The good, bad, and the ugly in Infinity Engine games

[Malekith]

 

That was a very sweet post, Razsius. 

 

I think my problem with BG may be... a mirror image of your problem with PS:T. With PS:T, you're unable to switch off the critical part of your brain when it comes to game aspects, and so the "gamey" flaws are constantly jolting you out of the experience and frustrating you, so you're never able to get to the parts of the game that make it worthwhile.

 

With BG, OTOH, I'm unable to switch off the critical part of my brain when it comes to the writing aspects, which means I can't make myself care about any of the characters. They just don't come alive for me.

 

Exactly.  Though I think we can solve this problem of ours.  Math and English do rock after all... just for two entirely different reasons.  Care to take the plunge Prime?  I got Planescape:Torment sitting right here ready to be fired up.  I've already played it once so I can avoid the pitfalls that might get me if I need to but I really won't go into it expecting I need to.  The game only generally has as much control over me as I give it anyways.

 

For you, about the only thing you'd "need" to do is simply write *your* story.  Baldur's Gate is generally sandbox enough that it allows you to.  I rarely for instance beeline to Nashkel.  Instead, I usually wander all over the place.  I head up north toward Baldur's Gate occasionally picking up a companion or two, quest around the Friendly Arm then head toward Beregost.  After that, I hit up the areas around there and take care of a certain pesky cleric.  Then and only then (ie generally when I feel like it) do I start on the chapter 2 stuff.  As I recall in Enhanced Edition I believe you can write your own journal entries.  Maybe write about how you're absolutely sick of seeing bland looking trees.  Fall into the world.  "Mud" is only whatever you make of it.

 

I'll do it if you do it .

 

Then we can come back to this thread at a later date... or make a new one and see if we've learned anything.  At least for me, *knowing* is believing we can actually do this.

I replayed BG recently. It's by no means a bad game(except if like Junta you focus on the writting) but i still my opinion is that is the weakest of the IE games. I know what makes me say that. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63480-what-makes-you-like-your-favorite-games/?do=findComment&comment=1315135

[PrimeJunta]

 

@PrimeJunta

I guess it's obvious that PS:T was inspired by Buddhism and Hinduism (even though there are other philosophical influences as well). However, the notion that you need to be a buddhist to create true art, or to have grasped the concept of reality, is imho a bit far-fetched.

I have yet to see a buddhist, new ager, or whatever, who isn't full of himself, especially when it comes to people with a monetheistic worldview. 

The world can be interpreted in more than just one way, as can most games, books, or art in general. 

 

Dafuq? Where did that come from? I don't think any of my favorite artists are Buddhists, and I'm pretty sure none of them are New Agers.

 

They do rather tend to be full of themselves, that's for sure. But then in my experience that applies to converts of every stripe, whether it's to Christianity, Communism or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[Iucounu]

@Malekith

Baldurs Gate 2 was an epic game, if I ever saw one. Torment isn't. This has not necessarily something to do with how good the writing is, it are just two different games. 

 

 

@PrimeJunta

Well, you claimed that MCA is probably deep into Buddhism, to be able to make a game like Torment, which you hold so dear. That's all I know.

And yeah, you can be full of yourself when it comes to you worldview. But no need to make people with other worldviews ridicuolous. 

Edited March 10, 2013 by Iucounu

[Malekith]

@Malekith

Baldurs Gate 2 was an epic game, if I ever saw one. Torment isn't. This has not necessarily something to do with how good the writing is, it are just two different games. 

 

 

@PrimeJunta

Well, you claimed that MCA is probably deep into Buddhism, to be able to make a game like Torment, which you hold so dear. That's all I know.

And yeah, you can be full of yourself when it comes to you worldview. But no need to make people with other worldviews ridicuolous. 

But Baldur's Gate 2 was mostly a personal story. The whole "epic" feel isn't exclusive with Torment. I think Colin said it better in Torment:Tides of Numenera pitch. Torment will be a tragic personal story, but it will fell epic to the ones involved.

Maybe you have a diffirent definition of "epic" than mine.

[Iucounu]

Well, epic in the way of kicking everybody's ass, being glorious, having a great impact and whatnot. 

But when it comes to exploring a certain subject, or personal matter, like Torment did, everything that is too much outside of the topic is perhaps just an hinderance. 

There are many people who said it would have been best if Torment were an adventure. I can't say I agree (in a planescape setting combat just has to play a certain role), but they got a point somehow. 

