| Khuutra said:
I'd argue that KotOR2 was a stronger game than KotOR in every sense except for the technical one and th "hey you guys have eight months to make this game" sense. Copy/paste of the cast and plot? Most of KotOR's cast is either dead or MIA in KotOR2. The plot couldn't be more divergent for an umber of reasons, unless you want to boil it down to "Hey guys we're Jedi and we gonna fight us some Sith." The chief respect in which Obsidian kicks the hsit out of BioWare would be in the strength of their writing: I still hold up KotOR2 as being the best-written game I've ever played, particularly in the case of a character you hate. Chris Avellone is probably one of the top three writers in the business (only ones I'd compare to him would be Itoi and Matsuno), and it is by his strength if by no other that Obsidian is the place to go to for well-written games. Of course, you may know Obisidian better by the name of the company that preceded it. |
I'll pass on the opportunity to debate specifics on KotOR with you until I've had the chance to replay them. It's been far too long since I played them to argue plot specifics.
I will say that Bioware's writing in Baldur's Gate 2 easily crushes most other video games. Jon Irenicus is still one of the greatest video game villains to date. Most side characters from Keldorn to Minsc to Jan Jansen were more memorable than other games' entire casts. The only problem with Baldur's Gate 2 was that it's really hard to go anywhere but down after a work like that.
As for Black Isle... it was a great studio with a firm grasp on good storytelling (if not so much on player interaction). It actually seemed like they started going backwards at one point. I own the Fallout games, PST, and the Icewind Dale games and it seemed like their storytelling improved with Icewind Dale but the overall quality of the interaction and experience went down. Never got a chance to play their last game though, the Diablo-clone/Baldur's Gate game for the PS2.
