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

[OB1]

Strange depiction, because I would not say that the BG art style is particularly dark... well Sarevok is, but he's the bad guy so he's supposed to be that way. But I guess I don't really know what you mean... I haven't taken a class in art in ... what is it, nine years now?... Lack of color? Huh? Seems perfectly colorful to me in the places where there should be color... the main problem is that the game is fantasy-medieval and the medieval world just wasn't that colorful. It does what it can with stuff like letting you choose your clothing colors, but there's only so much they can do if they want to have a remotely accurate fantasy-medieval world... The forests are all brown, green, and grey, but that's how it should be. Similarly towns are medieval town colors. Water is blue. BG only really has two environments (town and forest) but both are decently done. Not super colorful but they shouldn't be... medieval homes were not purple. And there are some colorful parts... see temples! The temples, especially the ones in BGII with giant statues, are often truly beautiful... Anyway, I just do not know what you mean by that. The only theme I can think of for BG, and all D&D art, is to be similar overall to the themes that fantasy art (such as book covers) has established over the decades. And it is.

No, you are very much wrong about that. Wanna see good, non-generic fantasy art? Look no further than Frank Frazetta. Dark, medieval, but not bland or generic:








Now I don't expect BG to look a tenth as good as Frazetta work, but it's still bland and uninteresting.

I'm sure the amount of time I have spent repeating myself to you has been longer...

Only in your delusional mind, my very young apprentice.

I've said a million times that it's supposed to be implied (and maybe even stated -- I know I've said before that it's my opinion that overall BG beats KotOR artistically...) that it's my opinion... and as for that, it's not just quality that affects it. Technical issues matter a lot, as I think I made clear... the hardest part is that it's just really tough to compare the art in a 2d game and a 3d game. They are so different that a direct comparison is hard. It's also hard to seperate from the gameplay, for me... when I think of the KotOR art (for cities particularly) I can't help but factor in how the cities are so limited into that, for instance. And KotOR is a pretty good looking game. What is there to complain about? As I've said, similarity and the graphics engine, mostly, as well as their design choices for zone quantity (and to a lesser degree size -- though with this design style I wouldn't really want them bigger).

As for BG, because of how much I love those games I probably have a tendency to ignore similar issues in those games -- how some areas aren't as good looking as they could be (like Baator... I imagined more of the place...), how bars are all so similar looking, homes based on a few maps that are just varied by who is in them and where you can find items, etc... I'll admit that. But KotOR uses repetitive map styles not just for the insides of buildings but for the outside areas as well, while the closest you can get to that in BG (and only in BGI, not II) is how so many zones were full of trees. Which was certainly repetition but it was something Bioware fixed in their next game... strange they reneged when they went to NWN. 3D doesn't have to be that way.

I don't think KOTOR looks great or has great art, but it does look better than BG. IMO.