Dragon Age II: EA boogaloo

[Independent George]

While I didn't hate DA2 the way Chuck does, I get why he feels the illusion was broken. It never completely broke for me, but I felt I was caught more in a case of darkness-induced audience apathy and more irritation with the story than outright hatred.

The serial killer storyline was one place where it did break for me, because it was just stupidly out of place. It was a cheap, badly written ploy to try and make the player emotionally invested, and ended up having the exact opposite effect on me because of how transparent it was (just like the stupid dream sequences about the kid in ME3). I don't like to just rip on a work, though, so here's a few ideas on what they could have handled differently:

1. Isabella stealing from the Qunari should have been an integral part of the storyline. It's not like she's keeping her identity a secret or trying to blend into the populace, and the Arishok should have noticed. There should have been a series of quests starting in Act 1 that not only hint at her involvement, but actually turn you into her unknowing accomplice.

2. Avelline should really be much better at her job than she is. To the extent that she utterly fails at noticing serial killers or rapists among her guards, it should have been due to interference by the nobles she answers to rather than just being incompetent. Instead of her just talking about how she's improving the guards, show her actually doing her job properly only to be stymied by the morass of politics in Kirkwall. She's a good person in a corrupt environment, and she occupies a very high position in the city; there is a LOT of character and story potential there which could have been easily linked to Hawke in a more meaningful way than the random sidequests we actually got.

3. Give Bethany/Carver a bigger role in the story during Acts 2 & 3. That is the best reason for Hawke to be in Kirkwall the entire time - leaving would mean abandoning your sibling, who has a front row seat to the mage/templar conflict. Instead, they disappear, and you never see them again or gain any of their insight into the simmering tensions they are party to firsthand. Meredith even likes Bethany, but you never get to talk about her. If Carver survives, then you're an apostate living openly in Kirkwall (which should have way more impact on the story than it does).

4. If the grand finale is going to be about the mage/templar conflict, then you should have much more interaction with Meredith, Orsino, and the Grand cleric. You barely even get to meet them, despite having all the reason in the world to. If they're going to be the driving force behind the storyline, then you need to cross paths regularly and see them as fully realized people instead of just going from side quest A to side quest B.

The plot and character threads are all right there; there were plenty of ways to weave them together into something coherent and meaningful. They just... didn't bother to. I can't help but feel like they had it outlined to do just that, but couldn't because of the way it was rushed out to market.

[Rodan56]

I disagree with some of the sentiment that Andromeda isn't about your character and you're just along for the ride. The idea behind the story is that you're not a legend, you're the child of one that no one expected to be involved in the decision making here. You're thrust into a leadership role and are forced to come into your own. There is a story hook there and you do have an outright goal, fulfill your father's mission and find a way to make this cluster habitable for everyone. There are clear defined character specific goals, it is your story and a lot of what you do has consequence because you're making a lot of the key decisions.

Where it stumbles isn't in so much that you're along for the ride, but that the narrative you're set on for your hero's journey isn't particularly exciting for the most part. The enemies aren't as engaging, the side quests sometimes don't lead anywhere and a lot of it involves just driving around fixing several little problems over a wider area. I think the issue is ultimately you're placed into a position of importance, and you feel like you're doing a lot of busy work. You're resolving major issues and problems and achieving goals, yes, but it doesn't feel like it amounts to much when it really should feel like you've done more. You set up a colony, great... now what? You're basically given a bunch of other side quests, but that's it. Doesn't feel like you made much of a difference honestly, you just have a new place to buy stuff at now. You destroy the main enemy base on this planet, super, but you still have patrols of them and they don't feel any less powerful. You accomplish some stuff for your companions, but it doesn't really changes much besides open up a romance path for some that you won't pursue for all.

I've said it before, it's the narrative that suffers because it's not as epic as it tries to be. The characters for me are the most engaging, but I understand where a lot of people find them problematic. To be fair, their flaws are readily apparent and they do change, they never stay static. But what causes the change can be annoying because it feels like that wasn't needed to accomplish this.

Peebee is a fun character in my mind, she's got some great zingers, she's got an engaging personality and story, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't understand why people may have been turned off by her especially after her final loyalty mission. Thing is, for me, I didn't care about that plot point because I wanted to start the mission and it was in line with her character. But if you're roleplaying a specific way, then it can be anger inducing and you're allowed to feel that way about it at least.

Plus I found it funny, so I didn't care.

