GameBanshee's Game(s) of the Year - 2007 Awards

[stoffe]

Well I started playing it and everything apart from graphics is awesome. I think I'll give it another try when I have time to fully immerse myself.

 

I would play it in Windowed Mode if you aren't already. Sure, everything gets smaller, but the graphics won't get as horribly pixelated as when blowing up 640x480 to full screen on modern monitors.

[Emperor Devon]

You are truly evil Emperor Devon are you trying to get me to be critical of my sacred cow?

 

Story: MotB

 

See, that wasn't so hard now was it?

 

They fudged NWN2's storyline, why on Earth should I suspect that they did any better with the expansion?

 

For starters there's the general (if not completely agreed) consensus of everyone who's played MotB on this board that it trumps the OC by a long shot. Hells, even RPG Codex praised its story - I always thought they were incapable of liking games other than Torment and Fallout. While other people's opinions are by no means something to judge how your own experience with the game would be, I think there's some stock to its story receiving universal praise.

 

For some non-spoiler specific details, pretty much everything to do with NWN2 was purged in MotB. The setting takes place in Rashemen (countless leagues away from Neverwinter, no more sword & sorcery European setting), with none of the characters or companions from the OC present at all (except for two cameos and the dreamscape sequences). No kingdoms are at risk, no giant bad guys await to be stopped; even saying the game has a central antagonist is ambiguous (rather like how it was in Torment). It's a completely personal and very well-written story about the curse your PC's soul is under. Definitely not the generic 'save the world' one the OC was.

 

Anyways, if you liked Torment you'd like MotB for sure - you're definitely missing out if you're judging how it'll be by how the OC was. (You wouldn't be the first person to chuck that away in unfinished disgust and then rave about MotB either - there were a lot of cases of that at the Codex.)

[Balderdash]

Speaking of the codex, a few of the members of the gamebanshee staff have spoken about these very awards over there, if anyone is at all interested.

 

As always with the codex, beware of naughty language if you're sensitive to that sort of thing, or there are small kids around:

 

Click here.

 

This was what the guy who chose ME as biggest disappointment had to say:

 

Hey guys, I just thought I'd drop in here to try and address some of the criticisms about my decision to label Mass Effect as a disappointment.

 

Let me start off by saying that I've been playing tabletop and PC RPGs for 27 years, I think the D20 system is pretty solid in terms of variety, and I grew up watching (and really enjoying) Star Wars episodes IV - VI. As a result, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was a good match for me and I enjoyed it immensely for many different reasons that are sort of out of the scope of what I popped in here for.

 

Now, eschewing the D20 system for Mass Effect was fine, but I didn't expect BioWare's proprietary character development system to be so generic. There are no character attributes, no noteworthy non-combat skills, and only forty talents - most of which are nearly identical. For example, all four weapon talents use the same progression with one unlockable skill within each that more-or-less increases damage, the three armor talents reduce damage and increase shield regeneration, and the six biotic talents serve either a direct damage or crowd control purpose. The talent pool also includes class specializations, which can only be perceived as an afterthought. Ascending to any of them just lets you allocate six more points into a slightly modified version of your previous class talent. They're practically transparent.

 

The Paragon/Renegade system might enter into grey areas more than the Dark/Light and Open Palm/Closed Fist systems, but it's still the same approach. Top choices on the radial menu are for Paragons, bottom choices are for Renegades. Whenever there is an option to Charm, there's an option to Intimidate. It's not a terrible way to handle dialogue considering that there are no attributes to reference or anything, but there's definitely nothing unique about it. The game was supposed to have some real hard-hitting player decisions, too. There are two major decisions you have to make in the game - which of your squad members dies at the hands of the Geth and whether or not to wipe out the Rachni race. Aside from potentially losing a romance option, there are no consequences to either of these actions.

 

It might not matter to some, but having unique equipment with interesting descriptions is a must for me in a role-playing game. With Mass Effect, it's as if they just opened up a thesarus and grabbed all the one-word synonyms they could find for the weapons and armor. Some of the names are even duplicated (Avenger is the name of a sniper rifle AND an assault rifle, Striker is the name of a pistol AND a sniper rifle, etc.) and there is no naming differentiation between light/medium/heavy armors for any of the four races (resulting in the same name being used for up to 12 different armors). Additionally, I'm the kind of guy who actually reads the six paragraphs that describe how The Snow Maiden's Reaver came to be. With the equipment in ME, there are no item descriptions and no statistics to consider aside from three simple scores. The whole equipment system just feels uninspired and boring to me.

