Dragon Age 2

[Hexx]

Very good point that rather than make it a hard choice as you saw the "right" of both sides of the argument, they simply made it a hard choice by making both sides stupidly evil.

And then undermining your choice:

Because whichever side you picked, you ended up siding with a wackjob

[Mallet]

For me that's what the whole game was about, there is no good or bad side, it's all a matter of perspective and it's just like real life in that no matter what you do sometimes it's not enough and the shit hits the fan.

Look at the last election, no matter what way you voted you were going to end up with a tosspot in power. Look at the Gulf war, who were the good and bad guys there in retrospect?

A neutral path would have been nice but I'm not sure how someone so influential in the city could avoid taking sides while the city tears itself apart, the Champion certainly wouldn't have the resources to fight both sides. I avoided taking sides in The Witcher but that worked because I'm only a Witcher and not one of the most revered people in the city, Isabela, Merril or any of your companions could walk away from it but the Champion of the city?

[Swallow]

Nah, it's just bad, thoughtless, senseless writing. There's no way to pass it off with a straight face as MORALLY GREY JUST LIKE IRL.

[Kayin Amoh]

I remember having this discussion about Red Dead Redemption, how Marston yaks on about how he won't work for bastards, and nearly every single mission involves working for a bastard. It was completely against the character Rockstar were trying to portray, but a friend of mine thought it was realistic since he'd be whining about what he would and wouldn't do and then act contrary to what he actually said.

Me, I couldn't wrap my head around it. Realistic or not that Hawke's choices don't make much of a difference, it doesn't make for an enjoyable finale. This is Hawke we're talking about, a game character who slaps dragons around like they're a joke. Her and her pals could take over Kirkwall in five minutes if the writers wanted it that way, or simply write in a civilian uprising to make it all the more likely that the peasant masses would plonk her in command for whatever reason.

Empowerment in these situations is often far superior to powerlessness. In Saints Row 2, for example, you never feel powerless or that any of your activities are pointless - you're always out trying to improve your standing and never running errands unless your character's out doing it for their own enjoyment. It simply makes you feel better when you feel that your actions are making a difference.

[Mallet]

I saved most of the mages in the city, stopped the Qunari taking over and indoctrinating the city , placed the Templers under a more moderate leader and my actions may help bring about better equality for mages, including my sister, everywhere. I'd say I made a difference in Kirkwall and if the epilogue is right the entire continent, you don't have to save the world in every game.

I made Isabela rethink her morals and attitude to friends, helped Merril through a tough time, failed to see where Anders was going so had to pay the price so I'd argue I made a difference to my companion's lives as well along with numerous other people in the city who were better off for Hawke entering their lives.

Why can't you pass it off as "MORALLY GREY JUST LIKE IRL"? sometimes there are simply no good decisions and right and wrong are nearly always a matter of view. The Templers believed themselves to be right and so did the Mages with the main problem being hard liners in each camp unwilling to meet in the middle. People looking in from the outside can see both sides of the argument while at the same time seeing how both sides are wrong.

I realise I'm fully at odds with a lot of people in this thread and I won't change their opinions about DA2 but I really did enjoy it. After the backlash this game is getting I'm betting Bioware will go back to the good old trusted 'lowly nobody has to fight an ancient evil to save the world' storylines. Templers/Mages might be a bad choice but at least it was a choice, what did you have at the end of Origins? a choice whether to live or die? You could play the entire game as an evil, selfish bastard but in the end you still have to make the same decision. If I was a character like that why would I even be willing to fight the Arch demon at all?

I simply don't understand the criticisms about errand quests in DA2 either because they are in every single Bioware game I have ever played and just about every RPG in general. The whole point of act 1 was to increase your standing in the city.

[Swallow]

I saved most of the mages in the city...

Not to ignore the rest of your post but that's the problem right there. We are never given enough information to determine if what we see constitutes a few/some/many/all of any faction. There is simply no explicit context provided to draw strong conclusions from. As far as I saw it, every mage I encountered was a Blood Mage. I

saved a grand total of three of them during the end-game, being forced to kill dozens more. Is that all of the circle accounted for? 50%? 5%? The same with the templars.

I would really, really like to see it how you do but I cannot make that cognitive leap based on the information the game provides or even implies. It's a failing of the game, and probably the one unforgivable one, that it comes across so stupidly and badly though-out.

[Hexx]

Yeah the game pretty much portrays every mage as willing to turn to blood magic at the drop of hate.

