Being always in tune with the gaming mainstream, always with my finger on the pulse of what’s hot now, always keenly aware of current trends in gaming, I got myself the BioWare RPG everybody’s talking about: Mass Effect.
(Image source: BioWare.)
The main reason I got the game now was that sultry siren of a digital service, Steam, batted its eyelashes in my direction and seduced me with a 50 per cent discount recently. Frankly, USD9.99 is about the price I’d want to pay for Mass Effect. I’m a big fan of Baldur’s Gate II — for better or worse still one of the finest single-player RPG experiences in terms of story and charm — but subsequent BioWare releases have cooled my ardour.
Baldur’s Gate II’s charmingly eccentric cast made it such a memorable experience. Long after the latest in Square Enix’s long line of waifs of indeterminate gender and age have faded from memory, the legend of Minsc will remain. It’s the character-driven moments I cherish the most about BGII and the moments when matters seem less black and white than they usually are in RPGs. BGII seemed to be a harbinger of D&D for adults with BioWare leading the way. The example that always springs to mind was the way the unwaveringly upright and uptight Paladin dealt with his straying wife who was neglected as her husband roamed the lands looking for wrongs to right. The resolution was true to the character but left a bad taste in the mouth. As it should have.
It was thus very disillusioning when Neverwinter Nights was released. The game’s multiplayer focus was both its greatest strength and weakness. The official campaign, hamstrung by the need to accommodate multiplayer, was an embarrassment by previously established BioWare standards. Though the Hordes of the Underdark expansion occasionally harkened back to the best of BGII, my fondest NWN memories were of the persistent worlds, some of the most amazing examples of user-content ever produced.
Despite focusing on single-player, Knights of the Old Republic was even more disappointing. It was such a forgettable experience. I remember The Big Twist and little else. Names, faces and stories slip my mind. This was a BioWare RPG streamlined but watered-down, beautiful but bland, slick but soulless. This was the first time BioWare moved away from RPG as game towards RPG as cinematic experience, a move in line with the discouraging trend of AAA titles moving away from games as challenge towards games as spectacle. While there were choices to be made in KOTOR, the player was more or less directed in either a goody-two-shoes or insensitive jerk version of the same movie. You moved from set to set, engaging in a succession of leaden conversations with vapid characters you were given little reason to care about. It was a cinematic experience but this was scarcely a good movie and as a game, KOTOR left a lot to be desired.
Unfortunately, from the time I’ve spent with Mass Effect, this would appear to be another RPG in the vein of KOTOR. This may be more Star Trek than Star Wars but the experience thus far boils down to the same thing: BioWare RPG Formula Lite.
Yeah, USD9.99 seems about the right price.
