The Indiepinion

If it comes down to western RPGs over the last couple years, there are only two companies providing us with high quality titles: Bethesda with Oblivion and Fallout 3 and Bioware with Mass Effect 1 & 2 and Dragon Age.

I just can’t seem to warm up to Bioware titles. After giving it some thought, i figured it all boils down to this: Open-World atmosphere and “feeling in control” (aka having many choices). While Bethesda titles throw me into a big world with a main quest guiding me through the game and dozens of side-quests plus the first-person view which just makes it easier to draw players into the gameworld because “you’re in it” and not just watching your player move through the world, the Bioware titles are inherently linear with the side-quests merely trying to give me the impression of a big world. In case of Mass Effect, this failed misably with their empty-world planetary side Mako-missions. That was a terrible and inexcusable drop in quality which led to me not doing any side quests at all because they felt so out-of-place.

As for choices, it seems to me that choice in Bioware titles boils down to just dialogue options whereas in Bethesda titles, you also get to make choices in the world. How you approach your goal, how you decide to finish a quest. Admittedly that is also possible in Bioware games but somehow it doesn’t have the same emotional impact, largely because those choices seem superficial when most of the game is obviously scripted. For example, in Dragon Age when i approach a group of people standing right in the middle of a crossway, i know that there will be a cutscene forced upon me and i have to get into this conversation. In Oblivion and Fallout 3 this rarely happens and when it does, it is scripted as part of the quest. I leave the house, and someone talks me up. He doesn’t stand there waiting for me to approach him, he (or she) approaches me from seemingly out of nowhere. Much more believable.

Speaking of which, suspension of disbelief. Bioware repeatedly kills it for me. One thing that stood out was the blood in Dragon Age. After a measly fight with a few rats, me and my companion are strewn with blood splatters. Way over the top. The conversation after that already fight felt a little bit out of place but when i went on and met my dear mummy, she was so worried about me even expressing i had the desire to follow my father into battle. There i stood, bloody as hell already, and mummy didn’t want to let me go to war. Plus i should really go see my brother and wife and son. So they were also very happy to see me, never mind i had blood all over me. Just great. I think this is one of the out-of-place ideas that Bioware allows because they don’t have a director who says no to these things. Or maybe it was marketing because blood & violence sells? Or maybe it was a programming geek who said we can do it and then he did and everyone saw there was blood and it was cool and everyone would love it. Right. But don’t get me wrong: i love blood & guts in games! In Fallout 3 it’s way over the top as well but somehow, it just fits into this grimy, ruthless world. It does not stand out as odd, in that case it just is cool! Maybe that’s because the characters have the common courtesy to clean themselves up when they go into dialogue.

And then, Bethesda titles do a great job of having both an open-world and relatively but not completely linear quest-dungeons. Bioware in turn is basing their world on top of linear quest-dungeons, so naturally places more often than not seem a little crammed while the parts in between can be awfully empty and usually are. This discrepancy adds to me sensing that this isn’t really a world i’m exploring, i’m merely moving from point A to B without any choice whatsoever.

What about eastern RPGs then? I must admit that i very much enjoyed playing Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. They have been my first exposure to eastern RPGs ever and i loved it. Are they linear in nature? Mostly, yes. But they do two things much better than Bioware RPGs: they have a really compelling story to tell which is often tied into the action, this has really drawn me into the games in the first place. And then they try not to hide the fact that moving about the world vs. fighting are two different modes of gameplay, while Bioware, for whatever reason, choose to keep the dice-throwing mechanics in it’s combat system. Which makes it perfectly awkward to shoot at an enemy, seeing the crosshair over his body, yet missing every second bullet because you’re not well-trained with that particular weapon. Fallout and Oblivion instead rely on tried & true FPS combat mechanics and that just fits right in just like the turn-based combat of eastern RPGs is a welcome refresher because i can really make useful decisions during combat.

Overall, Bioware RPGs to me are combining the wrong elements to create their games and game worlds. It seems like a compromise in so many aspects, i’d rather choose the action-oriented open-world playstyle of Bethesda RPGs or the eastern RPGs with their impressive story-telling and turn-based combat. Not something that’s in-between and trying hard to stay true to the core of older Bioware RPGs like Baldur’s Gate. I’m sure, had i played this game back then, i would have loved it. But as a matter of fact, once i got a Bioware collection of old RPGs, the only RPG from them i really, really enjoyed was Planescape Torment. And that wasn’t even made by them.