Volourn

I doubt BG1 was an expensive game to make. It was BIO's 3rd game and I doubt the budget they got for it was super high. Bottom line PE/OBS has no excuses and making excuses for the poor stuff in the game is silly. Stronghold is best example. It is the worst part of the game and there is no excuse for it. It is,, BY FAR, the WORST stronghold ever in a RPG. How could they not have learned from previous strongholds (INCLUDING their own) and make a good stronghold? It reeks of sloppy and lazy design.\ \The rules, by the way, are DnDish enough that there simply isn't even difference make it so hard to do. \I feel you are belittling Obsidian by poo pooing their experience and setting the bar low while making excuses. A company with devs who have decades of experience who have their hands in the mix with multiple top tier RPGs of the past have no excuse whatsoever.

Hard counters and save or else are awesome because they make you change up strategy and not act the same every fight. As long as its done logically. Maze is a weird spell since there is literally no save for it. You get targeted by it with no super hard counters) you are simply screwed. But, I'd rather have a maze like spell than the silliness of PE stuff where there are no ahrd counters or no uber spells... thought petrification is the closest thing.

Let us be the judge of that.

"BG2 had the benefit of being a sequel to a game - that meant things like setting, rules, engine, and so forth were already established. POE 1 serves as the foundation for future iterations, that are very likely to equal or surpass BG2." \PE had the benefit of seeing all these games being released and able to cherry pick the good from those past games and getting rid of the bad. PE's foundation was set eyars before. \ \It should have been better than these earlier 10+ year old games EASILY (and in some ways it is others not so much). \Not o mention the expeirence levels of game development differences between Obsidian and BG BIO or even PST BIS.

"The one you are quoting is spot on. And it's obvious you know as much about true roleplaying as Isis knows about mercy and peace. Bioware games have crap roleplaying options. PERIOD." Are you on drugs? We're comparing BIO games so whether or not 'BIO has crap roleplaying options' is totally irrelevant. The bottom line is newer BIO games are better at role-playing than BG. PERIOD.

"I think Sagani is an interesting character" \I think she could have been but the writing ultimately failed her. I mean, the cocnept of her is awesome. A dwarf female ranger who is married but needs to adventure could be so awesome and I was looking forward to her pre release but the actual reality of her is just meh. Meh is not good enough. "You can spit your poison, oh PoE backer-haters, but this is where this poison will stay- for your voices of vile and outrage are just drops in the ocean. The latest Obsidian rpg is a success, whether you refuse to acknowledge the fact." You do realize that Obsidian's PE 'success' is just bucket in the ocean right. Hardly anyone cares or plays about it. You fanbioys are hilarious thnking this game is super popular and successful. It isn't. And, I like the game but COME ON. *REALITY CHECK NEEDED*

This could very well be the easiest 'main' fight in the game. Literally all you have to is click spam him. Easy peasy beautiful.

"This is not the case because it's not a salient expectation to have in the first place. It's a bit like saying you've been playing football at the highest level for 15 years, surely you can kick the ball and hit that guy in the face from fifty metres away every single time. Game development is incredibly complex, and its practices and organisation has also historically been very chaotic. Every single game often has to reinvent the wheel in many different ways, including as you say the engine issue, and there is also extremely high turnover of your team members in the industry (Feargus' experience doesn't count for much when he doesn't work with the same guys each time necessarily), and so on." Football analogy is a fail since in football someone is actively trying to sabatoge you and who that person is varies game to game let alone 15 years a part (if you last that long in the NFL). Game development you don't have some actively trying to sabatoge you (lol publishers lol) so you should be able to make a better game than before. That said, the issue is not that newer games are technically worse (they usually are better) but sadly they're not first. Plenty of people, afterall, enjoy BG1 more than BG2 simply because it has no number beside it.