 

Aside from the main quest planets (which were pretty well done), I never really felt any satisfaction from exploring the game's galaxy, either. The idea of exploring uncharted planets sounded great to me, but when you're just landing on the same square patch of land devoid of anything but crashed space probes, minerals waiting to be surveyed, insurmountable mountain ranges, and the occasional side quest that takes place in an unremarkable building or mining facility, the novelty wears off fast. When coupled with the simplistic, bouncy, and slow-moving Mako, most of my planetary exploration has felt like a chore.

 

I should also add that I'm not a fan of enemy and loot scaling, especially when it's used exclusively and ruins any sense of danger (and adventure) in the game. I was actually hoping that I'd be able to land on some exotic planet and be slaughtered by a sinister alien species, but that never happened. In my opinion, that type of thing encourages players to continue to build their characters, re-equip their characters, or otherwise utilize some other strategy and then return to the challenge later on. It was also pretty disappointing to get a few dozen credits and maybe a suit of Explorer I armor for quests and Geth kills at the beginning of the game, only to discover that those same quests and Geth could suddenly be worth tens of thousands of credits and a suit of Explorer X armor if I killed or completed them when my squad was of higher level later in the game. Some scaling is acceptable, but Mass Effect's progression was just too strict and linear for me.

 

That's my take, anyway. Mass Effect is certainly not a bad game (I still contend that the storyline, cinematics, voiceovers, and music are great), but I couldn't help but scratch my head at the many poor design decisions. It had a lot to live up to for me and as a result was my biggest disappointment this year. Hellgate: London was a close second, but I went into that game expecting Diablo-style skill trees and some quick cooperative fun, nothing more. As a result, my expectations were met.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

Now, eschewing the D20 system for Mass Effect was fine, but I didn't expect BioWare's proprietary character development system to be so generic. There are no character attributes, no noteworthy non-combat skills, and only forty talents - most of which are nearly identical. For example, all four weapon talents use the same progression with one unlockable skill within each that more-or-less increases damage, the three armor talents reduce damage and increase shield regeneration, and the six biotic talents serve either a direct damage or crowd control purpose. The talent pool also includes class specializations, which can only be perceived as an afterthought. Ascending to any of them just lets you allocate six more points into a slightly modified version of your previous class talent. They're practically transparent.

Considering that whatever action system they used on ME allows so much more than a old, aging, system that works better on tabletop RPGs, we don't really need a Exotic Weapon Mastery Lv.3.

The Paragon/Renegade system might enter into grey areas more than the Dark/Light and Open Palm/Closed Fist systems, but it's still the same approach. Top choices on the radial menu are for Paragons, bottom choices are for Renegades. Whenever there is an option to Charm, there's an option to Intimidate. It's not a terrible way to handle dialogue considering that there are no attributes to reference or anything, but there's definitely nothing unique about it. The game was supposed to have some real hard-hitting player decisions, too. There are two major decisions you have to make in the game - which of your squad members dies at the hands of the Geth and whether or not to wipe out the Rachni race. Aside from potentially losing a romance option, there are no consequences to either of these actions.

They were honest and straightforward here. if they did messed with the wheel system, shuffling the Renegade, Paragon and neutral answers, they would just make the dialog more tedious to the player, as he would have to figure out for himself, not that this does matter. After all, it don't matter if you are a Renegade or a Paragon if you get the job done... That, and that there won't be a Dark Side transition, nor people lecturing or congratulating you for your choices.

 

What game has he played? Then

Saving the Council, or not; Change the political order on the Council space and eliminating erratic core characters

aren't considered major decisions?

 

It might not matter to some, but having unique equipment with interesting descriptions is a must for me in a role-playing game. With Mass Effect, it's as if they just opened up a thesarus and grabbed all the one-word synonyms they could find for the weapons and armor. Some of the names are even duplicated (Avenger is the name of a sniper rifle AND an assault rifle, Striker is the name of a pistol AND a sniper rifle, etc.) and there is no naming differentiation between light/medium/heavy armors for any of the four races (resulting in the same name being used for up to 12 different armors). Additionally, I'm the kind of guy who actually reads the six paragraphs that describe how The Snow Maiden's Reaver came to be. With the equipment in ME, there are no item descriptions and no statistics to consider aside from three simple scores. The whole equipment system just feels uninspired and boring to me.

