Naked Ninja said:
I'm amused by all this talk about how romances in games lack "realism".
No....it's that they suck at doing just about anything. Plain and simple.
Game romances are like game combat : fantasy. A form of wish fulfillment. Not real. The girls who liked those romances liked them because they were playing out some unrealistic romantic day dream, the exact same daydream you see in just about every romantic comedy. All these attempts to explain how "that's not how it works in real life!!!" are silly. It's a fantasy.
The fuck? Who's fantasy is fulfilled by Bioware romances? Seriously? What the fuck? The problem with Bioware is that in addition to sucking, it isn't a fantasy. Let's run down their male romance options, or at least the one's Gaider may have been involved in.
Hot: Aryan elf babe who is totally into you and seems inexperienced.
Not: More emotional baggage than you can fit on a military cargo plane, constant need for psychotherapy, clingy, prudish, doesn't use contraceptives, and probably was a rape victim.
Biggest Turnoff: In the drow city, when the PC is being...ah...raped I guess by the drow priestess and tries to get out of it by saying you're already hooked up with Aerie, she threatens to have her executed if you don't do her. So you do, and then upon leaving you are bitched out by Aerie, who leaves you. Not a good male fantasy. The proper way to do that would be having the option to grab the drow bitch by the collar and demand a threesome.
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Hot: Good looking, older elf chick with an attitude and experience.
Not: Getting some dead guy's sloppy seconds bringing a whole new meaning to "the rebound", constantly hearing about said dead guy, getting attacked by her crazy harper friends, getting attacked by her crazy enemies, having her get poisoned and having to fix her up, having her get kidnapped and turned into a vampire, all along with her melting down in front of you constantly.
Biggest Turnoff: You get a cool pin for her that gives stat ups at the end of all this from Ed Greenwood's wizard-dude instead of...you know....getting some. Hope the Bhaalspawn likes the five-knuckle shuffle.
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Hot: Exotic elf babe who is open to lots o things.
Not: Into BDSM, came from a matriarchal society, and will give you more problems in public than an interracial couple would have in 1950's America. Also is a crazy bitch.
Biggest Turnoff: Feminist society. Nothing is a bigger turnoff in a male fantasy than the woman on top.
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Hot: Elf paladin babe you totally want to "corrupt"
Not: You don't get any, romancing her is all about listening to her bitch, she ditches you, and then uses you to try and get out of jail but gets executed anyway by Nasher, effectively cock-blocking the hero of Neverwinter after he saved all their ungrateful asses. No wonder he didn't show up in the expansion.
Biggest Turnoff: She ditched you for FUCKING LIZARD PEOPLE!
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Hot: Uh.....not much. She's there, and the only thing in the party you can hit without being a furry or Roman Polanski.
Not: Everything. Never was described as a bombshell, never put out, was a bitch, dropped family issues left and right, needed fucktons of therapy, was a total bitch, didn't know how to stay out of her man's way (butted in on the Malak fight and screwed everything up), was basically bi-polar, tried to go against you and needed more than a few force-powered bitch slaps, and did I mention she was the biggest bitch in the galaxy?
Biggest Turnoff: Fucking everything. Seriously, what's appealing in any way about this woman? I'm the goddamn Bat...er Dark Lord of the Sith....I can definitely pick up a better woman than this.
Now how are any of those typical male fantasies? These are nothing close to stuff like oh say....
Geralt; who is a sex god who does every peasant, noble, witch, and slightly human but still smoking hot monster woman and does so because every woman wants him because he is STD-proof and sterile.
The Chosen One; Can become a porn-star, nail a mobster's daughter, nail his wife, nail someone in every town, and even pick up perks for all his sexual exploits with nary an STD in sight.
James Bond; Who is smart, suave, deadly, experienced, and shags babes not only as a reward for a job well done, but also as part of the job. Oh, and if he has a dry spell, he's still got the OHMSS secretary who wants him.
Theseus; Kicks the crap out of bandits and then shags all their daughters. Seduces a princess to help him kill a furry, then accidentally has his father commit suicide because he has too busy banging his new bride on the boat trip home to hoist a white sail.
These are male fantasies done right. Not the Bioware head cases. Heck, the closest thing to a male fantasy in a Bioware game was Ashley in Mass Effect, who was only close to that because she was kind of down to earth and not a nutjob like Bioware's other women.
As for the female romances? I really doubt it's every female's fantasy to be awkwardly hit on by a mixture of Ren-Fair pickup lines and emotional dependence. And that leaves Bioware romances out of the fantasy category and squarely in the shitty as all hell category.
Edit: SNIPE MUTHAFUCKAS!