Have you noticed that BioWare reuses all their character archetypes?

L

LightSpectra

me autem minui
Joined
Mar 31, 2007
Messages
5,518
Location
Vendée
They make superb games, usually because of great character writing; but the thing is that I feel like I've played through the same script five or six times in different settings. There's the

- Sarcastic but good-natured sidekick occassionally doubtful of the PC's actions, usually with some odd secret he's/she's been harboring until he/she trusts the PC enough to reveal it (Carth, Alistair, Imoen, Morte)
- Saintly romance character with a troubled past (Leliana, Aerie, Bastila, Elanee)
- Evil femme fatale that can be convinced to be partially good (Visas Marr, Viconia, Morrigan)
- Robot that hates humans (Shale, HK-47)
- Character incapable of speech but humorously understands it (Dog, T3-M4, Construct from NWN2)
- Wise old mentor character that gives fables and insights to the PC, but comes to realize the PC is even wiser than he/she is (Wynne, Dak'kon, Zhjaeve, Kreia)
- Drunken/unintelligent warrior character that's unwittingly hilarious (Khelgar, Oghren, Minsc)
- "Adventure girl/gay guy" outcast character with lots of stories about her/his improbable roguish plots (Safana, Zevran, Mission Vao, Neeshka, Atton Rand, Mira)
- Highly disciplined and cold warrior with no regard for anything but proper justice and warfare, typically with a back story involving losing his/her honor and needing the PC's help to regain it (Handmaiden, Sten, Vhailor)

... yeah.
 
I did but really didn't care. Pretty much every story/series reuses character types. You might as well complain that the game's story is a rip off of David and Goliath, Jason and the Argonauts (in part), and almost every hero and fantasy story. Little alone the stereotypical dwarves, forest elves, the darkspawn horde of very orc-like creatures. And the natural similarities of it being a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate.
 
Archetypes are reused by definition.
 
Yes, but there's enough of them that every party in every game shouldn't be relatively the same personality-wise.
 
for sure they do.

have you noticed also that their games are consistently overrated by a ridiculous amount.

Mass Effect. great conversations and story. followed by a bunch of boring, flat, plain, ugly planets where you drive around a stupid buggy and shoot at some stuff like it's 1988, then you follow some random X on the map to pick up something...

then you go to a building that looks exactly like ALL the other buildings you've visited on all those other boring, flat, ugly planets where you drove around the stupid buggy visiting an X on the map. then you engage in some repetitive combat......

and this wins Game of the Year? are you freakin kidding me? just goes to show how screwed PC gaming is.

and I know, also, for a FACT, that ALL those boring, flat, ugly levels in Mass Effect were shipped over from some cheap-ass graphix house in Korea.

not made by the Bioware artists in-house in Austin. oh-no, shipped in carbon copy from Korea.

just like, I imagine, all the ugly, lackluster graphics in Dragon Age.

I enjoy the Bioware games, don't get me wrong, but ever Since KOTOR they've been going downhill in terms of polish and BASIC CREATIVITY like making beautiful levels and enemies. (and whether they've been going down since morphing from Black Isle is another story. also, never played Neverwinter Nights, so can't comment there)

they rehash the characters. they rehash the missions. they rehash the stories. and apparently they've been rehashing the same game engine since 2004

not that I don't enjoy their games, I DO, I just get really tired of all the hype surrounding them, when they just aren't living up to it.
 
Mass Effect had its great moments, however the BLOODY PLANETS you mentioned are bloody AWFUL!

Dragon Age's graphics lackluster? I wouldn't say that, although I am surprised that they went from high-end Mass Effect graphics to graphics reminiscent of the old isometric games like Baldur's Gate. DA:O's graphics are also better on the computer, and the very quickly fan-made graphic pack
http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15
really does help. However; graphics just have to look nice. They don't need to be computer-melting.

Public and especially when it is driven by review sites who are seemingly (sometimes) on the payroll of the big publishers, opinion can be vastly overrated a lot. Bioshock? Good game, somewhat varied levels, no bland blank corridors or planets, but I never got more than my $5 out of it, nor did I finish it.

Mount&Blade? Not even mentioned on most site's best games of 2009, yet during its beta I must have logged 100s of hours playing it almost religiously at one point. I did eventually burn myself out by the time it hit v9.xx, but damn it was awesome. Low graphics, low physics, poor dialogue and quests, but still one of the best games I have played.
 
BioWare makes great games for the most part. It's just when they're given an unfortunate deadline, they make mediocre games like KOTOR2, Jade Empire and NWN2.

KOTOR, all the Baldur's Gate games, Dragon Age and Planescape: Torment are all incredibly great games. Haven't played either Mass Effect yet, they don't interest me.
 
I enjoy the Bioware games, don't get me wrong, but ever Since KOTOR they've been going downhill in terms of polish and BASIC CREATIVITY like making beautiful levels and enemies.
Click to expand...
Bioware is probably my #1 or #2 favorite developer (up there with bethesda), and I love their games... However I agree with you. Their games got technically and overall "better" but they take a lot less risks and they care more about the money.

