Poll: Which Bioware RPG to start with?

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ResonanceGames

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dyre said:
meh, I've played the NWN2 expansions and Bloodlines already. And I'd say Bloodlines is mediocre at best :\
If you thought Bloodlines was bad, I suggest you just ignore RPGs in general because there are only a handful of them better than that. That game was roleplaying in the most literal sense, where the entire game was tailored around the characterization you chose. Plus, the dialogue was some of the best out there. Fantastic game.
 

Rinshan Kaihou

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Mass Effect, because indeed SPAAAACCE. Also, Because Jennifer Hale's voice acting is a breath of fresh air in an industry where most voice actors deliver their lines with about as much emotion as a brick that has been crapped on. Seriously, you have to make femshep. Mass Effect is probably the deepest game I've ever experienced, and I love it and still play it all the time.
 

AD-Stu

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My personal choice would be Mass Effect - easily the best story out of the lot, with by far the most fully-realised game universe (seriously, it's a rival for the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises in that respect) and a great mix of RPG and action elements.

Dragon Age was incredibly well executed and even without the expansion packs it's still a looooooooong game so you'll get value for money. There won't be anything much you haven't seen before though, as it's all pretty standard party-based swords and sorcery fare. Combat on anything above the easiest levels gets tiresome in a hurry - unless you've really got a thing for micromanaging. Also, the DLC (on PC at least) had a tendency to be buggy.

Jade Empire was a decent game, again very well executed, but it didn't do a whole lot for me - I played it through once then pretty much forgot about it. Worth a play if you can pick it up cheap I guess.
 
Sep 14, 2009
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leet_x1337 said:
pearcinator said:
Dragon Age: Origins if you want a more traditional RPG, KOTOR is my favourite RPG but as you said you found it quite tough (the tutorial is quite tough, once you fully understand the combat though it's not that hard) and you said you found a lot of bugs (buy it for Xbox 1 or pirate it?)...There are a few bugs but nothing that annoyed me very much.
I bought it on Steam during the summer sale, and I was under the impression that Steam patched automatically...And besides, the combat was fine; I just got unavoidably clusterf***ed at one point and said "to hell with that".
dragon age and kotor use VERY similar game mechanics, so if you are into "fantasy" at all, i would recommend dragon age origins + awakening (awakening imports your character and stuff from origins, they are both amazingly well done) and once you get a good feel from dragon age (which actually..it's "claimed" to be kind of hard, so i would def. recommend you starting on easy on dragon age, just so you aren't having friendly fire problems) and enjoy that, i think you can move back to kotor and really enjoy it (the lower city/taris is the most boring part of the game imo..so once you get past that it really picks up and starts going.)


although jade empire and mass effect are also both great choices

(yes i am a bioware fanboy...but i stay calm and considerate in most cases!)
 

dyre

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ResonanceGames said:
dyre said:
meh, I've played the NWN2 expansions and Bloodlines already. And I'd say Bloodlines is mediocre at best :\
If you thought Bloodlines was bad, I suggest you just ignore RPGs in general because there are only a handful of them better than that. That game was roleplaying in the most literal sense, where the entire game was tailored around the characterization you chose. Plus, the dialogue was some of the best out there. Fantastic game.
Eh, it was really closer to "choose one of these preset roles" rather than developing your own character. And the story was...ok. The dialogue was fun though, yeah.

bussinroundz said:
My only other suggestions for story driven rpgs (besides the Bioware games and JRPGs) are Anachronox, Sith Lords (get the restoration mod), Deus ex (has some rpg elements) Like i said before, there are some really good older ones (don't be a graphics ho ! LOL) like Betrayal at Krondor and Darklands.

Seriously though, if your looking for heavy story, what about expanding into adventure games like- The Longest Journey, Monkey Island games, Blade Runner, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Sanitarium, Beneath a Steel Sky, Quest for Glory and Gabriel Knight series...
Well, I've never played Anachronox (or even heard of it), so I'll give that a try. I've played KOTOR 2 and Deus Ex. I think I'm more of an aesthetics ho, lol. I like the isometric look, but I can't stand the shitty 3D stuff from 2002 to 2005 or so.

As for point-and-click adventures...uh, maybe on a particularly rainy day. A hurricane, perhaps.
 

Joccaren

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Mar 29, 2011
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Depends on what you like. I'd personally go either Dragon Age or Mass Effect, but which one really depends on your gameplay style.