"Gorion(you didn't use his name I noticed...) was memorable? He had almost no dialogue- he tells you to leave Candlekeep soon, then runs into Sarevok and dies." Yet people still remember him. That won't happen to the characters you meet at the beginning of PE. "I just don't get how BG1 characters can be 'full of personalty' and 'memorable' and all that other stuff people attribute to them when their character consists of a few lines of introduction dialogue and some random phrases in combat or when you click on them. No future exploration of their character, reactions to anything, banters...just nothing. More writing does not necessarily make characters better, but BG1 companions (and Gorion) have so little writing and characterization I can barely consider them characters." You are thinking C&C. Xan has no depth but he is very memorable despite being largely one note. I like dwarves but Sagani is just plain boring despite all the text she gets. That's due to poor writing. The writer for Xan got his personality and made him memorable despite not using a blocks of text. Same with Khalid, Montaron, and a host of others. You are assuming because PE has lots of info dumps that is what makes characters memorable. NO. P.S. PE does plenty better than BG but memorable characters isn't one of them. I mean Sarevok came back as a joinable party because he was memorable. I doubt that will happen with PE's main villain (unless to spite me now lol) and I say that despite actually thinking his last convo was pretty solid for the most part.

"n Baldur's Gate you can actually roleplay your character using the systems of the game rather than just selecting between RED and BLUE options. In Baldur's Gate if you're in a town you can flip out and kill people if you want to, which makes it meaningful when you don't, while in modern Bioware games you can only kill sanctioned targets (and are usually obligated to), you can stealth past many enemies in BG that in a Bioware game would lock you in cutscene out of stealth and then force you to fight them however you'd approached it. And hell, even the choice between RED and BLUE options is often utterly miniscule." Wait. Your idea of role-playing is simply the choice of kill nobody or kill everybody? LMAO \Sorry, bub, role-playing wise the newer BIO games have more role-playing options. PERIOD.

"LOL are you trolling?" You have to be delusional to believe that BG is better at actual role-playing than BIO's more recent games. More fun? Yeah very arguable. More RPGish? LMFAO

Most of their modern RPGs are superior to BG when it comes to actual role-playing. Nice try, though.

"Plus, some of the complaints are just mind-boggling. The writing is bad? Compared to what, Baldur's Gate or freaking Icewind Dale, to say nothing of D:OS's borefest? The oh so clever ''not-D&D'' tripe that could easily be leveled at any fantasy game on the market? Obsidian's worst game to date? This is clear attention whoring." \Thew riting is bland and unspriring most of the time. (sometimes it hits the mark). BG's writing was not espcially deep but it was effective. I mean your adoptive father played sucha small role yet he's memorable. Do you think people are gonna remember the early characters in PE? NO. IWD's story while not deep as well is wellw ritten. DOS', I agree, is worse. No doubt abotu it. In fact, I'd say PE is a better written version of the DOS story. L0L Worst game to dat? I wouldn't go there but that's his opinion so why whine about it? "Plus, BG1 has Durlag's tower, the single greatest dungeon experience of all the IE games." Nah. Watcher's keep is superior. "EDIT: So lets see 20 years in future when PoE: EE comes out if it can compare with BG: EE" I'd be surprised if that happens. It shouldn't have happened with BG either. "I suppose the secondary motivation is you can't get into Baldur's Gate to track who killed Gorian without solving the iron problem. (You could argue that some evil and neutral types wouldn't care who killed Gorian or about the iron shortage either one," But you would care that are assassins are trying to murder you.. and maybe solvinmg the iron crisis may help solve your problem. A lot of quests leads you to deal with the iron crisis. Of coruse, like any game, you can say 'I don't care' but then just stop playing. There you completed the game. "Why would a neutral Druid care about the situation unless it was threatening the wildlife (which it doesn't seem to be)? " If iron/metal is ebcoming worthless on the Sword Coast people are gonna turn to trees for their needs. So, druids need to THINK OF THE TREES. :D

I'm not sure where I'd rate it. Anywhere from a 70% to a 85%...

