Bioware - Are Their Games Actually That Good?

[Hell Kitty]

ME was the first game since BG2 that I played through the whole thing a second time straight after the first run through. There are plenty of games I replay, but not straight away like that.

 

As for achievements, it's obvious people do like them, so to dismiss them as nothing is actually pretty stupid. For me it's because they might make me try something or play in a way I hadn't thought of, or simply take notice of something I might otherwise have ignored. Anything that allows me to get more out of the game is a good thing.

Edited May 6, 2008 by Hell Kitty

[Nick_i_am]

Some games would be absolutely nothing (imo) without the achievements, ex. = Crackdown.

 

You misspelled coop.

[Meshugger]

I never found ME to be any good. Technical issues aside and silly things such as achievements (Who wants that crap anyway?), i found the story and characters to be very lacking, and very mediocre. The soundtrack was ok though.

 

I don't get how you could criticize a game for having achievements. Like it or not, a large population of 360 gamers play for achievements, hell - I played Gears of War for like an extra 5 months getting all the weapon achievements. Calling them "silly things" doesn't really make sense, it was a brilliant move by Microsoft because there are plenty of people who purchase a 360 version of a game over a PS3 or PC version simply because they have the (added fun of) achievements. Some games would be absolutely nothing (imo) without the achievements, ex. = Crackdown.

 

Must be a cultural thing. They add nothing to my gaming experience as i see it. For me, they are entitlements for people who want to boast about great their "gaming skillz", nothing more. What infuriates me even more is when people's first question about a game is whether it will have achievements or not. Feels like the gaming crowd has turned into a hive of attention-seeking children. But again, each to his own, i guess.

 

You praise Microsoft for implementing them. Well, i agree with you there actually, from business point of view. But for video-games as an artform, (yes, i am an staunch artsy-fartsy guy who hates the common plebs and their simpleton tastes in culture), there's little significance.

[Sand]

Personally I ignore achievements. I have the "auto-notifier" turned off on my XBox 360. I don't even know where and when I pick up an achievement and I particularly never cared.

[Hell Kitty]

Must be a cultural thing.

 

That doesn't make any sense. "You like X and I don't, we must be from different cultures." Having a different opinion doesn't make you part of a separate culture.

 

For me, they are entitlements for people who want to boast about great their "gaming skillz", nothing more.

 

Having this view requires you to choose to ignore those that contradict it, like the ones from Krookie and me. Claiming a load of nonsense is just an opinion doesn't stop it from being a load of nonsense. For me, video games are toys for child-men who lack the ability to grow up, nothing more.

 

What infuriates me even more is when people's first question about a game is whether it will have achievements or not.

 

Then you're getting infuriated by something that exists only in your imagination. The reason being that all 360 games have achievements, thus no one would ever ask this question.

[Nick_i_am]

The fun in achevements is in getting them. 'Grinding' achevements can go screw a rock, but the good ones are those that encorage you to play in a way you wouldn't otherwise consider or a way that pushes your skills to the limit. I don't care about the boast potential, but thinking of them as extra objectives that increase the playability of a game is the right way to aproch these. A good exacmple is the 'pacifist' achevement in Geo Wars, which 'rewards' you by simply staying alive for a set amount of time, likewise the 'Dot Eater' from Ikaruga.

 

Conversly, CoD4 had pretty boring achevements, 70% of them were either 'complete this level' or 'complete this level on this diff', both of which I would do anyway in my standard playthroughs of a game.

 

Gamerscore/boasting is irrelivent, but if you don't like the extra objectives then nobody is forcing you to play them, dissing the system as a whole seems pointless.

[Hurlshort]

I've never actually sought out a specific achievement. I play the game, and occasionally one dings, and I smile contentedly. They make me feel better about myself. Sometimes they are even humorous, like the warm coffee achievement.

[Meshugger]

Personally I ignore achievements. I have the "auto-notifier" turned off on my XBox 360. I don't even know where and when I pick up an achievement and I particularly never cared.

 

THANK YOU.

 

I didn't know that there were such a feature.

[Meshugger]

Must be a cultural thing.

