Also, for fun and to keep up morale, a letter I sent to a friend (too damn long to just call a message)
In my case, I've been on with Bioware since their second game. Baldur's Gate defined my childhood. I played Baldur's Gate one and two over and over so many times I could probably recite every line of dialogue in my sleep, and do an accurate impression of every character (Minsc and Boo stand ready! Every hamster, has his day. Don't ask.) I saw all the care they put into those, and by extension I cared. It even effected how I view romance, realizing that an actual strong relationship comes when two people complement one another, finding this out through a romance with one of the characters, being her strength when she needed some, and her being my innocence which was slowly being consumed by my very nature. Icewind Dale was OK (I still think every Bioware game is best when they make the characters, otherwise it just feels drab and flat and I'm not involved, but hey, it was Infinity Engine, so I still loved it.)
Planescape Torment was another game I REALLY REALLY liked, another Infinity Engine game, so similar and yet they turned every single expectation in the game totally turned on it's head, reversed and switched, and an AMAZING story, not the same "Man V.S. Himself" story we saw, but simply that of an immortal being trying to die, man versus his past, literally getting to sift through thousands of years of history, finding some of the biggest names in Dungeons & Dragons history, and finding out you happened to be those big names, it was awesome, mindblowing too.
I considered Mass Effect the best 20 dollars I ever spent, ever. No more needs to be said.
When I got it, Dragon Age Origins was the best game ever, and I loved the living hell out of it, I played it so much that I eventually went on a binge to get ready for DA2 and got sick of it for a while. (still can't face it again yet. Played waaaaaaaaaaaay too much of it in one sitting. And probably explored too much, when you know everything that's going to happen it gets a bit boring.) Awakening was somewhat eh. It did feel very similar to Dragon Age Origins (perhaps a bit too similar at times), but it felt far too short (yeah I know, expansion pack, but that's personally why I say they should have stuck with the majority of the old companions, way too little time to introduce new ones.) and the bugs did annoy me, but I lived through them and I still liked Awakening.
KoTOR I didn't try until recently, but even I knew the plot twist (which ruined much of the tension for me I am sad to say v.v) but even then I liked it. Neverwinter Nights was, well OK, but I loved Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark so much, they were fantastic, for the first time I truly got the feeling of a good D&D game in videogame form, a little rough around the edges, a little cliched, but tons of adventure, drama and fun, topped with punching out a duke of hell and becoming a legend.
Dragon Age 2 I was betrayed. No not by Bioware, by my local Best Buy. ****ers down there stole my Signature Edition copy and tried to pawn me off with a cheap ass regular copy (they have a tendency to keep the collectors editions of things for themselves down there, thieving bastards.) in the end, I got what I was promised (short of the case, still peeved about that) and I will admit, while I didn't like it nearly as well as Dragon Age Origins, It did entertain me (still felt too rough, needed more work, more time, more care, but well EA was rushing them, IMO they learned their lesson, with Bioware, you want happy fans and lots of money? You don't rush art, it's probably why they gave Bioware their 3 month extension rather than forcing them into release right away.)
Neverwinter Nights 2 I actually played before Neverwinter Nights 1, and I love that as well, it sucked up many hours of my time and like all the others had a distinct flavor. Baldur's Gate was a dark and brooding tale of a man fighting for his very soul, Dragon Age Origins was a dark fantasy in the vein of great epics,
Neverwinter Nights 2 was a Slayers-esque romp along the Sword Coast, a setting I loved at the time (before Wizards of the Coast ruined it, trying to make it more "accessible, with less overpowered characters" THAT WAS HALF THE APPEAL OF THE SETTING YOU ****ING MORONS! No I am not at all fond of WoTC for the way they borked up Dungeons and Dragons with 4th edition, the only thing they do well is trading cards and even that's going downhill, the best thing they ever did was give Paizo Publishing the rights to Dragon Magazine, which lead to Paizo making Pathfinder, which is more D&D than even D&D is now)
Neverwinter Nights 2: The Mask of the Betrayer was another dark and brooding tale of a man's fight for his soul, but in this case very human and character driven, with a source attacking him from the outside rather than within, and it let me explore something I had never seen before, high level 3rd Edition D&D, which was mindblowingly cool for me at the time. Storm of Zehir never impressed me, and while module makers for NWN2 loved it, it felt very "direct-to-video" sequel, probably since they eschewed well written and interesting characters for a player made party and exploration (which in and of itself was OK, Bioware just ended up learning there is one thing Bethesda does well, and that's exploration, and one thing Bioware does well, storyline, these do not intersect. Although maybe I just hate Storm of Zehir because it's so close to 4th edition Forgotten Realms, which ruined the setting for me, since Wizards of the Coast ****ed it up the ass. Who the **** thought a post apocalyptic setting was a GOOD idea for Faerun I ask you? That's what you guys have ****ing Dark Sun for, bring THAT back instead of ****ing up another setting.)
