Dick Delaware wrote...
OnlyShallow89 wrote...
I think Obsidian have the ability to make Mass Effect a more RPG-styled game, but I doubt they will. You have to remember that Black Isle and BioWare were rather close around the BG/IWD/Fallout years, and both have people from either studio. Some BioWare people went on to Obsidian, some Obsidian people have come to BioWare, and both studios have a huge array of talent. Yeah, I think Obsidian, as a company, have the upper hand in that they've got people who've made some of the most influential RPGs in the past ~15yrs, but at the same time they couldn't have functioned like they did without BioWare. They were given KotOR2 at BioWare's request as BioWare were busy with Jade Empire (possibly ME at the same time, I can't remember exactly), and I'm not sure what happened with NWN2 but BioWare did assist with development in both games, just as they assisted with CDProjekt Red's Wiedźmin (aka The Witcher).
Obsidian have not had a lucky run so far. KotOR2 was forced out prematurely, NWN2 wasn't bad at all and did lead to MotB, tipped as one of the best RPG expansions out. Alpha Protocol looks like it could be a nice change, although I don't really know a lot about it. And, finally, New Vegas is going to just be mind blowing. For those who don't know, the New Vegas team has some original Fallout 1+2 devs/talent behind it, so it's very likely that it'll be "truer" to the series than FO3 was, but even they have admitted to liking FO3.
But just to clear a few things I noticed up. Fallout 3 and New Vegas don't use the TES Engine as that doesn't exist. They use the Gamebryo engine, which is also used by Firaxis for Civilization IV and a few other companies use it. Obsidian are not owned by ZeniMax as someone claimed, they're a private company. You cannot blame Obsidian for KotOR2, that was clearly LucasArt's fault - There is no way you can crank out a full length retail RPG in ~18 months, but that's what was forced upon them.
Not only that, the release date was pushed back in KotOR II by about three or four months to make it in time for Christmas It was intended for release in the first quarter of the following year, but after Star Wars: Republic Commando needed more development time and wouldn't make it for Christmas, Lucas Arts decided to push KotOR II out unfinished.
I guess you can blame Obsidian for putting something together that was way too ambitious with the time that they were given (i.e. exploration of The Force, A LOT of cut content that included two planets) but it's clear that those three months would have really helped them out a lot. Some parts, like the HK-50 factory were almost finished anyways. For my money, the atmosphere, characters, and dialogue were far better than BioWare's effort. I also liked that the evil options were far more manipulative and cruel and less schoolyard-bully like in KotOR I. It's not perfect, and obviously it ends quite badly, but a lot of you are not giving Obsidian enough credit.
I gotta agree on this. Obsidian made some amazing strides in KOTOR although I do prefer Kotor1 in the long run. The main thing that I enjoyed was the ability to directly affect the alignment of party members which altered their physical appearance. Although this fell short because if didnt affect their in game decisions, it was still a great advancement and hopfully in the future this concept can be further developed. Playing as a Sith was particularly enjoyable specifically because of the sheer manipulation and destruction you cause in the people around you. I loved that when the "handmaiden" runs ahead of you to do your will if your a Sith and ultimately fails, you can walk over her on the ground and say "Never fail me again". The writing was extraordinarily deep and the characters were well crafted... what little we could actually get at.
The problem is that regardless of how great the game was or could have been, it was simply not, because of very serious issues. The overall plot was not easy to grasp because so much was cut or unresolved. Most people when they got to the end of the game had no clue what was going on, who are all these new Darth people, and why are they doing this? Because they can??. The bugs were also very unforgiving and made the Xbox console lag at regular intervals both in and out of combat. The problem is that all these bugs shroud the great concepts.. becasue you cant access them. Ill end my rambling and get to the main conclusion.
Kotor 2 was actually a great game, but all the flaws of it are indicative of Obsidian games - cut content/unfinished/full of bugs. The exact same problems that plagued NWN2. Although Obsidian can introduce great concepts and writing to a game, their implamentation ALWAYS falls short. Blame can be placed anywhere, but the problems ultimately happened which is inexcusable. I for one wish Obsidian the best of luck with Alpha Protocol because frankly they need to have a non-botched release and a game that is widley accepted by the gaming community to get the bad taste out of peoples mouths from their previous botched titles.
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the very broken VATS combat, clunky shooter aspect and crappy engine with it's dreadful animations.
