Hi everyone,
Yes, I liked the BD demo. I am damn sure going to buy the game, even if the few gripes I have with it aren't fixed (they're really not big enough to turn me off about this game, its potential is awesome as far as I can see).
That said, the few gripes I have are:
1. Voice acting. It's terrible. I agree that the Death Knight sounds like a regular guy in a bad mood, although I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt to see whether his voice suits the context of the rest of the game. I truly hope he shows himself to be more of a chaotic, evil [nocando] than he was in the demo. I also hope there is belligerent, unforgiving conflict between him and my hero in the full game and not the grudging respect that I suspect is to come. He's a [nocando], not a pussycat.
2. I don't know if it's my hardware setup, but when I break open a barrel to see what's inside there is a delay between hitting it and the sound of it breaking playing. I am running WinXP SP1 with a SBLive! Value, an AMD XP 2400+, 512mb of DDR333 RAM, and the latest SBLive! drivers. Anyone else having this problem?
3. The game doesn't automatically unpause when I click on an enemy during combat like it did in DD. I assume this is to accomodate giving orders to a party and not just one main character? If this is the case, then I have no problem with it. Perhaps it will just take some getting used to.
4. The main character runs like a dork. Sorry.
5. The interface doesn't feel as streamlined as it did in DD, but then the context of the game has changed, hasn't it? It's no longer one man/woman against the world, there are others to consider now. The inventory management system in particular bugs me a little in that while I can open two separate inventory windows, they both appear on top of each other and unless I drag the second one off the first, it appears to be the same window at first glance. Perhaps a cascaded window style would be a little more appropriate? Also the arrows that allow me to switch between characters feel a little clumsy compared to an interface with individual pictures of my party members on it, but then again I assume this was done on purpose and the devs have taken things into consideration that haven't occurred to me (or which I will encounter in the full game with a larger party).
Other than these minor gripes, I am really very happy with the demo. I was a little concerned that the transition to 3D characters would leave something to be desired, but I am happy to say that the character graphics are only slightly uglier than DD's and not grotesque in comparison. I understand that making the characters 3D gave the artists more leeway to create more animations faster and easier than in DD, so I can forgive the devs their transgressions. I thought DD's character gfx were excellent but apparently they were a TON of work, so moving on to 3D was an obvious choice.
As for possible delays while Larian fix the few problems we've reported back to them, my opinion is that if it takes them a little longer than anticipated to get BD onto store shelves, then so be it. We've waited 2 years to play in the DD universe again, what's another month or two, right? I'd rather they release a game they are 100% happy with than release it prematurely and catch all sorts of flak for giving us incomplete, unpolished code.
And that's my feedback for the moment. I will be sure to replay the demo a number of times this weekend and let you all know if I find anything else that could use a change before BD goes gold.
One last thing - Larian, you are my new Sierra. They made quality games with heart back in the day, and it is more than good to find another developer with a similar attitude towards their games and their fans. Keep up the good work!
Cheers
Deon du Plessis
