Am I really the only person who can't stand the new (ie. post-KotOR) Bioware games?
Mass Effect and Dragon Age have clichéd (and, in Dragon Age's case, blatantly stolen) settings and plotlines (which have exactly the same plotline as KotOR, basically).
I don't know, I just found Mass Effect and Dragon Age to be hilariously dull, in terms of character development, plot development, combat (good at first, soon got repetitive), etc etc.
Giving credit where it's due: Voice acting is top notch, graphics allow the games to run on any system and the gameplay isn't TERRIBLE just a bit boring.
I don't see this changing with Star Wars: The Old Republic, either. The plotline is going to be something along the lines of a character suffering a tragedy or whatever, joining special order of bad arses and saving the galaxy. Hella dull, especially since they're still using the old, tired MMO combat systems.
None of these games even begin to compare with Baldur's Gate II, Planescape Torment, Fallout (I and II) or Icewind Dale. Sure, the gameplay and combat in those games was a bit esoteric, but the writing was top notch and the combat wasn't very much more dull than the newer games'.
What does everyone else think? Can you not stand the newer Bioware games either? Or do you love them? (Please tell why.)
P.S. If you're wondering where Bioware basically ripped the entire Dragon Age setting from, go have a gander at the Prince of Nothing series by R. Scott Bakker. Mages who are persecuted by the temple and live in wizard towers, "dark fantasy" setting, "darkspawn" monster guys who are described almost exactly how the typical darkspawn look and who just go rampant until their God of Death rises again, etc etc. They're amazing books by the by.
Holy crap I'm going about life all wrong!
The past is like moldy cheese...it stinks and I wish I could throw it away
Don't we all?
I didn't play a Bioware game until Dragon Age (didn't really get into PC gaming until 2007). I don't know where they got their ideas for ME, ME2, Dragon Age, but I can say that I continue to enjoy them and the story writing was superb. EA behaved themselves with just a disk check on DA and ME2 which is what got me off the fence in the first place.
I wasn't sure about "space" FPS games but ME blew me away and ME2 was even better. A bit light in the pants as far as RPG goes, but still a fun game. Pausable real - time combat in DA IMO is a great compromise between true turn - base and RTS.
I loved the way Bioware talked this up as something new, when it'd been in BG, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment etc.
Which the vast majority of th eplayers of DA:O probably never even heard of never mind played...
....short of us old timers, back when games were on more than a single disk
I loved BGII's epic 4 disc install lol. They all had different cool art on them! And I loved the BGII manual. Even if it had a lot of misinformation, it had way more flavor than manuals do nowadays.
BG1 had 5 discs (6 with expack) and you had to put the disc in when you got to that stage of the game. Ugh.
At least it wasn't a floppy...
Darklands was on like 12 5.25" floppies or something.
I thought Dragon Age was kinda boring. Very scripted and forced and the action just wasn't that great. I'm also already tired of the DLC milking of players and almost never partake.
I'm an old school PC gamer, I miss isometric style games like baldur's gate and x-com.
I'm really tired of everything being turned into 1st/3rd person shooter style games (or RTS).
I'm also a MMORPG player since EQLive...and the first person style RPGs to me always feel like empty and lifeless MMOs. For single player cRPGs, I just absolutely prefer the older style isometric full party games like BG, IWD, TOEE or action RPGs like Diablo, NWN1, TQ, FA1/2.
Fallout 3 is/was an abomination. It might be a decent game, but it deviates so far from the style of the originals that it's just not really Fallout.
Same with the upcoming x-com debacle. X-COM is one of the most beloved pc games ever and releasing some first person shooter with the name xcom attached is just wrong.
I keep hoping that jagged edge will finally see a new version that's the same style game modernized but it wallows in the void like X-com.
I really don't get it. The Baldur's Gate style games are some of the most popular in cRPG history yet nobody makes games like that anymore. NWN1 had/has a massive following and was insanely popular yet they moved away from the original style and brutalized the franchise with 2. The X-COM series is STILL considered one of the best things about PC gaming history and NOBODY makes squad-based turn-based tacticals anymore.
