Played it on PC for a few minutes, enjoyed the hell out of the combat, but I really disliked playing it on PC, couldnt enjoy it much at all.

One thing I dont get is why the hell did bioware lock out on inventory menu and character creation?
If the game is pretty much done why the hell did they lock it out? Very stupid decision IMO.

I have to download it on PS3 once the demo is available, then I can give a proper playthrough.

Anyways, can't wait for the full game.

Finally the Dragon Age 2 demo is up on US PSN, downloading!

Demo wasn't bad, was expecting it to look a lot better on PC though.

Agree with Sath locking out inventory was a bit stupid.

gamespot have a live 360 demo on now.

http://uk.gamespot.com/shows/now-playing/#toggle_v...

looks great cant wait to pick it up.

Bioware added and improved shooting elements in ME2 and I was fine with it. What I didn't like was that those improvements came at the expense of RPG elements. So here I am yet again with Dragon Age 2, applauding the added improvements to combat and lamenting the loss of RPG elements and their corresponding skill sets. YES, I do think that the hack/slash combat mechanics (even though the animations are somewhat repetitious) does indeed improve gameplay for the sword wielding classes. Our characters can talk now, another improvement. But why is it that for every one good thing that Bioware adds to gameplay, they take FIVE things away?

-No Origins (no choice on races with their own unique story arcs)
-No Companion Armor customizations (your companion's clothing and armor are fixed like those in ME2)
-No Arcane Warrior Class Specialization (loved that specialization for my Warrior in DA:O)
-No Dual Wielding and Archery for Warriors (Rogue Class specific now.)
-No Swords for Rogues at all (just daggers, but they do have flair)
-No Iso Camera (PC gamers are going to miss that)
-Lesser Skills and Spells to cast (If I'm looking at the skill trees properly)
- A weird oddity in the selection of your character class decides on whether your sister or brother dies (choosing Mage will get Bethany killed-choosing Warrior or Rogue get's Carver killed)

ADD Bioware, don't SUBTRACT!

The demo's opening environment was particularly uninspiring but I guess that was just the effects of the blight. Still it was very ugly and moving through it felt tight and confined. I've also heard that the game is supposed to be shorter. When trying to ask how short, the answers given are "It's shorter than Origins, but longer than Awakening" So I guess that would put it in the 30-40 Hr range which is I guess is respectable for an RPG these days.

Honestly? The demo doesn't provide enough for me to make a call on a day one purchase, too much was locked down. I'll wait for player reviews before making a final decision.

2 gigs for a demo...lol I am not downloading this

Got my Sig Edition pre-order already :)

After playing the demo on PS3, I LOVED...compared to PC lol.

Where to begin :P

1. Combat, its damn awesome! You have to keep pressing X (PS3) to keep attacking, so its button mashing until you press the other 3 buttons like Square, O and Triangle to do special attacks.
I do hope they add an option for automatic default attack though, would be nice. Combat is fast, stylish and exciting just as it should be. Origins was boring as hell in comparison.
Thank you Bioware!
I can actually keep playing it just for the combat now, all classes.

2. I tried all 3 classes, my favorite has to be...all 3!
In Origins when you wanted two handed weapons, it was one of the most boring class of all. So damn slow and uninspiring that I always sold my two handed weapons.

Rogue, is a damn ninja now.
Super fast, super agile, stylish attacks and dodges. In Origins you had this talent called "Momentum" were you activate it and you kept dishing out attacks, in this game all classes are attacking in infinite speed, great pace.

Mage, using mage has never been this exciting until now IMO.
Using the staff to fire off projectiles while using awesome Shaolin-like movement gestures are badass IMO, really awesome. Definitely a class I will use in the game, my first game to use a mage.

Warrior, one word...Berserk http://www.allisnow.com/anime/images/anime-series/...
The two handed sword is just the best class weapon I have seen, it was absolutely badass to use.
You are literally just massacring every regular darkspawn with your sword.
Regular attacks were damn fast for a big sword until you wanted to use your special attacks, you would take out multiple enemies at the same time and you would see crazy gore!
I was just shocked when I saw it tbh, one special attack was like a rush, you pretty much just dash forward quickly and make a quick sweep attack and decapitate the darkspawn!

All 3 classes are great in their own right, this is my first time were I can honestly say, I have no idea which class to pick for my first playthrough!
But IMO, I will go with Warrior/two handed sword like Berserk.
After the first gameplay in the demo were you have badass armor and just killing in a high level, I really wanted to continue!

