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my only beef with the game was that the Warden doesn't speak his/her own lines.
I would have gladly given up the useless voice choice (only used for those combat 1-liners) for voice acting from my character.
Apparently, your only option for race in DA2 (which was just announced) is a human. As such, the entire game is going to be VA-ed by a male or female based on your chosen sex (at least, as far as I know you get to choose). I have to say I like that.
I think my BIGGEST complaint about DAO is that the voices you can choose from are just generally annoying. I hated all the male human ones, and my current character is a female elf. Hers is way better, but I still think I'd mute her if I could (I play on my PS3).
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Their 'games' are 99.9% massive wall'o'text
That's pretty unfair, imo (exaggeration aside, of course). Is there a lot of conversation? Yes. But everything but your own choices are voiced. And you still spend a lot of time exploring/killing stuff. I'll give you that the written quests are kinda irritating, of course. I wish there had been a better way to implement them. But I can't think of a way to do it without actually adding a quest giver for each one. And I can't help but feel that it would just be overwhelming to have that many people seeking your help in each town.
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The camera is obnoxious (particularly in DA:O)
It could definitely be approved, but there was 2 or 3 times I found it actually annoying. And that's true of just about every game I've played. Even ones with controllable cameras can be irritating at times. But, I'll admit I generally prefer the latter. DAO is somewhere between controllable and automatic. You CAN control it, but you pause the game and potentially change targets in doing so.
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The "RPG" elements are bland and stereotypical
Fair, to a certain degree. But no more so than any other game I've played in the last 5 years. And, on the other hand, no game has given me as much freedom to play as *I* wanted to be. Idk, maybe I just haven't played them? But it was really refreshing to actually cultivate my own character from the provided back story.
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Their games drag on for soo freaking long without anything notable happening I just don't care anymore about 1/3 of the way through
I do think the "recruit the armies!" thing was a little boring at the end. But I also found out there's actually an intended order that I didn't really follow (it's arranged by min levels for enemies). Looking at it after the fact, I could see how it would actually improve things to a certain extent. I think my real problem was that the quests were essentially isolated conflicts. Nothing about the Dalish had anything to do with Orzammar. I wish your choices there influenced how your interactions with OTHERS worked. That would have made everything more interesting than "pick who you want to help in the final battle."
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The characters/plots/quests within are about as interesting as stale, regurgitated toast (blatant LotR rip off go!)
What ISN'T a LotR rip off? 99% of what the West produces is so clearly based on Tolkein's work that it's ridiculous to attack Bioware, specifically, for it. But I actually respect that, when you really look at the lore they've established, it feels REALLY different from LotR. The ambience and feel may be incredibly similar, but the actual history of that universe is pretty interesting and "un-Tolkein"
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AI is complete garbage
I 100% disagree here (at least about DAO). If your AI sucked, it's because you sucked at setting up the AI. I've had NO problems with it, and have managed to create some really well-oiled tactics for my characters to execute nice strategies without me needing to direct them at all. The ONLY gripe I have is that you can't tell them to use an ability based on a status conditional. And the reason for that is because Bioware wanted Spell Chains to be a conscious decision.
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Enemy design is bland and repetitive
THIS is fair. Darkspawn are only so interesting. Yeah, you get 4 different types based on 4 different races. Add bears, wolves, giant spiders and regular races. Yup, that's not that cool. But I will say that some of the boss encounters were extremely interesting, even if the regular designs weren't so much. Though I find the enemy design of Awakening, besides being the same in general as Origins, to be far more interesting because of the villain.
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DA:O is the only 360 game I can recall where I had all sorts of weird graphical glitches and crashs.
Recent patches have fixed the vast majority of them, but fair. I would probably feel differently if I played then.
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They overcharge for crappy DLC and advertise for it in game (Look at this awesome golem! You can have one just go blow more money on x-box live! Why didn't we include it in the game you already payed for as we obviously had it planned out and in the game before release? Because we're greedy corporate @#%^s, that's why!)
1. Shale was available free for all the initial purchasers of the game. He was DLC, yes, but still free. You only had to pay for him if you got your copy second hand. And, in that case, it was because Bioware wasn't getting anything from you anyway. I VASTLY prefer some DLC that isn't free for used copies than other DRM out there. By a loooooong shot.
2. The game release was delayed after he had been cut. The rest of the development for him happened after the final disc versions were being tested/prepared. They aren't going to hold up all that just to include him. He was originally planned to be released a month or two after release.
3. The only way, then, to include him in the game was to make the DLC for him free. But, either way, you'd need to sit there and download it--they wouldn't have made something like it a patch--it's just too big. The system they chose means ALL people who buy the game from them get Shale, and anyone who buys it from someone else has to buy him.
4. All the rest of the DLC is reasonably priced, IMO, and far from being necessary for the original game. None of it has anything to do with your main mission, it just develops the lore more in a side direction. And they frankly couldn't really do much more of that in the original game without bombarding new players with info. DLC was a nice treat for people that were interested in learning more, but not game-changing enough to make it necessary. I paid $5 for a DLC that gives me new gear and adds a whole new level to the game lore, because I cared, and is actually quite a bit of game time (I'll get more from that $5 than I got from 1/6 of The Force Unleashed). If you don't care, there's NO reason to buy it.
5. I see pros and cons to in-game advertising. On the one hand, it points out that it exists, when MANY people would probably never click that DLC button otherwise. And, for something like Shale where there's a good chance you already have a free DL, it's a reminder to use it. I think that was a good choice. I think the Warden's Keep guy shouldn't have been in the party camp, though. I'm not sure how best to handle that. There are definitely ways where advertising DLC inside the game can be a great decision for the player's enjoyment and for the company. I don't profess to know how to do it. But it's also important to note that ONLY these two are advertised. Nothing else is found in game.
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The actual gameplay is clunky and uninteresting, ME was the sort of stuff I'd expect from a RE and hear people go "it adds to the horror atmosphere!", well wtf is it doing in a non-survival horror game? In DA:O I'd either sleep through encounters pressing one button or get instantly owned without being able to touch my opponents (stun lock, 1-shot kill spells, etcetc). Not fun, just obnoxious. Particularly if I hadn't saved in awhile and ended up having to repeat 2hrs of boring dialogue because I get insta-killed in a fight with no warning.
It just sounds like you sucked, no offense, which could be because you weren't interested in it. But it's a STRATEGY game. If you are getting stun locked, it's because you didn't even bother to plan out a strategy for an encounter. And I was constantly hitting different abilities on my Rogue and DEFINITELY on my Mage.
As for saving, that's what you get for playing on an Xbox. PS3 automatically saves regularly. And you DO know that you can skip every single line, right? Don't blame the game maker for your own mistakes.
Is Bioware perfect? No. Do you have some valid points? Yes. But I think you are definitely being unfair in a lot of ways.