Review RPG Codex Review: Pillars of Eternity, by Decado

[felipepepe]

Calisca is not nearly as important as the legendary Trask Ulgo, who taught us how to open doors and then sacrificed himself so we could escape.

BioWare has such big brass balls to kill a character like him right at the start... Obsidian is just jumping on the bandwagon, after they saw how popular, memorable and beloved this character is.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I barely even remember the guy. Is he really that 'legendary' and 'beloved'? This is in fact the first time I see someone mentioning him ever (but I don't read much about KotoR). What kind of personality did he have? Did he even have one at all? KotoR had some memorable characters .. but that guy?

Calisca was in the game only a very short time but she had an interesting personality (kinda rough and loud mouthed but likeable, working class, very pragmatic) and particularly some very good voice acting which made her more memorable to me than the short time she is actually in the game would usually warrant. I can't say I got super invested in the character in the short time I knew her but I thought it was a pity she got killed. She is designed to make the player like her and evoke an emotional reaction from him when she dies and she was successful with that in my case.

 

[Rivmusique]

Why do you care so much about her but not that male rogue? She was a capable merc (? I don't know, said something about guiding caravans before IIRC) while he was just a merchant. She was confident, sure of herself and what she was doing, even down for leaving you in some scenarios. He was the one that really needed your help and was relying on your instruction.

But no, classic gamer misogyny makes the woman seem the poor lamb that needs shepherding, so now you feel bad for letting the poor wittle woman down. Anita still has some work to do it seems. "Designed to make the player like her" no, that's just your bigotry.

 

[Jaedar]

PoE has the best writing in fantasy RPGs since 1998. Period.

Not that I don't agree that PoE has great writing, but didn't Torment release in 99?

My bad, since 1999 then

Not sure if trolls or just illiterate. (illgamerate?)

Or maybe just creating an arbitrarily small pond to make sure their fish is the biggest.

 

[Mortmal]

PoE has the best writing in fantasy RPGs since 1998. Period.

Not that I don't agree that PoE has great writing, but didn't Torment release in 99?

My bad, since 1999 then

Mask of the Betrayer?

The secret world. Hands down. Best computer gaming story experience ever. Better than anything in the medium.

The best I don't know, but it was indeed fantastic and they did try things the mainstream frown upon . The puzzles were really well thought and had to take a few minutes to think about sometimes. Remmber how many people where asking for the solutions in the very first area ? This is a wonderful game too sophisticated for the crowd.

 

[felipepepe]

Expeditions: Conquistador had Esteban, which was 100x better written and a better antagonist that Thaos is.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

Expeditions: Conquistador had Esteban, which was 100x better written and a better antagonist that Thaos is.

I'll take your word on that, but I found Thaos to be written well enough.
Is overall quality of E:C's writing at least on the same level as PoE's?

 

[markec]

Expeditions: Conquistador had Esteban, which was 100x better written and a better antagonist that Thaos is.

I had a discussion about movies few months ago where I said that in a movie which is focused about conflict between the hero and villain you need to clearly show why both the hero and the audience should hate the bad guy.

Same applies to games. Both PoE and both BG games have same narrative hook, you meet a villain who does something evil to you and you proceed to hunt him down for the rest of the game. Now to create a "emotional engagement" to this plot you need to establish the reason why to hunt and why to hate the villain because its this conflict that carries the story.

Now how is this done in games in mention.

BG1, you meet Sarevok who kills your stepfather, tries to kill you and proceeds to send assassins to kill you.

BG2, first character you see in game is Irenicus a mad mage that tortures both you and your companions. You also see large number of horrible experiments he did in the first map of the game, later he kidnaps Imoen.

PoE, you meet some guy who does something you have no idea what, something happens to you and you also have no idea what, so you decide to hunt this guy because reasons. People tell you he is evil but the first time you actually see him do something evil is at the end of chapter 2. At that meeting he is responsible for deaths of bunch of people you never met or know their names but you are supposed to hate him now.

 

[felipepepe]

Is overall quality of E:C's writing at least on the same level as PoE's?

E:C has a huge advantage- it deals with real stuff you can relate to, with real-world issues.

PoE's dilemmas are stuff like "what to do with the souls of thousand of babies?", while in E:C you deal with things like prejudice, slavery, racism, religious dogmas... all while trying to keep your expedition together. So the writing comes into the spotlight - you're not just reading background story and info-dumps that are entirely useless gameplay-wise, you are observing this unexplored, chaotic world and learning how to survive in it. And you'll NEED to learn, or you'll end dead, abandoned in the jungle by a mutinous crew.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah E:C was surprisingly well written.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Calisca is not nearly as important as the legendary Trask Ulgo, who taught us how to open doors and then sacrificed himself so we could escape.