[Swallow]

Also, I know mentioning the rep system is immensely boring but I wish people would stop negging other people's opinions. It accomplishes nothing and I'd much rather you spoke your piece as I'm actually interested in hearing what other people think about the game (or in any thread I'm reading otherwise I wouldn't be reading it), not this daft coloured buttons shit.

[Wiper]

Plot discussion in response to Mallet follows, kind've spoilerific:

Why can't you pass it off as "MORALLY GREY JUST LIKE IRL"? sometimes there are simply no good decisions and right and wrong are nearly always a matter of view. The Templers believed themselves to be right and so did the Mages with the main problem being hard liners in each camp unwilling to meet in the middle. People looking in from the outside can see both sides of the argument while at the same time seeing how both sides are wrong.

Because they don't make it morally grey, they make it morally black - Planescape torment had a morally grey storyline. Fallout 1 and 2 had morally grey universes (albeit both with a big bad to defeat). Dragon Age 2 has a morally grey universe... until it decides to make the mages Chaotic Evil, and have the Templars led by a power-hungry maniac, at which point everything becomes shades of black. Every mage you save from the templars turns into a blood mage and/or abomination. Presumably this is as an attempt to make the player think about who to side with; as the game is otherwise clear that the templars in Kirkwall are completely over the top in their enforcement of the law. As the game wants to make it a difficult choice, it can't just have innocent mages against cruel templars, so it instead makes every mage monstrous when threatened. A softer approach, like Ferelden's circle (with reasonable templars and mages, but still the overarching cruelty of the system to mages, and the risk mages pose to non-mages if left free, as the conflicting issues. Brought into focus by, say, the way your sister has to live, and the danger Merrill poses) would have been much more subtle. But, ultimately, the current setting would have been okay, if it hadn't forced you to give tacit consent to one individual at the end.

I avoided taking sides in The Witcher but that worked because I'm only a Witcher and not one of the most revered people in the city, Isabela, Merril or any of your companions could walk away from it but the Champion of the city?

- what does this even mean? Here's how the Champion of Kirkwall walks away from it: she turns around and walks away, because who the fuck's going to stop her? She has nothing left in the city anyway - her family's gone, of her friends only two are tied to the city, and one of them is a complete nutjob. And, depending how you've roleplayed her, she may well have made several overtures about returning to Ferelden. So, no, there's no justification for forcing her to go 'Yes, actually, I'll side with this party over that one'. I mean, it wasn't actually an issue for my character, as she was an out and out anti-templar character, but I can see how annoying it must be for anyone who didn't like either party. A Pontius Pilate option would have fitted perfectly.

Edit: FWIW, I think the idea of a morally grey RPG where you have a very limited effect on the way things work out because of your relative lack of influence is a great one - it was something I really liked about DA2 when they were talking about it, and it's something I really liked about the game - I also liked the way things gradually spiral out of control thanks to a variety of factors, no matter your efforts. My only criticisms (aside from the laziness re: recycled areas, bugs and such) are the way the game tells rather than shows you far too much and the awkward characterisation of the mages by making them all turn at the drop of a hat, and the way it forces you to take one extreme position or the other, even if functionally taking no side would have the same effect on Kirkwall (and it could even still thrust you into a boss battle against the mage leader and/or Meredith as they refuse to let you not help them).

[Talk Show Host]

I remember having this discussion about Red Dead Redemption, how Marston yaks on about how he won't work for bastards, and nearly every single mission involves working for a bastard. It was completely against the character Rockstar were trying to portray, but a friend of mine thought it was realistic since he'd be whining about what he would and wouldn't do and then act contrary to what he actually said.

No, no, no. The Marston example is way out of place. Marston is forced to work for the people he hates, they have his family. He is forced to work for every lowlife out there because they can help him reach his goal, which is to gather information about his former gang.

It also makes sense to be the one to hunt down his former gang since he was one of the most important members on it and friends with its leader. Don't forget that Marston is still an outlaw at heart that's trying to change. In a world where violence rules everything, it's only logical that he needs violece to accomplish his goals. He is NOT a good guy. He just wants to be one.

His whole trip is one of redemption too, as he has guilt over his previous deeds. He used to kill for money. Imagine what he can do to save his family.

Comparing the depth of Marston to any DA2 character is like comparing Dostoyevsky to Rowling.

