Another thread ruined by OB1 and ABF! (a.k.a. 2004 Goron Game Awards!)

[A Black Falcon]

I never once said that.

You said that complex control schemes are bad (with Pikmin and stuff) and I definitely remember you referencing BG there...

And I responded by saying that if I want to play a strategy game then I'll play Total War or Fire Emblem. I play RPGs for very different reasons.

Fire Emblem is part RPG you know... and Total War is a completely different kind of game from BG. Fire Emblem is too, but it's closer... close enough maybe that I don't see how you could like one so much and dislike the other so much; FE and BG are, in many respects, similar! Yes, battles take a lot longer to resolve in BG and there is much more depth with each character, but there are lots of similarities.

And as far as KotOR goes, the battles are the same in substance. The difference is style -- in KotOR you need to constantly refill those action queues while in BG you only need to interact when you want to use a spell or special ability (which happens more and more often the more powerful your characters get) or if you want to change targets. But other than that... they are not different to a mentionable degree. And I know you like KotOR.

I played much more BG than Fallout, and I complained about BG's poor storytelling methods.

I don't think you ever really explained what those poor storytelling methods were, though... I remember your opinion on storytelling in the case of Metroid Prime, but BG? I don't remember you saying why it was a poorly told story. It certainly has nothing to do with the reasons you complained about MP, because BG tells its story in a much more conventional way...

The immersion factor, you forgot about that. That ties into controls and perspective.

Right... it makes almost no sense for me (especially the controls part), of course, but it's clearly a factor too... though (whether you admit it or not) it IS contradictory with that position and how you clearly like strategy games like Fire Emblem.