Edited March 10, 2013 by Iucounu

[Malekith]

Well, epic in the way of kicking everybody's ass, being glorious, having a great impact and whatnot. 

But when it comes to exploring a certain subject, or personal matter, like Torment did, everything that is too much outside of the topic is perhaps just an hinderance. 

There are many people who said it would have been best if Torment were an adventure. I can't say I agree (in a planescape setting combat just has to play a certain role), but they got a point somehow. 

Yeah, definitely diffirent definition. After all the ancients's "epics" were tragedies more often than not. You can have a story that you can kick everybody's ass, being glorious, having a great impact and despite all of that you descover that you were doomed from the start and there is no way for you to achive your true goal/happy ending whatever.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Malekith

[Iucounu]

I generally dislike such "tragic heros" who are just too awesome to life. I'm sure if TNO would have been anything like that, PS:T would get even more bashing in this thread than poor little BG 1.

You're probably right that it's not impossible. But I would say in most cases, it is. 

[PrimeJunta]

@PrimeJunta

Well, you claimed that MCA is probably deep into Buddhism, to be able to make a game like Torment, which you hold so dear. That's all I know.

And yeah, you can be full of yourself when it comes to you worldview. But no need to make people with other worldviews ridicuolous.

I know! It's terribly un-Buddhist of me. Buddhists are supposed to be calm, serene, compassionate, self-effacing, humble, and all that commotion, and also terribly understanding of other religions, even silly ones. I'm a terrible Buddhist![1]

 

I don't know how deep MCA is into Buddhism -- as in, if he's ever practiced it. But whoever wrote it grokked that stuff. Also it isn't necessarily Buddhism, could be Advaita Vedanta as well, on the level they appear in PS:T the concepts are similar enough. The Dusties are a bit like an uncharitable Hindu caricature of Buddhists actually. So maybe he's really a closet Hare Krishna. Anyone have a photo of him in robes banging a drum at an airport?

 

(Bad PrimeJunta! Bad! There I go making fun of other people's religions again.)

 

[1]Or I would be, if I identified as Buddhist, which I don't. I may be too old to take on an identity like that.

[PrimeJunta]

Oh, and about that epic thing -- the word's usage has shifted a quite a bit, but when someone says it, at least I think of something grand and sweeping, where the fates of nations are decided, heroes rise to triumph over impossible odds and all that commotion. In that sense PS:T wasn't epic. It was more of a tragedy really.

[Karkarov]

.... You guys realize say... Mass Effect 1 has a customer shepard who makes hard emotion decisions with no right or wrong answer, gets to "win" quite often, but always has a logical set of rules and world building behind it all that makes everything viable and believable.

 

Pretty sure that hits all three just fine.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Karkarov

[Sacred_Path]

o rly, I've heard that the combat was whack-a-mole, the setting was silly and the narrative was driven by color coding

 

 

 

trololol

 

 

 

 

since this is the thread where we bash everything people like: I'm currently in a playthrough of Wizardry VII, and damn was that one ambitious game. Some key features have never been used again in Western RPGs TTBOMK; like NPCs actually competing with you for treasure, and thereby possibly closing off content that you can't access anymore if you're too late. For a mechanics ****, or IOW a gamist, there are many interesting ideas. And what's even more interesting, it tries to avoid many pitfalls that modern games still walk right into.

 

Still, I won't call it a masterpiece, just to then try and relativate it by saying "well it's for gamists!". The story is very simple and lackluster, and the setting was definitely not created with people of 18+ years in mind. And even on the mechanics side, there are things that are rough/ failures in the details. Oh, and the sound is grating. It was definitely one of the best, if not the best, RPG on the market at the time of its inception (1992), and it still holds up very well. If it had all the trappings and the accumulated experience of the industry in 2013 under its hood, I probably couldn't tear myself away from it. But that doesn't mean I can turn a blind eye to its shortcomings.

 

 

g'night

Edited March 10, 2013 by Sacred_Path

[Karkarov]

o rly, I've heard that the combat was whack-a-mole, the setting was silly and the narrative was driven by color coding

 

 

 

trololol

 

And I heard you liked stalking little girls.  This statement I just made is also as accurate as the one I am quoting which is to say.... not at all.

[Sacred_Path]

And I heard you liked stalking little girls.  This statement I just made is also as accurate as the one I am quoting which is to say.... not at all.

see, you don't know me at all.