"BG1 feels more like a quest and world where sure you are important but you could also just die to wolves outside Candlekeep and nobody gives a damn." That happens in BG2 too. Wekll.. not the wolves part for obvious reasons but you could die and the world would move on. Just not the game. <> Anyways, BG1 was fun when I played it. But, as far as RPG making it is subpar.

Mets have best record. L0L That won't last long.

"In D&D terms, this was First Edition; in video game terms, this was BG 1, not BG 2. It's got some flaws but for what it is and within its limitations it is excellent." \That's ridiculous comaprison. BG1 was made by an inexperienced development team that had made two low key games and had absolutely no rpg development expefrience at all. obsidian is full of employees/owners who have 10+ years experience and have had their hands in some of the top rpgs ever at one level or another INCLUDING the BGs as publisher. BIo at the time of the BG, as I said, had no crpg dev experience, limited game experience, and when first start working on BG1 they weren't even trying to make a RPG but a RTS. \On top of that since PE was meant to be a 'spiritual successer' it has had decades of looking at the IE games to see their strengths and weaknesses. There should be noe xcuses at all. That said, I think PE may be technically (in terms of C&C and the like) better than BG1 but it doesn't have the 'soul' (lol) of it when I first played BG1. In fact, all you who hate me can blame BG1 for having to deal with the likes of me since it is what motivated to come online. L0L and it doesn't even close to BG2's majesty or PST. My favorite part of PE is levelling my characters. \ \ PE is a fun game. But, it has plain stupid flaws. This review points them out in the Codexian way. Stop being so butthurt over it.

"It was unproffessional" \ L0L Unprofessional L0L "and self serving review." K Who are they supposed to be serving? "RPG codex should be embarrassed." Nah. Not really.

Yes it is.

This is no spoiler section. If you played the game to finish you should know why he main story is a ODS 'copycat' (I don't think it's a copy cat because the games were made during the same time period basically but theya re fundamentally the same). I'm 100% right on the other issue as well. That should be disucssed there.

Uh.. Thresher Maws were pract8icelly world destroying monsters. Ankhegs not much. Worm like monsters (even though ankhegs actually aren't worms heh) is an anicent fantasy/sci fi trope.

VD likes C&C and while PE's C&C isn't 'best ever' it's still very solid. Also, VD was found defending one of the worst quests in the game on the Codex. He'll have complaints but he's likely to be positive. He prefers DA over BG series simply because, in his opinion, it has more C&C. Anyways, back to thread topic. While he does go over board and makes some mistakes he makes a lot of great points as well and his conclusions aren't really wrong. I say that and I like PE and found it fun. But, the game is HEAVILY flawed. That's just a fact. "Arrogance, lack of perspective," Lack of a mirror where you are? L0L "That being said, I don't think rant formats are the best idea for getting developers' attention. Pretty easy to put out a negative review without it." It's a Codex review. He's not trying to get the developers' attention with it. It is about entertainment and being informative to the Codex rewvieers - not Obsidian or Obsidian fanboys(even though the Codex has a LOT of Obsidian fanboys).

Perhaps he was bashing the game pre release b/c he knew the truth. That's not trolling. That's soulful.

"Because he is not - you may consider Thaos so from your worldview (our modern world) but from the gameworld of your character, there is no Good vs Evil conflict - there isn't en a hint. There are no God's dedicated to evil (like X, God of Evil) or Good, for that matter. Thaos is cruel, heartless, and a plethora of other negative characteristics (a monster), and we outside of the gameworld may judge him with our beliefs, values, whatever... But he is certainly not "going to Hell to burn for eternity in a lake of fire" because there is no hell. There is no afterlife "punishment", and there is no sin. There is no Good vs Evil and no Superior Being judging a soul accordingly." Good and evil has nothing to do with religion or gods you silly boy. "My authority is rather limited to call him bad." Bad = evil. he is evil. PERIOD.

"Suicide Durance, for example. Going to be hard to "undo" that!" Durance didn't kill himself for me. That said, I doubt they are using the companions again. Or even the same area. The end slides disallow that.