I’d agree with that statement, actually. BG2’s side quests, gameplay in general, and most of the NPCs were top-notch. The romances were pretty mediocre, but “good enough” even so (and by their huge success with the fans illustrated a gaping hole in what is being offered to players). The additional magical defenses and anti-defense spells were pointless, as in practice all they do is force the contending wizards to spend rounds dispelling the other’s protections before the real fight starts. The main plot was abysmally bad.
BG1 was about the PC, and the PC’s discovering and coming to terms with their heritage. There are some spots where you are ruthlessly railroaded, but in general the player is in complete control of things, driving the plot by their actions. The world responds and changes based on what the player does. The bad guys have their own plots and motivations, but there are benefits to figuring them out “ahead of schedule”. That is how computer games should be - the interactivity and responsiveness to player input is the whole point.
In BG2, it is precisely the opposite. The bad guy is the one driving the plot. The player only ever reacts to things the bad guy does. The player is never given an opportunity to be pro-active about it; never given a chance to say, I bet something really nasty is about to happen, I’ll just be a bit more prepared than he thinks I will be - the player isn’t ALLOWED to have foresight. The player is repeatedly told they are a witless sheep being outwitted and outmaneuvered at every turn by a set of computer scripting and there’s nothing they can do about it. The bad guy is the point of the story; everything that happens, happens to advance his story and his motives, from the very first scene until the final battle. The PC is completely incidental; the PC isn’t needed. Based on the explanations given, any child of a god would have served the same purpose. Possibly other magical artifacts would have done the same. Why then is the PC in the story at all? How does it advance the particular, specific story of YOU, the child of Bhaal?
It doesn’t. It’s the worst-designed game (in that sense) that I have ever seen.
But then, if Troika had made better games then maybe they’d have the cash to seriously go after the license instead of having to depend on other companies taking pity on them. Just a crazy thought.
Actually, you cant even roleplay in BG2. If you try to rescue Imoen without leveling up before (what i did on my first play: since Imoen was my childhood friend, i didn’t take any FedEx quests.) you end up stuck in the Illithids lair because you’re not strong enough against their mental control.
The advantage of that is that it makes it so you can’t simply put a fighter on the enemy wizards and ignore them from then on.
BG1 was about the PC, and the PC’s discovering and coming to terms with their heritage.
From my playing of BG1 I always thought that the game was about directionless wandering through large wilderness areas that had nothing to do with the story.
The player is never given an opportunity to be pro-active about it; never given a chance to say, I bet something really nasty is about to happen, I’ll just be a bit more prepared than he thinks I will be - the player isn’t ALLOWED to have foresight.
Of course you can. Otherwise you wouldn’t have the entirety of Chapter 2 to make you enormously more powerful than if you simply paid to find Imoen as quickly as possible.
It doesn’t. It’s the worst-designed game (in that sense) that I have ever seen.
I think Rollory is right that the overall BG2 story was weak. From a gameplay point of view, I enjoyed BG2 a lot more. The side quests were fun, they provided more story and more things to do. Also, the pathing worked better than BG1, where Firewine was godawful. (I played BG1 twice and quit at Firewine both times.)
After Chapter 2, though, BG2 started to feel very linear and a lot less interesting.
And yet, oddly enough, putting a fighter on them and ignoring them is exactly what I DO in BG2. The most kick-ass party I ever played was one where Aerie was my only cleric or mage, the PC had some thief levels (primarily fighter), and everyone else was a fighter or barb or such. I never had any serious problems with anything. Certainly easier than playing a magic-heavy party, where you’re always having to pay attention to spells - fighters are fire-and-forget.
So if that was the real motivation (which I’m not convinced of), it’s a failure.
I suppose one of those characters included Keldorn or an inquisitor? If so, then that’s the reason you were able to do so well. His dispel magic works 95% of the time. If you didn’t have an inquisitor, then I can’t see you defeating the tougher Lich battles or the twisted rune without a lot of reloading.
I guess you play many more sucky games than I do.
I highly doubt that you’ve played more than one or two games in your life if you are so deluded that you think that BG2 had the worst story of any game with regards to how important the main character is.
I really wish the Bioware anti-fanboys would stay under a rock. There’s little that’s more annoying than people who only dislike something because it’s popular.
Neither Jade Empire, nor KOTOR can be considered to be “rubbish”, unless you one of the aforementioned anti-bioware fanboys. Both games are playable and enjoyable unless you happen to require perfection before something can be enjoyed. A “Rubbish” RPG released in 2003 would be Lionheart.
Bioware have becme progressively better, with the NWN Single Player campaign being an admittedly deep dip. I loved KoToR and Jade Empire, but they need to work on their recent pacing problems. That bit in Bioware games when your brain thinks you’re about halfway through, and then you realise you’re on the linear rollercoaster to the end, and only a few hours from it at that. KoToR had it, and in JE it was really pronounced, due to it’s being a short game in the first place, for an RPG.
Um, I wrote those 498 words (I’ll take Udarnik’s word for the count) explaining PRECISELY why I think it’s one of the worst game stories ever. If you don’t want to believe plain English, fine, your choice. I didn’t come to BG2 wanting to dislike it. After BG1, I was psyched, and looking forward to lots more better. I have told you why and how I didn’t find it. I don’t know what else I can do.
I do admit it annoys me that Bioware, having proven they can make decent stories sometimes, doesn’t maintain and improve that quality in all their products. That has no bearing on whether or not I dislike the game in the first place.
(And for the fighter party, I am pretty sure it was Valygar, Minsc, Korgan, and the halfling girl. No Keldorn. The holy avenger sword (which is what actually has the dispel magic) is by no means critical, although it is useful. Kangaxx is the only opponent where buff-and-charge doesn’t work; with the rest, sufficiently repeated blows to the head will deal with any of them.)
And I considered that to be nothing but pure hyperbole. That you, personally, didn’t like the story does not make it one of the worst ever written.
(And for the fighter party, I am pretty sure it was Valygar, Minsc, Korgan, and the halfling. No Keldorn. The holy avenger sword (which is what actually has the dispel magic) is by no means critical, although it is useful.
The Holy Avenger either casts a level 10 dispel magic or one at the level of the wielder, so it only works by virtue of repeated blows. Keldorn has innate dispels that are cast at twice his level, and since dispel works by level differences, he will strip a wizard of defences 95% of the time in a single cast.
If I had just said “it was the worst” you’d be right. That’s why I spent all that time explaining my reasons for considering it to be such a terrible storyline.
You obviously don’t consider those reasons convincing, but there is more to it than knee-jerk dislike and anti-fanboyism.
The Holy Avenger either casts a level 10 dispel magic or one at the level of the wielder, so it only works by virtue of repeated blows. Keldorn has innate dispels that are cast at twice his level, and since dispel works by level differences, he will strip a wizard of defences 95% of the time in a single cast.
Ah. Didn’t pick up on that. I remember he had true seeing, but any dispel magic that you have to manually cast was something I stopped bothering with early on.
I’m not an anti-bioware fanboy. I have a ton of friends who work there, and used to work there myself. But I feel confident in saying that to me Jade Empire was rubbish. While the story and setting might have been neat, the puerile combat system was enough to make me hate playing it. For a game that was supposed to be more action adventure than stat based hidden dice rolling RPG, it sure the hell failed at it.