DA2 does feel like it's on rails since I've lost a ton of possible solutions to the various problems I'm facing along my journey. Even in Mass Effect I felt like I had more options, so that's not the dialogue wheel's fault. There I felt important, not in Kirkwall. The only reason to stay at some point is if your other sibling is still there. But there are ways to have Beth or Carver end up far away from Kirkwall entirely. So why are you sticking around in those cases?

If there is one thing I feel DA2 should've done, was give our sib more of an excuse to come with us more often. Because we miss out on them being around more and the game feels a bit more empty without them. I was honestly surprised Inquisition didn't give us the option to have them return and join our cause and maybe play a love interest. I don't know why that happened other than "sorry, you don't get to see most of your old friends from that game again." Oh well.

[AlucardNoir]

I have hope for Anthem and if they are able to avoid this issue and has a good story to boot I think it could be the game that fully redeems BioWare. I haven't lost faith in them because one poorly made game does not a damnation make.

One?

[Winter]

I have hope for Anthem and if they are able to avoid this issue and has a good story to boot I think it could be the game that fully redeems BioWare. I haven't lost faith in them because one poorly made game does not a damnation make.

One?

I don't really consider DA2 and ME3 to be poorly made just poorly written. While I have my issues with DA2 and ME3, with the former Chuck pretty much covers all the issues I have with it though I actually like most of the companions and ME3 issues likewise has its issues with the worst and most infamous being, of course, the ending. However, BioWare was clearly still putting a lot of effort into both games and had the been given more time they may have been able to reach the heights of ME1&2 and DAO & DAI.

But with MEA, they had five years to get this right and because of the overall poor management, developers who did little to endear themselves to fans, (and the less said about that the better), bad facial animation, lazy writing, poor performances from almost everyone involved, (not helped by the lazy writing and equally lazy directing). More notable cliches and glitches and the single worst dialogue wheel in BioWare history, empty and boring worlds that felt like the same desert planet, that was so badly received it pretty much killed Mass Effect, for the time being, so for me while DA2 and ME3 have their flaws I still enjoy them and still consider themselves well made.

So, for me, MEA is the only game I count as truly poorly made due to the reasons stated above. But that's just me, and I'm just a viewer with an opinion.

[CharlesPhipps]

Weird.

KNIGHTS OF THE FALLEN EMPIRE is easily the best of KOTOR and what it should have been done from the beginning.

[Gridlock]

To me DA:2 was truly the beginning of the end of Bioware.

ME:3 Not only did the ending suck, but it pretty much also went straight ahead and said that in a series where your choices had consequences, they pretty much meant nothing in the end and your options was Red, Blue and Green.

DA Inquisition... what do you get when you combine 45% Facebook game, 50% MMO and around 5% story.. you get Dragon Age inquisition.
Okay i am returning to Kirkwall to either defend it or conquer it, what do i have to do? Simple you watch a timer count down in real time.
There are looters trying to get into a church, you need to defend it long enough for the priests to evacuate what do you do? you watch a timer count down in real time.
Difficult negotiations between Ferelden and Orlay.. you watch a timer count down.
At the beginning it´s only 2 minuets or so, annoying but nothing you can´t handle, at the end it´s 32 fucking hours...
And what is your reward for this... some text and some equipment you more or less craft better versions of a few hours later.

As for the small requisition missions.. by the end of the game every soldier in the inquisition could have had a new coat every day for the rest of their life and never wear the same one.
The where enough boats built so that you could build a bridge that circle the world... TWICE!

DA:I is also bad at reusing enemies it doesn´t matter if it´s enemies from some rift or in some ancient long since forgotten elven temple, the enemies are the same.

Also just like DA:2 your choices didn´t really matter, joined the Templars? You fought Mages in Forest and Templars in the quarry.
joined the Mages You fought Mages in the Forest and Templars in the quarry.

Also remember the whole Morigan conceived a child with the warden, a child with the soul of an old god.. yeah that was quickly dropped and the child turned normal.

This game reeked of having originally been developed as an MMO, but once KotoR didn´t bring in the money EA wanted, it was quickly given a thin single player wash.

I never got to play ME:A after reviews, i avoided it like the plague.

As for DA:2 i feel it could have worked if with the 3 act structure if certain things had been changed.
1: Give more day to day life with the Hawke family get to know them a bit before things went to shit.
DA:O handled this great with the opening, where you got to know a little about the character you played, before they got recruited by the gray wardens.
Same thing here, show how things where before things went to shit with the defeat at Ostagar and the raising of Lothering by Dark spawn.

