Eh, I don't know about all that, you can swing a shit ton of quests on little ways you can talk with characters, especially if you build a more diplomatic character. And that is fairly important to what a rpg is, especially a crpg. It's shit that Japan (never did frankly), and modern rpgs don't come close to doing beyond making it a parlor trick. It's more so the questing of that game is still rather brilliant, and that's where Avellone is absolutely in a top tier. He knows how to chain his quests together, and not the writing get in the way of the players decisions on the character build. I'd say the only adventure gamey aspect is that there is a shit ton of benefit of soaking in your environment, paying attention to that shit, and then reacting from there. Such as the initial area, if you' don't know what you are doing you can easily trigger a fight or out right get into a fight. A more perceptive player knows a thing or two about what he is dealing with it, and can swing a conversation and learn a bit more.



I agree the actually philosophy aspects of Planescape Torment are HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORSESHIT, and that Avellone as a writer is actually pretty boring. KoToR2 is frankly douchy more than it is anything else as this lame attempt at deconstructing Star Wars, and New Vegas while a substantially better video game than Fallout 3 (and better written, lets not even front), it's not exactly compelling plot all the time. And that's because he writes in a very robotic sort of wya.



Bioware writes hooky bullshit, but their characters have genuine personality.


The Witcher is more smoke and mirrors, but its sense of morality is genuinely foreign and clearly eastern european centric in comparison to the rest of the shit we get, and again they know how to make their characters genuinely more personable.

But I would argue in both cases, Knights of the Old Republic is the last time Bioware actually made a good rpg, since Mass Effect is a fucking shooter, and Dragon Age is generic rubbish. And in the case of The Witcher, the RPG elements have actually been streamlined more and more. Again way the fuck better than what you get from a Bethesda game, but Bethesda games play like complete shit and the story part is glorified filler. So that's not exactly a high bar. That studio is very similar to Rockstar, once you get over the technical novelty of the game, the rest of the actual mother fucking game design is straight lousy.

Back to the point: Avellone's strength is that his writing doesn't get in the fucking way of the gameplay and makes more attempts to harmonize with the gameplay. Any other counter to him, normally tends to fall flat on their face



Point and click devs? Fam those puzzles are stupid, let it go. Your genre of choice is actually hilariously dookie lol


Naughty Dog? It's in cutscene most of the time, and the rules of the gameplay and story are at odds most of the time. Plus Uncharted 3 is hilariously shit from a writing standpoint.


David Cage? Joke


Kojima? Horrible writer.

So his prestige is more a product of tallest midget syndrome. His contemporaries suck on balance, and he's relatively on the unique side of things where his writing actually compliments the mother fucking game. Of which his closest contemporaries are the likes of a shit load of indie devs and Ueda? Oh and you not calling Planescape Torment the bees knees, makes us even, and me redeemed for thinking Grim Fandango isn't worthy of stone cold classic status lol

Foolz said:

Gagan said:

Eh, I don't know about all that, you can swing a shit ton of quests on little ways you can talk with characters, especially if you build a more diplomatic character. And that is fairly important to what a rpg is, especially a crpg. It's shit that Japan (never did frankly), and modern rpgs don't come close to doing beyond making it a parlor trick. It's more so the questing of that game is still rather brilliant, and that's where Avellone is absolutely in a top tier. He knows how to chain his quests together, and not the writing get in the way of the players decisions on the character build. I'd say the only adventure gamey aspect is that there is a shit ton of benefit of soaking in your environment, paying attention to that shit, and then reacting from there. Such as the initial area, if you' don't know what you are doing you can easily trigger a fight or out right get into a fight. A more perceptive player knows a thing or two about what he is dealing with it, and can swing a conversation and learn a bit more.

See, the quest stuff is why I say interesting ideas, not used in an interesting way. That stuff'd be dope if anyone in the questlines (or the plots of the quests) was worth giving two shits about, but they're not so although I can respect that it's a technique that would make other RPGs so much better, it's just not that engaging once the novelty factor wears off. Don't get me wrong, I fucking wish so much of the quest design in, say, The Witcher 3 was done with a similar degree of nuance and intelligence.

