Quick Look: Divinity 2: Ego Draconis

Wow this looks busted!!

" Many are trashing Divinity II like it's the worst game ever. This hate is unjustfied. The PC version has gotten great reviews, while the 360 version has received mixed reviews (but nowhere near the horrid trash some are trying to make it out to be).   Of course, though, I expect quick and harsh uneducated assumptions on games that some never intend to play. It's easier to write something off with pretentious hogwash than actually give it the time of day.   Gamers stink this generation, I must say. "

Planescape: Torment reference?  Vinny is my hero.

" Giant Bomb needs to learn an old wisdom of the jungle: always play German games on the PC. "

WORST.QUICKLOOK.EVER.(?)
Unless the Xbox-version is really that much worse than the PC-game, this Quicklook utterly failed to grasp anything that's good about D2. I played it on the PC a lot and although it's not one of the greatest titles it's at least a lot of fun. Of course it's not an easy game and you have to explore a lot without being taken by the hand like a little child at every occasion. But even the graphics (at least on the PC) aren't that bad, there are some memorable vistas to be found and especially the dungeons and interiors are crafted with attention to detail. The character development offers some interesting possibilities. In my opinion, D2 is a distinctive mix of elements from Gothic and Diablo. It's definitely a good buy for gamers who like to explore and don't just want to run around blindly in order to kill something (like in this quicklook...).
Admittedly, there are problems - the game IS 'rough on the edges'. And it seems like the developers ran out of money at some point and had to shorten the game (it still shoult be at least about 20 hours).

This game looks really bad.

This game looks like pure shit.

@Siris: I did watch the entire Quick Look - so what? The vague notion that they were doing things basically the wrong way doesn't make it any better. I do really hope not all gamers are approaching games in this way nowadays - but it would explain a lot, of course...

(A) I live by Dave's RPG rule.  (B) Why would anyone want to play this when they could be playing DA:O? And, if that isn't your cup of tea, there is Demon's Souls, Sacred 2, Oblivion, Fable 2 and the Witcher out to satisfy a person's fantasy RPG needs.  Don't play bad games.

Shorter quick looks for bad games, please...
I have a bad habit to finish all quick looks, just because I want to hear all the great things you say.

" @Uebelkraehe:  I agree. This is a pretty bad quicklook. Ideally a quicklook should let us get an unbiased look at the start of or representative portion of a game without any preconcieved bias built in. "

" @glitznglamstyle68 said:

" @emkeighcameron said:

" @Inquisitor said:

" Looks like Two-Worlds. A guilty pleasure. Very guilty. "

Two Worlds was a shitty game, but I played it straight for almost 2 weeks because the co-op was hilarious. Just goes to show how much co-op can make up for bad game production.  I don't think think Draconis will be as fun as though. "

Two Worlds was awful and just not fun at all. Divinity II however, is deeper, more satisfying, better acted, and just more polished (even though it's quite unpolished). Two Worlds was just THAT horrid. "

Two Worlds combat looks a whole lot better than this. "

  Here is a lets play of divinity II, in case you want a second opinion. I watched this first, which is why i have a better opinion of the game, although it definitely has major issues.

" Many are trashing Divinity II like it's the worst game ever. This hate is unjustfied. The PC version has gotten great reviews, while the 360 version has received mixed reviews (but nowhere near the horrid trash some are trying to make it out to be).   Of course, though, I expect quick and harsh uneducated assumptions on games that some never intend to play. It's easier to write something off with pretentious hogwash than actually give it the time of day.   Gamers stink this generation, I must say. "

I almost bought this when it was for sale on Steam...bullet dodged.

The dude on the cover looks like John Travolta.

Action-RPGs are usually right up my alley, but wow this game looks awful.  No thanks.

This QL was very off-putting. Dave sounded like his mother forced him to play it - whiny and despondent. If you hate the game, Dave, hate with a passion. It's more interesting. More than this, though, it sounded like you didn't want to do it for us! 

I know, I know, it's just a QL, a first impression. You've given the impression that game is essentially garbage by showing off all the negatives one might experience in about an hour of play. Was there anything good about the game? Does it merit a review by GB? Or, shall we just give it a non-review review based on an hour of play. In my opinion, this is fair only if the subject has passed the point of redemption. Is this the case? Or does the game develop a sloppy charm that could eventually endear it to the player?

the game does look like trash but lets give props where props are due:
 
the music and ambient sound is awesome.
the voice acting is fantastic. even better than Dragon Age's voicework in my awesome opinion.

Since everyone else has been commenting on it I'm gonna say my piece.

Lately it seems that quick-looks have generally been far more negative than they used to be and quite a few of them come across as "Hey, I played this game for an hour and let me list off all the things I don't like about it".  