I saved most of the mages in the city, stopped the Qunari taking over and indoctrinating the city , placed the Templers under a more moderate leader and my actions may help bring about better equality for mages, including my sister, everywhere. I'd say I made a difference in Kirkwall and if the epilogue is right the entire continent, you don't have to save the world in every game.

Woah. Spoilers much?

I realise I'm fully at odds with a lot of people in this thread and I won't change their opinions about DA2 but I really did enjoy it. After the backlash this game is getting I'm betting Bioware will go back to the good old trusted 'lowly nobody has to fight an ancient evil to save the world' storylines. Templers/Mages might be a bad choice but at least it was a choice, what did you have at the end of Origins? a choice whether to live or die? You could play the entire game as an evil, selfish bastard but in the end you still have to make the same decision. If I was a character like that why would I even be willing to fight the Arch demon at all?

I don't want a return to cliche storylines. I want a game to support its storyline, whatever that is. There's just so many holes in this story that the laziness screams out. And I'm not even talking about the actual game, which is clearly rushed from almost every perspective.

I simply don't understand the criticisms about errand quests in DA2 either because they are in every single Bioware game I have ever played and just about every RPG in general. The whole point of act 1 was to increase your standing in the city.

The criticisms -for me at least- come from the fact that BioWare doesn't do anything to change this. It has become fucking boring. It's like playing the same games, again and again. Hawke even has the same animation with Shepard when drinking ffs.

The real problem in this game though is the lack of attention to detail. 3 years pass by and the npc in the Chantry still mutters the same line! Companions staying still in their places, the mansion of Fenris still has a dead body near the entrace and so much more. How do they even hope to create an immersive atmosphere in the city and a sense of a timeline, which are the catalysts for such a confined and focused story, when the entire city is lived in by zombies?

It's pure shit design and lazy.

Edit: And when did "normal" become the new "easy" difficulty setting? It's normal. I want to be tested without actually feel overwhelmed. I don't want to play on hard, where buffed up enemies will make my life difficult in a cheap way. Normal is supposed to make me use the game mechanics (like tactical combat) and not make them useless.

[RareBirds]

Edit: And when did "normal" become the new "easy" difficulty setting? It's normal. I want to be tested without actually feel overwhelmed. I don't want to play on hard, where buffed up enemies will make my life difficult in a cheap way. Normal is supposed to make me use the game mechanics (like tactical combat) and not make them useless.

I'm undecided about the combat in DA2 - whilst a lot of the fights throughout were pretty easy a lot of it was due to me having a team set up that I was comfortable with and exploited (for want of a better word) the various CC and class combos available. In DA1 I just ran a straight 2 tank, 1 dps and 1 healer group and nothing came close to kiling me, fights against dragons and the guy at the end were just battles of attrition. There were a couple of fights in DA2 that took quite a few goes to sort the tactics:

- The room with the waves of demons that spawn from the Golem that sells stuff (same room had one of the evil books you could destroy or read) in Act 2. That was probably the hardest fight in the game for me and I ended up bunkered up in the corridor, sending in my Hawke tank to pull as few as possible at a time

- The demon that ended that quest line (think you got the Exorcist achievement for killing her) - took a couple of attempts and ended up kiting her round the corner to slow the adds

- The high dragon was pretty fun, Hawke was my tank up till then but I just wasn't killing the dragon adds quick enough so ended up re-speccing to double handed sword and taking an 'attack is the best form of defence' approach

- That sodding pride demon or whatever he was, might have been easier if I'd specced back into sword and shield but didn't so it took me a few goes

Compared to any of those the last boss fights were a piece of piss. I guess we'll never know, but it doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility that the reason

you can't have a neutral resolution to the conflict is because they wanted a boss fight, and the reason you end up fighting both is for no other reason than they'd come up with two.

The Mage Leader becomine a blood mage ball was ludicrous, for many reasons but the one that immediately came to mind at the time was "What do you mean we'll never win? I'm kicking these guys' arses without breaking a sweat!" Almost immediately before on the Wounded Coast, where the mages and templars were making their conspiracy against Meredith you had inklings of a third way out, but then they chucked a blood mage in and you had another set piece battle and ultimately your boss fights at the end.

I must admit I quite liked that Meredith had gone mad from the relic from the Deep Roads - I'm not saying it's the Usual Suspects but it did make me think "Oh yeah, forgot about that".

But in spite of all the things that are odd, silly or just shit - I really, really liked it.

