii-came-out-so-soon

 

As to how accurate that is, your guess is as good as mine. But knowing how EA had conducted their business in the past... I would not be surprised.

 

That´s also why it is pleasing to know that Obsidian is likely to avoid full entanglement with major studios for their next game too. At least I hope so. Partnering with someone is ok, but letting them dictate everything is a road to ruin.

[KingNee]

Not a fan of the guy, his theatrics seem aimed at a teenage audience and he takes too long to get his points across. On top of that all his criticisms are the same as everyone else's, he doesn't bring anything new to the table. 

 

On the plus side I'm happy that Obsi is getting the traffic and personally I arrived at 8/10 as well. 

[Kal Adan]

Well, geez, if a guy named Angry Joe loved it, who am I to argue!?

 

Um, incidentally, why do we particularly care that he liked it again? I must have been absent from class the day this was covered.

 

I happen to love the game too, but this is irrespective of the opinions of Angry Joe and his sidekick Other Joe.

Good publicity, for one.

[Horrorscope]

 

I'm actually getting curious about DA2. Never played it, as I didn't particularly care for DA:O and heard it was even worse...

 

One friend who disliked Origins liked DA2 a lot better -- but that's because he doesn't really enjoy rpgs and preferred the streamlined, more action-y style.

 

It's funny what one person can like and dislike. I have a weird trait it seems. I like DA2 over DAO. I thought DA2 with it scripts and how it played made a good action RPG, with very little pausing. Now for a person who loves pausing all the time, I can see why they didn't like DA2. However I go both ways (if not three ways on Sunday) I found DAO shallow for a pause all the time game and the looooong load times, we think we have it bad here in PoEt. I didn't hate it, just I felt it was over-rated.

 

So ok DA2>DAO in my book. That said I love TB games and I am enjoying this one a lot to. So it's hard to totally explain likes and dislikes of a player. I seemingly like any style if they are done right. I have seemingly every well known TB game over the past 2 years and many under the radar one's, it is my single player past time genre.

 

As for Joe liking Pillars, no surprise there. Liked D:OS to. I haven't watched any Joe streaming Pillars, but it was hard to watch him play D:OS, he was all thumbs. So what I'm hear to say, is I know how Joe played D:OS and would be very surprised to find out he ever really finished it. If D:OS is par for Joe, he's not in a great place to really give an authoritative review. But perhaps he did finish it, but it had to take him 150 hours how he played. Watching streamers, the bounce from game to game, I don't see them finishing a lot of them. They all promise big things, but they get bored, chase new games and dollars. Not blaming, just more sort of mentioning what I witness and feel.

[dirkdivac]

Its good that Angry Joe's "youth" army bringing some sales but really dont care about a console fanboy reviewer's opinion about PoE.

You should.  It is people like him and his fans that will decide if this game is a limited success or a mega success.  If you want to see more IE type games hit the market, you will need these "console fanboys" to enjoy and positively review PoE, creating a nice buzz and more demand.

 

Don't go all PC Masterrace on me and for god's sake, broaden your perspective.

[Jasta11]

Angry Joe has an absurdly huge following and can have a big influence on sales of smaller and/or indie titles. I doubt it's a coincidence Pillars is now number 5 in Steam sales when it wasn't even on the list yesterday. For that reason alone I like him for making that review more than for a game that already had tons of buzz around it (Bloodborne). 

[dirkdivac]

I am a great fan of the Age of Wonders turn-based strategy series, and I will never be able to rid my mind of Angry Joe and some other drunk beavers that were there with him for no apparent reason doing a twitch stream of Age of Wonders III... the beavers were hardly showing any interest, but for some reason the game got a positive review from Angry Joe. I will never, ever watch any Angry Joe again, not even if I'm as drunk as the beavers that were in that video. 

 

*shudders at the memory*

AoW3 was a dumpster fire when it was released.  I was very excited when it was announced, but after playing it at release, I was very disappointed.

 

That being said, your response is how everyone should treat reviewers.  You should find reviewers whom have the same gaming taste as you and follow them, if you find one you don't agree with, don't watch or read his content.  

[dirkdivac]

 

 

Strange. He usually plays AAA games on his console and I don't expected him to play indie games. But if he likes POE, there will be no reason to be sad

I hope he will not crush this game in his review because he doesn't know he can use a pause in combat 

 

My thought, too. I can see him thinking the game is something it's not, and then chainsawing the game by it's ankles come release. What little I've seen of him, he seems like a loudmouthed knuckledragger exemplifying the non-gamer gamer generation of self-appointed "nerds", the douchiest of the douchiest.

 

 

 

 

You know he plays a lot of PC stuff too, right? Also, I play vast majority of my games on Consoles but I still put some of my money into the kickstarter of this. Granted, I played every past IE game + expansion and spent more time on a PC back in those days (kinda split between console/PC back then). You don't like Joe, you don't like em but ignoring someones opinion because you have some weird personal issue with consoles is... I dunno, whatever.

 

It's not really a "personal issue with consoles"; console "gamers" and the console platform has been poisoning PC gaming for over a decade, and Ruzen is hardly alone in the sentiment. The fact that someone favours consoles (and therefore favours console gameplay) definitely warrants ignoring their opinion and all their input should be treated as suspect, at best.

 

 

Just so you know, this kind of attitude is much douchier and poisonous to the "gaming community" than some guy who plays Halo or whatever arbitrary line you are drawing in the sand. If you love games then you should be happy that all kinds of people are getting into them which will lead to new viewpoints and experiences in games that we've missed out on due to the insular nature of the business until fairly recently.

 

Remember the wise words of the philosophers Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted "Theodore" Logan:

 

1. Be Excellent To One Another

2. Party On Dudes

 

So lets all have fun playing games together and not be horrible little gremlins hiding in our clubhouses with "NO GIRLS OR JOCKS ALLOWED" signs next to the door.

 

I can't agree any more than I do with this post.  You nailed it.  This PC Masterrace bull**** needs to stop.