99 réponses à ce sujet

[Rinor]

Ever since Throne of Bhaal, Bioware never came close to delivering a game of the remote quality of either Baldur's Gate, especially SoA. I genuinely believe, Shadows of Amn might well be the best RPG in existence and pains me to say that Bioware got worse as time went by. NWN was meh, KOTOR was pretty good although it's getting slightly overrated in hindsight in my opinion, and in all honesty, KOTOR 2's writing blows 1's out of the water. Too bad it got shipped in a pathetic state. Oh well. Jade Empire? Meh. Mass Effect 1 was somewhat decent but I felt, Bioware was not ambitious enough. It was simply too small a game, too reptitive and so forth. No need to go over all the criticism again, you guys know the details I reckon. ME2 might have as well been developed by Infinity Ward or Epic Games.
ME3 had seriously some of the worst writing in a AAA production I've seen all year and that says a lot considering the poor writing quality in gaming. Dragon Age 1 was a poor attempt at appealing to the BG crowd. It was drop dead boring most of the time especially in that dwarven underground city. Hell, the dungeon took hours and it looked all the same and played all the same. Dragon Age 2 is nothing but an insult.

Let's face it, BG2 is head and shoulders above anything they've ever done and nobody expects them to repeat that success.

[horacethegrey]

Well I think you're wrong. I think some of Bioware's later titles are equal in terms of quality to the Baldur's Gate series. Jade Empire is one such example, as is Mass Effect 2. And Dragon Age: Origins was a brilliant tribute to Baldur's Gate. 

[Eternal Phoenix]

Dragon Age: Origins wasn't set in the dwarven underground city "most of the time" which proves you've no right to judge the game when you've only played the Dwarven noble origin and then went right back to the city after finishing Ostagar. That's your own fault. There were only two long dungeons really and that was the deep roads and the ruined temple. The Circle Tower and Brecilian forest were the other places you explored as part of the main plot and they weren't dungeons.

NWN1 was pretty good too and had more classes, races and deeper customization than Baldur's Gate. It also had a pretty good multiplayer experience allowing people to be dungeon masters and the final expansion had plenty of choices, consequences, great characters and well-written quests to be considered a great RPG. The story in the final expansion was amazing too and contained some very good twists and really good multiple endings.

Jade Empire I couldn't care for. KOTOR I haven't played. ME1 was decent. ME2 was good but it showed Bioware's decent into action-RPG territory more so than ME1 (which was an action-RPG too but I found it didn't focus on action too much).

[Olaf_de_IJsbeer]

I respectfully disagree where Jade Empire is concerned. Perhaps the combat system needed some work, but the writing was solid. The real villain was a very clever bastard who I never saw coming.

[Eternal Phoenix]

Olaf_de_IJsbeer wrote...

I respectfully disagree where Jade Empire is concerned. Perhaps the combat system needed some work, but the writing was solid. The real villain was a very clever bastard who I never saw coming.

Not that I was saying Jade Empire was bad or anything. I think it was the gameplay (IMO) which was the major flaw and not the story which as far as I can recall was pretty good (like with most Bioware titles until recently...).

Modifié par Elton John is dead, 11 août 2012 - 07:41 .

[Rinor]

Elton John is dead wrote...

Dragon Age: Origins wasn't set in the dwarven underground city "most of the time"

Perhaps I worded that poorly. I meant the section in the dwarven city was incredibly tedious. As was much of the game in my opinion but I do give Bioware credit for trying.

NWN1 was pretty good too and had more classes, races and deeper customization than Baldur's Gate. It also had a pretty good multiplayer experience allowing people to be dungeon masters and the final expansion had plenty of choices, consequences, great characters and well-written quests to be considered a great RPG. The story in the final expansion was amazing too and contained some very good twists and really good multiple endings.

Jade Empire I couldn't care for. KOTOR I haven't played. ME1 was decent. ME2 was good but it showed Bioware's decent into action-RPG territory more so than ME1 (which was an action-RPG too but I found it didn't focus on action too much).