2: Make the choices both in this game and the previous game matter more.
Remember the one in Lothering who wanted poison for the traps, well whether you gave the person that poison will determine the outcome of the first battle.
Lets say that instead of fleeing just you and your family you and a larger group of civilians flee, when the dark spawn attacks you you split up in two with Carver or Bethany guarding your rear.
If you didn´t get the poison, the Darkspawn still attacks you and Flemeth rescues you, however by the time she arrives you are nearly overrun and several civilians and Carver or Bethany is killed.
If you did set up the poison the Dark spawn are delayed long enough Flemeth to arrive in time a Bethany or Carver survives.
At the harbor however you are once again split up and Bethany or Carver takes another boat than you.
You will meet them again at the end of Act 2, however depending on your choices it will either be her corpse, as a slave, or as a guard.
Lets say the ship he/she is on run aground in a storm and he she survives.
In Act 1 you may run into a captain being mugged, depending on what you did to him, your brother sisters fate is decided.
If you let the captain die, your brother/sister will die before he/she is rescued and you will find his/her corpse washed up on the beach in ACT 2.
If you mug him after chasing of the gangs, he will might sell your brother/sister off as a slave for revenge, and you will have a brief conversation with him/her or see her being dragged off at a slave market.
If you save him and don´t mug him or anything, in gratitude when he finds out who it is he rescues, he gets him/her to Kirkwall.

In Act 2 since you are now a lord you are expected to meet up at city council meetings to determined the course of the city.
Here to your actions too will have determine whether your brother/sister lives or dies.
Some of the issues coming up in the city council is extra founding for the hospital.
Extra founding to the guards to unravel a slaver ring.
More equipment for the hiring of more guards.
Negotiations with Ferelden for taking some of their citizen backs.

How will it effect your sister/brother
Lets say when the captain found him/her he/she was close to death.
So he/she is placed in the local hospital to be cared for.
No funding means they have to priorities those they can save, meaning your sister/brother dies.
Extra funding but no unraveling of the slaver ring, means your sister/brother is captured and sold by slavers.
No extra funding to hire more guards means your sister/brother won´t be hired by the guards and will either be killed in the Qunari uprising or depending on the result of the negotiations with Ferelden your sister/brother might return there to try and rebuild his/her life.

I am not opposed to the 3 main events still happening going to the deep roads, the qunari uprising and the mage templar wars.
But your choices in the game should determine the seriousness of them.
It could be in ACT 1 you persuade Varric to persuade Bartrand to hire several of the refugees from Ferelden as crew for the mission.
As such they are loyal enough to you that when Bartrand betrays you and leave you there to die, enough of them remains that even if your Sister/brother followed you down the deep road, he/she won´t get infected by the taint of the Dark Spawn.
As you have more than enough supplies left so you can avoid any encounter with them.

ACT 2: Depending on your actions several Qunaries might chose not to follow the Arishok in his uprising or maybe some of the Tal-Vashoth will chose to aid Kirkwall.
Also depending on your choice with the guards they might be well enough trained and well enough equipped to minimize the damage from the Qunari uprising.

ACT 3: The depending on your actions with either the mages or templars, Enough of them might disagree with Merideths decision to do the right of anulment, that the mages will be able to fend her forces off.
Or with the mages make Orsino not take the desperate actions leading to him transforming into a flesh golem or something like that.

All those kinds of tweeks would have made DA:2 shine even if it was just placed in a single city and it´s surroundings.

But they weren´t and the result was a very poor game.

[AlucardNoir]

I have hope for Anthem and if they are able to avoid this issue and has a good story to boot I think it could be the game that fully redeems BioWare. I haven't lost faith in them because one poorly made game does not a damnation make.

One?

I don't really consider DA2 and ME3 to be poorly made just poorly written. While I have my issues with DA2 and ME3, with the former Chuck pretty much covers all the issues I have with it though I actually like most of the companions and ME3 issues likewise has its issues with the worst and most infamous being, of course, the ending. However, BioWare was clearly still putting a lot of effort into both games and had the been given more time they may have been able to reach the heights of ME1&2 and DAO & DAI.

