The Age of Demos: Dragon Age 2 (PS3) Demo with Ray*

[Raype]

Yes, that's right. Another week, another game I was curious about, and therefore another demo playthrough.

For the purposes of this one, we'll be using a female warrior and the PS3 version. If you'd prefer to see how the PC version functions, you prefer to watch a mage in action, or you just want to see how the demo changes a little depending on certain creation choices, go here and check out Gare's LP.

Once more...

LP version:



Non LP version:



Thankfully I hit the sweet spot on mic sensitivity and am no longer stuffed up. Good riddance to hearing me inhale!



And as a quick note: which sibling survives is dependent upon which class you start out with. If you're a physical attacker, your sister the mage lives whilst your brother the warrior dies. If you're a mage, your brother the warrior lives to fight another day whilst your sister is pushing up daisies. For a bit of foreshadowing, the sibling that accompanies you in the prologue is going to be the one who lives.

As for those of you that might want a mild refresher:

The reason why the templar is so suspicious of the mages within your group is due to the fact that mages are more or less walking gateways to hell, and as such are required to be kept under watch of the chantry via templars and educated/locked up within towers. Apostates being mages that weren't handed over to the chantry for such purposes (Morrigan and Flemeth being prominent examples from Origins), making them more than a little dangerous to themselves and others. Potentially, anyway.

As for Isabela, you might recognize her as the cheating-at-card-playing, bar-fighting, frequently-flirting, super slutty duelist from Origins. You may or may not had a threesome/foursome with her at some point. There was frequent jokes about taints, wet fringes, and the kind of kinky things nuns do in bed. It was all rather awesome.

[Gare]

Actually, I completely forgot about Isabela until I watched your vid, and genuinely thought she was a new character. Mostly because she was a minor one in the first game, looks totally different now, and seems to have had plastic surgery. Kinda surprised you were expecting toned down blood and gore, though. If anything, combat is even gorier than before.

As a side note, female Shepard is indeed the way to go. People playing only a dude in ME are missing out on the awesome.

[Raype]

Actually, I completely forgot about Isabela until I watched your vid, and genuinely thought she was a new character. Mostly because she was a minor one in the first game, looks totally different now, and seems to have had plastic surgery. Kinda surprised you were expecting toned down blood and gore, though. If anything, combat is even gorier than before.

As a side note, female Shepard is indeed the way to go. People playing only a dude in ME are missing out on the awesome.

I probably would have largely forgotten had I not encountered some rather juicy dialogue concerning her. One of the best NPCs, no doubt. It seemed to be a bit of a good idea to include her from where I stand. This way they can sort of reference the Origins content without trying to shoehorn in one of the more major characters (Flemeth felt a little....out of place. A sudden "oh hi, I'm flemeth. Remember me? How's it going." while Isabela seems a tiny bit more natural)

I heard the gore was largely removed and that they were trying to "lighten" the look of the game a bit (note the very vibrant colors everywhere and how the darkspawn now look like something out of classic action adventure flicks as opposed to the fleshy skeleton orcs of DAO), with that being a casualty. Of course this was way way back during the first run of press coverage. It's quite possible the screenshots I saw were placeholders or the blood spatter engine wasn't yet in place (the blood looks a bit more like actual blood and it manages to get everywhere a bit better than the red paint chips of DAO, so it's possible it wasn't quite finished at that point). And I definitely feel the gore was increased. The magic spells seemed downright violent with gibs and blood going everywhere. I don't seem to recall it being anything near that extreme in DAO, but that could just be my memory being a tad foggy.

[Milady]

So you mentioned at some point in the demo that you were curious how they were going to tie things all together, with the world's main problem already being adequately handled by the Wardens of the first game. I was reading a general overview of the game over at the Dragon Age wiki, which indicated that although the game begins around the same point as the first one, the entirety of the story will actually take place over the course of about ten years. As a result, it's entirely possible that the whole sequence with Isabela happens after the archdemon has already been vanquished, etc. It would also seem that although you can't import your character, you can influence the world by importing your game data. This includes data from DLC like Witch Hunt, which revolves around Morrigan, so it might be interesting to see how that plays out. Then again, you could also do this with Awakening, with somewhat disappointing results. (No one's noticed that I'm queen? You all better be happy I can't launch into a GTA-esque slaughtering spree.)

You also brought my attention to Hawke's armor during the Isabela sequence, and I happened to notice the insignia on her chest looks an awful lot like the Warden Commander's. It seems some other people on the internet noticed this as well. Just an interesting thing to consider, perhaps.

Thus far, like you, I've been pleasantly surprised after hearing many things here and there which had convinced me it would probably be wise to avoid DAII. Without being too nitpicky, there aren't really any major things that I strongly dislike. I'm not especially fond of the dialogue wheel, simply because I find games to be more immersive when you have a silent protagonist. With Hawke I feel a little less attached to her as a character, and there's less identification when the player is watching her give her lines after choosing a general disposition, but isn't really "performing" her dialogue for her. But that's more of a personal thing, and it seems to be implemented well enough for me to be forgiving.

I would really like to wait until the inevitable expansions and such are available before picking it up, but I've come to anticipate the game's release a little more than I'd expected since playing the demo myself. I should have some extra money to waste as well, so we'll see.