 

 

g'night

[Ffordesoon]

@Sacred_Path:

 

I'm not sure you understand the difference between an opinion ("I like this! I think it's incredible!") and a formal assessment ("This was a good game, but the pathfinding was an irritant, the mechanics didn't always work as I wanted them to, blah-de-blah-de-blah."). I love Alpha Protocol to death, and I think it is a brilliant game, but if I was writing a review of it, I'd have to give it a six out of ten. Planescape, I'd probably give an eight, but make clear in the text that I thought it was a masterful game with a few aggravating issues that pulled the score down.

 

Expecting people to give their formal assessment in a thread where we're discussing why we as individuals love/hate certain games is, frankly, silly.

 

And I am still trying to understand why you felt the need to indirectly call Torment fans "autistic storyf*gs." That sort of meanness is uncalled for, assuming I'm reading it right. Which I can't be, because I don't see how my post could have incited such a vitriolic response. I felt it was pretty damn reasonable.

 

EDIT: @Karkarov:

 

Christ, man. Attack the post, not the poster.

 

EDIT 2:

 

Also worth noting? I don't think Torment is different from other games, because I consider all games (and movies, and comics, and novels, and albums, and...) art. I realize that a lot of people feel that art is only the cream of the crop, and there are solid reasons to feel that way, but I find such reasoning thin. It's my contention that any creative work is art, and that entertainment is merely a subset of art.

 

I have many reasons for thinking that, but I won't bore you with them. Let it suffice to say that I don't mean to act as if PST is some sort of sacred cow. It's a game I like quite a lot, one I would consider a masterwork based on how well it does what it's trying to do, but it's not perfect. Nothing is.

 

@Prime:

 

I should point out that where MCA probably got a lot of the Buddhist-y musings in PST is from Roger Zelazny, whose work is a key influence on MCA as a writer. If you like the themes explored in Torment, I recommend reading some Zelazny.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Ffordesoon

[Karkarov]

 

EDIT: @Karkarov:

 

Christ, man. Attack the post, not the poster.

Christ man get a sense of humor.  If I was attacking him I wouldn't have ended the post by saying what I just said wasn't true.  Just like he didn't actually mean what he said in his post based on what he put in a spoiler.  There is also no need to attack a post when it is just a joke and or a troll post.

 

All that aside I don't have a clue why you think it is silly to discuss how you would review a game if you were being paid to do it in this thread.  There is no reason you can't be objective while also posting why you didn't like a game.

 

Also it boggles my mind why you think you would need to make special comment for Planscape.  You realize an 8/10 is actually a great score right?  Like the professional benchmark on metacritic is you score an 80 out of 100 or higher.  So there isn't much of a "dragging down" going on in an 8/10.

 

Personally I would give it a 6 out of 10 at best.

[PrimeJunta]

Since we're talking scores, I loathe numerical scores given to games with a passion. Games aren't toasters. They're products of creativity. I wish scored reviews of anything that involves more subjective assessment than rating a home appliance were staked through the heart and buried at a crossroads.

 

And yeah, I have had to assign those numbers. I still hate 'em.

[Iucounu]

[1]Or I would be, if I identified as Buddhist, which I don't. I may be too old to take on an identity like that.

That's the worst sort

[Sacred_Path]

I'm not sure you understand the difference between an opinion ("I like this! I think it's incredible!") and a formal assessment ("This was a good game, but the pathfinding was an irritant, the mechanics didn't always work as I wanted them to, blah-de-blah-de-blah.").

When people call something a "masterpiece", don't they usually mean that more universally than "this might be ****, but I liked it"? I think yes.

Expecting people to give their formal assessment in a thread where we're discussing why we as individuals love/hate certain games is, frankly, silly.

I don't think so. I'd like to hear more about what people thought about games in general, not just about the aspects that they liked the most.

The most interesting quote in this context probably came from PrimeJunta, where he said that, if the combat was done i.e. more in the vein of other IE games (which means that the combat would have been more interesting), it would actually have diminished his enjoyment of the game, because he feels that this would have gone against what he calls the game's "dream logic" (I hope I remembered the details right). To me, this means one of two things:

 

1) He's wrong.

 

or

 

2) this is a really highly subjective preference, but interesting nonetheless.