You see this in the way they shipped Mass Effect even tho the planets were NOT DONE and they chose to copy paste levels instead of taking time and lose more money until it felt right. Same thing with the DLCs on Dragon age, removing the chest and most of the original game loot to put it into DLCS. (Have you noticed the number of chests full of total junk in deep dungeons?)

Now that they work hand in hand with EA, I doubt the situation will get any better. Instead of taking advantage of the extra stability and profitability to take more chances with creative ideas it seems they are walking more towards safe-bets and known formulas.
 
Chests of "junk" in Dragon Age are not too bad, no worse and indeed better than many games. The Elder Scrolls games will have forks and various items which, in vanilla Oblivion (which is awful) are worthless. But yes there could have been more thought in it.
 
well, I have Dragon Age on Xbox, and the graphics are lackluster.

but not just lackluster... the levels are pretty boring as well. just take the Home Camp for an example.. I mean, WHAT? a fire, some boxes, some fake tents, and everyone standing around like idiots, all surrounded by some dark shadows resembling hills.

it's just, BORING. I could think of a better location in my sleep.


and, like I said before, I KNOW they went over to a cheap Korean graphics house for the Mass Effect levels.. so, we have to assume they are making a habit of this. I just don't think they care about the artistry much.

well, if Mass Effect didn't have great conversations, I'm not really sure how many good things I can say about it..


also, I agree Bioshock was HUGELY overrated. sure, it was beautiful, the sound design was PHENOMENAL, and the overall artistry and design (enemies) was great.

for me, the gameplay was okay, it was just too freakin EASY. I played it on Hard the first time and it was a breeze.. they would put like 5 enemies in an entire area, and meanwhile you have full ammunition for all your guns the entire game.

I don't mind a good FPS dressed up in pretty colors. just don't make it a cakewalk.
 
Planescape: Torment isn't made by Bioware. Neither is NWN2. Nor KOTOR2

... yeah
 
Chests of "junk" in Dragon Age are not too bad, no worse and indeed better than many games. The Elder Scrolls games will have forks and various items which, in vanilla Oblivion (which is awful) are worthless. But yes there could have been more thought in it.
Click to expand...
I think they thought about it, and it was decent prerelease while they were all playing internally. But they removed most of the great loot to put it in DLCS.

It is just too obvious... you spend 2 hours fighting your way to the bottom of a huge dungeon (say the dragon area at ~ mid game), you walk into a final room with 2 chests in it. You really expect something great from them since you found completely useless junk in the whole dungeon... but then you open and find healing herbs??

It can't be an oversight. I strongly believe the items were there and they got moved. Just play any DLC and you will notice that it has a dozen more items "density" than the original game. Hell even the merchants in the DLC have better stuff than what you find on dragons and other game bosses.

Bioware has been making RPGs for just too long to completely overlook something as important as loot placement and distribution. It has to be a last minute change to increase the value of the DLCs.
 
GVBN said:
Planescape: Torment isn't made by Bioware. Neither is NWN2. Nor KOTOR2

... yeah
Click to expand...

Black Isle consists of the same people as BioWare. My mistake on the NWN2 and KOTOR2 though. I guess I like BioWare more than I thought I did.
 
jUmpSt0p said:
well, I have Dragon Age on Xbox, and the graphics are lackluster.
Click to expand...

And that makes you part of the problem. While there is nothing wrong with buying Mass Effect and Dragon Age on the console, they are both dumbed down for the console. Mass Effect was ported to the PC, and this is obvious, though at least it was a decent port. Dragon Age was definitely dumbed down on the console, the bridge puzzle is a cake walk on the x-box, my roommate's friend, who is a very dull knife in the drawer, solved it within 10 minutes.

On the PC the puzzle is much more difficult, while once you figure it out it doesn't seem so hard, it takes a lot more trial and error. Especially for people who do not like nor enjoy puzzles like that, personally I can get frustrated easily and it rather kills the fun. I don't mind puzzles, as long as they don't kill the flow. Although I also do not want them dumbed down, I am very glad the PC version was not horribly affected by the console ones.
 
PrinceScamp said:
And that makes you part of the problem. While there is nothing wrong with buying Mass Effect and Dragon Age on the console, they are both dumbed down for the console. Mass Effect was ported to the PC, and this is obvious, though at least it was a decent port. Dragon Age was definitely dumbed down on the console, the bridge puzzle is a cake walk on the x-box, my roommate's friend, who is a very dull knife in the drawer, solved it within 10 minutes.
Click to expand...

so, Bioware dumbing down their games for different markets is MY problem?

I've got a laptop, which is good for games like Civ, and cannot afford a gaming rig.
 
LightSpectra said:
BioWare makes great games for the most part. It's just when they're given an unfortunate deadline, they make mediocre games like KOTOR2, Jade Empire and NWN2.

KOTOR, all the Baldur's Gate games, Dragon Age and Planescape: Torment are all incredibly great games. Haven't played either Mass Effect yet, they don't interest me.
Click to expand...

BioWare didn't make Kotor2 or NWN2, Obsidian did.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom