What do you think about BG2?

[Pastel]

Eh?

 

[Qwinn]

I think it's an excellent game. The best interparty NPC interaction of any game I've ever played, excepting PS:T. Probably the best combat encounter design of any RPG I've played, barring Fallout (and with Ascension installed, which IMO counts as original content). Solid roleplay, with substantial choices and consequences. Engaging storyline. Decently balanced economy, with a good progression of ever improving loot to acquire. Balanced for a full party, which is -very- good, instead of balanced for solo play so that a full group easily overpowers everything.

It wasn't the -best- at any single aspect, but most games that -were- the best at any one aspect tended to seriously lack in most or all other aspects. BG2 was stellar and unique by virtue of getting almost all aspects well above average.

Qwinn

 

[Darth Roxor]

P. good.

 

[Durwyn]

It was a very good game at the time when it was released. Now it's still fun but time has shown its flaws. And infinity engine's 2d beautiful art never gets old.

 

[Volourn]

Dead. dead. dead.

 

[Qwinn]

Actually, I take it back... BG2 -was- probably the best game ever at one aspect - the strongholds. The fact that every class had a different stronghold, with its own involved quest chain, was brilliant for replayability. No other game I've played has done that aspect as well as BG2 did. Morrowind probably came closest with its 3 different strongholds, but still a pretty distant 2nd place.

And actually, come to think of it... despite their obsession with elven priestesses, BG2 probably did do the romance thing as well or better than any other game, too, if you're into that sort of thing.

Qwinn

 

[Zomg]

Gold Box game with shittier combat and a JRPG antagonist.

 

[Araanor]

Clunky engine, messy combat, unimpressive role-playing. But guess it was okay. Felt pretty tame after Torment.

 

[janjetina]

Pretty good. It didn't suck in any aspect (combat system was mediocre, but good encounter design made combat enjoyable), story and character interactions weren't bad, it was light in c&c department, but limited c&c were present. Add a lot of "not bad" elements and a ton of content and the result is a pretty good game.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Average at best, only by the grace of a few encounters. Almost all of it is mediocre or subpar, even if there's a lot of it.

 

[Liberal]

Average, not good. Anyone who thinks otherwise suffers from lack of taste.

 

[Qwinn]

Wow. Considering how much people around here seem to hate -everything- except PS:T, Arcanum and Fallout, I'm really wondering what huge list of other games must've been better than BG2 for it to only qualify as "average". Cause to me, "average" means there's as many games that are better than it as worse than it. Can I get the list of hundreds and hundreds of games that are better than BG2 for that to be true?

Qwinn

 

[Hamster]

Average, not good. Anyone who thinks otherwise suffers from lack of taste.

Good, not average. Anyone who thinks otherwise suffers from skyway syndrome.

 

[nomask7]

The problem with both BGs was that, although it was said that they revived the RPG genre, they didn't really revive it as much as they dug it up from the grave, carried the rotten corpse where people lived, and left it there to stink. BG2 taught millions of people to expect false choice ("Will you be the hero or not?" "No!" "Oh come one, you must!" "Oh, okay."), and when MotB finally came along, most people never noticed that in that game it actually mattered what you responded even to "yes/no" questions.

 

[Balthamael]

I remember that game fondly. I don't think I have had quite as much fun playing as a mage in any game since BG2. The magic system was horribly, irrevocably broken, probably in ways I haven't dreamed of. And I spent a lot of time coming up with imaginative ways to break the game. For instance, did you know the spell Mislead creates an illusory image of the caster, while granting them invisibility that cannot be dispelled while the image lasts? So hide it somewhere it won't be found and beat everyone to death with a stick.

And then there was the Wild Mage class that was just...there really isn't words to describe how broken that class was. You could throw spell after spell(reckless dweomer wasn't subject to one spell in a round limit mere mortal mages have to observe), and once you get into high enough level any wild surges you get tend to only be positive. I actually edited all the mage NPCs in the game into Wild Mages so I would always have one or more in my party. Because how do you give up that kind of power?

