The orkish look is a steryotype for a reason, it works.

Thdey are supposed to be foul, terrifying monsters, here they are ugly (but have pearly whites...) but not somethoing intimidating at all, and dont even get me started on the apespawn retcon, how the [censored]i is a damn chimp creepy ? They ruined the darkspawn. And to move away from geeric they made the qunari generic demons.

That is probably my favorite new feature for Dragon Age 2.

I think that's an unfair comparison, since Gothic 4 will have already destroyed your ear drums due to the horrible voice acting.

Actually, I think the voice actors on gothic 4 did a pretty good job considering the horrible dialogue they had to read.

really? I think I nearly gouged out my ears talking to that witch at the end of your quests on the first island.

While the demo was fun, I still just can't get into the game for some reason... It's like they don't introduce the setting at all, just like they didn't in the first game. They just thrust you into the middle of a meaningless war. <_<

I'll be renting it at any rate, but I'm not spending full price for it.

Graphics are a nice improvement. I picked up Origins last month on the PS3 and loved the 60 hours I put into it. I downloaded the DA2 demo last night and played it earlier today. Graphics were the main thing that stood out to me. Combat also felt more fluid and the spells looked better too.

i'm hoping the actual opening of the game turns out to be different from the demo in some way, perhaps there are a couple of missing scenes?

Why, you ask?

I liked the demo, a lot, but I've played it too many times now!

I'm worried that I'm going to be going through the motions during the first part of the real game since I've already played those areas as a mage, rogue and warrior. However, Flemeth's cutscenes will certainly be worth watching again.

The demo definitely cut some story out of it. I think it's just for people, myself included, who are skeptical about the new combat system and wanted to try it out.

I've not been a top of Dragon Age 2 news since they announced it.

I downloaded demo from Steam last night.

- Darkspawn looks silly.
- Cut scenes are broken, characters won't animate and just float there in static poses.
- UI is terrible

+ Combat is fun, but severed limbs and gore overall is over the top
+ Mass Effect like speech is nice, but I would prefer old DA:O style

I know it is just demo, but broken cut scenes really bothered me a lot.

About combat... How is that Hawke character jumping and spinning around even if he/she is just starting his journey?

Do you mean the loading screens in the middle of the cutscenes?

According to Chris Priestly, that will not be in the real game.

No.

I mean that none of the characters where animated, they just floated around in static poses.

Have to say I liked it. Its making me complete Dragon Age this weekend so I can play it properly, having finished the first game.

Just played the demo now.

So, the events of Dragon Age II happens during the events of DA1? So will my DA1 savegame effect my DAII game, like ME and ME2?
Because if it is during the same time wonder what they'll do with Flemeth, seeing as I killer her in DA1. And it would be weird for her to have a whole new look in this if it's the same time.

DA2 happens over 10 years. It seems imports wont effect flemmeth, just stuff like who is the king/queen of ferelden... Rather dissapointing.

Eh, I haven't seen that in the demo at all.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, it sounds like you had a technical issue.

Did you use DX11? worked fine for me but some people reported problems.

The only thing that will transfer over to Dragon Age 2 is the important decisions that you've made like who did you put on the throne, who killed the Archdemon or did you do Morrigan's ritual, who's the King Of Orzammar, stuff like that.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1169088-dragon-age-origins-awakening-da2/