Aside from your slight glorification of NWN, at what point do we disagree? I'm not saying everything Bioware did after BG2 was bad; my point was that BG2 was a huge fecking spike in terms of quality compared to Bioware's output prior and especially after its release. Some of the releases in the past century were memorable, others were not - no big deal but I see very little indication that Bioware could pull off another Shadows of Amn ever again.

Modifié par Rinor, 11 août 2012 - 07:52 .

[Khayness]

Jade Empire is one of the most unique games out there (setting and combat system), and for that I hold it in high regard.

[BatmanPWNS]

You're expectations of game put my expectations to shame.

[Il Divo]

Rinor wrote...

Ever since Throne of Bhaal, Bioware never came close to delivering a game of the remote quality of either Baldur's Gate, especially SoA. I genuinely believe, Shadows of Amn might well be the best RPG in existence and pains me to say that Bioware got worse as time went by.

Eh, you lost me at Baldur's Gate 1 being one of their best games.

Between the laughably bad dialogue, paper-thin characters, over emphasis on exploration, a main plot designed around a scavenger hunt for most of the game, and Vancian Casting/DnD 2.0, I'd be hard-pressed to call anything in Baldur's Gate 1 quality. Bioware has since broken away from many of these aspects which limited BG1, thankfully.

Modifié par Il Divo, 11 août 2012 - 09:41 .

[Gotholhorakh]

Rinor wrote...

Ever since Throne of Bhaal, Bioware never came close to delivering a game of the remote quality of either Baldur's Gate, especially SoA. I genuinely believe, Shadows of Amn might well be the best RPG in existence and pains me to say that Bioware got worse as time went by. NWN was meh, KOTOR was pretty good although it's getting slightly overrated in hindsight in my opinion, and in all honesty, KOTOR 2's writing blows 1's out of the water. Too bad it got shipped in a pathetic state. Oh well. Jade Empire? Meh. Mass Effect 1 was somewhat decent but I felt, Bioware was not ambitious enough. It was simply too small a game, too reptitive and so forth. No need to go over all the criticism again, you guys know the details I reckon. ME2 might have as well been developed by Infinity Ward or Epic Games.
ME3 had seriously some of the worst writing in a AAA production I've seen all year and that says a lot considering the poor writing quality in gaming. Dragon Age 1 was a poor attempt at appealing to the BG crowd. It was drop dead boring most of the time especially in that dwarven underground city. Hell, the dungeon took hours and it looked all the same and played all the same. Dragon Age 2 is nothing but an insult.

Let's face it, BG2 is head and shoulders above anything they've ever done and nobody expects them to repeat that success.

Hrm, OK, you have a valid point in there, but I don't think it's that they were flukes. I think it's the culture that has changed, and that it's not the same BioWare that made Baldur's Gate at all.

Firstly, they made a few RPGs and not all of them were that great, but some of them were pretty much awesome. A good deal of hype has been added by those of us who have been enthusiastic fans with quite unjustifiable worship despite the occasional stinker, combined with their (comparitively) good writing, along with a healthy dash of the great unwashed confusing them with Obsidian.

Secondly, probably their most applauded games along with their RPG reputation come from the overhead tactical party based type genre, but there is no sign that BioWare now likes this kind of game, wants to make this kind of game or wants to tread in - sorry associate with the former BioWare fans who loved to play it.

DA: O was probably the swansong.

I think we will see Dragon Age get more and more sub-Fable - maybe never quite daring to come out and fully be what it's trying to be, in exactly the same way Mass Effect got better in those moments where it acted like the half film, half action shooter game they were really hinting at.

So in a sense, you're probably right - I doubt we'll see more great games of that genre from BioWare, looking forward.

We will probably see more Jade Empire, Mass Effect, DA2 and swtor sequels/clones.

Il Divo wrote...
Eh, you lost me at Baldur's Gate 1 being one of their best games.

Yeah, BG itself was pretty dry - I sometimes wonder whether people have actually played it.

