why do people like bioware games so much?

[HazelrahFiver]

I've actually only truly liked one Bioware game, and that is Mass Effect 2 (I expect to enjoy the third installment as well.) All other Bioware games that I've tried have left a sour taste in my craw. The combat system in Dragon Age for example, give me an f'ing break, disgusting. Even the first Mass Effect, a series I will claim to love, was only good enough to play through once for story's sake, and then any other playing was done for achievements. ME2 is the only Bioware game that I have more than one playthrough with now, for the sake of having fun.

They just don't make good games in my opinion, and are probably the most overrated company out there.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

see, i'm seeing alot of people claim interesting stories, but the mass effect games have rather flawed stories, since the entire of mass effect 2 is just being rail roaded, where you work with cerberus because you can't work with the alliance, you can't work with the alliance because you're working with cerberus. and is filled with plot holes, the first is about 10 minutes into the game where a terrorist organization manages to make a better ship than the entire allience could.

and hta characters aren't really that great, overlooking the fact that two of them (miranda and hte justicar) are shamelessly there for sex appeal, alot of them don't actually come in use in the big mission. why did you need 2 biotics experts if you only need one? why not bring more weapon experts?

I really don't see how the stories are flawed or where the plot holes are. You're working with Cerberus because they're doing something about the abductions. You aren't working with the Alliance because they're not. Also the Normandy SR-2 isn't really better. It just has more already available technology tacked onto the original design. Also the alliance has to worry about an entire species whereas cerberus are free to sink all their money into making one ship.

Not to get into a mammoth of a debate but ME2's main plot is the definition of a plothole riddled mess and lack much required exposition. To use the examples you touched upon, Shepard is forced to work with Cerberus disregarding their past atrocities and simply taking TIM's word at face value. Remember, we only discover after the Alliance and Council are inept we agree to sign up with TIM. This is particularly egregious for those who chose the Sole Survivor angle, wherein Cerberus was wholly responsible for the death of your squad and the horrific experimentation, yet Shepard never even brings it up. Other examples include but are not limited...

Spoiler

- Shepard's body being recoverable
- TIM's logic for reviving Shepard, or lack thereof
- Shepard being a brick
- Mordin pulling the plot device out of his ass
- Everything about Horizon, especially the horrendous VS exchange
- Most of the Collector Ship
- The derelict Reaper coming out of nowhere
- Everyone hilariously leaving the Normandy because the plot demanded it
- Basically the Suicide Mission amounting to "Lets bullrush it!" with no actual plan
- Baby Reaperminator, every little thing
- Destroying the Collector Base

All the above pertains to plotholes, inconsistencies, contradictions and/or lack of exposition in the narrative. Bluntly stated, no ME2's plot is not good. Where this game shines is in the recruitment and loyalty missions. Basically the secondary plots are why ME2 is an enjoyable experience from a narrative perspective. The main plot is damn well rubbish.

 

[AlternatePFG]

I'm not the biggest BioWare fan (I prefer Obsidian myself) and I do think they are somewhat overrated but BioWare's writing is far above the horrible, horrible standard of most other developers. I don't find myself usually liking the main plot of a BioWare game but usually the characters make up for it. (ME2's main plot was a giant plot hole but the recruitment/loyalty missions more than made up for it) While I don't agree with some of the things they've done with their games since they joined EA. (ME2 losing almost all RPG elements. Honestly, I much prefer to look at it as a shooter with basic RPG elements, it's still a really enjoyable game)

Helping Cerberus in ME2 is just stupid though I agree. I'm currently on a playthrough of the first game, and I'm questioning why the hell would a paragon Shepard even want to help them. They are completely evil in the first game, and Shepard buys this crap about "rogue cells"?

 

[Dogstile]

Because not everyone agrees with you? Hows that so hard to understand?

if not everyone aggreed with me, i'd be fine. my point is that EVERYONE loves them and just ignores the plot holes and bland gameplay.

Erm, not everyone loves them. Their are bioware hate groups out there. That's like me saying "WHY DOES EVERYONE LIKE FOOTBALL".

Erm, no, clearly people don't.