PC gaming has lost its heart for the most part. It's all about repetitve and ultra bloated FPS and RTS now with so much effort put into visuals that gameplay is often lacking and the dev costs are insane due to the art/graphics involved so they effectively drift away from making PC games to making dookie to sell copies to pay for it all.
The only company that sticks to its roots is Blizzard, who pumps out hit after hit and proves that you can improve on older style games and gameplay that PC gamers actually LIKE, have solid graphics without causing everyone to buy a new PC, and sell a ton of copies.
SC2 is getting rave reviews for being basically the same game it's always been with some improvements and tweaks and exceptional gameplay/campaign. Some say, don't give it good scores because it's basically the same as SC1. That's idiocy. You rate games on how fun they are, not on how much technical glitz and how fine a graphics card demo they are.
Diablo III will be out eventually. It'll still be an isometric game with a fixed camera angle - very dated style. But it'll have a great storyline as always, great gameplay, high level of polish, great replayability, and it'll be fun as hell. That's good game design. And it won't be a frickin first person shooter.
Since everyone's kind of talking about Bioware, I've got a quick question about Dragon Age.
Do you have to manage your party in combat or it like KotOR where it's kind of optional? I've shied away from it because I'm not so interested in dealing with a whole party.
That said, I don't think Bioware is that great of a developer. I liked KotOR, but Jade Empire and Mass Effect did nothing for me, though I would like to give JE another chance just because of it's setting.
They do stuff themsevles (and you setup special tactics for targeting and ability use), and with the Advanced Tactics mod you can make your tactics better and have your own player char automated. Not to mention have rouges automatically get into backstab position.
That really enhances the game for me.
Because it's not flashy graphic-pretty, therefore, it won't sell like all the other 3rd/1st RTS/FPS out there, plus it doesn't play that well on console.
Thought there IS squad based games getting out, but most are from small indi companies, and (the ones I tired) are buggy. Not to mention they all got the isometric 3D road (like Jagged Edge, AKA Jagged Alliance 3 minus the momorable chars and one-liners)
It's optional. You'll want to do it (especially with the mages) to get the most out of your party/for the hardest battles, but the AI is much better+more customisable than BG2 so you can rely on it for the most part without any issues.
I found that crowd control was the thing that made me pause the most. When I played a mage, i didn't pause very often to manage the party, but as a rogue I did.
I honestly can't wait to see the amazing games you all come out with, I mean you can criticize bioware so harshly that means you can damn sure do it better.
Yeah, I agree with most of this. It's sad that these old game types that were hugely popular were basically abandoned. I can see the large money grubbing companies shying away from them but what about all the indie/small developers out there? If one of them actually made a really well done game of one of these types I bet they would sell a lot of copies and get a loyal fanbase that would continue to follow them. Maybe they are out there but I just don't hear about them?
There are a lot of neat games coming out of some of the European (I know this is a broad term) companies. Really neat ideas and conceptsm nich type RPGs and Stategy titles. The problem is, often times the quality is not there and their support is abysmal. It's easy to get burned and wind up with error messages in some foreign language and CSR that shrug and tell you to buy the nex game which should be better.
I thought Cryostasis was very good.
Well I didn't mean that all of them are low quality or that all from one region is always high quality. There are jut a lot of RPGs and Strategy titles coming out of the eastern european area that don't get much press that are niche like/unqiue, but there are some quality issues attached to them which, frankly, keep me from recommending them to people.
Yeah, most of them suck.
And the ones that don't, suck for a console player.
Arma2 is a great example from good old Prague.
That has to be the most pathetic defence for anything... Ever. Seriously.
I consider myself a good designer, but I don't have a clue how to program. Then again, I might like diminishing returns far too much. :<
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you can't design and build your own car out of pocket. Does that mean you can't tell the difference between a Yugo and Mercedes Benz, or spot the flaws in them? Does it mean you don't know whether you need a pickup truck or a minivan?
To argue a consumer cannot critisize a product he cannot himself produce is ... well ... sheep like? Slaveish? A victem waiting to happen? Whatever it is, it's not for me.
Quite true. I am playing the witcher actually and it is pretty enjoyable.
"Am I The Only One Who Can't Stand Bioware?"
Yes....yes you are.
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