Very well said there my Canadian fellow, i too remember the old days of Bioware (own all their games except Shattered Steel and MDK II oh and their Sonic game) and how they changed when they were bought out , lets just hope Bioware wont join up with Origin, Westwood, Bullfrog, Maxis, Pandemic etc to the graveyard. The only games i was still buying from EA was from Bioware .

Not only i hate EA for killing the studios i mentioned above but with their milk all the IP they can making the game shallow and empty look at C&C and Red Alert and offer no customer support they just release a new expansion and let the bugs in and also the failed hostile take-over on Take Two few years ago. When they bought Bioware they played the cool guys saying oh we learned from our mistakes,we wont do it again and let the studios alone to make quality games, it did not last very long as you can see with ME2 and the now newest crap they birthed called DA2.

Bioware employees have been caught posting 10 scores on metacritic and when called out EA said well it's ok everyone does that , so yeah i would not be surprised if Bioware, EA and Biodrones would rate The Witcher 2 down so they could raise DA2 sales a bit more while Witcher 2 sell less so they can brag about selling more copies.

Anyhow that was my rant i just wanted to say good post and got carried away while writing hehe , Cheers

Nice post and I agree with most of it it but you seem to have omitted one thing.
Cdprojekt itself seems to be starting to target that younger audience with the witcher 2 more streamlined ui and combat , the addition of qte which is not friendly to the older audience.
And I wonder why since that younger audience shouldn't be allowed to buy this game anyway.

Yup real discussion in the link.

Rage it's Ringo here =D

I found the folks rating DA 2 a 0 quite laughable if I'm honest. There's no way the game deserved that unless it's unplayable on a technical level etc. People even cited those 0/10 reviews as being 'reliable' and having 'grounds' for said score. I'd say anywhere between a 5 - 8.5 was more fitting for the game. I also found people posting pictures of some DA 2 graphical glitches (and remodelling the textures so they looked poor, unless they really did look that way on the PC at times, I played on the PS3) rather annoying and tiresome.

All I could think of was the people who kept slagging it off wouldn't like it if their work was slagged off to the same degree. But then again, I'm a writer and I don't really believe in ripping people a new one on something they crafted. I.e., I have too much respect for people's work. What made it worse was I don't think many of the people posting the pictures considered the rather high specs for the Witcher 2 and whether they'd be able to run it. (They may not be high to some, but they are to me because I run it at low and I can run games for the PC that are also on the consoles at max or near max graphic settings). Bottom line, they hadn't played The Witcher 2 either and well... all of the down-rating etc. was incredibly childish.

Now then, so it doesn't look like I'm a BioWare fan boy, I never completed the game and I did trade it in the other week. In general, I like all games, regardless of genre and developer/publisher as long as they're good or have good stories.

Based on what I've played so far of The Witcher 2, it's the better game and I'm enjoying it. I'm in Act 1 currently. I'm just working on the Kayran quest line and have completed a few side-quests.

Also, I'd like to point out that I believe The Witcher 2 has a score of 9.0 on Metacritic. So, I don't think these down votes are having much effect at all, which is good.

However, I looked at the score for LA Noire on the PS3 and it's rated at 7.7 I think by users? I can't help but wonder if they researched the game before buying or renting, if they even played it.

I thought it was a really great game and I completed it yesterday. It must have been great for me to clear it in two and a bit days. Then again, I really enjoy cop movies and shows, so that could explain it.

No F list on GoG? I thought you were from Poland! =)

Yup, well-said.

I think another reason is that Witcher/DAO fans rated Dragon Age 2 a big fat 0 all over Metacritic when it came out and constantly harped on about how Witcher 2 was going to wipe the floor with DA2's corpse and be a faithful sequel while DA2 "fixed what wasn't broken" by changing a few things.

Whatever. People like to whine. I just play the games and enjoy them for what they are. Not that I don't have critique, but I don't believe in being a blind fangirl/fanboy of anything. DA2 had its flaws, Witcher 2 has its flaws, both of them are valid installments in their respective series, and if I don't like something in any given game, I'll just calm down and freaking tell the developers so that next time we'll see an even better game than the current one.

Though, with Witcher 2, I admit I have more hope for seeing improvement on the current game because CDPR really did great on the Enhanced Edition last time. Maybe they'll even re-recast the better actors as Iorveth and Kingslayer (though the current ones aren't bad, just nowhere near as good for their respective roles; too generic-sounding.)

Kids like to boast who's boss. Sadly metacritic has become the golden standard from which developer got their game judged. A few poorly thought out criticism or downright trolling is all its take to put off the developer, let them astray to a "streamlined, wider audience" bullshit (sadly DA2 is a prime example of this). I hate metacritic. It shouldn't exit.

Saw this on the Steam forums the other day, kinda summarizes the whole DA2, TW2 debate.

http://comicvania.com/2011/05/outplayed/

Nope nope NY why I commented on your BSN picture =o

On topic on topic.

"Sadly metacritic has become the golden standard from which developer got their game judged" Really?