Plot holes? Maybe a few, stories aren't exactly easy to craft without them. Also to one of your other points, paragon Shep would work with Cerberus because they rebuilt him and the ship.

Bland gameplay? What? I can use Biotics to lift people up and throw them around in ME. I can throw fireballs at grease and make walls of fire in DA:O. What's bland about that?

 

[Roofstone]

The bottom line; People like having fun. And bioware brings fun. So people like Bioware games. =)

 

[Quazimofo]

Likeable characters. Challenge and passable or better gameplay. Interesting stories. Interactive and makes you think.

indeed. these are my thoughts exactly. also, mass effect remains to this day the only game that made me care enough to actually read the background stuff (yes, i read the entire frigging codex). i did a little for dragon age. but not the whole codex. was more interested in the current goings on of the game itself. the little i did read though was quite interesting

 

[thespianicism]

I find BioWare game incredibly engaging. At the beginning of Mass Effect, when Shepard is looking through the window out into space, I was hit by how huge this universe was going to be and the fact that I was going to have a place in it. When I played Mass Effect, I thought I would hate it because of the space setting (I was big into fantasy at the time). I knew nothing about the game, aside what the box told me (space marines and aliens). And yet, when I began the game, I instantly committed to the world.
This goes for all the BioWare games I've played, even including Dragon Age II. Sure, once I got further into DA2, things got wonky (although I still enjoyed it), but the other games have been superb experiences throughout, with deep, flawed characters with whom I can connect, a story that I care about, and gameplay that I very much enjoy.

So that's why I like BioWare games so much. I can't speak for anyone else.

 

[Xaio30]

We've had a good experience with their older games and have developed a certain trust towards Bioware.

 

[TheEndlessSleep]

You just have different perceptions of what is good in a game.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you probably like a few games that everyone else seems to hate...?

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I enjoy Bioware games mainly due to the storyline and well developed characters(some of them anyway).

 

[Smooth Operator]

They make a good story and good characters, game mechanics however are going down casual hill and noone spotted the breaks.

 

[Joaquim Guerreiro]

Baldur's Gate is enough to put Bioware up as one of the greatest and most influential developer studios ever.
MDK2 is hilarious. Dragon Age - Origins is a revival of the genre.

They also got a lot of rep from spin offs from their work, Like Planescape Torment wich uses their game engine, or KotORII, a sequel from their KotOR game. Much better than any Bioware game, but still derivative.

 

[Eduku]

Please people everywhere in the world stop making threads such as "why do people like/dislike ". There is no point to such threads really. Basically I will answer all of the above questions with one answer. Not everyone has the same taste as you. Some people may enjoy things for different reasons to you and therefore are able to like something you don't or dislike something you enjoy. So unless you are actually curious as to the negative or positive aspects to a certain entity, which in this case it doesn't appear that you are, the question itself is moot. There will always be some people who like certain games and some who don't.

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. It's not that hard to understand that people have different opinions, is it?

 

[bobmus]

Personally I never got into either series, as I found the balance in Mass Effect horrible - combat was a massive pain. But then this is mainly because I don't like party-based gameplay, so I feel kitting out a team like in these games was never meant to appeal to me!

 

[The Funslinger]

see, i'm seeing alot of people claim interesting stories, but the mass effect games have rather flawed stories, since the entire of mass effect 2 is just being rail roaded, where you work with cerberus because you can't work with the alliance, you can't work with the alliance because you're working with cerberus. and is filled with plot holes, the first is about 10 minutes into the game where a terrorist organization manages to make a better ship than the entire allience could.

and hta characters aren't really that great, overlooking the fact that two of them (miranda and hte justicar) are shamelessly there for sex appeal, alot of them don't actually come in use in the big mission. why did you need 2 biotics experts if you only need one? why not bring more weapon experts?

Not to be a stickler, but it wasn't the entire Alliance, it was the Humans, with help from the Turians.

In any case, it's over the period of two years while Shepherd was out, and they're a somewhat criminal organization. It's obvious just by looking at the ship they'd have somehow accessed the original Normandy's plans, probably via espionage. Once that was done, it wouldn't be difficult to recreate and improve. Thing is, stories that spell out all of this stuff, just spoon feeding it to you aren't good at all. All it bears is a little consideration to how it could have been achieved.