But with MEA, they had five years to get this right and because of the overall poor management, developers who did little to endear themselves to fans, (and the less said about that the better), bad facial animation, lazy writing, poor performances from almost everyone involved, (not helped by the lazy writing and equally lazy directing). More notable cliches and glitches and the single worst dialogue wheel in BioWare history, empty and boring worlds that felt like the same desert planet, that was so badly received it pretty much killed Mass Effect, for the time being, so for me while DA2 and ME3 have their flaws I still enjoy them and still consider themselves well made.

So, for me, MEA is the only game I count as truly poorly made due to the reasons stated above. But that's just me, and I'm just a viewer with an opinion.

There is no such thing as a perfect game. Every Bioware game has it's share of problems. Thing is... the number of problems one has to deal with has only grown larger with every single new game published under the Bioware brand. Even KOTOR had a relatively shitty minigame for when you jumped from one planet to another.

ME tried something new, in fact every single ME game tried to pad out the game time with some sort of pointless, poorly designed minigame that the player didn't like and which was different enough from the rest of the game play that it actually jumped out at you.

ME2 introduced the dialogue wheel and made us want to save before engaging in conversations with NPC's because... well, because we no longer knew what are PC was going to actually say.

DAII was poorly written... which is a capital sin for a narrative driven game.

ME3... you know that joke about Highlander 2 and Highlander the Source? how fans don't speak about Highlander 2 and Highlander the source and behave as if they don't exist? Yeah, if something is so badly written fans of a franchise would rather behave as if it doesn't exist you really screwed up.

DA:I... that's an MMO that got converted to a single player game... for some unknown reason. IT's superior to DAII but it is clearly more mmo then single player RPG.

ME:A... look, Ubisoft and Bethesda have been making games with shitty faces and bugs that effect the NPC's faces for decades now, if it were only the faces people would have gotten over it. But after the ending that ME3 gave us... All elder scrolls games; hell, all Bethesda Studio games since Morrowind have had unofficial bug patches, it's not the faces that make ME:A a bad game.

In KOTOR you had to - sometimes - play a turret minigame. By ME:A the game had so much MMO like game padding you might as well be playing WoW for all the difference it would make. KOTOR was story driven, DA:I and ME:A are mechanics driven. In DAII we at least saw all the padding for what it was - because of the heavy reuse of scenes, NPC's and monsters. Because DA:I and ME:A had bigger budgets they had an easier time tricking us into thinking we were playing enjoyable content except ... if you don't enjoy MMO like gameplay loops you're not.

If I wanted to wait 30 hours for something to unlock I'd play a mobile game. If I wanted to collect 30 of anything I'd play WoW. I play/played Bioware games for the story... you know, the thing that made Bioware games good, the thing that separated Bioware games from the rest of the RPG's on the market... the thing they threw away for more hours of meaningless gameplay loops.

BioWare was supposed to be the company that made story driven/narrative driven games. That's what they're famous for, that's what gamers expect from them and that's what they haven't been delivering for a long time now. Since ME2 they have been going downhill.

BiWare used to make PC RPG's that since KOTOR also used to be ported to Console. ME2 was a Console RPG ported to the PC. It was made with the console in mind and as such it was significantly more restricted in it's mechanics then DA:O. DAII was hurried and made with the same console limitations in mind and as such was even worse. SWTOR was an MMORPG that failed because people that were invested in an MMO were not looking for a new time sink and people interested in KOTOR weren't looking for MMO mechanics in their RPG. ME:3 was supposed to be the final part of a narrative driven RPG trilogy, it was badly written and had an end that made 3 games worth of player choices meaningless. DA:I? IT had to be made in an FPS game engine that was not adapted for RPG's, it used MMO mechanics and mobile game mechanics despite being a single player game. Even it's story wasn't as satisfactory as it should have been. Most of the development time when into pretty graphics, the story was secondary... in a story driven RPG. ME:A? it was made by a secondary team that had never tackled such a large project. The studio had to make an RPG in an FPS game engine... because EA can't learn apparently. One of the studio heads had to get political on social media - because of course HE had to. It used MMO mechanics - in a single player game... again. It was set in a universe that had lost much of it's fan support after the last game set in that universe and after the way the last team had dealt with the players dislike towards their chosen end. And finally, while it wasn't badly written, BioWare was known for it's story driven games and ME:A had a slapped together generic SF story most people won't remember a decade from now, or a year from when they last played it.

