The Dragon Age II demo is making its way to Xbox Live today, providing 1.98 GB of sword-swinging, arse-shattering RPG nonsense. Both the PC and PS3 demos are said to be dropping today, but they're not yet live.
The demo provides access to the game's prologue, and allows you to pick one of three character classes. Completing the demo will also unlock a weapon for the main game, Hayder's Razor, a Dwarven axe that increases health, mana and combat prowess.
Why not give it a download and let us know what you reckon?
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
8:00 AM on 02.22.2011 | 
Played on 360, but will get PC version at retail. However, the controls are extremely solid and takes no getting used to.
I have no clue as to what's going on with the BioWare developers when they're giving content for newsletters, initial preorders then secondary preorders, buying a completely different game(DeadSpace2), completing a demo (which some people avoid due to not wanting to base all judgement of a game on a brief section of the game) and now "If" and only "if" they get a certain amount of downloads on their demo.
Why can't all of this (well the majority of it that falls outside the Signature Edition) be implemented into the game itself instead of this cluster f*ck of promotions? It's not even out yet and it probably has more DLC than about 99% of my video game library, it was worrying about a month ago, now it's absolutely absurd.
People such as myself place utmost faith in BioWare due to great games delivered previously, it has the reputation of great content, but this is seriously becoming very questionable as to what direction they're taking their franchises when they do something like this.
"No game content until you do what we say, I don't care if you purchase the game, you're not getting it until you meet these conditions".
I'm sorry, I'm just so fucking SICK of stupid twats complaining about DLC for a game before its out "ZOMG WHY IS IT NOT ON THE DISK!?" Cause they want a bit of extra money, and because the community's reactions are a good way of deciding how DLC is made. Besides, you're frgetting that all these promotional add-ons increases publicity and product awareness and, in turn, SALES!! Word of the game is getting out much faster this way, and if people know there is DLC coming then it will make them hang on to the game and anticipate more to come
Or will it be like Dragon Age 1, and stop my downloads so that Bioware can find out how much I spam Storm of the Century to kill shit.
To get everything in Mass Effect 2 you had to:
- Buy Dragon Age
- Pre-order 3 copies of the game from 3 separate retailers
- Get a collector's edition
- Buy specially marked Dr. Pepper
- Register with Cerberus Network online
and this isn't even counting the mountain of paid DLC they put on top of that. Now they're adding "download our demo 1 million times." And what if we don't? They just throw the content out? The whole premise is insulting.
Seriously, you're looking at it wrong. This isn't "held back" content, it's EXTRA shit.
Just play the game and enjoy it. Don't worry about missing out on a sword or a suit of armour. I'm sure there will be plenty others in the game.
Downloading the demo now, also I hope the Dead Space bonus is through there EA Network like the DA armor for Mass Effect 2 was (last time I played DA:O on the PS3 and ME2 on the Xbox)
Just DO all those things and stop complaining. Nobody is FORCING you to get all those things, and I don't know anyone who would actually care about getting all that crap except obsessive completionists. And the fact that they've asked it to download a million times means people WILL do it, or else... Its a funny tactic, I know, but its going to WORK whether you want it or not...
Americans don't half do stupid shit, but this has come to be expected by now
@Onyx Oblivion:
You'll probably have to stop playing. The PS3 has very limited background downloading capabilities.
If we start seeing dollar signs overlaid on top of map locations, now that's when we should get worried.
I lost interest in the first one as well, but I've got high hopes for this one.
You got to understand that Angantyr has his own opinion as everyone else does, so please bare with him, because it is his point of view or just STFU.
I think that his way of seeing it, is reasonable.
And due to that we all have our opinions doesn't mean that he can't express himself.
But I have to agree with Angantyr, because his thread makes sense.
It might be so that the demo revealed too much content for him and for others it maybe doesn't.. The comprehension is easy to understand due to the logic of it.
I'm not sure what's so hard or bad about this?
I liked Dragon Age so I preordered DA2 early. Bioware gave me a FREE upgrade to the signature edition. Cool, thanks guys!
I gave them my E-mail address (Wow, that was hard) and they gave me a free item. Thanks!
I downloaded the demo for free and they gave me a free item for JUST playing their demo? Thanks!
If enough people download the demo ACROSS 3 PLATFORMS they'll just give me TWO MORE items?! Thanks!
The only one you may not get is Dead Space 2 but if you didn't get Dead Space 2 why do you care about having an Isaac Clarke suit in Dragon Age?
Seriously man, I understand your concern, but let's keep it restricted to PAID DLC ok?
Most all the other content came by preordering before the new year, and you got the Signature Edition at NO EXTRA COST. Not a big deal to me.
And it's just more icing on the cake. If it was really so important to the experience, it would have been in the retail version.
I got all of it(pre-ordered CE from Amazon, ebayed for a Blackstorm armor code for like 10 bucks, bought Dragon Age and loved it), and it was very minor. The good stuff was sold to everyone via DLC post launch like the power weapons pack and the Kestrel armor. Unless you really just liked the look of some of the pre-order armor for some reason, most people probably didn't use the pre-order items any further than half way though the game. If you didn't buy it new, you didn't get Cerberus network for free, and they'd been very clear about that for months before launch, and most of that content wasn't that good either.