BioWare has such big brass balls to kill a character like him right at the start... Obsidian is just jumping on the bandwagon, after they saw how popular, memorable and beloved this character is.

Never forget! If not for him, we'd still be running around like a headless chicken, wondering how to get out of this chickenshit outfit ship.

Is overall quality of E:C's writing at least on the same level as PoE's?

E:C has a huge advantage- it deals with real stuff you can relate to, with real-world issues.

PoE's dilemmas are stuff like "what to do with the souls of thousand of babies?", while in E:C you deal with things like prejudice, slavery, racism, religious dogmas... all while trying to keep your expedition together. So the writing comes into the spotlight - you're not just reading background story and info-dumps that are entirely useless gameplay-wise, you are observing this unexplored, chaotic world and learning how to survive in it. And you'll NEED to learn, or you'll end dead, abandoned in the jungle by a mutinous crew.

An excellent point - that's where PoE failed the most. You don't need to explain the familiar concepts like prejudice, racism, and religious dogmas, but when you invent some crazy stuff that doesn't exist in our world, it needs to be properly presented and explained (as well as be consistent).

 

[Volrath]

One more thing I want to mention:

Ebert's reviews are mostly shit. If you didn't know who he was, you'd have no idea about what many of the movies he talks about are. His way of reviewing (to my knowledge, he wasn't always like that, he just degenerated into a pseudo-artistic ball-fluffing review style later) only works because you can align your tastes with his exactly because it's Ebert - you know what he thinks about what, which score he gave to which movie (or you can look it up). You can't align your taste with a random IGN retard or Decado for that matter, because he's made grand total of 2 reviews and doesn't plan on making more. This gives us as much data to align our tastes with as a random youtube commenter.

Another good example is TotalBiscuit. He provides a balanced opinion with plenty of facts, game-play footage and feelz. It works because you can plainly see he's a useless idiot who can't play the games he's reviewing and he tells you what his tastes are and why but also informs you about the facts and shows you plenty of footage. It's a combination that allows you to make an informed decision and his huge library of videos supports this style. A good counter-part is AngryJoe who has no idea about anything and half his videos are shit jokes in front of a green screen. It's much harder to be able to tell from his shit reviews whether you'd like the game or not.

Your review style, Decado, is a horrible farce that's been permeating the review industry? community? for a long time but it's still shit and relies on some other factors to be of any use to anyone. On the plus side, it makes the author feel like a real writer because they can cram in tons of useless shit and thinking-aloud.

Hey, it would also work if it were funny at least! That's like the last chance an author with this style has to provide any value at all. You failed at that as well.
I can't imagine a car reviewer writing a review while not mentioning the car only goes 60 km/h and then saying he doesn't feel the need to defend his article because it should stand on its own.
It clearly doesn't stand on its own because people are asking wtf were you thinking. What's worse is, that you don't feel you were right enough to even say anything about what you wrote and defend it.

Good job on Infinitron to be able to find somebody to write him a little fanboy pamphlet to stick on his curator wall. I get angry seeing these shit attempts to preserve the goodwill of Obsidian and other developers. It's dishonest and it's the reason why so many other websites are total shit. If I want a website with the goodwill of the developers where they are granted access to the big expositions and interviews, I can go to literally any big website and get that. I don't do it because this privilege always comes at a price.

I can summarise this post with one picture:

Spoiler

 

[Athelas]

The most significant new cRPG in years comes out?

It's like games like D:OS, Dragonfall, W2, MMX or Expeditions: Conquistador don't even exist to some people. I would even argue that little gems like NEO Scavenger or Heroine's Quest are more significant than a mediocre-to-good Baldur's Gate clone.

The amounts of posts dedicated to discussing PoE probably outnumbers the discussion of all of those games combined. For the Codex at least, it's obviously the most significant cRPG release in years.

 

[Jools]

The most significant new cRPG in years comes out?

It's like games like D:OS, Dragonfall, W2, MMX or Expeditions: Conquistador don't even exist to some people

You spelt "fanboys" wrong.

 

[Decado]

One more thing I want to mention:

Ebert's reviews are mostly shit. If you didn't know who he was, you'd have no idea about what many of the movies he talks about are. His way of reviewing (to my knowledge, he wasn't always like that, he just degenerated into a pseudo-artistic ball-fluffing review style later) only works because you can align your tastes with his exactly because it's Ebert - you know what he thinks about what, which score he gave to which movie (or you can look it up). You can't align your taste with a random IGN retard or Decado for that matter, because he's made grand total of 2 reviews and doesn't plan on making more. This gives us as much data to align our tastes with as a random youtube commenter.