Nah, the guy's ranting at nothing here. Of course, it coulda have been more interesting if Bioware had included different descriptions for a Predator II and a Predator VIII, but that isn't really the end of the world, is it? The aspect that bothered me on that was the item limit... 150?

Aside from the main quest planets (which were pretty well done), I never really felt any satisfaction from exploring the game's galaxy, either. The idea of exploring uncharted planets sounded great to me, but when you're just landing on the same square patch of land devoid of anything but crashed space probes, minerals waiting to be surveyed, insurmountable mountain ranges, and the occasional side quest that takes place in an unremarkable building or mining facility, the novelty wears off fast. When coupled with the simplistic, bouncy, and slow-moving Mako, most of my planetary exploration has felt like a chore.

 

I should also add that I'm not a fan of enemy and loot scaling, especially when it's used exclusively and ruins any sense of danger (and adventure) in the game. I was actually hoping that I'd be able to land on some exotic planet and be slaughtered by a sinister alien species, but that never happened. In my opinion, that type of thing encourages players to continue to build their characters, re-equip their characters, or otherwise utilize some other strategy and then return to the challenge later on.

True.

It was also pretty disappointing to get a few dozen credits and maybe a suit of Explorer I armor for quests and Geth kills at the beginning of the game, only to discover that those same quests and Geth could suddenly be worth tens of thousands of credits and a suit of Explorer X armor if I killed or completed them when my squad was of higher level later in the game. Some scaling is acceptable, but Mass Effect's progression was just too strict and linear for me.

If we remove the same characters/name-of-garments thing, we come to notice that every RPG to date works alike.

[SilentScope001]

Ctrl_Alt_Delete, um...please forgive me for responding, but since I like gamestories, erm...:

 

They were honest and straightforward here. if they did messed with the wheel system, shuffling the Renegade, Paragon and neutral answers, they would just make the dialog more tedious to the player, as he would have to figure out for himself, not that this does matter. After all, it don't matter if you are a Renegade or a Paragon if you get the job done... That, and that there won't be a Dark Side transition, nor people lecturing or congratulating you for your choices.

 

...

 

"It doesn't matter if you are a Renegade or a Paragon if you get the job done". It DOESN'T MATTER? That's the problem! It should matter!

 

There has to be in-game consquences. For both Renegade and Paragon. If you are a Paragon, willing to follow moral constructs and do the right thing every single time, then you should pay the consquences, as you won't effectively fight the enemy, and heh, maybe even go out and actually harm your side if one of your men start doing something immoral ("I must stop the genocide of the So-And-So Race, so I will abandon my post and let the Ghet take over, because if I do nothing, I will be condoning horrors"). If you are Renegade that will do whatever it takes, suffer the consquences as well, with people depising you, false charges be made by those who you harmed in the past, and crazed Paragons wanting to stab you and ignore the much more pressing threats. And what about escalation for the Renegade? If you start doing more immoral stuff, then the Renegade's enemy may choose to 'escalate' the threat, and begin committing even more immoral actions in order to try and secure victory.

 

Any RPG where you get to pick and choose what you want to do without any sort of problems in the long term...well, that's not breaking the mold, that is the mold of both KOTOR and Fable. "I'm feeling frisky today, let choose evil and see if I can charge the loading ramp of that wealthy Widow!" Strangely enough, the only game, that I played, where you actually have to make a meaningful choice, and in which that choice will break you in some way, is Hidden Agenda, a 1980's political sim. Not even an RPG, but, well, it's actually quite developed for its stark moral delimmas and consquences.

 

What game has he played? Then

 

Saving the Council, or not; Change the political order on the Council space and eliminating erratic core characters

 

aren't considered major decisions?

 

 

What does it matter as a gameplay consquence? The game ends anyway. No matter what, the Humans STILL win. In a sequel to ME, then it might matter, with a Human-dominanted galaxy being much different from a galaxy dominated by aliens with Humans playing second fiddle but rising in the ranks and eventually dominaitng.

 

But there is no sequel to ME right now, and what if Bioware doesn't allow for a person to choose his own ending? Once the game ends, the game ends. And regardless of choice, you know the enemy will come back soon.

 

[Ctrl Alt Del]

"It doesn't matter if you are a Renegade or a Paragon if you get the job done". It DOESN'T MATTER? That's the problem! It should matter!