Both games have their problems.

I can't seem to get around The Witcher 2's controls - 360 or KB/mouse. Also, Normal often feels too hard for me, yet Easy feels TOO EASY. Those are the two hurdles kicking me in the face. I'm guessing that next patch will help alleviate my problems w/ remapping controls wherever I want on KB/mouse.

DA2 - despite the over-usage of environments, passing off same environments as another environment w/ another name, and lack of customization of party-members' equipment - still somehow turned out STILL quite good. For every single step forward, there's some step backwards. While I'm at this - I'd love to say every game should have a JUNK CATEGORY like DA2 does - for planning to store items and sell all items w/ ONE CLICK.

Though, it would've been nicer if there were two Junk categories - one would've been a Junk for Storage and another for Junk For Selling. ;)

No, DA2 is not as amazing as DAO is - but really, what could be? DAO was simply amazing period - and it shows how long this game was in development. It takes forever normally to make masterpieces like DAO.

For me the controls are okay. I loaded multiple fights in the prologue, including the one against the many enemies and the knight in the temple courtyard...over and over again.

But it's not what you think, it wasn't too hard. It was so much fun fighting I wanted to do it again and also for training purposes. :D

I play on medium btw.

Yes, kind of. Many many developers and publisher base their goal on metacritic score. Many times publisher pushes the developer to get +80 on MC, otherwise that's a failure. Case in point: Activision and numerous ocassison to close down the studio that can't hit the sales target. One of the criteria is MC score indeed. Bioware and Assassin creed developer often say this in the interview about their game getting 85+ on MC ,and feel content with it. One theme in common of these games these days that gets high MC rating is that of Blockbuster, dumbed down, hollywood-esque games, with streamlined game play to reach wider audience, thus high sale figures. Resulting in some poor and simplistic game design that often times cut out the charm of, or totally ruin the IP. We already know DA2 for example, a one year rush job that shouldn't have been produced. You don't need to compare it to other games, it is a poorly made game but coated with hollywood style action and dialouge, but fact is it can't hide the bad aspects and gamers know this.

Granted many games on MC that get high score have their own perks and orginality, not all of them are dumbed down mainstream of course, and these aspects themselves are not a bad thing if execute and handle properly , case in point : The Witcher 2 and to some extent personally, Mass effect 2 and Assassin creed 2.

Fanboys are just dumb, narrow minded people mostly, we should ignore and not participate in their trolling. Smart people appreciate or criticize any games on their own merits. Comparison is inevitable of course and should be encouraged for a betterment of the industry and therefore, our gaming experience as a whole, but these days they are mostly downright trolling, not worthy of meaningful discussion like we have here in this thread.

Thats because im not ready to call CDProjekt on it yet H.

Yes, the combat/gameplay makes the game feel like they were designing for that same 13-25 genre Bioware now targets. I wont argue that one bit!

But is that a attempt to go mainstream at the cost of the gameplay elements or were they honestly just trying something new to make the game better and it just didnt work?

The answer lays in a comparrison of TW2 and TW1 comparing ME2 to ME1.

I dont think many will disagree that TW2 is almost as good storyline wise as TW1. Its deep, compelling, your choices matter, changing, and immersive (just not as immersive as TW1). The only thing in TW2 that feels kidified is the combat.

now look at Mass Effect 1 and 2

Mass Effect 1 was a brilliant game that was (like TW1 and 2) deep, compelling, your choices mattered, changing, and very immersive. The combat was crap mostly (ill be honest, it wasnt good) but as I said in my reveiw of TW2, you dont play these games for the combat first and formost.

Mass Effect 2 however was not brilliant, it was compelling to the new bioware fan base, the old mostly rejected game. no choice mattered, it all played out exactly the same except for 2 choices in entire game. Personally speaking I felt no connection to any character beyond Joker (Even Garris and Tali lost their appeal from the first game as Garris was just boring and they wrote Tali as a kid with hero worship willing to sleep with you, only emtion I ever felt around Tali in ME2 was dirty, the dirty old man preying on the young and stupid).
ME2 was just a shooter (combat was much improved from me1) with a linear story and some swearing. It had completely lost its heart, what made it great from ME1.

So when you look at that you see, CD made sure they didnt change (or dumb down) what made The Witcher 1 special, the story and the immersion. They made every attept to recapture the magic.

Bioware however, they made a entirely new game and slapped ME title on it for sales. They spent no time or effort trying to recreate what made ME1 special, they made a fast, sloppy, loads of excitment and action shooter because thats what EA feels sells in the mainstream.

So yeah, I been around long enough to not jump at every little change. Yes TW2 combat and gameplay feels consoleized, its story does not. So im willing to relax and say, CDProjekt, listen to your fanbase and do better combat/gameplay wise for TW3 but stay true to your roots as you did storyline and choices wise from 1 to 2.

that really made me chuckle

ROFLMAO! Thats awsome!

I refused to play DA2 truth be told but I never thought graphically it was bad!

Looking at those 2 screen shots, wow!

what a diff