Editorial RPG Codex Retrospective: Roguey smashes the patriarchy in Josh Sawyer's Icewind Dale

[evdk]

Maybe i should do it.

30 pages long thread guaranteed (most of the posts written by yourself).

 

[hiver]

Maybe i should do it.

30 pages long thread guaranteed (most of the posts written by yourself).

i was trying to make sense of that internet retarded, idiotic, meaningless sentence for full three seconds but then gave up.

fuck off.

 

[evdk]

Maybe i should do it.

30 pages long thread guaranteed (most of the posts written by yourself).

i was trying to make sense of that internet retarded, idiotic, meaningless sentence for full three seconds but then gave up.

fuck off.

I can't help it that you have ADHD (and an apparent dislike for caps).

 

[wergle]

sometimes pressing shift doesn't really add anything to the post so you just skip that step

 

[TripJack]

fuck off newfag the no shift schtick is mine

 

[wergle]

but we can be friends

 

[Sceptic]

Again, it's a retrospective you morans. Read one of the retrospectives for old games they occasionally post on Eurogamer and tell me if it qualifies as a "proper review".

DarkUnderlord please redirect Infinitron to Eurogamer. Preferably before this place turns into one.

 

[Infinitron]

o_O

 

[villain of the story]

Say no to selectively revisionist bullshit. BURN ROGUEY!

 

[Roguey]

The idea of "archers that can hit you with impunity until you can reach them directly" is, while fun for that particular scenario, nothing particularly special either. Just run past/avoid them.

The arrows autohit. You'll always take some damage getting to the tower.

It was an interesting bright spot in an otherwise kind of bland story. I like Dorn's Deep, the whole thing. Really cool area design and lots of variety. But that moral dilemma really doesn't deserve singling out as anything particularly special either - I found it extremely black and white, myself. I mean, you're seriously expected to spare this asshole who lords over all those people and treats them like the lowest of slaves because his lady friend has Stockholm syndrome? Seriously? And then you can just give her a potion to break the wards on her and she'll leave him on her own anyway, so I guess even she doesn't care that much about him? So why would you ever spare him?

Because if you don't, you're condemning her to live the rest of her life in that palace. She doesn't necessarily want to be with him, she just doesn't want you killing him.

I let him go.

Exhibit one: calling the majority of the game filler except for Josh's most divine, magnificent contributions

I never said Josh's areas didn't have time-padding filler. In fact, I said the opposite.

Exhibit two: insisting that Josh is responsible for all good encounter design in the game while also giving no evidence that the fights are poorly designed except for that they include "undead" even though in the previous paragraph, fights featuring undead were praised. Also: completely ignoring the Yuani-ti, cultists, lizardmen and more that make up the area as well as some decent quests.

Evidence any fight is poorly designed: I won it through nothing but =-leftclick-pause.

I'm not even sure which area you're talking about here. Chapter 2? That was all Josh's. I didn't praise any undead battles in chapter 1 (I said he tried to retain interest; he didn't succeed)

Exhibit three: calling the Severed Hand uninteresting save for a single fight, despite it pulling lots of tricks with traps, stealthed enemies and archers. Also contains yet more praise for Sawyer and implying he would have done it better.

I don't remember the traps being anything special. I kept find traps on at all times, disarmed them when they popped up. Enemies popping up right on top of you? Yeah I mentioned that as a negative. What archers? The ones in the large elf fights? Meh.

Exhibit four: saying that the Ice Temple and surrounding locations are more boring than the previous ones even though they feature more varied enemies (vipers, frost giants, wyrms, etc.), more quest options, choice between combat and non-combat solutions with some moral choice component, and have much less linear, more open level design and optional areas than previous chapters.

The models may be different but they all die the same, =-leftclick-pause. I didn't use a single spell in chapters 4 and 5 (except the one in 4 I mentioned) and I only had to rest because my characters were fatigued for being awake too long.

The "non-combat solutions" involved skipping content and were uncompelling, standard pet-a-puppy/kick-a-puppy crap. Boring, pointless.

P.S. I agree Josh's areas (namely Dorn's Deep) were the best in the game. But the other areas often had many combat and non-combat design elements that overlapped with his, and similarly Josh's areas weren't free from "filler" combat either (like all the endless mushroom-men and umber hulks in Dorn's Deep). Your showering praise on him and him alone for practically "saving" the game feels like it ignores the better parts of the game's other areas, while in turn ignoring Josh's weaker contributions (save for Kesselack's tomb).

Umber hulks are cool because looking at them causes confusion.

