Pidesco

This is just one game. I'm guessing Obsidian felt a male character would work better, considering the setting and plot. You can always wait for Aliens which will doubtlessly feature prominent main female characters. And don't mind Morgoth. I'm sure he meant no harm.

Yeah, these days VO is a given, but that doesn't change my point that production costs are stunting the growth of the genre. And frankly, as I enjoy reading, I wouldn't mind if a big budget RPG was released with more limited or no voice acting. Furthermore, whether there is VO or not is kind of beside the point of whether I enjoy a game or not. It's the perceived quality of the writing (and the VO, as the case may be) that determines my enjoyment of an entertainment product. Torment was as much a game as any other RPG. It's a game with different gameplay emphasis compared to other RPGs but it's still very much a game, not a novel.

Yeah, and Mass Effect has none of that. Also, this just isn't true. Less people will play a 100 hour game than a 10 hour one, but that was just as true in the BG2 days. Now unless everyone who bought BG2 suddenly keeled over and died, I'm sure there's still an audience for such a game. There just isn't enough audience to justify a game that blows up the budget with endless voice overs and graphical shinies. Imagine how much Torment would have cost if all the lines were voiced.

They've been making their games tighter and tighter, and lighter on content, too. It seems to be due to technical progress. There's only so much content you can make when every line is voiced, and when your platform barely renders the gameworld, much less the actors to populate it.

By your count AP should be brilliantly awesome. Frankly, regarding Bioware, I really don't see much improvement in characters or roleplaying. What I see is them selling the same game over and over again to wide acclaim.

MotB's NPCs were much, much better than any NPC Bioware has ever written. ME's combat was indeed a big improvement over previous games, but almost anything is an improvement over KOTOR and JE combat. And while NWN2's combat was never any good, it was still better than the horrible mess that passed for combat in NWN. I don't see how KOTOR2's combat was worse than in the first KOTOR. It's exactly the same.

The whole performance? Bioware has yet to make a game with actual good combat, their plots are generally drivel, and the roleplaying is limited to Mother Theresa vs bully manchild. Also, I don't see why I should lower my standards regarding game writing, just because most developers are even more atrocious than Bioware in that department.

The writing and roleplaying is generally pretty bad in Bioware's games. What's better about the NPC interaction in BG2 is that they actually interacted with you, as opposed to functioning as magical monologue dispensing machines that only work at certain designated plot points, or at level up. "oh, look you saved some planet I never visited! Now I can reveal my innermost thoughts and feelings to you, even though you've kept me shut in the cargo bay for the entire game. Let's bump uglies!"

I'm betting that this will be KOTOR with a larger party. I know they are supposed to be going for a BG2 experience with Dragon Age, but seeing as this going to be on consoles, they are going to have to heavily change the combat to accommodate gamepad control. Regarding the NPC interaction, it will probably be more or less the same as every Bioware game after BG2. Then again, it has breast fondling so: SOLD!

That's macula, not makula.

But that's the point - campiness doesn't really allow to develop a character outside of being campy. What?

I think you should elaborate Morgoth, as there is no rule stating that NOLF style campiness doesn't make a good RPG.

Which ones of those did you play on the PC?

Nonsense. Fat = unsexy = no Sex. You are forgetting the boob factor, which a lot of men fall for. also, I distinctly remember the fat girls in school being the "easy" ones. The thin girls always got to pick and choose, the fat ones not so much. I guess they ended up using sex as a bargaining chimp.

World of Goo, Devil May Cry 4, Trials 2, Audiosurf, Hinterland.

Only the fourth? What are the second and third exports? In Portugal there's a recently made official language which isn't spoken more than 500 people as a first language, and which no one is being taught as a first language. It would be like Latin being an official language of Italy, only 500 times worse.

When I was talking about the self inflicted silliness I wasn't referring to the comic relief bits, but rather to the oh-so-serious plot and writing which seemed really kind of awful.

You played "parts" of a MGS game? Blasphemy! MGS games aren't known for their PC ports, and I've been an almost exclusive PC gamer for many, many years.

I only played parts of the first one and the plot and characters did not impress me. The gameplay was good fun, though.

MGS is serious of the type which is full of itself and not aware of the self inflicted silly.

That keyboard looks like it's 20 years old.

Right now, Mass Effect still crashes a lot for me, especially on startup.

Mass Effect gave me a lot of buggy aggravation.

The sale is over, so the topic is over as well.

The best character on TV is a tractor unit with a manly voice? Even bloody KITT was better than that.