And I am still trying to understand why you felt the need to indirectly call Torment fans "autistic storyf*gs." That sort of meanness is uncalled for, assuming I'm reading it right.

No, that autism quote came about in a different context. It was my retort to the claim that "you can't make a game [/RPG] that appeals to different kinds of gamers at once!". I meant that most people who play games can enjoy a good story, and their enjoyment of the game is enhanced by the quality of the story, no matter if they actually bought the game because things go pew pew pew.

OTOH, people who love a good narrative should be put off by bad combat mechanics; at least, that would be my first guess. But as the example above shows, that is not always the case. But that is probably so rare and so highly subjective that it can merely be called an oddity.

Also worth noting? I don't think Torment is different from other games, because I consider all games (and movies, and comics, and novels, and albums, and...) art. I realize that a lot of people feel that art is only the cream of the crop, and there are solid reasons to feel that way, but I find such reasoning thin. It's my contention that any creative work is art, and that entertainment is merely a subset of art.

I pretty much agree.

I should point out that where MCA probably got a lot of the Buddhist-y musings in PST is from Roger Zelazny, whose work is a key influence on MCA as a writer.

that sounds reasonable.

 

@Karkarov

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekp97D7gCZ0

Edited March 10, 2013 by Sacred_Path

[Ffordesoon]

@Karkarov:

 

1. Reviews aren't "objective" in the first place, I don't know how that myth got started. They're formalized opinions. A reviewer has to support his or her opinions with experiential evidenceso there is a necessary degree of intellectual rigor that goes (or should go) into a published review that doesn't have to be present in a simple forum post, but "I didn't care for this part of the game, because X, Y, and Z" is still an opinion. The only genuinely objective part of a game review is when the reviewer mentions facts about the game. "The combat in Skyrim assigns each of the player character's hands to a trigger on the controller" is an objective statement, because it is factual. "The combat in Skyrim is bad" is a subjective statement, because it is an opinion. "The combat in Skyrim is bad because X, Y, and Z" is an opinion supported by experiential evidence.

 

2. Where did I say people weren't allowed to post reviews or review-style musings regarding Planescape? I just told you how I would review it. The only thing I said was silly was the expectation of buyer's-guide-style critiques ("Players who like good stories in their games will like this game a lot, but players who aren't interested in the narrative may find less to love..." etc.) in a thread where we're just sharing our impressions of the IE titles with each other ("Really, you liked that part? I wasn't a fan of it..." etc.). If someone wants to post a formal review of PST here, more power to them. It's just silly to expect that to be the default mode of expression.

 

3. Why is it weird to say that a game with substantial flaws is nonetheless worth playing? I can think of many games with substantial flaws that are nonetheless worth any gamer's attention, and it's in no way ridiculous to point that out. Many of my very favorite games ever made have pretty big flaws, and there are even games with no substantial mechanical flaws that I nonetheless can't stand to play.

 

4. Regarding your joke: I misinterpreted it. My bad.

 

EDIT: @Sacred_Path:

 

See, those are fair points.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Ffordesoon

[MattH]

It's actually pretty much agreed on that the soundtrack by Michael Hoenig for the BG series is one of the best, most fitting and timeless of the genre. While not every piece may shine, it's not half so generic and mediocre as most soundtracks in that vein, including the similar one for NWN2 Storm of Zehir and also the few tones we've heard so far of Project Eternity's.

Similar things can be said for many other aspects about the series, its type of gameplay and realization of setting (though BG1 in particular seems way more clunky than BG2 and I don't enjoy it very much), and I've no doubt that it can be used as a good influence for the current project, which is kind of the whole point of it, or one of its main points.

Edited March 11, 2013 by MattH

[PrimeJunta]

That's the worst sort

Yup. Couple aeons in a hell realm for me for sure. Now, was there anything else?

[Razsius]

You have a deal, @Razsius. However I'm still in the middle of Icewind Dale, so it'll have to wait until I finish that. I'm liking it more all the time by the way -- it's completely straightforward and unpretentious, the atmosphere is great, and the combat challenges are just the right mix of easy hacking mixed with tricky situations. It's challenging without being frustrating, which is a tricky balance to hit. Right now I'm playing at a bit of a handicap as I just dualed my thief to mage so I have nobody in the party able to disable traps, but a couple more levels ought to sort that out.

 

If you need any tips on playing PS:T, please let me know.

