What's your take on Obsidian?

Remove all ads!

I thought it was great the folks who made Fallout and the IWD saga started their own company and would be making games. Seemed like a tiny professional company composed of people who really work on the games, up to the CEO himself.

However, what have they done? KotOR2... just look and compare to KotOR1. I mostly mean technically. Great ideas, some enhancement, but poor, poor technical side. Crappy coding anyone?

And NWN2. I haven't seen worse AI in ages and I can't be too demanding if I'm unable to figure out what problems people might have had with the NWN1 henchmen. And the protagonist is no better. They all just run around unless they are standing about. Concepts such as attacking the closest threat don't exist. Defend Master? Does it even work?

And the game reeks of KotOR, screams KotOR all over the place, while they say it's a remastered NWN1 one. I recognise KotOR heads and generally characters. Come on. And a ton of stuff is just recycled NWN1. Given that KotOR 2 engine is essentially KotOR 1 engine, it looks like the only thing they did was lumping two working BioWare engines together into something that doesn't work.

I think I'm going to give their next game a pass unless it's KotOR 3. But by the time they release KotOR 4, I guess they will have screwed up the engine beyond playability.

Dear. How unprofessional can one get? Are they learning from Atari or something? NWN2 makes me think more of a get-the-money sham than selling an actual game.

 

Technical side? IMO, it was ok in KotOR2, NWN2 on the other hand... But the AI does not really matter for me, since I want to control all the characters myself, unfortunately it is a bit more time consuming with the newer games than it was when compared to Infinity games. Graphics are also not important. Generally, Obsidian games have this incomplete feel story-wise, for example, KotOR2 had a lot of content cut out.

 

I didn't like KOTOR2 and had reservations about NWN2. I was fed up with all the "these are the guys who made PS:T and Fallout!" and I kept saying "yeah, but did you play KOTOR2?"

The fundamental problem with both of Obsidian's games is that they are more movie than RPG. You have very little control over your character and the direction of the game. Tons of dialog and tons of dialog options but most of them are placebo choices. It's like a doctor offering you a choice between a pink pill and a blue pill but they're both sugar pills. Obsidian, twice now, has basically given us a sham of an RPG.

 

BioWare makes story-based, but I don't think it awakens a close amount of resentment in players.

 

So far, NWN2 doesn't even really feel like a game - more a story or movie where you have to push some buttons to keep it going, and sometimes the cameraman gets drunk and falls over.

 

Exactly, HB. One thing they do a lot that really irks me is the "meanwhile... on the other side of town..." and you sit and watch a 5 minute cut scene of a conversation between the bad guy and one of his underlings. It's the type of thing you'd see in a movie or comic book, but an RPG?? Is your character clairvoyant? How could your character possibly know what sorts of secret conversations are taking place miles away? And it's often things like "Hah! That meddling hero won't know what hit him when we send this Blade Golem to get him! Hah hah! Har har!" And of course you're like "Hmmm... I guess I'm going to be facing a Blade Golem in the next dungeon."

 

I can't run NWN2 so forget that. as for Kotor2, it was good. it could've been ****ing awesome though. so there's my take on that. they should've had more time.

 

I haven't played any of their games - but it sounds like a bit of a failure. I was expecting a lot more from them.

I don't even have that much confidence that if they decided to create their own IP that they'd do any good. Seeing that it doesn't look like they're ever going to get around to that (they just scored the Aliens license, I believe), thinks just look hopeless for good RGPs on that front.

 

Well I think bioware got the message and learns.
Obsidian, well just let them make kotor3 and close the door.

In general: Why do game developers try to invent the wheel every time they make a game.

Could it be much better than in bg2 for a D&D game? so take the good stuff from bg2 and put in a new engine, than add new things. But no alas a game developers mind does not work that way.

This kind off things will be the death of rpg pc games. To buy a console: The horror.

 

I have to revive this 1.5 year old thread ^^.
Since then Obsidian has made the NWN2 Expansion Mask of the Betrayer,
and in my opinion it is an upgrade in a technical way and story wise.
Now one can control characters in a more tactical way, similar to IE games.
Moreover they're just developing expansion 2: Storms of Zehir, and this one looks
great because of its refreshing new concepts.
So far I think, Obsidian gets better with their newer releases, so there is hope .

Besides Dragon AGE of course, SoZ is my big upcoming RPG hope.

 

I agree showing what the "Bad Guys" are doing is very lame in a RPG; maybe the developers should have worked it into the game after you beat it at least once (unlock movies or somthing); this way at least the first play through you don't know what is going on. I do however enjoy the stories of NWN2 and it expansion over that of NWN1 and its expansions. I believe the developing of the game should be left to companies like Bioware and Obsidian should develop the stories.

 

They suck!

Obsidian has done such an awful job with kotor2 that i have not even bothered with NWN2, nor will i with any other games they ever made such was my disappointment with kotor2.

After the utter destruction of the sequel to the greatest SW game ever made, and one of the best RPGs ever made i think they should seriously consider giving up altogether, and for heavens sake why have they done Kotor2 instead of Bioware in the first place?And worst, why even after the failed kotor2 would bioware let THEN make nwn2??

WTF IS GOING ON WITH BIOWARE?

 

A question many more ask.

As for Obsidian, at least they still make pc games.

 

Well, dear friend, it's a little fuzzier than that, since both games' publishers, LucasArts for KOTOR2 and Atari for NWN2 supposedly rushed those games out the door, so they might not have had the time to finish them properly. Then again, you can make this criticism of pretty much all their games. It's kind of like, they still have the creative minds of Black Isle, but no longer have the quality control of BioWare...

They're making Dragon Age and SW: The Old Republic MMO....

 

KOTOR 2 was vastly superior to KOTOR. Technically it was a bit of a mess, but every game the Black Isle & Troika people put together was a technical mess (maybe not Torment). What else is new?

Don't have a PC that can run NWN2, but one day...one day...

 

nwn2 and its expansions are way better then nwn1, the things Obsidian introduced or rather reintroduced makes it a lot better, full controllable companions, good stories (in all three games, I mean wtf was nwn1 OC?) full party conversation, should you want it (in modules) the ability to make your own party or take companions. etc

 

I think Obsidian in on the verge of adulthood in gamemaking, but still have a few teenage streaks. One or two games from now I suspect they will pass Bioware to the second place in rpg making.

 

KotOR 2 was inferior to KotOR 1 in gameplay, options, writing, and technicality, but it was still good.

NWN1 was always intended to be a multi-player system, and the OC reflects this. The expansions were better. NWN2 was actually worse than NWN1, far worse. The story was only on par, with different failings that left me caring just as little for what was happening to my PC. The technical issues were huge, so much so that I finally gave up on it, despite the beautiful graphics (that frequently ran at 1 fps). The AI was all but non-existant, yet increadibly persistant. It actually over-rode my commands, consistently, even when there was nothing going on.

From KotOR2 to NWN2 they went vastly downhill. I haven't played either of their expansion packs for NWN2, due mainly to the technical issues. I may give them a try when I get a new desktop PC for DA:O, but not until then.

 

I recommend playing NWN2 MotB and the OC after you patch the full game. The latest patch 1.22 fixes almost all the bugs that are out there and once 1.23 is released the OC and MotB will be very playable without too many issues. When a game is first released it is littered with BUGS; a company can do a few updates and call it good or contunie to fix their game to try to remove most of the bug related issues. I give propers to Obsidian for releasing patches on a game that is almost 3 years old now. Other software companies would have called it good after the first or second patch fix.