That was the combat, Bioware made an awesome job from Origins to this, just great.

Another thing I really like is how good it is to actually break from combat attack and run around in the battlefield.
When I was fighting the second Ogre everyone died except one character. I had to run and make sure Ogre would attack once and I went in for 1-3 attacks and then run again. It was only me and him lol (as a mage).
But when I was a rogue or warrior I had much easier time to kill everyone and still keep all my party members alive, weird.

Now the other stuff.

- Sound was a bit weird, it kept turning off the ambient sound sometimes and came back on while dialogue was just fine, very weird bug.
- The menu are still sluggish at times, faster than Origins though.
- Loading times still suck, but what the heck.
- The interface button menu, in Origins you always had "Quick Healing" as default on the O button for all party members. But now I have to manually assign it, to all party members, and that was annoying.

I dont know how old the demo is, but I do hope they polish these things out.
As I said before, they should definitely add the option for auto-attack because yes, it does get tiresome after a while, so on and off by choice would be nice depending on ones mood.

One thing I was greatly dissapointed in is if the demo is pretty much Gold, then why did they lock out the character creation!? I really wanted to see what they added/tweaked, if anything.
Same goes to inventory. You get various loot you can equip in the demo but yet you cant do a damn thing, makes me wonder if this game was a combat demo? not that I complain :)

Other than that, great demo, definitely what I expected, more from the Warrior class LOL
Can't wait for the full game to get out, going to be awesome.

PS. Is it just me or is Hawke's mother the same voice over who played "your character" mother in Origins?

This pretty much kept me from deciding on a day one purchase, about a third of the skill tree also being locked was also a factor.

But not everyone I've spoken to has the same enthusiasm that you declared. Some are really put off with all the button mashing and hack/slash style play that really seems like a departure from RPG style of play altogether. I recall Heather Rabatich's interview last year when talking about combat and I guess what Bioware was really saying is that Dragon Age 2's new combat system was being mostly developed with a completely different audience from the gamers who made it such a big hit.I realize that parts of Origins was hard even for core players, but IF combat isn't your thing? LOL! In video games that's sort of like a chef who only cooks meat and then decides to open a restaurant for vegans. Meat isn't their thing but that's all he's got on the menu. That being said, something HAD to be done with the combat, the auto attack was very impersonal. You really didn't feel like you were actually doing anything, more like watching and that's not very fun. But I hadn't imagined Bioware would go for this much button mashing, this much hack and slashing. As I said before, it's an improvement over what we had in Origins but after playing the demo a few times now................I have to say it started feeling a little tedious.

Loved the demo, and all the hands on impressions are great, time and time again everyone who has played it, states that the combat is just as deep if not deeped than the first!. Love that fact that they have added the ability to now command each party member to go to a certain spot, and also added the feature some you can now zoom your camera around the whole area of play to better plan your attacks, they have also added numerous new skills/spells and the added cross combat feature will bring much more stratagy into play, great news all round round day one for sure.

Well I hate non-real time combat, it bores the hell out of me.

If I wanted to play a game like chess and strategy I would have picked up an RTS or or JRPGs.

When I played DA Origins and started seeing gameplay videos of DA2, I was ready to stop playing DA Origins because of how the gameplay was so boring in comparison.

Thing is though, the whole button mash stuff, just because its a step closer to real time combat doesnt make it a non-RPG.
Games like Dungeon Siege 3, Elder Scrolls, TERA, Demons Souls, Witcher...etc. they are not RPG because it got real time?
Yes you do button mash on CONSOLES in DA2 but thats just the default attack (on PC its auto so no "click mashing"), its just as the same as Origins but the attacks are faster and non-auto (though I wish they had an option for this).

What RPGmeans for me is the loot, customization, character interaction, sidequests, skilltree, stats...etc. that is the main part of RPG, not that its real time or not.
It being real time or not is just a preference what you prefer, and considering I love real time more is something I prefer, you may not...but that doesnt mean its less of an RPG.

Even I had to pause-and-play a few times during the demo for the mage and the archer to get in maximum damage for crowd control for quicker way of killing stuff, it would take longer if I didnt, so its a mix.

Played a few more times and yes your correct you can ove the camera more freely around the combat area.

Perhaps they are taking a page out of Mass Effect 2's book

ha, did not even notice that.