I mean just looking at the last page or two of quick looks and I remember those games being heavily criticized despite most of them looking anywhere from mediocre to decent.  (Some of which like Demon Souls turned out to be excellent even)

Perhaps it's just the flaws of the quick-look platform showing through, for example the Darksiders quick look featured the boring challenge rooms but from what I've heard about the game in reviews it gets significantly better after that initial portion of the game.  Throw in some negative commentary from the GB staff and it's pretty easy to cause people to dismiss games outright without giving them a fair shake. Ultimately, it feels like we're witnessing the reason why reviewers are supposed to playthrough the entire game before writing their reviews: You simply can't fairly judge a game based off of a short period of play.

I think the GB staff should consider changing the formatting a little, maybe having a more structured and researched presentation where you guys emphasize what you like and didn't like a bit more and be a bit more knowledgeable about the games going in, so you're not saying stuff like "Well maybe it does this later on or I think it does this but I'm not sure"  

I don't know if I'd pay full price for this game... but it looks like something I wouldn't mind playing.  Also, I'm not convinced the Gamebyro engine just sucks at animation. I used to think it was just Bethesda, but this game looks really choppy. (Atleast they use really exaggerated animations like the trinity stance, makes it somewhat bearable)

Whilst the 360 port is a bit dodgy I've been having fun with it.  The combat is fun, it doesn't hold your hand and the dialogue is funny as hell, more interesting than Dragon Ages dialogue from what I've heard anyway.  It is rough round the edges no doubt and I can understand why people would go 'lol no thanks' but it's a much better game than people give it credit for.  Hell some of the more interesting games out there are the rough round the edges kinda games.  Giantbomb, with no offense to the guys as I find them very entertaining, don't strike me as people who give the lesser unpolished gems a chance, they seem to be more into the well polished AAA titles and that's fair enough.  I certainly wouldn't hold that against them, just different strokes for different folks and of course there's the whole thing of too many games and not enough time!  So I wouldn't blame them for not giving this much coverage.  Though kudos were it's due to Dave for giving so many nods to Cryostasis, that game is great.

I played this on PC at my friend's house and trust me, it is truly horrible. I mean we are talking 15 fps on a system that can run Crysis with max settings. Risen was a much better game.

Some people don't seem to understand this, but different engines are optimized differently.  While Crysis may look visually better that doesn't necessarily mean that it is more hardware demanding.  Also, with PC's there's many many variables that can impact FPS such as video card drivers and background applications.

"I played this on PC at my friend's house and trust me, it is truly horrible. I mean we are talking 15 fps on a system that can run Crysis with max settings. Risen was a much better game. "

 Interesting Quick Look, but once again I get the feeling that the GB staff and their various guests are just a little too picky when it comes to the general audiovisual presentation. I played the X360 demo after having watched this QL and, sure enough, the graphics aren't state of the art...but they're not that bad, either (Vinny is certainly easily pleased by less-than-Crysis-like graphics...). In fact, if I hadn't known about the graphically superior PC version I would even have been positively impressed by the lush outdoor environments, vibrant colors and nice lighting effects. As for the frame rate, it looks considerably worse in this video than it did on my TV (a very cheap HDTV). 

Assuming that the game's worst technical issues (save game glitches etc.) can be sorted out, I hope DD2 will find its audience. I have a feeling it would be quite content with standing not on the shoulders but in the shadow of the genre's giants, where a certain subsection of the RPG fanbase will gather together in the shade and live to grind another day.

The game is quite a bit better on the PC, it looks like crap on xbox 360.  The particle effects are still crap on the PC version but it runs alot smoother.

Thats not the first quest? I played it on pc so maybe its different but i was like, level 9 when i fought that dude.

Doing this quick look on anything but the PC version was a waste of time.

What a way to end it, goodbye and end.  Truer words have never been spoken.

Oh man, that looks horrible. I really loved Divine Divinity too!

" Its like they saw Dragon Age Origins and realized they wouldn't be able to do better so they just stopped development halfway through. "

Aah, her wounds are grave.

Looks terribly poor on the Xbox, but I've gotta say on the PC it's passable. Some people really, really love this game. I wouldn't go that far myself, however. In my opinion, it's just about OK. Certainly something to explore while my 360 recovers from RROD. Heard the ending is one of the worst to be experienced by mankind thus far, though.

They should have stuck with the 2D isomorphic view.

They cleaned up all the bugs in Divinity 2: Dragon Knight Saga, which is pretty much the Complete Edition (added in more items and the expansion).

I like Andy in this quick look. was he ever in any others?

Just got this game for free yesterday lol, probably not going to play it, but I will watch this