[Raype]

So you mentioned at some point in the demo that you were curious how they were going to tie things all together, with the world's main problem already being adequately handled by the Wardens of the first game. I was reading a general overview of the game over at the Dragon Age wiki, which indicated that although the game begins around the same point as the first one, the entirety of the story will actually take place over the course of about ten years. As a result, it's entirely possible that the whole sequence with Isabela happens after the archdemon has already been vanquished, etc. It would also seem that although you can't import your character, you can influence the world by importing your game data. This includes data from DLC like Witch Hunt, which revolves around Morrigan, so it might be interesting to see how that plays out. Then again, you could also do this with Awakening, with somewhat disappointing results. (No one's noticed that I'm queen? You all better be happy I can't launch into a GTA-esque slaughtering spree.)

You also brought my attention to Hawke's armor during the Isabela sequence, and I happened to notice the insignia on her chest looks an awful lot like the Warden Commander's. It seems some other people on the internet noticed this as well. Just an interesting thing to consider, perhaps.

Thus far, like you, I've been pleasantly surprised after hearing many things here and there which had convinced me it would probably be wise to avoid DAII. Without being too nitpicky, there aren't really any major things that I strongly dislike. I'm not especially fond of the dialogue wheel, simply because I find games to be more immersive when you have a silent protagonist. With Hawke I feel a little less attached to her as a character, and there's less identification when the player is watching her give her lines after choosing a general disposition, but isn't really "performing" her dialogue for her. But that's more of a personal thing, and it seems to be implemented well enough for me to be forgiving.

I would really like to wait until the inevitable expansions and such are available before picking it up, but I've come to anticipate the game's release a little more than I'd expected since playing the demo myself. I should have some extra money to waste as well, so we'll see.

Considering Bioware's longstanding issues with making imported saves actually matter, I have doubts we'll see much in the way of actual changes. Especially since they are going the mass effect route (where, really, importing saves had fairly minimal impacts as far as the grander scheme of things goes, much like how plot related dialogue options don't exactly alter anything aside from a sentence or two). At best we might hope to stumble across a DAO character or two depending on how things went towards the end. Then shortly thereafter part ways with them, never to meet again. At worst, it does nothing aside from maybe tossing a few items your way.

And that's generally my feelings towards things as well. With DAO's format, I feel like I'm more or less putting myself into the role of the group's leader. With DA2, it's really more like I'm just grabbing an existing character and occasionally being given a switch to change hawke's mood.

[Milady]

I'm fairly pleased with even minimal effects, however. Tiny references here and there, similar to the way certain NPCs from your origin story would briefly appear in minor roles, would be enough to amuse me. And it seems the main thing affected by any imported data will be the person on the Ferelden throne. There's also one party member in Awakening who makes an appearance as a party member in DAII, but I don't recall any largely significant decisions that could be made with regard to his story.

[Solbadude]

I am concerned how it is going to be on PC. Is it gonna lose its tactical nature? Is it going to become a button masher? Is it turning into Diablo?

Also concerned about lack of races in main character. Starting to feel more like Mass Effect, which is not a bad thing, but does not feel like the spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate/Icewind Dale which the first one felt like.

[Lee]

I am concerned how it is going to be on PC. Is it gonna lose its tactical nature? Is it going to become a button masher? Is it turning into Diablo?

Also concerned about lack of races in main character. Starting to feel more like Mass Effect, which is not a bad thing, but does not feel like the spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate/Icewind Dale which the first one felt like.

I saw a PC demo, and really, i thought of WoW's action bar based combat more so than the original dragon age.

On higher difficulties it would probably be a lot more tactical than the normal-locked demo.

[Milady]

I am concerned how it is going to be on PC. Is it gonna lose its tactical nature? Is it going to become a button masher? Is it turning into Diablo?

Also concerned about lack of races in main character. Starting to feel more like Mass Effect, which is not a bad thing, but does not feel like the spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate/Icewind Dale which the first one felt like.

Ray put a link in the first post to Gare's LP of the PC demo for a reason. Why don't you check it out if you're primarily interested in the PC version? Or, better yet, download the demo and try it for yourself.

[Gare]

I am concerned how it is going to be on PC. Is it gonna lose its tactical nature? Is it going to become a button masher? Is it turning into Diablo?

Also concerned about lack of races in main character. Starting to feel more like Mass Effect, which is not a bad thing, but does not feel like the spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate/Icewind Dale which the first one felt like.

There's auto attack enabled by default, so there's no need to mash buttons. Just select your enemy once and your character will do the rest. Combat was fun and more fast-paced, but didn't feel especially tactical or anything. Although my character was also overpowered as fuck, so who knows. For more, there's always my LP, which Ray was kind enough to post a link to.

Ray put a link in the first post to Gare's LP of the PC demo for a reason. Why don't you check it out if you're primarily interested in the PC version? Or, better yet, download the demo and try it for yourself.

Yeah, but people never read the intro text.

Edit: There, added link to this LP in my own thread. Should've done it earlier, really, but it slipped my mind. Now people will hopefully see both versions and can compare them.

[Shareware]

Thank GOD Bioware finally released a demo for this series... I was never sure about it, since I'd never played it, but now that I have, I'm off to buy the first one ASAP!

[Solbadude]

I did not know you can download PC version demo

I will try it out at freinds house since I still have not replaced my graphics card.

After playing the 360 version though,I know alot of people will disagree with me, but I am a fan of a silent protaganist.

Not that the voice acting is bad but just not as good as the voices in y head.

[Milady]

I did not know you can download PC version demo

After playing the 360 version though,I know alot of people will disagree with me, but I am a fan of a silent protaganist.

How exactly do think anyone was able to LP it, then?

And if you read any bit of this thread at all, you would know that you have at least two people who agree with you, though less because we like "the voices in our heads" and more because we like feeling more immersed in the story.

[Gare]

How exactly do think anyone was able to LP it, then?

Black magic.