I am quite interested in the spell interaction stuff they are trying to do in Dragon Age. The potential to break the game is there. I hope the designers recognise this, and decide not to care and throw in everything that is coo. Just as they did with BG2. That makes for a more fun game. At least to me.

 

[Ebonsword]

Awesome game. Outstanding array of different classes gives it tons of replayability. Beautiful art and wonderful music that provides excellent mood and atmosphere. Memorable NPCs, some of which you will grow to love (and some which you will grow to hate, unfortunately). Tons of great little touches like a psychotic talking sword and a creepy, skin-shredding serial killer.

It does get a little too linear for my taste after you leave for Spellhold but, before that, it's wonderfully non-linear. And I love things like the lich behind the secret door in the tavern--it seems like video games today don't offer cool little hidden encounters like that anymore (but maybe I'm just being nostalgic).

*sigh* I really do need to bust it out for another play through.

 

[Ion Flux]

It had a lot of shortcomings but it was still fun. I'm glad I played Torment after I played BG2, for obvious reasons.

 

[nomask7]

BG2 really made meta-gaming the norm in RPGs for an awful lot of people. The dialog was such a crude system at best that people were pretty much forced to ignore the surface meaning of the text and look for the quest or alignment triggers behind it. With all the real responses to anything in the game consisting of (1)"Okay, I'll do it, tell me more", (2)"Some other time", and in other situations, (1)"I'm good", (2)"I'm neutral", (3)"I'm pretty evil", you can't really expect people to take the game seriously. In contrast, when you respond "some other time" in MotB, there may or may not be another time, and you can never be sure how your response affects the game world. That was never the case in BG2.

 

[Volourn]

"BG2 really made meta-gaming the norm in RPGs for an awful lot of people."

L0L meta gaming has existed since the beginning of video games.

 

[nomask7]

"BG2 really made meta-gaming the norm in RPGs for an awful lot of people."

L0L meta gaming has existed since the beginning of video games.

Is that comment (somehow) related to my comment, other than being tenuously inspired by it? I know, I know, the human mind is a mysterious thing and all that, and you don't really have to try to analyse your impulses if you don't want to. I'm just curious, that's all.

 

[Pastel]

Nomask is a pretty damn good poster while in General RPG Discussion.

 

[Qwinn]

With all the real responses to anything in the game consisting of (1)"Okay, I'll do it, tell me more", (2)"Some other time", and in other situations, (1)"I'm good", (2)"I'm neutral", (3)"I'm pretty evil", you can't really expect people to take the game seriously.

Okay. I do have to point out that the most beloved games around here (barring MotB, maybe, and I do think you're exaggerating the variety of consequential responses a bit) all basically worked along the same lines. I didn't notice Arcanum having a significantly different dialogue system than you just described, or even PS:T for that matter.

And actually, I recall quite a few consequential choices to be made in BG2. Do you side with the Shadow Thieves or Bodhi? Do you side with the Sahuagin King or the Rebel Prince? There were several ways to get through the Underdark, and your dialogue options (say, with the silver dragon) -did- matter if I recall correctly. Come to think of it... did you tell that rogue ship captain guy (Saevor Haveran? Something like that) to piss off? If so, you actually skipped the entire Sahuagin section. The responses you picked during the fighter, mage and bard stronghold quests made a very real difference in how things turned out. And if you care about the romances, saying the wrong thing would definitely have an impact on those.

That's a lot more c&c than I can think of in any other game that is beloved around here.

Yes, of course, in the end, you always wind up in hell challenging Irenicus. Guess what? Pretty much EVERY game, even the most beloved games evar around here, do wind up ending up at the same place in the end.

Including MotB, where no matter -what- you do, you still can't really challenge Kelemvor or really attempt to bring down the wall. For the record. (Even if he would've snuffed you out instantly if you tried, I really think you should've been able to choose that option.)

Qwinn

 

[Jaime Lannister]

More like JEWdar's JEW

 

[MaskedMan]

I never got out of the first dungeon D:

 

[DraQ]

Upper not bad.

Not PS:T, obviously, but, unlike it's prequel, a solid game.