All that, but some of how the the dialogue stuff works is kinda similar to some adventure games I think.

That said, pervert-transformed-into-closet is probably the best character in a videogame ever.

lol, well a lot of your "it would probably work better in D&D" response, had me thinking that makes a lot of sense, because homeboys background is table top rpgs, and it's sort of why Black Isle and Obsidian's rpgs are considered to be on a bit of a different level. Where other devs are trying to be like a movie or whatever, he's trying to adapt his table top rpg to the realm and limitations of a video game. And I'd say Black Isle/Obsidian when they were legit, did it in a manner most devs don't come close to doing.



Black Isle more so, Obsidian can kind of suck.

That said if you don't like Planescape, i'd argue you'll never dig that dude's writing. Because I think that game has his best characters. Mordi is the shit, and Nameless One's story arc is legit dope as far as I'm concerned.

Foolz said:

Skull was hilarious, did enjoy his stuff. Also liked Annah and Ignus.

Back to the D&D homeboy background if all the companions had had as much more personality as the skull, the incidental dialogue with the companions and their involvement in quests and talking to randoms would've probably served the same purpose pretty well.

Icewind Dale/Baldur's gate are meant to have better interfaces and combat, right? I'm willing to humour giving him another chance at some point, but not with such hideous mechanics (outside of the dialogue).

P.S. Fuck Obsidian. Neverwinter Nights 2 and KOTOR II. Ugh. Planescape Torment is a pretty cool opening, NWN2's opening is syphilis from what I remember of it.

Ice Wind Dale and Baldur's Gate have better combat systems yeah, Planescape's lone blemish to me is the combat sucks so much. But since it's a crpg, it's flexible enough that I can work around it. It's what makes New Vegas enjoyable, even though it's tied to the framework of that shitty vats combat and iron sight shooting.

He's also done work on Fallout 1 and 2. Fallout 1+2 are usually considered Blackisle's best pure game, where as Planescape is the best story they've done, personally I'm a Planescape cat. One of like 3 video game stories worth gassing up.

Not counting adventure gamey shit: Silent Hill 2 and Mother 3. Silent Hill in general has some bitchin stories (shit acting, but that's a given), and it's a fucking horror game of all things. From Japan. By Konami. That series had no business being as good as it was for 3 games.

Played through the Blackwell series.

Rosa and Joey definitely made it worth playing, and the underlying plot was some good schlock (although the Countess stuff + the second coming might've been integrated a little better than it was), but gosh are they fucking banal at best, bad at worst, adventure games. Google mechanic was cool but its implementation ironically made things more convoluted rather than less, and fuck me why so much bullshit backtracking? Not to mention how hilariously amateurish the production values were to begin with (just stick a fucking pair of pantyhose on a coathanger to avoid popping, and turn down the mic if anyone is going to shout lol). Plus, with the exception of the Gould and Mitchell stuff (great way to build up New York setting, very ungamey, too) so much of the non-main plot content was pretty crappy or the most basic adventure game cliche shit ever. Also how does Deception look so fucking bad? Hilarious.

All that whinging (and sometimes I'm being kind, frankly) just goes to show how cool Rosa and Joey were (socially anxious person in videogame not descending into total parody...with a noir cliche as a foil? wtf, yet works so well) when I managed to play through 5 of these fucking games. Also the ending (except the vampire stuff which is so dumb and fillery) after 5 games being good? Is that a videogame record?

The last one is actually a decent enough adventure game, except for the filler after getting to the priest before you get to the ending.

P.S. The first Countess performance is so bad it might be the best bad voice acting in a game ever. Resident Evil dreams of voice acting that bad.

P.P.S. Dude is a totally pussy for unChristianising the demon in the first game. Totally awkward dialogue insert, too.