 

There has to be in-game consquences. For both Renegade and Paragon.

It does surprise me seeing you complaining about that. You are always criticizing old RPG clichés, and looking for something new on the story, completely ignoring gameplay aspects ( ). I even suspect you're teamed up with Emperor Devon and his illegal underground sect that plans on burning down Bioware's office on Edmonton and impaling Ray Myzuka, all at the sound of their holy chore: "Bioware only make 'let's save the galaxy' game themes!".

 

Haven't this been done before? NWN, KotOR, JE are more than initials, those are games that included a good/bad side on them, and made your character follow every idiotic/well-behaved/neutral/jerky action course you wanted your character to take. Plainly: Mass Effect doesn't have a good/bas side, it has a Paragon/Renegade side.

 

If you are a Paragon, willing to follow moral constructs and do the right thing every single time, then you should pay the consquences, as you won't effectively fight the enemy, and heh, maybe even go out and actually harm your side if one of your men start doing something immoral ("I must stop the genocide of the So-And-So Race, so I will abandon my post and let the Ghet take over, because if I do nothing, I will be condoning horrors"). If you are Renegade that will do whatever it takes, suffer the consquences as well, with people depising you, false charges be made by those who you harmed in the past, and crazed Paragons wanting to stab you and ignore the much more pressing threats. And what about escalation for the Renegade? If you start doing more immoral stuff, then the Renegade's enemy may choose to 'escalate' the threat, and begin committing even more immoral actions in order to try and secure victory.

I see that as finally broken chains. "Let's get 75% of all Renegade/paragon points to get an achievement, then let's do what the heck we would want to do on our own lives". That, IMNSHO, is RPing, and THAT, is the grey side we've been asking for so long.

 

Any RPG where you get to pick and choose what you want to do without any sort of problems in the long term...well, that's not breaking the mold, that is the mold of both KOTOR and Fable. "I'm feeling frisky today, let choose evil and see if I can charge the loading ramp of that wealthy Widow!"

That's, as I have said before, isn't the case of Mass Effect.

 

What does it matter as a gameplay consquence? The game ends anyway. No matter what, the Humans STILL win. In a sequel to ME, then it might matter, with a Human-dominanted galaxy being much different from a galaxy dominated by aliens with Humans playing second fiddle but rising in the ranks and eventually dominaitng.

I remember you saying somewhere that you appreciated philosophy. Right? Because you're a philosopher. To the core.

 

Why bother living if it's finite, anyways?

[mimartin]

"It doesn't matter if you are a Renegade or a Paragon if you get the job done". It DOESN'T MATTER? That's the problem! It should matter!

Why should it matter? If the point of the story is to get from a to b. Then the entire point of the story is b. You have to get to b. What the Renegade and Paragon system has to do with is how you get to b. The easy way by stealing the kid’s bike or the difficult way by walking while carry the poor crippled children on your shoulders. The entire point of Mass Effect and most RPG games is the journey not the destination. Mass Effect is no different in that regards than KOTOR. Kill the bad guy and save the galaxy. Lightside/Paragon or Darkside/Renegade or anywhere in the middle you still end up at the same destination.

[SilentScope001]

It does surprise me seeing you complaining about that. You are always criticizing old RPG clichés, and looking for something new on the story, completely ignoring gameplay aspects

 

...Bioware broke the barriers of gaming by basically simply renaming Good and Evil.

 

I'm frankly underwhelmed.

 

Haven't this been done before? NWN, KotOR, JE are more than initials, those are games that included a good/bad side on them, and made your character follow every idiotic/well-behaved/neutral/jerky action course you wanted your character to take. Plainly: Mass Effect doesn't have a good/bas side, it has a Paragon/Renegade side.

 

Well, following "every idiotic/well-behaved/neutral/jerky action" does in fact sound like RP. Abliet, forced RP, but at least you are playing an avatar and not playing as yourself. Sterotypes are not original, but at least they are a good starting point to RP from. When you get down to it, you can break down an "original charater" to sterotypes anyway...

 

But without any consquences, you make the choices meaningless. Paragon and Renegade seems like 'personal preference', just like in KOTOR (because to be honest, it's personal preference if you want to save the galaxy or take it over). But KOTOR had at least some 'nominal' consquences for your 'personal preference'.