BioWare has been going downhill for a while now. Anthem will be a failure and EA will close them in two or three years at the most. Don't get me wrong, I don't want anybody to loose their jobs but unless Anthem get's canceled BioWare will not celebrate it's 30th year.

[Gridlock]

BioWare has been going downhill for a while now. Anthem will be a failure and EA will close them in two or three years at the most. Don't get me wrong, I don't want anybody to loose their jobs but unless Anthem get's canceled BioWare will not celebrate it's 30th year.

Or unless Anthem becomes a huge financial success (which i doubt) i agree that they will indeed get shut down.
And if they get shut down, it will just be another company that EA has bought, that it has shut down.

And while it´s sad to see another great company getting shut down, we do have other companies waiting on the side line to take over their place.
Companies like
CDProject Red (their Witcher series has been a smash hit to say the least and their latest project based on the Cyperpunk franchise seems to have garnered a lot of hype)
Obsidian (Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny has really brought the old classics back into public's eye once more)
and Larian Studios (divinity original sin 1 and 2 have been praised both by the public and reviewers).

[AlucardNoir]

BioWare has been going downhill for a while now. Anthem will be a failure and EA will close them in two or three years at the most. Don't get me wrong, I don't want anybody to loose their jobs but unless Anthem get's canceled BioWare will not celebrate it's 30th year.

Or unless Anthem becomes a huge financial success (which i doubt) i agree that they will indeed get shut down.
And if they get shut down, it will just be another company that EA has bought, that it has shut down.

And while it´s sad to see another great company getting shut down, we do have other companies waiting on the side line to take over their place.
Companies like
CDProject Red (their Witcher series has been a smash hit to say the least and their latest project based on the Cyperpunk franchise seems to have garnered a lot of hype)
Obsidian (Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny has really brought the old classics back into public's eye once more)
and Larian Studios (divinity original sin 1 and 2 have been praised both by the public and reviewers).

WoW wasn't the first MMORPG but it was a success because it had the backing of the Warcraft crowd behind it. Anthem want's to be the next big thing in the genre Destiny is in, except not even Destiny is the biggest thing in that genre. Destiny was supposed to last for a decade or more... one year in they changed the VA for that annoying mostly tutorial thing that flies around you and 4 years on it's been replaced by a game that's already failing.

Bioware is known for RPG's and detailed stories... SWTOR went free to play 4 years in and the MMO like elements of DA:I and ME:A did not engender any good will with BioWare's core audience.

Anthem might be a success, but even if it becomes one, it won't be on the backs of BioWare's previous customers. And again, that's if it succeeds, and considering what happened with Battlefield 2 and what is happening now with Destiny 2 I sincerely doubt that game will succeed or have any longevity whatsoever.

But yes, a lot of companies are doing their best to take the crown of RPG king from the likes of BioWare and Bethesda. CD Project RED, Obsidian Entertainment, Larian Studios, Warhorse studios, but inertia is something hard to kill. Just look on how the media reviewed Fallout 4 and how they're reviewing Kingdom come Deliverance. Or how Divinity Original Sin II, being a PC only title, has a far more limited player pool then more mainstream and "console friendly" titles. It will take a lot to dethrone the companies that rule RPG genre, on PC and elsewhere. Just look at Obsidian who made KotorII as their first game and whose New Vegas is considered the best 'new' Fallout game to date - they still aren't anywhere near Bethesda or BioWare in the public eye.

[Riedquat]

Well, ME:Andromeda has come up so I'll talk about that - I've not played DAII anyway (enjoying the review though, the more Chuck suffers the more entertaining he is). Perhaps controversially my opinion is that Andromeda isn't bad. The ending to ME3 is bad, and quite a bit of what's being said here about DAII sounds bad, but Andromeda is mostly - nothing much. It had it's flaws, that's for sure, but really doesn't deserve the hate (and lack of DLC) poured on to it. I enjoyed playing it and that was that. It suffers from being not good enough to love but not bad enough to loathe IMO, being mostly just a piece of filler (and for someone called a Pathfinder you seem to go to very few places everyone else doesn't already know about). It's full of stuff that wasn't really thought through (and really could've done without SAM), but I'm left wondering if it was really the disappointment from a franchise that's managed better that's garnered the hate, although even there the "not really thought through" aspect is present throughout Mass Effect. It's just usually overshadowed by the bits people love and hate.

Didn't mind Inquisition though, but by god it was so full of padding (do any main plot story elements actually take place in any of the areas you spend so much time in?)