The level of entitlement of BioWare purists is astounding. In my book, if they bring up Baldur's Gate II again, they will lose all credibility for argument. I love BG II also, but I'm going to take the piss out of it in the OP's style (minus all the arbitrary cursing) just to prove a point that all of this recent hate over BioWare is unfounded, and that the Purists aren't really speaking from the moral high ground.
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Nostalgia
Baldur's Gate II when viewed from a modern perspective can be seen as a very complex, unforgiving game with niche appeal at best. The game and its engine are a decade old. BioWare isn't going to keep making games of that type forever. I know plenty of people who were actually turned off from BGII because of its overly complex combat. The fighting system is brutal, with little intuitiveness or adaptability in its mechanics. What's behind that closed door? Why don't you open it and get absolutely destroyed by the eldritch horrors that just happen to make that single room home? Or, failing that, why don't you rest for 8 hours at the doorway so that your partys' wounds would magically re-knit, and your mages can actually be useful? Once they run out of spells, they literally have no use whatsoever. And many spells have lots of little particualities that you need to go blind reading over the spell descriptions to even get an idea of how they work.
Characterization? Don't make me laugh. Minsc starts as a goofy, stupid berserker and that's how he stays. Anomen has a stick up his ass from start to finish. Aerie whines. Jaheira is sassy. Imoen is moody. Jan is quirky and funny. Even Irenicus and Bodhi don't change in their evil despositions. All of the main characters are one-dimensional. BioWare purists hold them up as some of the greatest NPC's ever, but BioWare used the same formula for them as they do for Wrex, Tali, Ashley and Garrus ten years later. Even the level of interaction with these "amazing NPC's" mainly consists of reading text boxes. At least voicing full conversations helps with immersion. Reading text boxes really doesn't help with that.
I also hope that the "living worlds" that the OP holds up BGII involve more than city scapes with lots of people walking around with nothing to say, barring some asides where people actually talk to each other, because that's pretty much Athkatla. Nostalgia can color it as pretty as you want, but looked at from that angle, how it is different from Kirkwall, or the Citadel?
Take the piss out of BioWare now, and you're taking the piss out of everything they've done for the last ten years.
***
Have you ever noticed that far fewer people have played BGII than Mass Effect, even though BGII is handily available for digital download at GOG.com? It's because BGII serves a smaller crowd. And now that being a gamer is beginning to become popular, games can no longer get away with producing 2d games for relatively small numbers of people. BioWare can only make the stylized worlds it does now because it "dumbed down" from the overly complex narrative and combat of years past, but still delivered an amazing story with solid gameplay. BioWare purists might decry that BioWare no longer demands that the Fighters and Paladins have to stand exactly so far apart so that the Ancient Vampires don't run through and rip the Wizards apart, but I think that styles like that are best left in BG 2. It's a different era of gaming, just as the population of "gamers" is now different than it was in the days of the Child of Bhaal.
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Nostalgia
Baldur's Gate II when viewed from a modern perspective can be seen as a very complex, unforgiving game with niche appeal at best. The game and its engine are a decade old. BioWare isn't going to keep making games of that type forever. I know plenty of people who were actually turned off from BGII because of its overly complex combat. The fighting system is brutal, with little intuitiveness or adaptability in its mechanics. What's behind that closed door? Why don't you open it and get absolutely destroyed by the eldritch horrors that just happen to make that single room home? Or, failing that, why don't you rest for 8 hours at the doorway so that your partys' wounds would magically re-knit, and your mages can actually be useful? Once they run out of spells, they literally have no use whatsoever. And many spells have lots of little particualities that you need to go blind reading over the spell descriptions to even get an idea of how they work.
Characterization? Don't make me laugh. Minsc starts as a goofy, stupid berserker and that's how he stays. Anomen has a stick up his ass from start to finish. Aerie whines. Jaheira is sassy. Imoen is moody. Jan is quirky and funny. Even Irenicus and Bodhi don't change in their evil despositions. All of the main characters are one-dimensional. BioWare purists hold them up as some of the greatest NPC's ever, but BioWare used the same formula for them as they do for Wrex, Tali, Ashley and Garrus ten years later. Even the level of interaction with these "amazing NPC's" mainly consists of reading text boxes. At least voicing full conversations helps with immersion. Reading text boxes really doesn't help with that.
I also hope that the "living worlds" that the OP holds up BGII involve more than city scapes with lots of people walking around with nothing to say, barring some asides where people actually talk to each other, because that's pretty much Athkatla. Nostalgia can color it as pretty as you want, but looked at from that angle, how it is different from Kirkwall, or the Citadel?
Take the piss out of BioWare now, and you're taking the piss out of everything they've done for the last ten years.
***
Have you ever noticed that far fewer people have played BGII than Mass Effect, even though BGII is handily available for digital download at GOG.com? It's because BGII serves a smaller crowd. And now that being a gamer is beginning to become popular, games can no longer get away with producing 2d games for relatively small numbers of people. BioWare can only make the stylized worlds it does now because it "dumbed down" from the overly complex narrative and combat of years past, but still delivered an amazing story with solid gameplay. BioWare purists might decry that BioWare no longer demands that the Fighters and Paladins have to stand exactly so far apart so that the Ancient Vampires don't run through and rip the Wizards apart, but I think that styles like that are best left in BG 2. It's a different era of gaming, just as the population of "gamers" is now different than it was in the days of the Child of Bhaal.
