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If Capcom had listened to their idiot fans, they wouldn't have made Resident Evil 4.
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As you've never played Baldur's Gate, you can be forgiven for saying that their games lack "anything distinctive." BG 1+2 are pretty much the gold standard for D&D-style RPG gaming, and although I agree that Jade Empire was quite dull, they're still a fairly strong storehouse of great writing.
That Fable was more enjoyable shows that your preference in gaming styles skews a different direction than the types of games Bioware produces, which, as I've said, are largely the cream of the crop.
Community interest is great, don't get me wrong. But when a community gets to the point of being elitist, ivory tower inhabiting fucks I do feel they harm the game(s) they love more than they benefit it.
I find it worth pointing out that despite the Forgotten Realms setting being a generally bland and generic setting, in BG2 they wrung a highly immersive game out of it.
Jon Irenicus is easily one of the best presented and characterized villains ever. Screw wanting to destroy the world or just be a dick to an area, the man makes it personal by stealing your very soul and gives even other evil pricks a reason to want to have his head on a pike.
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But don't forget that if you care enough to look into his background (and even his present at the end of the game), he can potentially be a sympathetic character. I'd never seen anyone ever pull off such a disgusting villain that I actually felt sorry for.
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Signs point to... maybe.
On that note, I think I'm going to look for my BG2 CDs.
i hope so, i dont wanna have to buy a new computer.
BRAWL CODE: 3866-7685-8500
anywho...
I seriously dont GET the praise of writing and character this game gets. As for my NPC companions...I feel as though they are an extra gun and nothing else more. What am I missing here?
Also, how can I get my hands on more dynamite...I enjoy slipping it in peoples pockets and walking away all badass like.
Also, maybe im dumb, but it seems like most my quests involve killing somebody. I admit I can usually turn it around to stab the guy who hired me in the back, but im still staining my hands with blood. Is there a way to progress in quests without getting people killed?
For all the glory this game gets, it seems to have a LOT of the same faults as other open ended games like Morrowind and Oblivion get. The writing in fallout 1 seems very very average to me. Im not saying its bad, but its nothing thats wowing me so far.
So I wore a leather jacket and some dude thought I was his ghost dad. Being mistaken for Bill Cosby does not equal great writing.
You're not allowed to touch computers anymore. Not just games, computers at all. Back away. The police will be there soon.
Not all of us masturbate to Gary Gygax and Drizzt gay porn like you and R.A. Salvatore.
I'll still get Mass Effect the moment I buy a 360 but I think that's the make or break point regarding Bioware for me at least. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised by it.
If you ever played Asheron's Call back in the day, all of your doubts would be relieved.
Honestly, A LOT of people seem to forget about Fallout 1 and only think about 2. This includes ignoring both Fallout 1's good points and its bad points. Fallout 1 did a better job in terms of atmosphere IMO. They explain stuff like super mutants and rad scorpions. And it captured a grimmer and darker setting. But not all of the writing was noteworthy. Most of it I found pretty forgettable when I reinstalled it earlier this year. I think the best writing was really the Brotherhood of Steel stuff in Fallout 1 since they had the technical knowledge and access to archives of data to expound on things. The characterization and writing take a big jump in Fallout 2, but the atmosphere in that game is quite different as well.
As for companions, you're missing Dogmeat. He really makes up for the other companions not being all that interesting in Fallout 1 and he doesn't even have any damn lines. There's just something about wandering the hostile wasteland with a loyal animal companion that resonates with people.
As I said, it's a darker game. You can avoid some combat with investment in speech and stealth, but pacifist routes require skipping many side quests. So does being a good person consistently in the game really. It's not like KOTOR where almost each quest has a light and dark outcome, it's more of choosing what to do instead of just accepting every quest and trying to bend it to your preferences.
No, but it does show how the game gave you freedom in how to do stuff. That little bit you experienced would not have worked if you didn't have a certain amount of luck and were not male. It can also backfire if you don't choose your dialogue correctly. Now consider that had you not been a dead ringer for the man's father, you could choose to use bribery, ritual combat, wholesale slaughter, possibly other forms of diplomacy/lying (I forget though), or deciding you'd rather just join them and forget about your original intentions. Remember that this was many years before stuff like KOTOR and previously PC RPGs were purely hack and slash affairs with little story. It was the new kid in a genre whose staples at the time were Might & Magic, Wizardry, the first two TES games, and Ultima and Bioware was still making action games or medical software. Context matters in this case (which is to say, as much as I enjoyed it, I know Fallout 1 hasn't aged too well especially compared to the sequel).
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...Anyone else thinking a dedicated Fallout/Fallout 2 thread might be a good idea?
There is this old thing.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
He was also able to make some very inspired content with AC's really primitive early scripting tools, doing the things that weren't supposed to be possible.
I'd put L'Etoile on my developer's dream-team, alongside Spector, Schafer and Carmack.
This is wildly off-topic.
To really enjoy Knights of the Old Republic there are two criteria you need to meet. The first is to be a Star Wars fan. The second (and the biggest one) is to be disappointed by Episode 1 and 2. The game came out about the time Episode two was released and the complaining about the movies was near its height. The game took full advantage of this by offering fans a chance to play the part of a Jedi or Sith and take part in a story that was on par with The Empire Strikes Back.
