Yeah, it's worth playing.
Most of my hatred for Bioware games doesn't come from them sucking - they don't, they're usually fun to play through once and they are a well-executed 'mainstream' dumbed-down fun romp. Instead, my anger comes from the fact that they made BG2 and then refused to produce anything of that scale and quality ever again. Never again did they have villains as developed and well-acted as Irenicus, Bodhi and (in the background, but still showing signs of meddling every now and then) Bhaal. BG2 should have been the end of the ridiculously stupid 'meet the baddie once early, then again at the end for the boss fight, while he twiddles his thumbs or somehow stays one step ahead of you yet completely fails to interact with you for the entire intermediate part of the game' mechanic. In the movies, you'd never get a decent filmmaker reducing the interaction b/w hero and villain to a simple 'go fight a lot of stuff, fight the big boss at end and kill him'. Instead you'd get hero and villain crossing paths the entire game, trading witty repartee, foiling each other's plots repeatedly, and BOTH advancing their plans and getting stronger until the showdown. And BG2 is STILL the only AAA title RPG I've played that does that (unless you count Deus Ex / SS2). You fight Irenicus 4 times (ok 1st one is scripted, but anyway), Bodhi 3 times, with lots of cool stuff in each encounter (love the one where Bodhi has hunted you down, only for you to turn into the Slayer for the 1st time). But more the point, the villains actually DO stuff, (other than the convenient 'searching for what you're searching for, hence keeping both of you out of each other's way' that Bioware kept using after).
The gist of this overly long rant is this: BG2 taught me that Bioware CAN make great games. The fuckers just choose not to. The subtlety with which they show the 'it is Bhaal, not Irenicus, that was appearing in your dreams to talk to you and encourage you to use your evil slayer powers' would be done completely different in a modern Bioware game. It would be 'hey the players won't get it if we just hint that Irenicus isn't as mindlessly evil as that outside of his revenge quest, they might not find or read his diary that tells you that he isn't that evil (his disgust with what is happening to Bodhi etc), they certainly won't cast detect alignment on him to track his changing alignment as he gets more corrupted over the game, and they'lll probably skip over that dialogue where he says 'what dreams'. Instead you'd get a scene where Bhaal appears and explains in really big font and slow dialogue 'I was just pretending to be Irenicus to goad you into hunting him down, because I'm pissed with him stealing my kid's soul.' And then you'd get an 'int check' option, with the same dialogue written in a more complex manner.
It's like how I never really hated Tom Cruise until I saw Magnolia. Before then I thought he was just a talentless hack who has done well for himself. Hell, I'm a talentless hack of a failed actor (did a few pro theatre seaons, and minor speaking roles in 3 of the worst films to ever get a cinema release in Australia) so seeing Tom Cruise make millions was kind of like seeing 'one of us' do good for himself
. Then I saw Magnolia and realised he wasn't a talentless hack like me. The fucker could act. Really fucking well. He just chooses not to most of the time. That gives me burning hatred. If Bioware ever use Tom Cruise as a voice over actor, I strongly suggest that any feds monitoring the codex for potential terrorist threats come arrest me, before I start launching anthrax attacks for the good of the gene pool...