Where are those "enemies that use various spells and status effects"? That's what I was expecting.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Are you referring to the tower in chapter 6? Because I thought it was neat how they were attacking me from a fortified position where I couldn't attack them (until acquiring a key). How often does that happen in any IE game?.

Multiple corridors early in Firkraag's dungeon in BG2 have orc archers doing precisely that. Mind you, that's generally considered a good dungeon in a good game.

 

[St. Toxic]

It's a common ploy. Nox used it constantly.

 

[commie]

Every fag and his dog are writing retrospectives to gain 'cred' so watch for my retrospective about some other game that everyone played coming soon. It will either be Fallout or Planescape Torment and I bet you all will be on the edge of your seats as I wax lyrical about shit you've all experienced in these games and felt 100 times before.

 

[Infinitron]

Every fag and his dog are writing retrospectives to gain 'cred' so watch for my retrospective about some other game that everyone played coming soon. It will either be Fallout or Planescape Torment and I bet you all will be on the edge of your seats as I wax lyrical about shit you've all experienced in these games and felt 100 times before.

Do it faggot.

It helps if there's an underlying theme to your retrospective. In Roguey's case, it's "JOSH SAWYER IS TEH AWESOME". Maybe you could write a Marxist analysis of Fallout.

 

[Broseph]

Every fag and his dog are writing retrospectives to gain 'cred' so watch for my retrospective about some other game that everyone played coming soon. It will either be Fallout or Planescape Torment and I bet you all will be on the edge of your seats as I wax lyrical about shit you've all experienced in these games and felt 100 times before.

Do it faggot.

It helps if there's an underlying theme to your retrospective. In Roguey's case, it's "JOSH SAWYER IS TEH AWESOME". Maybe you could write a Marxist analysis of Fallout.

I wrote a Might and Magic 7 retrospective but I already published it for another site. Acceptable?

 

[Lancehead]

All the gushing over JES in the review reminds of the similar in D:OS preview which was praised to high heavens.

 

[Angthoron]

This is a Citizen Kane moment of Codex Retrospectives.

 

[NewFag]

I played IWD single player a few years ago. A few months ago I finished it again playing co-op with a friend. Went through the expansion and add-on as well, but played it on Insane difficulty. Still rather amusing if you can look past the faults and certain shitty levels. Specifically Dragon's Eye.

 

[aris]

You know A woman is paper-bag ugly when she is a feminist and her twitter profile pic is a dog.

Fixed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rhH_QGXtgQ

Please tell me more about how you're a basement dwelling virgin hobgoblin

 

[HobGoblin42]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rhH_QGXtgQ

Please tell me more about how you're a basement dwelling virgin hobgoblin

I hope, you don't really believe that Anita Sarkeesian is true feminist, do you? Because she is not, even if she is calling herself so. Her views and opinions are pretty moderate compared to true convinced feminist likes Alice Schwarzer (most famous german feminist) or Judith Butler.

 

[Grunker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rhH_QGXtgQ

Please tell me more about how you're a basement dwelling virgin hobgoblin

I hope, you don't really believe that Anita Sarkeesian is true feminist, do you? Because she is not, even if she is calling herself so. Her views and opinions are pretty moderate compared to true convinced feminist likes Alice Schwarzer (most famous german feminist) or Judith Butler.

Define "true feminist."

I don't think your definition is the one everyone else uses. I think you think "feminist" means Judith Butler. If you look it up, you'll find that's pretty wrong.

 

[HobGoblin42]

Define "true feminist."

Butler and Schwarzer are, they reject any kind of gender specific behaviour, education, identification, etc.

It's not only about women's rights (equality of those should be common sense today), their goal is the elimination of any gender specific aspects.

 

[Grunker]

Define "true feminist."

Butler and Schwarzer are, they reject any kind of gender specific behaviour, education, identification, etc.

And by whose authority do you define that as a "true feminist"?

It's not only about women's rights (equality of those should be common sense today), their goal is the elimination of any gender specific aspects.

Some would say the two are undividable.

What I'm trying to say is perhaps you shouldn't use a patent on the definitions.

 

[HobGoblin42]

And by whose authority do you define that as a "true feminist"?


Some would say the two are undividable.

What I'm trying to say is perhaps you shouldn't use a patent on the definitions.

You started with definitions, I was just talking about one specific person. The word 'Feminist' has a much stronger meaning in German than in English (or Germany and U.S.), maybe that's the reason of our different definitions. Talking about stereotypes in video games doesn't make you a 'true' feminist in MY eyes, but you can define this word however you want.

Edit: there is just this single word 'Feminist' (or 'suffragette'), but actually there is need for more diversifications

 

[Grunker]

You said "true feminist." I don't "extreme" and "true" is the same. Almost the contrary, in fact.