@Toysoldier34 I think Larian did it on purpose. The entire game seems to be lovingly made for the gaming audience. A comedian will often have to shift an audiences crowd mind from a high energy comedian to a different style or paced comedy. They do this by slowing everything down, doing some crowd work, and introducing themselves in a subtle way which lets you know how that comedian is as a person and comedian I suppose. When this happens you have a sort of mind-meld between audience and performer. Larian seems to have done the same thing with their game. The first few hours certainly do drag, but they drag because of your curiosity into the developer's thought process behind this game and its various mechanics and whole ensemble of gameplay, story, etc. It leaves you with a warm feeling of, "this game was made for me." rather than the cold feeling of recent sequel'd games which give you the feeling, "this game was made for profit."
Good review, but I feel like this game deserves a bit more length to the review. This review felt conversational as if you were explaining to a friend how good the game is to play. I love your reviews Mr. VanOrd, but I feel like you could have doubled the length of this review, especially seeing the current lack of buzz for this game and information. A lot of reviewers now a days are on youtube and have a loyal subscriber base. They aren't doing due diligence on games like Dark Souls 1 and 2 and games like Divinity justice. It is truly a travesty to see someone with 200,000 subscribers play a game for 2 hours and say, "This game sucks don't buy it." because of "Wonky controls and mechanics". With your skill I believe you can define the dichotomy between these youtube reviewers and a professional game journalist.
The developers narrowed the scope of this argument for us by saying "We were really sad that some people were so affected by it, because maybe they had been through something like that of their own". The developers concern is over the emotionally affective nature of the depiction of rape in their video game. They just don't want to randomly traumatize like a third of the nation while they are trying to escape from their haunted mind with video games.
I wish Activision would just use the unbelievably successful IPs they have to support more creative ventures to give back what they have taken in the industry. Sacrificing creativity and experimentation for profit just pisses me off. I understand, "Oh, they're a company they have to make money blah blah blah" but it doesn't mean they can't be profitable while also "creating" something that hasn't already been made every fucking year for a decade, or in Skylanders case.. fucking skylanders. Like if I have to explain why skylanders is fucked up, then I hate you.
I'll tell you how it goes. You play it, get hooked for a little while, then hate yourself for it. You begin CoD commentating for money, and lose your wife and kids. Then CoD commentating becomes a joke, and so you go on to chatterbate, a website designed so that you may stream your junk for tips. Your USAF CO finds that you are trending on twitter for masturbating for money after a failed video-game commentating career. He gives you a dishonorable discharge, one for the USAF, and one to the face.
Eddie, one day you will have taken a step too far under the bridge of Trollingham. I literally geeked out when I saw this on the main page. Love the quotations
@UnderYourBed1 Ok these replies are obviously, just as op stated, blinded by nostalgia. I share the same sentiment with op. The game had many flaws. It was simply too minimalist. The core gameplay was enjoyable in my mind though, however a game is more than just its gameplay. The story was lacking, which sucks because if they had only fleshed it out more, then it would have been enthralling. They could make ME into a full-fledged AAA title, but they can't justify the resources unless they aim for a larger market. The thing about EA saying it is aiming at a larger audience basically means the game gets more funding, simple as that. With more funding the game will have less of the shit mechanics the first one had, ie gunplay/combat/cutscenes, alongside the good core gameplay. I believe the developer will not trash their own game. With the accessibility to mmo-like stature in the next gen I expect there to be a semi-persistent world with dynamic events alongside instanced campaign missions with drop-in coop.
So, like op said, the wasted potential via lack of funding of the original ME will be hopefully, finally, realized. I don't see why you bash a guy that wants a better game. If you believe the first ME was perfect, you're dumb.
I hope the memorialize him in some way. It only seems like the right thing to do with such a tragic situation. His comrades are creative people though, so I can see it being done beautifully.
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