 

Likewise. When you do start up Baldur's Gate and you ever find yourself wondering "what the heck am I doing wrong here?" look me up.

 

Funny that you mention IWD as for whatever reason I can't seem to play it for any length of time over like 2 hours max. I don't even find that I have any real problem with the game. It just can't seem to keep my attention span for long at all. But then again lately it's seemed like that with all (soon to be 4) of the games i'm concurrently playing (Arcanum, Fire Emblem:Awakening, Europa Universalis 3 and soon Planescape:Torment). The 3 I'm currently working on I consider amazing so it's certainly not that.

 

I feel old sometimes...

 

When people call something a "masterpiece", don't they usually mean thatmore universally than "this might be ****, but I liked it"? I think yes.

 

I'm going to have to agree with this. I think Sacred's contention here is something along the lines of this. For me, defining a masterpiece is atrociously easy as there's one ridiculously obvious example of one.

 

Chrono Trigger

 

It's a masterpiece. What I consider to be the best JRPG of all time. Strangely, even a quick look at wiki tells me that i'm not the only one who still to this day notices how ridiculously awesome this game is. As I recall, it's even influenced Chris Avellone. Perhaps the best part is even those hacks at guinness noticed this listing it as 32nd most influential game in history. A game so good it keeps being remade. If I gave it a review back in the day it would look something like this:

 

Storytelling: 10/10

Atmosphere: 10/10

Characterization: 10/10

Combat: 10/10

Music: 10/10

Graphics: 10/10

 

If I reviewed it today the scores would look something like this:

 

Storytelling: 10/10

Atmosphere: 10/10

Characterization: 10/10

Combat: 10/10

Music: 10/10

Graphics: 10/10

 

You'll notice those scores haven't actually changed at all despite it being some 17 odd years later. Almost, two decades have passed and my scores remain the same. Are graphics now more cutting edge? They most certainly are. Would Chrono Trigger benefit from a reimaging? Nope, doesn't need it and would probably make it worse off. Is amazing ochestral music now available? Sure. Does Chrono Trigger now need an entirely new ochestral track? Nope, you'd lose some of the 32 bit awesomeness of the music. Then you have questions like these:

 

Does Chrono Trigger ever hit a slow part? Nope.

Is there any character you dislike? Nope.

Did you ever find a fault in the setting and atmosphere? Nope.

Was the combat ever boring? Nope

Could the combat have been improved with 2013's tech level? Lol Nope (Seen any other games that use 3 or more characters to do one technique? Yea didn't think so).

etc.

 

There's nothing you could have improved. It has withstood the test of time. It was the best JRPG of all time. It still might be.

 

It is a masterpiece...

 

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...and I might never see another of it's kind in my lifetime.

Edited March 11, 2013 by Razsius

[PrimeJunta]

Re IWD, it's a game I enjoy purely for the "gamey" aspects. The story is the bare minimum to keep you going from place to place; it's not that much better written than the dialog in BG, but then you're not really asked to give a spit about it. You do what you gotta do. I'm playing just for the next levelup, the next bit of cool loot, the next bit of way-cool scenery, and the next combat challenge the game is going to throw at me.

 

I'm really digging the way the combat is balanced. Really. Best IE game experience so far in this respect. It's tough enough that yeah, I do need to reload a fair bit when things go pear-shaped, but not so tough that I'm replaying every encounter -- even every "boss" encounter -- and I get a real feeling of danger and adventure, and a real feeling of satisfaction either when I guessed right about what I was going to encounter and prepared accordingly, or managed to adjust my tactics to win anyway. And it's diverse, with a changing mix of enemy types and maps. It's good, clean action-RPG fun.

[Sacred_Path]

I enjoyed Icewind Dale's story, but that probably mostly was due to the atmosphere. Kuldahar, the Oak, the cult of Auril... it's one of those games that make you feel cozy in your chair.

 

BG's story on the other hand... it all starts with the first hook of the story. You're supposed to hunt down Gorion's killer. Thing is, I didn't even care at all. The prologue definitely wasn't enough to ingrain that "child at Candlekeep" feeling into me, and why I should go look for a powerful assassin who killed an old man I had travelled with for some seconds when there was a whole open world waiting, I never quite got that into my system.

[Iucounu]

Yup. Couple aeons in a hell realm for me for sure. Now, was there anything else?

Other than I've said nothing like that? No.

Edited March 11, 2013 by Iucounu