Dragon Age is your classic top down RPG (Or third person, dependant on where you keep your camera). You don't button mash (in Origins and Awakening), you have your classic classes with specialisations that can be unlocked by talking to people or buying books, you have a health and energy bar, and your spells are in a hotbar for you to press as about your only interaction in the combat with the exception of telling your party what to attack, and where and when to move. You can control each of your party members individually. Some sections of the game are a bit brutal if your not prepared for them, but all round its a great game. Awakening continues the game with a new story, still with your character, some new abilities and weapons and that sort of stuff. There is the occasional bit of problem solving in both games. The only glitch I encountered was in Awakening, and it wasn't game breaking in the slightest. There was one ability that allowed you to keep quickly attacking an enemy until you ran out of energy (Infinite Flurry I think it was called), however, my game glitched when I used it and whatever I was attacking got stuck and kept repeating its attack animation whilst doing nothing until I stopped using the ability. Made everything very easy to do, but felt a bit like cheating. If you get the GOTY addition, you also get a lot of DLC. Some of it is used in the bad way, taking things out of the game for those who buy used, but the far more substantial DLC was the good kind. Things Like Leliana's Song, Darkspawn Chronicles, Golems of Amgarrak, and Witch Hunt all added new content to the game in their own, very short, campaign. But yes, long game is long. My first playthrough took me 120 hours to complete, doing all sidequests and exploring every corner and getting every secret weapon of course. The 'moral choice' system is the best I have seen in a Bioware game I have played though, and the dialogue system is not in a wheel that will tell you which option is right. You'll occasionally get hints (Thanks to options being labelled 'Persuade' or 'Intimidate' and such), but you have to think about your responses to be nice to people, not just always pick the top left.

Mass Effect has the inventory and level up somewhat similar to older RPGs, but the combat is primarily third person shooter, with a number of abilities that you can blast out whilst doing so. I encountered a couple of glitches where elevators wouldn't work and I'd get stuck in them, but that was patched and is now fixed. Has a little bit of problem solving in it, and your classic black or white moral choice system that basically forces you to go full one way or the other. The dialogue wheel basically always tells you what is the right thing to say, and it is impossible to pick a choice that will have any real impact on the game. Picking the top left option also almost always gives you the option that will make the person you are talking to happy. In 2 it was the bottom left when talking to one or two characters, but majority top left. I can't think of anything like those two characters in 1, but there may be.

As is always, the stories are good, if a bit cliched, and the dialogue is brilliant in both. Dragon Age takes a bit of a better system to run than ME, especially in the areas with large fights against 15 or more enemies, but both aren't too system intensive. As is obvious, Mass Effect is Space and Dragon Age is High Fantasy.
 

CleverCover

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I'd just go with the best system for ever deciding something.

Eeeny-meenie-minie-moe....

You get the point.
 

Smeggs

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Mass Effect. Though I have never played Baldur's Gate, heard something about it being a "good game" or some hearsay like that.

:p
 

ResonanceGames

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dyre said:
Eh, it was really closer to "choose one of these preset roles" rather than developing your own character. And the story was...ok. The dialogue was fun though, yeah.
I think if you went back and played as another character type and chose different dialogue options, you'd see just how much of an effect both of those things have on your character. It's just that the game succeeds so effortlessly at it that it makes it seem like there's only one or two real paths.
 

NerfedFalcon

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008Zulu said:
leet_x1337 said:
It's not really that; more that most of the details are obscured by stuff, like, for instance...where the bloody hell are all the augmentations?!
They are the little blue things hidden about some of the levels. You need a med-bot to install them.
I know that. It's just that Ion Storm apparently thought it would be funny to hide the little f***ers behind large, unmovable crates, etc. and then make them essential to beat the game (without ninja FPS skills, that is.)
 

Susurrus

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leet_x1337 said:
Susurrus said:
leet_x1337 said:
SNIP
It's easily available on Amazon though, and aren't they just about to release a pack containing BG, BG2 and PS:T.

BG is really not that complex. Sure, it helps to have a working knowledge of how D&D works, but I started it without that. You don't really need to understand the stats any more than you do anything else, and the spell descriptions are pretty helpful, really.

If you don't want to get it, fine, but you're missing out on an excellent game for very little reason.
 

Cogwheel

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I suggest Jade Empire. I never found Bioware stories that good, but this one can be surprisingly interesting at times. That, and the combat is fun. In a Bioware game. Madness, but there you go. Atypical setting for a WRPG, so that's nice too.

Or if you want something more classical, Baldur's Gate. Not classical enough, you say?

Shattered Steel, the very first Bioware game.

 

somonels

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Skyrim too Pricy?
How about Morrowind?
Daggerdale is free.

Bioware has never made a RPG the way Bethesda does them.
 

DarkhoIlow

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This should be the "way to start" in my opinion: Baldurs Gate Series > Neverwinter Nights(the first one with it's expansions) >Star Wars KotOR> Dragon Age(Origins) > Mass Effect(1&2).

This is more like a chronological order,but a good one nonetheless.
 

RatRace123

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I started with KotOR. So, that's the one I recommend.
Mass Effect, however is my favorite Bioware game, as well as favorite game period, so that comes in at a close second.
 

ThunderCavalier

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I like KOTOR, but I've heard a lot of good things about Baldur's Gate. Plus, if you've been looking at some of the Escapist's articles here, a bunch of video game publishers came together and said that their overall favorite game of all time was the Baldur's Gate franchise, so it's certainly a majority opinion that the series is awesome.
 

seraphy

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Definitely Baldur's gate, especially Baldur's gate 2: shadowss of amn, Bioware has never made better game.

Although Planescape Torment is similar game but just better, but was not made by Bioware.