[Wiper]

Comparing the depth of Marston to any DA2 character is like comparing Dostoyevsky to Rowling.

More like comparing Rowling to Blyton...

(I agree with everything else you say [though as an aside I still think that Rockstar's attempts to match up 'hard-hitting' storylines to sandbox games have been severely flawed. RDR was a big step-up from GTA4, at least], but do try to keep both games in their place, in terms of the depth of their writing)

[palaver]

Ending spoilers:

To me what really ruined the final Mage/Templar conflict was the whole Idol thing. They try their best to set up good reasons for suppressing the mages and a big question mark over whether Meredith is maybe a bit mad or actually pretty justified, and then they throw it all away with a shrug of their shoulders and just go with "Yes she is just mad and it's not really her it's this evil thing, bleh."

But it's not as crap as the mage dude turning himself into a Boss Fight.

Like so many aspects of DA2 it's so very nearly there but just kind of grinds to a halt with a half-hearted shrug.

[Talk Show Host]

More like comparing Rowling to Blyton...

Well, yeah, but you get my point.

(I agree with everything else you say [though as an aside I still think that Rockstar's attempts to match up 'hard-hitting' storylines to sandbox games have been severely flawed. RDR was a big step-up from GTA4, at least], but do try to keep both games in their place, in terms of the depth of their writing)

Sure they are flawed, no question about it. But at least they are trying to offer a context and not leave major plotholes to character development and script. That's something in my eyes.

[Retroguy]

I love discussion on the game as much as the next man, but there are a lot of spoilers on this page- can you guys use spoiler tags or take it to a separate thread or something please? Already had a few things in the game spoilt for me for reading a few replies above.

[Talk Show Host]

I love discussion on the game as much as the next man, but there are a lot of spoilers on this page- can you guys use spoiler tags or take it to a separate thread or something please? Already had a few things in the game spoilt for me for reading a few replies above.

Sorry, I hope it wasn't me.

[Retroguy]

Sorry, I hope it wasn't me.

Nah, don't think so, think it was Wiper and Mallet, but I'm afraid to look up any more

[Kayin Amoh]

No, no, no. The Marston example is way out of place. Marston is forced to work for the people he hates, they have his family. He is forced to work for every lowlife out there because they can help him reach his goal, which is to gather information about his former gang.

There are dozens of people he could have worked with - the only one he absolutely had to bow to was the Government.

'Imma shoot you in the head' and then working for them with the occasional grumble? That's insane.

The criticisms -for me at least- come from the fact that BioWare doesn't do anything to change this. It has become fucking boring. It's like playing the same games, again and again. Hawke even has the same animation with Shepard when drinking ffs.

I'd agree with this - I'm starting to think Bioware should just let you choose a hero, a scamp or an outright arsehole at the start and let the cutscenes flow depending on this core character trait rather than having the wheel pop up. As it stands, you can have some seriously psychotic interactions:

'Hawke, what should we do with these prisoners?'

'Let them go, and see to it that they are well supplied.'

'But that would leave us low on provisions and make the Marquis dissapoint, son.' (or some other obligatory argument)

'KILL THEM ALL.'

It worked well enough in Mass Effect, but DA2 barely seems to have progressed beyond Kotor. Is it wrong to want maps that aren't full of invisible boundaries, where you can actually visit that castle in the distance? Is it wrong to expect three years between releases so that they can polish the story, writing and gameplay until they shine like a particularly shiny gem?

Is it wrong to want a game where a slowdown bug didn't get past testing and cripple your main character in such an awful manner that the game becomes practically unplayable? Or to expect a swiftly dispatched patch to alleviate your woes if it does?

I still enjoy DA2 on a basic level, but everywhere I look in it I see 'that could be done better', 'that's tired out' or 'they did that better last time'. Only the graphics and cutscenes are way beyond the original, and the more hands-on battle system isn't bad either.

[Sergeant Squid]

Shit man, spoilers galore in these here posts...

...not that it matters. I was unbelievably bored of the game before even finishing act 1 and gave up. So disappointed as I LOVED DAO despite it's numerous flaws

[Talk Show Host]

There are dozens of people he could have worked with - the only one he absolutely had to bow to was the Government.

'Imma shoot you in the head' and then working for them with the occasional grumble? That's insane.

Dozens of people? How so? It was the goverment who had his family and the outlaws who had the info.

I agree that there could be more variation to the missions but, in the end, what was he supposed to do? Ask them nicely and wait for their cooperation?

