Allegory wrote:
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I also really liked Oblivion (which felt like a much more non-linear version of DA, but with a weaker story), and the next Elder Scrolls game is in the works... so excited!
Well, I also hate Oblivion, and the Fallout 3 (one and two are fine). It's pretty all the same general gameplay to me. Again, I'm sure many people will disagree with me.
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Are Bioware flavour of the week to be bashed on or something? I don't see how you can consider anything they've made over the past 10 years "harmful"
Err, hardly flavor of the week. I've hated the games ever since I first played them, so it's hardly new. It's also hardly a popular thing to do, seeing as how I'm one of the infinitely small minority who vocally dislike the games.
I'll give you that a lot of it is just personal taste. I really don't like the style of the games. Beyond that though, they have done some things I consider to be objectively harmful to the genre. First of all, they don't innovate at all. Whether you think the formula is good or bad, Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect are all disturbingly similar games. I think SE has a lot of failures with trying out random and poorly thought out new features, but at least they're doing something different. Even more than that, most Western RPGs are also pretty similar. I'm not sure who was first and who is the copycat, but there is definitely some massive incest in the western RPG industry. Could they go one game without some good evil character development system?
It's not so much that Bioware is the sole source of what I see as the flaw so much as they are a flagship for it. I see them as the Halo of RPGs. I think their games are hugely popular and widely overrated. I think they're milking the same idea over and over, and that EA only bought them out because they thought they still had much to learn from Bioware.
Edited, Feb 22nd 2011 5:11pm by Allegory I agree with you about Bethesda's games. They're TOO open ended to the point where you feel a tad lost at times. I just couldn't really bond with my character, either. And New Vegas was just a big rip off.
I'm not sure what sort of innovation you're looking for with their RPG's. I've never played Neverwinter Nights, and while I'll agree that DA:O, ME and KOTOR follow the same good/bad system and party influence mechanics, they do still feel like very different games to me.
ME you can pretty much be as bad *** or as nice as you like with no repercussions (although we'll see in ME3 just how true THAT is). DA:O you *really* have to think about what you're saying. Because it can, and did, bite me in the *** later at times. KOTOR was just OMG IM A JEDI *swings lightsaber*.
(And let's wait and see what SW:TOR's like before we say they never innovate - it's something a little different to what they normally do, after all).
I love the whole good/evil develop your character system. It's more immersive, you feel more involved, and it helps to develop the story. Especially in Dragon Age when it gets a bit... shall we say "political"?
I can understand why it's not to everyone's tastes, though. Although unless I missed it in an earlier post, you haven't actually stated what kind of game you personally go for?
p.s. Pick up Magna Carta 2 some time. It's great. Also Eternal Sonata, if you want a bit of a mind f*ck.