Thursday, February 09, 2012

A Dragon Age Retrospect

I looked over at that little "Most Popular Posts" gadget today, and saw my article on Dragon Age II sitting there.  (For the record, that gadget is never accurate because hardly anyone will actually CLICK on an article to read it on my blog, because you don't have to.  The entire article is just right there.)  Anyway, I felt the urge to validate the opinions that I made in that article due to how much hatred the average gamer has for Dragon Age II.

First of all, if you are one of the people who vehemently insists that Dragon Age II is worse than Dragon Age: Origins, I want you to stop for a minute and really think about what you're saying.  Are you saying it's worse because you actually think it's worse, or are you confusing worse with DIFFERENT?

Next, I'm going to address some of the common complains I have read about it.

"It feels rushed."
If you are referring to the fact that it reuses the same environments often, sure, I'll agree with you there.  Personally, that didn't bother me, though.

"The combat was designed for Call of Duty kids."
I'm assuming you mean that the combat was simplified from Origins.  All I have to say to that is "THANK GOD".  Origins combat was too tedious, and I'm glad they simplified it.  If that insults you, then perhaps you should take up a different hobby that will more thoroughly challenge your oh-so-superior intellect.  Space travel research, perhaps?  Quantum theory, maybe?  And if you insult my own intelligence by my thinking that simplifying it wasn't bad, well then you go ahead and knock yourself out.  I've been insulted in worse ways, and I can't hear you anyway.  (LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA)

"The story was worse."
I fully disagree.  Period.  Also, allow me to add that your character in Dragon Age II has a VOICE, unlike in Origins.  That alone makes it light years better than Origins for me.

"The performance issues are totally unacceptable."

Ran smooth as a baby's bare ass for me, so once again I fully disagree.

So the bottom line here is that I stand by every viewpoint I made in my original post on the game.  I regret nothing.  And really, I only felt the need to make this post because I'm rarely in such a minority when it comes to the games I like.  Quite honestly, it seems like I'm the only person in existence who actually liked Dragon Age II.  And y'know, I'm fine with that, except that it means that I'll never see another game like it, and that makes me kind of sad.  (Cause Bioware sure as hell isn't going to make another game just for me.)

If I had to make a guess as to the main reason why people didn't like DA2, I would have to say it was because they were expecting Dragon Age: Origins 2. Dragon Age 2 is not Dragon Age: Origins 2.  It really has very little to do with Origins in every conceivable way (story, combat, etc, etc).

It brings up a very interesting contradiction in human thinking.  Because we all know that in the gaming world, for something to be GOOD, it has to do something DIFFERENT.  Remember that?  Well, what DA2 shows us is that if it's something a gamer LIKES, making it DIFFERENT is BAAAAAD!

So different is good, and different is bad.
And that proves that no matter what, people will never be happy.

And before you DA2 haters gnash your teeth and proclaim "NO!  DIFFERENT IS BAD BECAUSE THE CHANGES WERE BAD!", well, I disagree with you.  Simple as that.  Read the article and you'll see why.

Agent Smith was right.  Human beings define their existence through suffering.  And they usually bring it upon themselves.  

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