 

That doesn't make any sense. "You like X and I don't, we must be from different cultures." Having a different opinion doesn't make you part of a separate culture.

 

For me, they are entitlements for people who want to boast about great their "gaming skillz", nothing more.

 

Having this view requires you to choose to ignore those that contradict it, like the ones from Krookie and me. Claiming a load of nonsense is just an opinion doesn't stop it from being a load of nonsense. For me, video games are toys for child-men who lack the ability to grow up, nothing more.

 

What infuriates me even more is when people's first question about a game is whether it will have achievements or not.

 

Then you're getting infuriated by something that exists only in your imagination. The reason being that all 360 games have achievements, thus no one would ever ask this question.

 

Individuals with backgrounds from different cultures have different opinions on life, happiness and on what's right and wrong. Makes perfect sense.

 

Those who disagrees with me on this forum aren't the ones that i am talking about, you know that.

 

I don't understand the last paragraph though, why do you claim that somewhat that i've seen on various gamingforums, and other forums + in real life is just my imagination?

 

Point being, reading and hearing from numerous people that it is good that Bioware has included achievements in their games, as in it their favourite moments in a game is completely alien to me. Bioware should focus more on developing better characters and story, and hire a better interface-designer.

[Humodour]

I tend to agree. Achievements are generally implemented in a way that is both boring and arbitrary. They (generally) don't "push your skills to the limit"; they are just there because that's the 'in thing' on consoles these days.

 

Perhaps if developers could learn to implement them more smoothly and less grindingly, like sporadic minigames, it wouldn't be so bad.

[Hurlshort]

Bleh, if achievement only came for "pushing my skills to the limit" I'd probably never get them, and then I'd feel like a loser. It should be a mix, a few difficult ones and a few basic ones in every game.

[Nick_i_am]

I've never played it, but apparently Call of Jarez has some good ones.

 

That is to say, on every level there's an achevement, not for completing the level, but for going 'beyond the call of duty' on that level in some way.

 

To those who have played CnC3 and are familiar with the sub objective system (completing all sub objectives gives an extra band to the medal awarded at the end of a level) then the achevement system, implimented well, should be a boon. I never gave a crap about the actual band on the medal, but that didn't mean I didn't go out of my way to complete every sub objective, simply because they were fun.

 

Not that i'm saying that there arn't a LOT of retarded achevements out there, but that's not the fault of the system itself.

[thepixiesrock]

It's like you people will argue about anything.

[Kelverin]

It's like you people will argue about anything.

No we won't.

[Volourn]

Achievements don't make a game for me; but they can be fun and certainly don't hurt a game's quality, imo. I certainly never go out of my way to get them, though.

[Gromnir]

theory:

 

there is a natural inclination to wanna win a game you play. checkers, basketball, chess, monopoly... whatever the game is, we typically tries to win, no? the thing is that pc and console games is designed to be beaten, and they is designed to be beaten by just 'bout anybody. makes your victory over the game feel hollow. so how can developers make so that Gromnir can laugh at those less proficient at Mass Effect than is himself? if everybody who plays wins, how can you compete... how can you win in such a way that makes you more accomplished than the your snot-nosed 8 year old neighbor... who probably beat game before you did?

 

accomplishments is a way to keeps score with games that is designed so that everybody can beat... easily. not only did you beat game, but you got ALL the achievements? well shucks, you is 1337 now, baby. is a game, so you gotta be able to win, and there must be some way to keep score and track who is bestest.

 

...

 

yeah, Gromnir am not genuine getting it anymore than does mesh, but we got a theory. is probably bunk, but coming up with theory seemed more entertaining than trying to collect achievements.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Humodour]

It's like you people will argue about anything.

 

You're just too young to understand.

 

Yeah, I went there.

[Arkan]

I don't remember where I stopped reading this thread nor where it went from 'Does BIO make good games' to a discussion solely on achievements, but I'd just like to add that I find the idea of achievements dumb. Thank you, that is all

[Dark_Raven]

Key word: past tense. They used to make good games.

[Nick_i_am]

haha, bitter.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Regardless of if an individual likes achievements, they sure as hell ain't going anywhere, they're a requirement for any XBOX 360 game.