Mass Effect 2 was one of my favorites, and to me one of the most seamless and polished pieces of work I had ever seen in videogames, and before you comment on some bug I never experienced, when I say that I mean in the feeling, everything was sleek and smooth and fast paced, a very Dirty-Dozen action movie feel, and until Mass Effect 3 came along was my personal favorite of the two,(especially since it disposed of the inventory from ME1, I hated that thing, way too damn much crap, having to organize it all the time, spending half an hour figuring out what gear was the best and ugh, If I wanted to spend my time reading columns of numbers and looking at ugly armor I'd play Dungeon Lords, and I never want to play Dungeon Lords. Mass Effect 3's inventory I like so much better, you pick what guns you want, you pick what mods you want and you go, if you need different types of ammo, you change in the field and don't have to spend 5 minutes futzing with your inventory to get something at didn't feel like much of a benefit worth taking the time in ME1 in the first place. But that's neither here nor there.)
ME3 I loved from the moment I got my hands on it, played the demo and was immediately sucked in, since I hadn't played Arrival yet I was wondering what the hell was going on, and was psyched for Arrival (which I also enjoyed, getting the chance to go solo and kinda cowboy around was a hell of alot of fun) and played through it, loooooving the gameplay and getting in the story too, in fact it's where I had my first brush with indoctrination, since when I saw that kid disappear from the vent without so much as a sound (just poof, here one minute, gone the next) my first thought was "That kid ain't really there, is he?" since it's such a common movie trick to indicate when someone is not entirely real.
Mass Effect was really one of the first times I ever cried at anything even approaching a movie (there were a few exceptions, like some very good short pieces I've seen, but very few, sad moments in movies and novels just tend to leave me feeling hollow and empty, rather than crying.) It was ABSOLUTELY the first time I ever felt like crying at something that happened in a videogame, Mass Effect 3 grabbed me up in a fantastic story, for the first time, I wasn't just controlling Shepard, I WAS Shepard, Garrus was my buddy, Ash the woman I loved, Joker the ever present smart mouth I could go to when I needing a bit of stress off, and I did feel stress, I felt the weight of the galaxy on my shoulders.
No matter how you feel about it, you can't deny, Mass Effect 3 is a fantastic game, and more than likely, if it weren't you wouldn't be feeling betrayed or hurt, you would just go on to something else, disappointed? Probably, but I doubt you would feel stabbed or hurt if it didn't touch you emotionally.
And you can see, I have alot of criticisms about Bioware games, but the fact is I do have those criticisms precisely BECAUSE I like them and BECAUSE I care, if I didn't I'd just dismiss them (like Temple of Elemental Evil, which tried to do Baldur's Gate, and failed. Miserably. Atari cannot do what Bioware does.) But the thing about all these criticisms is that with Bioware, they are far more hit than miss with me, which is a far better track record than any other game company I have followed (I'm looking at you Obsidian Entertainment.) and considering at least half if not more than that, of the games I call "good" on my shelf came from the minds of Black Isle entertainment (made up by such lovely people as David Gaider and a number of other big movers and shakers at Bioware) and Bioware itself, I have no issues saying they have my trust. Hell, I spent a page of text gushing about them, they absolutely have my trust. And I'm still excited for Dragon Age 3. It looks awesome.
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party only starts when you get her Lex0r lol
