Brother None said:
*flails arms* this is going to be such a mess if I have to discuss this in two threads.
Sorry about that.
Yes, our editing staff (except me) likes BioWare more than you do. No, that does not automatically qualify us as "Biowhores".
Of course not, but ridiculous claims and seeming contradictions go a bit towards doing that.
The head editor tagged ME as a disappointing game, that's what it's being reviewed as.
And that's something I just don't understand given some other information.
Why do you people get so bogged down on one line about KotOR? Yes, he's a KotOR fan. Deal with it.
I really couldn't care less if someone liked KOTOR, but praising it's writing as something great? Please. I can see someone heavily enjoying KOTOR as a fun space-opera romp, but it wasn't very well written. That would be like if someone here who really loved Arcanum tried to argue that combat in it was great, and the Blackrock Clan caverns was the pinnacle of level design. Just plain silly.
It's called game of the year for a reason. You're not comparing it to games of all time or your own high standards, you're comparing it to contemporaries.
Uh huh. And my incredibly sarcastic response was merely targeted towards the comment made about it being the best thing since KOTOR in the sci-fi writing department.
Are you sure?
To make the experience even more fulfilling, the story is conveyed through state-of-the-art cinematic-quality cutscenes,
Seems like graphics are playing a part. Especially seeing as the Mask of the Betrayer piece had absolutely nothing on audio-visual peripherals, yet Mass Effect did.
Well-executed cutscenes advance the storyline, as would well-done "talking heads", and I don't care if they're well-done by being well-designed graphically or well-written if you're not giving an image.
But does that really factor into the "writing" at all? Nobody says Bloodlines had great writing because of it's animations....they say it because it had well done dialogues that felt authentic and "real".
No, "over there" basing a setting on Objectivist philosophy and actually grasping what that philosophy is about rather than just smearing it on as a thin veneer is a good thing.
Fair enough, though I think it was less an actual good implementation of objectivist thinking and more of a "These are all the bad things that happen with total laissez faire and look at how all hell just broke loose because of it" that completely lambastes objectivist thinking as "bad" and doesn't give it a fair shake. But that's just me.
Again you seem to fail to grasp the concept of game of the year, too. Exactly what game (out of GB's coverage) would you say had a better original setting?
Well, I'm going to dodge the question and say that the whole category seems kind of, well, stupid. Personally, I don't really think there are enough "original settings" in RPGs out there, and this year is a good example. BioShock, a glorified FPS is shoehorned into the genre and given the award, with the abysmal Hellgate London, that did nothing with the setting and made it feel as artificial as can be, coming in second. Maybe ditch the originality idea and go for a best "atmosphere" award. Because a lot of games in pre-conceived settings and IP still have a lot of work in fleshing out the setting. Take Bloodlines again for example. It's set in White Wolf's World of Darkness, pretty much a over-gothed idiotfest. Troika was actually able to make it something completely different, dare I use the "I-word"? Same thing with Mask of the Betrayer, it's in a licensed IP, but it oozes creativity in the atmosphere constructed. Whereas this award is just thrown upon the few "original" settings that are created.
That said, BioShock is based less on Atlas Shrugged than, say, Warcraft is on LotR, or Mass Effect on Star Wars.
I can buy that.
You do know what "best original setting" means, right? "original setting" means "a setting created for purpose of this game, a first-timer", not "a setting that's original"
Actually....not until I read your post. The "correct" interpretation just seemed kind of silly to me, based on what I said above. It kind of seemed like an incredibly narrow category not really worth an award.
By having multiple editors?
Got me there.
That said, how retarded do you have to be to directly compare video game writing to novel writing as if they have the same standards?
In practice, you are right, it's probably stupid. But there is really nothing that makes it so video-games can't actually have some good writing besides the industry being incompetent and the consumers operating under some directive that allows them to lower their standards at will when video games come into the equation. I mean, if people demanded good writing and wrote the Final Fantasies, the Oblivions, and the like off as godawful instead of praising their brilliance, things might actually change, no?
Then again I'm operating under the assumption that narratives, whether in novel form, or game form share a lot of the same properties of good writing. Like showing character development through actions and interactions as opposed to rather contrived backstory exposition.
Where exactly did we say Karpyshyn is a great novelist?
I was just using that as a bit of a joke and to realy exemplify how bad the lead writer of Mass Effect can be. Not trying to imply anything like that.
I don't see how BioShock fails. Atmospheric music, well-implemented 50s music stuck in, great atmospheric sounds (metal screeching on metal etc.)
Works for me.
I guess this one is pretty subjective. I thought the sound did a lot more in Mass Effect than it did in Bioshock and I suppose the GameBanshee staff felt otherwise. Granted, it's probably because I'm biased against Bioshock, seeing as it really failed on all levels to surpass System Shock 2, save graphics. But then that would be holding a game up to it's predecessors.
As for "barely an RPG", that's not relevant there. For all awards except for best (indie/action) RPG of the year, all games we covered the past year were considered. Simple as that.
Alrighty then. It still seems kind of silly to shove a colossal blockbuster action game into the same category as RPGs on a mostly RPG focused site. Just me though.
All what other awards? It won one positive award, best writing, and was runner-up on another one, best soundtrack.
But guess what, neither of those rewards reflect on gameplay. Exactly where that piece of text says Mass Effect disappoints.
Wait for it....
If a game has great writing and a great soundtrack, it can't possibly disappoint as a game? Seriously?
Well, maybe it's just that I don't exactly understand the logic behind it. The team are a bunch of KOTOR-diehards, they feel the presentation and story have excelled over KOTOR and they complain about the gameplay. See, this is where it doesn't make sense. They claim it to be the most dumbed down Bioware game in terms of RPG elements, when it surely is not. There are plenty of quests where dialogue skills can help prevail, a bunch of decent choice scenarios, and dialogue skills are actually useful this time around, as there are no KOTOR-style vanilla dialogue option that do the same thing. Plus, you can "Master" Saren. How are the RPG mechanics dumbed down? They are better than every previous Bioware game, save Shadows of Amn. The companions are still the same backstory dumps as in KOTOR, and the item descriptions have been replaced by the Galatic Codex in the idea of ancillary fluff provision. And the combat seems very similar to KOTOR, in fact better, in that they trimmed the fat. Sure KOTOR had more stuff, but most o it was stuff like "Kickass 1 through 3", "Cheap Shot 1 through 4" or feats like "Will Save +1", "Will Save +2" and the like. Basically, Mass Effect is pretty much an actionized KOTOR with better RPG mechanics when comes down to gameplay. And let's face it, KOTOR didn't exactly have any tactical depth whatsoever, so action elements and twitch skills actually do better the formula in this case. Yet even though KOTOR is the cat's pajamas to the staff, Mass Effect is a huge disappointment even though it's basically "the same formula" that they wanted and more.
I just don't get it. Seems kind of hypocritical.
He may even be a nice person, despite all that Wink
Maybe...