 

Achievements can add longevity to certain games, and a certain level of competition with friends... But it doesn't really matter, it's just an extra rewards system which some gamers will enjoy, I personally like it, gives me something to aim for if I'm on a secondary run through, as I often find after the initial play through of a game doing the exactly same things isn't entertaining, but say setting out to unlock a bunch of achievements while I play can increase a games replayability.

[Sand]

Key word: past tense. They used to make good games.

 

They still do. Dragon Age and ME2 is coming, SOnic can be ignored but I am sure it will still be in typical Bioware quality. Just because you don't like a certain platform the game is on does not make it a bad game.

[Dark_Raven]

Key word: past tense. They used to make good games.

 

They still do. Dragon Age and ME2 is coming, SOnic can be ignored but I am sure it will still be in typical Bioware quality. Just because you don't like a certain platform the game is on does not make it a bad game.

Dragon Age may be good but if they sue that Securbull**** they can take that game and shove it where the sun don't shine. I'd buy Fallout 3 before I buy any more of their games.

[RangerSG]

I find this discussion interesting. At the danger of being seen as a "Bioware fanboy" (which I'm far too old to be), I think something is...odd in this discussion.

 

Bio is accused repeatedly of not being 'innovative' or 'edgy' enough, while Obsidian (and Troicha/BIS before) are held up as examples of this. And the comparison is made between "popular" art and "cinematic" art with filmakers. I find the comparison dubious for a simple reason.

 

Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola, et al, were technically innovative, not just innovative storytellers...indeed, most of their stories came from other sources. Coppola did his own screenplays, but they typically worked from other sources. Where they were innovative was in the technical aspect, in adapting the story to the visual medium.

 

On that score, Bioware IS innovative. After all, it's 'their' licensed engines that the others have used. Witcher and NWN2 and KOTOR2 all come from the Aurora Engine Bioware developed. All the old BIS games (save Fallout, which is really what BIS' reputation is based on to the larger gaming community) were Infinity Engine games...again, primarily developed by Bioware. So whatever you think of their stories, they have invested a good deal in advancing the technology of RPG games.

 

Futhermore, whatever one thinks of NWN's OCs (and I admit that the original OC is ordinary, SoU worse than that, and only Hordes a 'decent' story), the development of a Toolset that could be used by the community to create gaming environments of it's own represented a substanital risk and innovation. That has been pooh-poohed in this discussion because some people think the quality of them is lackluster. To that I say you haven't looked enough, Modules like Aielund, Crimson Tides of Tethyr, A Dance w/ Rogues, and some PWs match production qualities that most studios would dream of having. NWN2 comparatively has had limited success in that aspect because it did not embrace customization as the original did...and thus was less innovative, IMHO. Though I will concede that MoTB was an exceptional and ambitious story (though I would say the NWN2 OC was just as shallow as the NWN1 OC story).

 

Does Obsidian write good stories? Yep. Are they ambitious? yep...in fact I think they are often TOO ambitious to recognize their limitations of time and resources and work within them (hence the issues with KotOR2 and NWN2). Do I hold out hope that they will be an exceptional development team moving forward? Yes. Am I willing to give them those accolades now? Not so fast. Let's see a truly finished product from them before we award them the mantle of Lordship over CRPGs.

[Musopticon?]

Does Bioware have the "mantle of Lordship over CRPGs" right now? What is that anyway?

 

Technical innovation is nice, but I have not cared two zits over Bioware's rpgs ever since they started to remake the same story in a new setting. I concede that Mass Effect was a good effort, but there they instead decided to shamelessly rip off Alastair Reynolds, which wasn't a very polite thing to do to be honest. It did make for a very refreshing villain and a nice premise, just not ones that were of Bioware's own design. I give Bioware one thing, if I want fries with my rpg-burger, they provide. I go into an entirely different restaurant for something beyond the ordinaire.

 

Are you a fanboy? Yep. Did you write this on a competing company's board fully aware it would have to contain fanboys? Yep...in fact you did it intentionally to stir us up.