 

Without any consquences at all for your 'personal preference', ME falls flat. This isn't Gray at all. It's 'choices for the sake of choices'.

 

I see that as finally broken chains. "Let's get 75% of all Renegade/paragon points to get an achievement, then let's do what the heck we would want to do on our own lives". That, IMNSHO, is RPing, and THAT, is the grey side we've been asking for so long.

 

RP is roleplaying. You play as an avatar.

 

But being granted a sandbox to choose what "pretty color" block you want to pick, as the choices you make are mostly cosmetic, with no real effect, is utterly deveasting to the core of any serious Roleplay that could explore more serious themes. You have to make a choice, and when you make that choice, it must affect you, so you must seriously stop and consider what you are doing, and realize if what you are doing is right or not (or if you are really a cynical powergamer, wheter that choice will benieft you or not). That is the ethical 'gray side'.

 

Make the choices affect your gameplay. If you really have to, reward evil and punish good. That will really throw a wrench into things, and showcase many 'compromises' in morals needed in order to ensure that you can sitll survive. It also makes good something more to strive for rather than just being a 'paladin'.

 

That's, as I have said before, isn't the case of Mass Effect.

 

Yes it is. In fact, it seems to be even more like Fable than KOTOR. Fable, you still got to go to the exact same desitnation, and the journey is the same. You can choose if you want to do Good or Evil. It's the same exact choice, with no consquence really on if you, say, kill off your best friend or if you do not. No matter IF you are Good or Evil, you still save Alibon, just that your methods are different.

 

Even Fable got a level-scaling system just like ME. Even sex too. Turns out Peter Molyunex really was a revolutionary.

 

Why should it matter? If the point of the story is to get from a to b. Then the entire point of the story is b. You have to get to b. What the Renegade and Paragon system has to do with is how you get to b. The easy way by stealing the kid’s bike or the difficult way by walking while carry the poor crippled children on your shoulders. The entire point of Mass Effect and most RPG games is the journey not the destination

 

Then you can see that I'm proposing something different. The Destination matters too. The affect on the galaxy, your choices and your actions, and the actions of those around you, should affect what road you take. The road you take should lead to terrible consquences, and in the end, multiple destinations. The destinations matter because why else are you heading there? The destinations matter because while the game ends for us, it does not end for the characters.

 

Otherwise, the game is really just a 'sandbox', with no inherent meaning other than what we assign to it.

 

Basically, make our choices mean something important. Enhance any 'illusion of control'.

[Pavlos]

Then you can see that I'm proposing something different. The Destination matters too. The affect on the galaxy, your choices and your actions, and the actions of those around you, should affect what road you take. The road you take should lead to terrible consquences, and in the end, multiple destinations. The destinations matter because why else are you heading there? The destinations matter because while the game ends for us, it does not end for the characters.

 

I'd agree with you to a point with this. You see, while I think consequence is important - even if only employed as a tool for ego stroking - I do think you are discounting the importance of the journey up to a decision.

 

Consequence is only the half of it and unfortunately the oft forgotten half is nigh on dead because the developers of RPGs are so averse to the idea of a one choice decision; how does a good character deal with the idea that they have to kill an innocent man to get what they need to "save the world"? The squirming, the sweating, the guilt and the attempts to avoid that decision are what define the character, not actually doing the inevitable (i.e. killing the man).

 

Hamlet isn't Hamlet because he kills Claudius (minor spoiler there ) he's Hamlet because he can't do the deed until right at the end - and indeed he doesn't know himself "why yet I live to say 'this thing's to do'".

 

While I wouldn't say Mass Effect does them brilliantly (10/10, good job, and gold star), it does at least try to give you morally ambiguous and difficult decisions. The difficulty in making the decision and the idea of playing a good character who occaisionally has to be the bad-guy, is just as interesting - to me, at least - than the consequences of my actions.

 

The journey's important too .

[Ctrl Alt Del]

Yes it is. In fact, it seems to be even more like Fable than KOTOR. Fable, you still got to go to the exact same desitnation, and the journey is the same. You can choose if you want to do Good or Evil. It's the same exact choice, with no consquence really on if you, say, kill off your best friend or if you do not. No matter IF you are Good or Evil, you still save Alibon, just that your methods are different.

What comes next on those games, then? You save the land just to become a worst scourge.

[SilentScope001]

What comes next on those games, then? You save the land just to become a worst scourge.

 

I never said the Fable's storyline was actually good.