4th August 2004, 5:07 PM
Icewind Dale... that is a fun game, but it doesn't show off their true talents. IWD 1 and 2 are fun games, don't get me wrong. Great Infinity engine combat. But they don't have a whole lot of story and have no party interaction... understandable when you make the whole party yourself, of course (oh, IWD2 isn't a continuation of the first, you make a new party), but not like Baldur's Gate. What they show is that when a great team is forced to make a dungeon hack (which that team essentially was), they can make a great one.
For anyone who's missed it in my many previous threads, Obsidian is led by Feargus Urquhart. Worked on Fallout 1 (and 2?), then got his own team and made Planescape: Torment, IWD 1 and then IWD2, and now KOTOR 2 and NWN 2 with Obsidian...
I know I've said it before, but it really is weird. Fallout to Torment, fine... but Torment to IWD, those games are nearly opposites! Shows their ability I guess, but I (and many other fans of this style of RPG) prefer Torment greatly over IWD. Incredibly deep story and lots of complex conversations gets more respect than a long series of monster fights. :)
After that heritage, I bet that he'll use the NWN engine. He's been making games in Bioware engines since at least 1998... :)
Yeah, that doesn't sound like a big improvement. The two things I'm definitely hoping for most are camera and parties. And honestly, camera is more important than parties, I'd say... *fingers crossed*
For anyone who's missed it in my many previous threads, Obsidian is led by Feargus Urquhart. Worked on Fallout 1 (and 2?), then got his own team and made Planescape: Torment, IWD 1 and then IWD2, and now KOTOR 2 and NWN 2 with Obsidian...
I know I've said it before, but it really is weird. Fallout to Torment, fine... but Torment to IWD, those games are nearly opposites! Shows their ability I guess, but I (and many other fans of this style of RPG) prefer Torment greatly over IWD. Incredibly deep story and lots of complex conversations gets more respect than a long series of monster fights. :)
After that heritage, I bet that he'll use the NWN engine. He's been making games in Bioware engines since at least 1998... :)
Quote:Anyway, actually NWN eventually patched the game to let you scroll the camera behind the player for 3rd person control. It's obviuos it was just a quick fix though, because the camera certainly doesn't sit at that level comfortably. If you thought running it at the low angle overhead was annoying, try ground level behind the character. Even in chase (which is the only way to have the camera going at that level of course), the thing really doesn't know what it's doing. It keeps getting "stuck" on various objects in the game. I've always hated that. The camera should just go THROUGH any objects it hits, and make things TOUCHING the camera transparent! In short, the camera took some getting used to, putting it mildly. Yes, in a fun scenario or multiplayer session, you don't really notice, but it's an ever present issue.
Yeah, that doesn't sound like a big improvement. The two things I'm definitely hoping for most are camera and parties. And honestly, camera is more important than parties, I'd say... *fingers crossed*