On the other hand, I can see why someone would say it was one of the best BioWare games - even though it's not great, I can see why you'd still rather play it than JE or ME for instance.

I think it reveals the spottiness BioWare has always had - which is why we've always had such an on-off relationship with them as a fanbase. In that sense the OP would kind of be right.

Modifié par Gotholhorakh, 11 août 2012 - 09:55 .

[Zeroth Angel]

Rinor wrote...

Ever since Throne of Bhaal, Bioware never came close to delivering a game of the remote quality of either Baldur's Gate, especially SoA. I genuinely believe, Shadows of Amn might well be the best RPG in existence and pains me to say that Bioware got worse as time went by. NWN was meh, KOTOR was pretty good although it's getting slightly overrated in hindsight in my opinion, and in all honesty, KOTOR 2's writing blows 1's out of the water. Too bad it got shipped in a pathetic state. Oh well. Jade Empire? Meh. Mass Effect 1 was somewhat decent but I felt, Bioware was not ambitious enough. It was simply too small a game, too reptitive and so forth. No need to go over all the criticism again, you guys know the details I reckon. ME2 might have as well been developed by Infinity Ward or Epic Games.
ME3 had seriously some of the worst writing in a AAA production I've seen all year and that says a lot considering the poor writing quality in gaming. Dragon Age 1 was a poor attempt at appealing to the BG crowd. It was drop dead boring most of the time especially in that dwarven underground city. Hell, the dungeon took hours and it looked all the same and played all the same. Dragon Age 2 is nothing but an insult.

Let's face it, BG2 is head and shoulders above anything they've ever done and nobody expects them to repeat that success.

Planescape Torment?

[Gotholhorakh]

Wimbini wrote...
Planescape Torment?

Hrm, I think there's still room for a "might" there.

[Gandalf-the-Fabulous]

Wimbini wrote...

Planescape Torment?

Planescape Torment wasnt a Bioware game, it was just made with the engine Bioware developed.

[termokanden]

More Biobashing... Really? Companies change, for better or worse. That doesn't make those first games flukes. Clearly they were made by people who knew what AD&D was all about, they respected the setting, and they made awesome games. I don't believe for one second that this happened by accident.

I also think you're way off about Dragon Age: Origins, Jade Empire and ME2.

Modifié par termokanden, 11 août 2012 - 10:16 .

[Gandalf-the-Fabulous]

Anyway I gotta agree with Rinor here on nearly everything here, not many people would like to admit it but it is true.

Personally I think the only real reason that Bioware's other games are held in such high regard is not because they are such an awesome developer but more because they diddnt really have much competition at the time those games were developed. Honestly for a long time the only other developer who offered an experience similar to Bioware was Obsidian.

[termokanden]

Gotholhorakh wrote...

Yeah, BG itself was pretty dry - I sometimes wonder whether people have actually played it.

I just don't see what's wrong with BG 1. I did play it, and probably a bit too much. I loved it. It did something I hadn't seen in a game before.

Modifié par termokanden, 11 août 2012 - 10:23 .

[Chromie]

Rinor wrote...
Let's face it, BG2 is head and shoulders above anything they've ever done and nobody expects them to repeat that success.

I've been saying that for a while even before Bioware Origins.

[bussinrounds]

termokanden wrote...

Gotholhorakh wrote...

Yeah, BG itself was pretty dry - I sometimes wonder whether people have actually played it.

I just don't see what's wrong with BG 1. I did play it, and probably a bit too much. I loved it. It did something I hadn't seen in a game before.

  Pretty dry = not enough romances

[Rinor]

Admittedly, in hindsight BG1 is flawed. BG2 remains a fantastic, timeless game though.

[Rinor]

greengoron89 wrote...

Ah, gotta love these threads where the old fogeys crawl out of the woodwork and talk about how much better things were back in their day - you begin to understand why they stayed in the woodwork in the first place, and prefer that they crawled back into it.

Is this supposed to mean something?