And since I saw this come up, you didn't need to buy Dr. Pepper to get those codes. They were all the same and interchangeable. All you had to do was register for the stupid promotion and google them. You had to pay attention to see that it was happening in the first place and do 5 minutes of work, and those were minor too.
Are these promotions cheesy? I'd say yes resoundingly. It's just the stupid game EA is playing to get their pre-order numbers up. But if you're a fan of these games to the point where you need to get every little scrap of content whether it's useful or not, you can navigate these issues without paying much more than the collector's edition. You just need to pay attention. If you're not that fan, you're complaining for the sake of complaining.
I went apeshit for Mass Effect 2's content. I knew I would never use them, but I went out of my way to pre-order from different places, hunt for the Dr. Pepper codes, and buy a few off people. I am planning on doing the same for Dragon Age II. While it seems minor, for OCD people: it's not. You could say it's marketing at it's best: forcing people to bend over backwards just to get their hands on a few pixels. In conclusion, I'll just say it's cheesy.
@Aj
If you are paying $60 for Xbox Live, you're getting chumped. There are deals all the time.
Anyways, downloading now. I cannot wait till March 8th, it really can't get here soon enough.
That being said, the demo was all right. Kinda iffy on the whole "tap A to kill" thing, but I guess it makes sense since it will give you the ability to stop attacking and reduce fatigue on your character. It was short, but sweet, and I am looking forward to March more than I was before.
I'd cancel my preorder if I even had one. This one's shit.
It was pretty awful from a PRESENTATION standpoint. As Eggman said, the framerate was all over the place, the voice acting was really terrible, the textures were off the models during cutscenes, and the pacing was just awful.
Also, the new combat system was...different. Although I appreciate the "faster" pace, at early stages of the game, it looks like all you're going to be doing is pressing "A, A, A, A, A, A". I remember playing the Dragon Age 1 E3 build: it required you to press A over and over to attack. Thankfully, they got rid of it, only to bring it back in DAII. So far, physical combat looks very dull, and Dynasty Warriors-ish, minus the ability to use flourish attacks to at least make it look like you're mixing up your combos.
I will still get it, but I know some people who are cancelling their pre-orders because of the demo. I'm still boggled that they'd pace the demo like that, and skip ahead, ruining story sequences for no good reason! It should have ended after Flemeth gave her speech.
I'm not 100% privy to the inner workings of the game industry, but from what my friends who work in it say, and if it's anything like the film industry, these tactics are pretty much EA's choice. As the Publisher, they're trying to find ways to ensure you actually BUY the game, instead of DLin'g it on either of your hacked consoles. Pre-order bonuses help ensure that you buy a NEW copy of the game, and not a used one, so that that money also flows back into their coffers. They're trying to ensure return on the probable $10+million budget that 'AAA' games now carry these days.
Activision, EA, all the big publishers are doing this... they're doing it because we pushed for better graphics, we pushed for larger online multiplayer, we pushed for all these advances, and it all needs to be paid for somehow. They make more money off of micro transactions and DLC then they ever could dream of from software sales.
Anyways,,, like everyone else said. If you don't like it, don't pre order. Or wait for the obvious GOTY edition that'll have heaps of DLC on disc. Either way, gamers have made their bed with preorders and DLC purchased (1 million map packs in 24 hours for CoD) so now we must sleep in it.
Juss my 2 cents.
The combat seems interesting, until you realize it has all the trappings of the previous system and non of the benefits of other action style games - there doesn't appear to be anyway to avoid damage, such as rolling or side-stepping, and the camera just wasn't good enough. The animation was poor and the load times in between "choices" [I say that because I don't really beleive the system Bioware uses is role-playing] were terrible.
I stated at the top of the comments I thought it was going to be bad; this has just confirmed my thoughts...
I'll do as I did for the original, wait for the inevitable ultimate edition steam sale.
Though it would have cost them quite a bit more than adding in a promotional item, BioWare/EA probably should have used an entirely separate side-story for a demo, sort of the way that Sega did with Christmas NiGHTS. It would have fit comfortably within the framed narrative structure of Dragon Age 2 yet have been some extraneous bit of fluff like the world's most dangerous food fight or Hawke's biggest fan trying to emulate some moment from Hawke's childhood training to take down a bully or something to that effect.
Still,for what the demo actaully was, it wasn't too bad. They could probably stand to crank up the framerate a tad but that's about all that they need to do at the present.
I haven't played DAO on a console, but this seems way more button-mashy than the first one.. Maybe that's better for me, as I couldn't even finish the first one as it basically just seemed to bog down for me... might get back to it at some point (perhaps before this releases), but who knows... enough of a backlog as is. I guess I'll download the PC demo to see how it compares... have both the PC and 360 version pre-ordered for the silly signature edition, though may end up canceling one or both.
Also I really enjoy the fact that your character actually talks in this one, but, as per usual, the male voice actor seems a lot crappier than the female one. If I do end up sticking with the game I'll definitely be playing as a female.
They will never please everyone though. I.E. the "We want the same game over and over, but even if you give us the same game we'll start complaining we want something new. However, if you give us something new we'll complain you changed it bringing about a full circle of never being able to please us" people.