It is time they did a trailer where the Tactical View features prominently.
With all these action-packed trailers, one might start to think it is just an afterthought, where it should be the core mechanic.
In the trailer it says "premiere content on xbox first" Has anyone confirmed that it is actually exclusive? And if so, what exactly is? A companion, a storyline, both or just a set of armor or something?
Either way, Dragon Age is (was) a pc-oriented series, and should honour it's roots.
It's just a shift in genres. The first one is an RPG with shooter elements, the last one is a shooter with RPG elements. The original fans stuck with it for the story, but someone who is more action-oriented might indeed have trouble going back.
It means you will get to choose your race and class, and it'll be a great game.
Then in the second game of the trilogy, they will kill off some rpg-elements, fasten up the gameplay and re-use a lot of environments. Massive fanhatred will follow.
Luckily the third game will try and make up for the mess.
Don't worry, it mostly is.
As if I didn't play TW1 and 2, multiple times. The Witcher 2 had quite a lot of linearity, and the periodes in between broke the pace in my opinion.
Add to that that TW2 wasn't an open world game.
All this banter against linearity and scripted events. Am I the only one who doesn't like the procedurally generated stuff that openworld games seem to come with?
A carefully constructed story, even without significant choice, has its value. You can't control the pacing and build up of a story properly if there is a ton of sidequests and exploration to be done.
Dragon Age, Evolve, The division, Alien: isolation, ...
Who knows how good any of these are gonna be. Let's not start guessing halfway through the year.
Well, not the main narrative itself, the companions and the thought out races and their standing etc.
The main narrative was pretty standard worldthreatening-evil fantasy.
There doesn't seem to be a party based rpg in there. No pillars of eternity, no torment, no wasteland, no divinity: original sin.
Instead a shooter/rpg and an rpg by killzone-developers that doesn't even have a trailer yet.
And we will all applaud the intricate and content-ridden dlc, "It's allmost like an expansion pack".
To me final polishing/touches is a little narrow. Often there is rebalancing of combat and items, removal of quests, areas or npcs that don't work, etc.
It's not uncommon for relatively major changes to occur during alpha.
I feel a bit weird about it, but ZQSD! Azerty for the win.
Unfortunately, budget is pretty much key. More money means you can have more time, the most talented artists, more people working on it...
It isn't particularly innovative, the ending isn't to my liking, you can't control the camera.
I'm not saying it isn't a great game, it is. But is it a probable game of the year? Game of the decade?
To update: to earn a 9 it should stray more from what I know, (and from Bastion), it should do something that hasn't ever been done.
I like the idea that a really good game gets an eight.
A 10 is perfect, you can't do better. So you can only give a 10 when you actually believe that a game could not be better in any way. Absolute perfection.
A 9 means not just a great game, but a revolutionairy game. A game that we will still write about in twenty years.
With those standards, an 8 for Transistor might even be high. I mean it is good, but is it The Witcher 2 good? Or AC...
Considering the best tactical rpg's are decades old, it isn't hardware making or breaking games in this genre. Writing, combat mechanics and artstyle is what will make the difference.
You will know within the first half hour whether it's your kind of game. They should really have a demo of some kind (do they?).
Frankly I've seen enough great series turn into MMO's.
How this action even resembles Origins is beyond me.