[Kayin Amoh]

Dozens of people? How so? It was the goverment who had his family and the outlaws who had the info.

I agree that there could be more variation to the missions but, in the end, what was he supposed to do? Ask them nicely and wait for their cooperation?

I just find it odd that in a world that expansive, there couldn't be more people with the info or manpower he required. When he catches up with some of his former outlaws, that's usually when he gets the information - it's surprising that he couldn't hire mercs for an assualt on certain locations, or go about gaining information in other ways. Hell, I'd be less down on it if they'd just cut out most of the pointless running around for these characters - he didn't need to avoid them, per se, but bending over for them over and over again was just bizarre. A bullet in their leg would have produced more rapid results.

His companions are just bloody weird in RDR. A graverobber? A shyster? Mr. Irish? I can't even remember what they contributed other than more missions that benefited themselves rather than Marston, and

shyster's wagon

Anyway, ah, getting off the DA 2 track a bit.

[Wiper]

Aye, I had the same problems with RDR re: the people Marsten hung out with, did seem a bit at odds with his "I hate working for twunts" perspective. But this really isn't the thread so I'll stop

I love discussion on the game as much as the next man, but there are a lot of spoilers on this page- can you guys use spoiler tags or take it to a separate thread or something please? Already had a few things in the game spoilt for me for reading a few replies above.

Nah, don't think so, think it was Wiper and Mallet, but I'm afraid to look up any more

Sorry, I've gone and spoilered things now, but yeah, that was very bad form.

[Mallet]

I apologise for any spoilers, I haven't checked the forum since I posted otherwise I would have fixed it sooner.

[HeyMykie]

man i wish i could play it but that isabella glitch left such a bad taste in my mouth. any word on a patch?

[Stolly]

Add me to the disappointed list - I'm not at the end of Act 1 as far as I know and I'm still clearing quests around Kirkwall with my rogue fem-Hawke. There's too much repetition, the fights on normal with a relatively well set up team are pretty much a doddle, there's zero to explore and open up, I don't like the lack of armour options for the team and yeah the whole things feels rushed and, relatively speaking for a Bioware rpg, shallow.

I'll still try and finish it though, even if I have to do it through gritted teeth.

[Retroguy]

Add me to the disappointed list - I'm not at the end of Act 1 as far as I know and I'm still clearing quests around Kirkwall with my rogue fem-Hawke. There's too much repetition, the fights on normal with a relatively well set up team are pretty much a doddle, there's zero to explore and open up, I don't like the lack of armour options for the team and yeah the whole things feels rushed and, relatively speaking for a Bioware rpg, shallow.

I'll still try and finish it though, even if I have to do it through gritted teeth.

I wouldn't necessarily call it shallow- for all its faults, which are many, I still find it pretty deep with combat.

I know you can't change the three different pieces of armour for each companion, but you can still change their weapons (well, all but one) and rings/belts etc, as well as equip runes to their armour (once upgraded). I find this is enough to give them enough customisation, at least within their character classes. You could say that each character should be able to equip a different shoe/glove on each foot/hand, but it wouldn't necessarily make it a better game. There's a lot of play with the skills you can equip too, as well as using various poisons, grenades etc.

The only main thing for me they've lost with combat depth is use of the environment, since subsequent respawning waves of enemies seem to appear in close proximity to your party, eliminating any tactical positioning after you've taken out the first group using it to your advantage.

Think maybe your difference in opinion might be partially down to the difficulty level though. I'm playing it on hard, and although one or two fights have been vastly more difficult than anything else (game definitely needed some more balancing IMO), almost every fight is a bit of a challenge. For the most part, not unfairly so, but I'm definitely having to make use of all my skills and occassionally things like poisons, as well as pausing combat a lot. This means that I look forward to the majority of encounters, since even just a difference balance of warriors/rogues/mages in the enemies forces me to take a different approach. Several of the passive skills such as focusing on healing/damage spells or threat manipulation give it a real tactical depth to me. I even like how small and quick most of the side quests are, since it means I can swap around party members often to try out new combinations.

I'd definitely try shifting the difficulty to hard if I were you. For the really hard fights, I think you can adjust it back to medium on the fly. I think to like this game, and want to play it through to the end, you've got to enjoy the combat a lot- it's probably the game's greatest strength for me. I can see how the game would be very dull if every encounter was a cakewalk though.