Another good example is TotalBiscuit. He provides a balanced opinion with plenty of facts, game-play footage and feelz. It works because you can plainly see he's a useless idiot who can't play the games he's reviewing and he tells you what his tastes are and why but also informs you about the facts and shows you plenty of footage. It's a combination that allows you to make an informed decision and his huge library of videos supports this style. A good counter-part is AngryJoe who has no idea about anything and half his videos are shit jokes in front of a green screen. It's much harder to be able to tell from his shit reviews whether you'd like the game or not.

Your review style, Decado, is a horrible farce that's been permeating the review industry? community? for a long time but it's still shit and relies on some other factors to be of any use to anyone. On the plus side, it makes the author feel like a real writer because they can cram in tons of useless shit and thinking-aloud.

Hey, it would also work if it were funny at least! That's like the last chance an author with this style has to provide any value at all. You failed at that as well.
I can't imagine a car reviewer writing a review while not mentioning the car only goes 60 km/h and then saying he doesn't feel the need to defend his article because it should stand on its own.
It clearly doesn't stand on its own because people are asking wtf were you thinking. What's worse is, that you don't feel you were right enough to even say anything about what you wrote and defend it.

Good job on Infinitron to be able to find somebody to write him a little fanboy pamphlet to stick on his curator wall. I get angry seeing these shit attempts to preserve the goodwill of Obsidian and other developers. It's dishonest and it's the reason why so many other websites are total shit. If I want a website with the goodwill of the developers where they are granted access to the big expositions and interviews, I can go to literally any big website and get that. I don't do it because this privilege always comes at a price.

I can summarise this post with one picture:

Spoiler

Not only that, but he is a complete fucking idiot with no taste. Roger Ebert invented modern film criticism. It is hard -- if not impossible -- to find a person who has influenced film and film criticism in the last 40 years than Ebert. So on one hand you have Roger Ebert, 40 years a film critic with thousands and thousands of reviews to his name, someone who is almost deified by other film critics and the film industry, all while being an exceedingly nice guy. On the other hand you have forums poster "Cadmus" who thinks his reviews are shit. Hrm.

ETA: But I am enjoying how personally offended he is, like I kicked his dog in the snout and then fucked his mom in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner. Whoops! Just gave myself an erection.

 

[Hatred]

someone who is almost defied by other film critics and the film industry

I assume you mean deified. So the fim industry, or in other words the shitmongers from Hollywood and film critics who I have a similar opinion of deify someone and that is supposed to be a recommendation. If he has really been a strong influence on the film industry I guess I now know who to blame for all the terrible as shit movies we see released these days.
I read his review for Lucy since I dont watch movies very often and somehow got bored enough to sit down and watch it with a mate. His review was entirely without criticism. He literally did not critique the movie at all. It is a pretty shitty movie too. I noticed he also gave Avatar 4 stars. Couldn't bring myself to read his review about that since the movie in question almost made me vomit it left such a bad taste in my mouth.
I guess it is no surprise you seem to respect this mainstream wanker Roger Ebert. Enjoy dem Doritos.

 

[Decado]

someone who is almost defied by other film critics and the film industry

I assume you mean deified. So the fim industry, or in other words the shitmongers from Hollywood and film critics who I have a similar opinion of deify someone and that is supposed to be a recommendation. If he has really been a strong influence on the film industry I guess I now know who to blame for all the terrible as shit movies we see released these days.
I read his review for Lucy since I dont watch movies very often and somehow got bored enough to sit down and watch it with a mate. His review was entirely without criticism. He literally did not critique the movie at all. It is a pretty shitty movie too. I noticed he also gave Avatar 4 stars. Couldn't bring myself to read his review about that since the movie in question almost made me vomit it left such a bad taste in my mouth.
I guess it is no surprise you seem to respect this mainstream wanker Roger Ebert. Enjoy dem Doritos.

Roger Ebert didn't write the review for Lucy, you complete fucking moron.

Visit this webpage:

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/lucy-2014

Now look at the author of the review. Is the author's name "Roger Ebert"?

I'll enjoy my Doritos, you enjoy your 3rd grade reading comprehension and enviable position as a bank teller. If you're lucky.

 

[Vault Dweller]

In this thread we learn that reviewing games is serious business.

 

[Bubbles]

The obisidian forums like this review.

 

[Decado]

In this thread we learn that reviewing games is serious business.

Hey I know we talked about this in the staff thread but when do I get my check?

 

[Overboard]

The obisidian forums like this review.

Says it all, really.

 

[Sensuki]

Something Awful liked the review too.

 

[Cadmus]

/the end

 

[Hatred]

Now look at the author of the review. Is the author's name "Roger Ebert"?

You got me there. He is still putting shit reviews on his website. Why is that. Also wtf you got against bank tellers.

 

[Decado]

Now look at the author of the review. Is the author's name "Roger Ebert"?

You got me there. He is still putting shit reviews on his website. Why is that. Also wtf you got against bank tellers.

"He" is not putting any reviews on "his" website because he is dead. Jesus Christ.