Editorial RPG Codex Retrospective: Roguey fights for social justice in Josh Sawyer's Icewind Dale II

[Infinitron]

Tags: Black Isle Studios; Icewind Dale 2

The year was 2002. Under the inept management of the notorious Herve Caen, Interplay was dying. The company needed money fast, and so it was decided to bring back the Infinity Engine for one last hurrah. Icewind Dale II was a project that should never have been. A slam dunk of a slam dunk. A game that nobody had asked for. It would also be Josh Sawyer's first stint as a Lead Designer.

Did Josh do a decent job? Is Icewind Dale II the black sheep of the Infinity Engine games, or is it an underrated classic? Is Josh Sawyer a true progressive, or merely a fauxgressive white boy with a rape fixation? One Codexer has decided to find the answers to those questions.

Strap yourselves in, because it's time for...

Read the full article: RPG Codex Retrospective Review: Roguey fights for social justice in Josh Sawyer's Icewind Dale II

 

[Arkeus]

Heheheheheheehheheheheheheeh

 

[evdk]

"To zas bude v álejích nablito..."

 

[Infinitron]

You can thank felipepepe for that glorious image, by the way.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I'm not sure about the integrity of having Josh Sawyer do retrospective reviews of his own games.

 

[Zeriel]

Oh god, that rape section. Comedy gold.

 

[felipepepe]

I'm not sure about the integrity of having Josh Sawyer do retrospective reviews of his own games.

We are all reading it as a post-mortem, but don't tell him, he has special needs.

 

[evdk]

I'm not sure about the integrity of having Josh Sawyer do retrospective reviews of his own games.

We are all reading it as a post-mortem, but don't tell him, he has special needs.

That's not even post mortem, that's post modern.

 

[Roguey]

That was quick.

I see you decided to leave the images on imgur instead of hosting them on the Codex. Hope they don't delete 'em. Oh well, no compression this time.

Soundtrack is The Stooges' Raw Power by the way.

Edit: Urgh, I see that in my revision I accidentally deleted the source for The Black Hound rape. It's the same link as the the one where I talk about how he messed up the cinematic and narration between chapters 1 and 2.

 

[Infinitron]

I see you decided to leave the images on imgur instead of hosting them on the Codex.

Yeah, because they were well-sized this time, but I may copy them over just in case, now that you mention it.

 

[AstroZombie]

I wonder how much rape we're gonna see read about in Project Eternity.

 

[Overboard]

Rape. Rape never changes.

Anyway, does this mean Roguey has a secret desire to be raped by Josh?

 

[Zeriel]

I wonder how much rape we're gonna see read about in Project Eternity.

"A supernatural tragedy is witnessed by the player at the beginning of the game" = Supernatural rape!

 

[Roguey]

I heard story for the Ice wind Dale II was written over one weekend. Tight deadline.

I sourced this in the review, it wasn't exactly a weekend but close.

That was on a Wednesday afternoon. Feargus asked me to work with Steve Bokkes to create a story and area overview by Thursday afternoon. Steve and I talked about it for the rest of the day. I went home that night and worked on the overviews until the next day. I came in and turned the docs in, and after the Friday division meeting, the project was in development.

 

[IDtenT]

So, The Codex is just another page-hit website now?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Ain't even gonna read this.

 

[Infinitron]

Edit: Urgh, I see that in my revision I accidentally deleted the source for The Black Hound rape. It's the same link as the the one where I talk about how he messed up the cinematic and narration between chapters 1 and 2.

PM me a fixed version of that paragraph.

 

[karfhud]

Dunno. Without getting too much into details, Icewind Dale II felt like a natural successor to the first game - I liked the revamped art style, new UI, I even fell for the music (although you're very much on point when you write that IWD I's OST is better). This way or another, both this piece and the previous one have stirred my thirst for revisiting the series.

 

[MasPingon]

Rpgcodex officialy became gaygamer spawn. In our next quality, indeph review Anita Sarkeesian will be talking about how much better P:T would be if you could play as a faggot. Stay tooned

 

[evdk]

 

[MicoSelva]

On to reading.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

There's also a massive amount of rape; more than nearly any other mainstream game of which I am aware. It even retcons


a lot of rape into the original Icewind Dale. These aren't just your run-of-the-mill legitimate rapes either, but systematic monster rapes that result in pregnancy; that old xenophobic subtext revealing white men's fear of The Non-White Other invading their homes and taking "their" women.


On further reflection I realized Josh Sawyer's fixation with rape isn't just limited to IWD2, but rather every project with his writing contributions. He's the one who brought Ginnafae and Marketh into IWD; the only rape situation in that game as far as I can remember. The Black Hound would have included a character who had become pregnant from rape. The Alien series is all about impregnating rape* and the Aliens RPG would have been no exception.

Sawyer ordered George Ziets to write a quest about rape into Fallout: New Vegas; additionally, he introduced Caesar's Legion, an army that rapes their way across the wasteland. I don't understand why someone who believes that "writing about topics with which you are familiar is a good approach" is so fixated with a subject he himself can never experience (with the lone exception of that oh-so-pleasurable and funny yuan-ti female-on-male rape). It's not as if one can't write a mature RPG without rape; (as far as I can remember) Planescape: Torment and Mask of the Betrayer did just fine. I'll have to resign myself to the fact that Sawyer is the Alan Moore* of western role playing video games. There are worse things one can be.

 

[thesheeep]

Nice review.

I just realized how much I long for a game that can keep up with the dungeon crawling fun that was IWDII.
And I really mean dungeon crawling with a party, not story driven games like the new Torment or Project Eternity.

Yes, I played KotC and it was nice, but lacking in variation. Also, for my taste it was just a bit too hard. It went over that gap between fun and frustration a bit too often for me.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

The review the Codex deserves but not the one it needs right now?

And Caesar's Legion aren't really rapists. Their women just can't say no.

 

[CappenVarra]

Hilarious. Wrong-headed. Brainwash-y. Roguey in a nutshell

p.s. IWD2 was the worst IE game, quite an achievement