[Talk Show Host]

I wouldn't necessarily call it shallow- for all its faults, which are many, I still find it pretty deep with combat.

I know you can't change the three different pieces of armour for each companion, but you can still change their weapons (well, all but one) and rings/belts etc, as well as equip runes to their armour (once upgraded). I find this is enough to give them enough customisation, at least within their character classes. You could say that each character should be able to equip a different shoe/glove on each foot/hand, but it wouldn't necessarily make it a better game. There's a lot of play with the skills you can equip too, as well as using various poisons, grenades etc.

The only main thing for me they've lost with combat depth is use of the environment, since subsequent respawning waves of enemies seem to appear in close proximity to your party, eliminating any tactical positioning after you've taken out the first group using it to your advantage.

Think maybe your difference in opinion might be partially down to the difficulty level though. I'm playing it on hard, and although one or two fights have been vastly more difficult than anything else (game definitely needed some more balancing IMO), almost every fight is a bit of a challenge. For the most part, not unfairly so, but I'm definitely having to make use of all my skills and occassionally things like poisons, as well as pausing combat a lot. This means that I look forward to the majority of encounters, since even just a difference balance of warriors/rogues/mages in the enemies forces me to take a different approach. Several of the passive skills such as focusing on healing/damage spells or threat manipulation give it a real tactical depth to me. I even like how small and quick most of the side quests are, since it means I can swap around party members often to try out new combinations.

I'd definitely try shifting the difficulty to hard if I were you. For the really hard fights, I think you can adjust it back to medium on the fly. I think to like this game, and want to play it through to the end, you've got to enjoy the combat a lot- it's probably the game's greatest strength for me. I can see how the game would be very dull if every encounter was a cakewalk though.

Unfortunatelly this doesn't cut it for me.

I don't want every fight to be difficult, especially when I'm fighting all the time. That is why the whole thing is unbalanced.

I want to have some easy fights, some difficult fights and Bosses. Which is what normal difficulty should be for me. In hard you get hard fights, very hard fights and Boss fights. It makes the whole thing quite stupid imo. I'm a fucking great warrior, I don't want to spend my time figuring out how to kill a bunch of cannon fodder thugs.

Anyway, this is a humiliating release from BioWare as far as I'm concerned. It's our fault though that these games get released because our standards as gamers have really -really- dropped.

[Wiper]

It's our fault though that these games get released because our standards as gamers have really -really- dropped.

Aye, if only we could go back to the good old days of, say, 2002, when we only bought and supported high quality, lovingly-crafted games like The Sims: Vacation, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Zoo Tycoon!

[Retroguy]

Unfortunatelly this doesn't cut it for me.

I don't want every fight to be difficult, especially when I'm fighting all the time. That is why the whole thing is unbalanced.

I want to have some easy fights, some difficult fights and Bosses. Which is what normal difficulty should be for me. In hard you get hard fights, very hard fights and Boss fights. It makes the whole thing quite stupid imo. I'm a fucking great warrior, I don't want to spend my time figuring out how to kill a bunch of cannon fodder thugs.

Anyway, this is a humiliating release from BioWare as far as I'm concerned. It's our fault though that these games get released because our standards as gamers have really -really- dropped.

Ok, hard is a misnomer- perhaps challenging is a better word. And I'd totally disagree that the whole thing is unbalanced.

Some fights for me are definitely easier than others for me. It's only been extremely, unfairly (I thought) hard once or twice, and I only took issue with those fights since they were a lot harder both in point of where I was in the game comparatively to other fights at the time, and in point of context of who/what I was fighting. Most of the cannon fodder mobs appearing at night in the town areas I've had in act 1 and at the start of act 2 where I am now aren't hard, but then again you can't just sit by and let the tactics run themselves, you have to pause combat and act accordingly to the fluid situation.

This is only on hard though- is your issue that on normal everything is way too easy, and that there should be something in between the two difficult levels? Otherwise I'm confused.

OK, so it's an opinion thing, but I can't see how anyone could call this a 'humiliating release'. There are definitely things in there which irk me, which shouldn't be in there, which suggested rushed development, like the repeat environments. However, these only annoy me so much because there are some really good things in there, and without those stupid errors, the game could have been truly great.

[Talk Show Host]

Aye, if only we could go back to the good old days of, say, 2002, when we only bought and supported high quality, lovingly-crafted games like The Sims: Vacation, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Zoo Tycoon!

But we were younger then. We should know better by now!