Respected Bioware Team,
Firstly, I'm a huge fan of your games. I loved KOTOR, Mass Effect 1 and 2 and am avariciously waiting for Mass Effect 3. I was never a fan of Dragon Age. I heard a lot about the game but I never really got the time to play it. It was after I saw the trailer of Dragon Age 2 that I geared up for Dragon Age. Purchased it the very next day and hoped to finish it before the launch of Dragon Age 2.
The trailer for Dragon Age 2 is mind blowing. I get goosebumps almost every time I watch it. I play Dragon Age on the PC as I am a bigger fan of tactical combat rather than button mashing. I downloaded the PS3 demo a couple of days after its release and I must say I was mostly disappointed. I downloaded the PC demo just to see the difference. The PC demo had me disappointed even more.
There is no doubt that I'm going to choose the PC version for purchase as I am going to stick to my fighting style and leverage the bonus from my older saved games. But I must tell you guys I was disappointed with the demo for a few reasons. I chose the rogue for the first time and one very disappointing flaw that I noticed was when I activate the evade power, the character jumps backwards based on which direction he is facing. Now in case the player is facing away from the enemy and hits the evade button, he actually jumps towards the enemy. Shouldn't the functionality of an evade be to try to dodge the area of threat?
Next, in the PS3 version, there were noticeable pauses when the game switches between the cut-scene and the gameplay. This ruins the experience of the game. What's worse is that the pause is not only in the video, but in the audio as well. This could be alleviated by making use of background ambience.
Speaking of background ambience, there was quite a lot of it during character dialogue. I could actually hear studio background noises during some of the dialogue of characters which was quite a shock when considering the game is created by one of the best companies in the video game industry.
Another major disappointment to me was the lack of the isometric camera. Why would you take it away? I used to enjoy playing DAO in this mode the most during battles which aided a lot in micro management.
There are several others which were not as severe as these. The change in look of the darkspawn is interesting. I like the look of the new characters. The overall feel of the game is a lot different this time around. I have a feeling apart from story references, the original dragon age fans will be a little disappointed with this new UI makeover. The gameplay on the PC was a little choppy but that could just be my system.
Being a huge dragon age fan, I really hope these flaws are less prominent in the full version of the game. I really don't feel it is my place to give advice to the true champions of RPG on how to improve games but these were just a few things I wanted to take off my chest. We, the Dragon Age fan community have a lot of expectations from this game. Please Bioware don't let us down...
Yours Truly,
Shaveen