I've got Jade Empire on the PC and while I like the oriental theme I am having trouble really getting into it. Part of the problem is the mini cut scenes during the conversations. The person you’re talking to have a voice and a wide range of facial and body animations. When the camera focuses on your character you get a mute twitchy mannequin. I really wish Bioware would drop that crap of give the same level of detail to your character as they do the NPC during conversations.
Bioware is developing a new IP. Have a look a Dragon Age. While it may look dead to the casual observer (like me) they have done two magazine interviews recently talking about the game. It looks like its shaping up to be something interesting and dark.
It was released for the PC and the X-Box at a time when the life of the X-Box was at a close but the power of the PC continued to move forward. The power divide between the two was very large. The developers made the mistake of listening to the demand for high resolution graphics and making use of what the PC could do while still getting it to run on the X-Box. As a result they had to make tremendous cuts to get it to work. This is why the game has a heavy compartmentalized feel and one of the biggest reasons why it suffered so much.
The other big problem was trying to write a story that gives the player the ability to move in their own direction without anyone getting stuck because of a bad choice and still have everyone end up in the same place. This had got to be one of the hardest parts of developing a game like this.
The final big problem was the expectation level. Deus Ex was a very popular game that gave the player a level of freedom you rarely see. Not may have what it takes to even attempt something like this. Because this is such a rare thing in game the expectation level for the sequel was unreasonably high. Valve had it easy with Half-Life 2. All they had to do was make a shooter with a semi-smart A.I. and pretty pictures. Warren Spector and his team and Ion Storm tried to make an engaging and complex story line that gave the players an unprecedented level of freedom that is rarely seen in a video game.
So Deus Ex 2 didn’t measure up to Deus Ex. Big deal. There is almost nothing that even tries to measure up to what Deus Ex 2 had to offer.
If you haven’t played a Deus Ex title then give Deus Ex 2 a try. These day’s it is less than $15. I think you’ll find it’s not as bad a people make it out to be.
O.k. the rant is over. Thanks for listening.
There's one thing that I really dislike with Bethesda in terms of Oblivion. There's no excuse for the UI that shipped with the PC version of Oblivion. And there's no excuse for not putting up a toggle in options for quest markers and invulnerable NPCs.
If you're going to make these hand-holding type things (and I thought the quest markers are appropriate, and a viable alternative to putting mounds of text for directions in a game-world the size of Oblivion's. And I used fast travel when I wanted to, and explored when I wanted to. I liked the opportunity to do either), at least put a toggle in options when it's viable. And it certainly is viable for a lot of the criticisms.
I'm know they're aware of how much criticism they received for the UI elements, and I hope they can learn from it for FO3 and TES:V.
I agree.
And on the plus side if you really dont like something you can always just change it with a mod.
I never asked for this!
If you were to sum up most RPG main story lines it would boil down to “Go save ____â€. It’s always the same. Something is screwed up and you’re the only one who can save the day. The main stories of games like Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate: Shadow’s of Amn, Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale 2, Fallout, Fallout 2, Knight’s of the Old Republic, Knight’s of the Old Republic 2, Jade Empire, Oblivion, and many others all fall into the save the day category. These worlds have so many more stories to tell.
The only title I can think of where the main story is something other than save the day is Planescape: Torment. We need more games like this. Games like the Fallout series and the Elder Scrolls games offer a lot of freedom outside of the main story and that’s a good start but not quite what I’m looking for.
The kind of Fallout 3 I would like to see is a cross between Oblivion, Fallout 1, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics. Give me a big open world like Fallout but to the scale of Oblivion that uses the same game play mechanics of the Fallout titles with no main story. All I want is a few basic starting supplies and some minor quests to get the ball rolling. I want to tell my story and carve my path through this world. I don’t want a world where everyone will die if I fail the main quest. I want a world were most wouldn’t care if they stumbled upon my irradiated corpse somewhere is the wasteland.
You just described nearly every story ever made.
But really, shouldn't more RPGs have time limits? It's not impending doom if the bad guys are waiting on your stupid ass to show up before they start the death and destruction stuff.
It also prevents me from enjoying the game. There weren't time limits in Morrowind for similar reasons. There are reasons why there aren't time limits in most games.
There haven't been any time limits in games simply because there are too many slow-ass players who spend the entire game dicking around rather than playing the story line. The time limit in Fallout keeps you focused.
I never understood these complaints with regards to Fallout because there's ample time to explore the world after you get that first item for Vault 13. There's even an official patch that completely removes the second time limit after you get said item.
I really don't think the two couldn't be combined- you can have a sandbox and still have density of plot, characterization and choices.
It would just take a massive amount of time to develop.
I didn't have a problem with the time limit in Fallout 1 because the time limit for getting the item was only in the first part of the game. In Oblivion and Morrowind, the time limit would have to exist until the very end of the game.
It also effectively kills re-playability, at least for me. It always made me rush through the game, rather than leisurely enjoying all the game had to offer.
Time-limits in games are one of those fun vs. realism things.
For instance, I accidentally got in a fight in a casino in new reno. I escaped, but they had shot my dog :evil:. I came back later and exacted revenge on the whole city, vaporising every last filthy denizen. That felt like a perfectly acceptable option. Similarly, killing merchants and stealing their items also felt like a perfectly acceptable option.
The time limit is quite generous. I always get plenty of time to fuck around doing stuff and still get everything done.
Hopefully if they have any time limits in FO3, it's only for certain parts of the main quest, and they are very liberal limits, and you KNOW when you aren't limited, so you can go and cut loose for a bit. Also, they need to let you play after the main storyline is completed, ala FO2.
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