Dragon Age II
Playtime: 4.5 hours (4.5 hours total)
There's been a lot of heated debate on the internet about the disparity between official reviews of Dragon Age II (sitting at 8.4/10 as of this writing) versus user reviews (4.2/10). I don't really see how this is news-worthy, since there are critically-acclaimed films that flop commercially all the time, and I've yet to hear the public get up in arms about a giant film critic conspiracy. Also, the vast amount of negative user reviews seem to focus on the fact that 'Dragon Age II is not a role-playing game', which seems odd because although it's a very vague genre, it usually consists of the player taking on the role of a character (check) that they can customize (check), playing out that role, performing actions and choosing dialogue according to that character (check, check, check), lots of stats (check), a party (check) and too many items and equipment (check). If this isn't a role-playing game, I have no idea what is.
Now whether or not it's a good role-playing game is up for grabs, but the reviews never really seem to delve into that, they just tell Bioware to go back to making Baldur's Gate. What's funny is that Mass Effect 2, which went so far as to completely eliminate an inventory system (a relatively key component in any RPG), didn't get anywhere near this much of a backlash.
Dragon Age 2 Demo
Playtime: 1 hour, single play-through
I bought Dragon Age: Origins on the PC, and had never before tried it on the 360 since there was no demo. I heard the controls were completely different - while the PC version had a special top-down tactical view, the 360 had more of a hybrid real-time strategy feel that didn't quite work. I have no idea if that was true, but I was really happy I could try both versions with the Dragon Age II demo.
First thing I found out -- I can't keep up with the cutting edge of gaming PC specs. I have a decent machine that plays pretty much anything and it choked hard on the demo, not to mention throwing up a horrible yellow screen in the intro until I turned on DX11 shaders. Even with the resolution lowered and the quality set down, it was still a bit shaky at times. No fault on the game itself, but definitely a point for the ease of the 360 version.