Just played and finished it for the first time, PC version, bloody hell its amaaaaazing. The combat feels so much smoother now, but it retains everything I loved about the original game/s. I do hope the cutscenes in the retail version are better optimised as they stuttered a little, whereas combat was smooth as butter.

Where is the MP?

I'm hearing that the demo version was 6months old?, and the final retail version should have much better cutscene transitions.

I read that as well, same goes with the sluggish menu and loading times.
I hope they really fix that because it was annoying, not as much as DA Origins but still.

played the demo...seriously awful. aside from the improved performance compared to origins, i really cant see anything that the game does well.

combat is retardedly shallow. it's worse then fable for christs sake.
animations are awful and jerky, scene transitions are fucked up.
main character (male) looks stupid, and sounds even worse.
the cut-scenes are uninteresting and cheesy as hell.
voice acting is utter crap. sounds like a load z list actors trying to do "old world" speech. the mage chick who follows you around is exceptionally bad, this is usually an area that bioware shines, but not here.
visually looks like ass as well. and WTF was with the environment? not only was it bland and repetative, it was walking through a carved out channel...again, like fable.

man, i dont think i've ever played a demo quite this dissapointing, especially since i loved DA:O. WTF have they done? it looks and plays like some second rate, no-name developer action game. i'd expect this sort of thing from a moie tie in, not a high profile bioware game...

i actually feel like i've died a little inside playing that garbage. how could anyone have enjoyed that?

We enjoy that because our standard doesnt have "PS3 exclusive" labeled on it LOL j/k

But seriously now, Demons Souls was much more boring when it comes to gameplay.
Right swing, left swing, right swing, left swing....wait for your crazy stamina to refill...continue.

seriously, why do you enjoy it? it's like a watered down dragon age origins (360 version btw ;D) with worse....everything? Me2 was dumbed down comapred to the first, but it was still decent, and had a decent story with decent voice acting and decent looking environments. this...this has non of those things. it's been dumbed down, but they havnt retained the GREAT things that made origins awesome. the voice work is the killer tho. it's like if the entire cast of LOTR's was comprised of ex soap "stars".

phil mitchel : thou shalt not passsssss!

Watered down?

The combat in DA Origins is pure SHIT!
Its like they took the idea of the combat from say a MMORPG, were boring sword swings until someone dies.

While they show off the CGIs were the characters are doing alot of flips and shit and then when you play the game I am like "why the hell cant I do what I just saw!?".
Atleats now the actualy combat style is similair to the CGIs they keep showing off.

What I dont understand is why people want boring and slow combat that is not exciting to look at and takes much more time to kill someone that is in a arms reach, while you can have badass combat you see in anime or CGI and take em out with cool style and speed and it looks more exciting.

The gameplay is more refined now than dumbed down.

Mass Effect 2 was MUCH better than ME1 interms of gameplay/shooting.
You felt more engaged and "awesome" when playing.

Only thing worse for DA2 I say its the UI, its way too "meh" and the character icons are way too small.
Yes, UI is what sucks about it, and those technical issues.

really? you're comparing the awesome CGi to the single button mashing sword swinging in the actual game? REALLY?

if their going to go real-time, they may as well do it properly, instead you get this utterly crap, shallow, hack and slash mechanic that doesnt really surve any purpose. it's the same as what it was before. only now you're doing a repetative action with your thumb to do it. what's the point? do you feel better for having defeated an enemy while repeatedly mashing the same button? do you feel more engaged? it's one button. it's fable. bioware have taken pages out of fables book, probably the WORST book to take inspiration from.

i just dont get it. i dont even think i could rent this. i was about as bored playing this as i was playing the tron video game. that''s the level i'd place this game. a movie tie-in without the movie.

Its not about the button mashing the default attack button.
I am talking about the entire style of the combat, its an overhaul to a MUCH better road than Origins was.
I am comparing the cool CGI attacks to the DA2 combat. The way Hawke moves when he attacks...etc. its much closer to the CGI, so I am satistfied with it, ALOT.

I also read that in the full game they will have an option for you to turn on/off the default attack "button mashing", I hope so because it was getting annoying.
But good to have a option for it.

But it is no better than Fable though.
Same button to attack, you just time your animations or hold the button, thats it.
Same button, button mash it.

I hardly dont think Bioware looked at Fable for one button press combat, but who cares.

Too bad you dont enjoy a better combat engine in DA2, you always have your boring slow Origins :P

Only an idiot could come to a conclusion like that from a 40min demo, could you imagine a 40min demo of the begining of Demon Souls, no one would have bought the damn game!