As for the characters, Yeah, someone like Miranda has sex appeal, but in case you didn't notice she also has a fantastic backstory. And besides, you don't play with multiple biotics, and have multiple weapons experts. That doesn't mean others do or don't. It's a game that can be played in many ways, and I sometimes use multiple biotics to cover me with their abilities while I run and gun. Sometimes, I don't. I'm not trying to sound fanboyish, because I'm not. I do like the series, but second to others. It just seems you haven't played devil's advocate and given your argument any due consideration from the other side at all.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

Please people everywhere in the world stop making threads such as "why do people like/dislike ". There is no point to such threads really. Basically I will answer all of the above questions with one answer. Not everyone has the same taste as you. Some people may enjoy things for different reasons to you and therefore are able to like something you don't or dislike something you enjoy. So unless you are actually curious as to the negative or positive aspects to a certain entity, which in this case it doesn't appear that you are, the question itself is moot. There will always be some people who like certain games and some who don't.

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. It's not that hard to understand that people have different opinions, is it?

No, however the OP was asking we fans of the series to be objective and explain what attracts them to BioWare. What you quoted is the cop out answer where people cannot accept any criticism to their beloved game. Were we to accept the aforementioned then theoretically speaking, no one should be allowed to fault Twilight or any form of literature or media based on the supposed claim if someone enjoys it, then we cannot criticize it.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

i understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if you enjoyed all of biowares games then good for you, but it seems EVERYONE thinks bioware is one of the greatest game makers of all time

Everything after Jade Empire has been pretty shoddy and I'll stick by that until proven wrong by them.

Dragon Age Origins was a bit of a hit and miss, it reminds me a bit of Duke Nukem Forever (heaven forbid I make that comparison and piss people off) without the development time. Dragon Age (much like DNF) is a modern game with old school elements, in DAOs case its old school RPG elements. Which is great, except that, again, much like DNF the old school elements don't mesh with modern gameplay or even a modern audience. The tactical battle system was great, but many of the classes and characters weren't different or unique enough to make it necessary. I breezed through Nightmare because after one playthrough I'd worked out the ideal party structure.

They you have Mass Effect, which started out as a schizophrenic action-RPG with half baked action and half baked RPG elements and a joke of a morality system. Bioware actually made an improvement by focusing on the action part of the game because at least then one of the elements of gameplay was engaging.

When it comes down to it, it's not about Bioware being superior or good, it's about them being better than competition. Which, when you look at the competition you can't really deny. Bioware's only real opponent is Bethesda and their games are different enough for them to never have to come into direct combat.

I'd really like to see Origin Systems come and put our a modern day Ultima title. At least then you'd get a clear indicator of how many Bioware fans are only Bioware fans because they once made good CRPGs and now make substandard RPGs. To be frank I think Obsidian know how to balance the RPG-Action a lot better than Bioware do. Alpha Protocol was a shining example of this.

 

[Morielen]

I don't 'love' Bioware. I've been disappointed by it countless times, but I can say one thing: Bioware's never failed to give me a story that appealed to me, a world that I wanted to know more about, characters which interested me (or which I plain hated, which is interest enough, really =D)
I really, really enjoyed ME1 and 2, because they just were the type of game with just the content I need to say "woo! that was fun!"
DA:O was meh, but I liked it enoug to finish it and actually run through the game several times. Plus, I still had a deep interest in 'what's going to happen next'. Oh, and the dialogues between your characters... *snicker*
Yes, a lot wasn't all that great, but dispite all bad things, I still think of 'good RPGs, albeit buggy' when I hear Bioware

 

[Felix 'Solomon' Hultgren]

so, i've been trying to figure htis out for a while about why people think the mass effect trilogy and dragon age 1 were such great games. whennever i think about them i think they have bad locations that don't feel as epic as they're trying to be made out, an impenetrable story with many, many plot holes, bad writing where alot of the background is in the pause menu rather than weaved into the story, akward conversation options and bland, boring gameplay.

i understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if you enjoyed all of biowares games then good for you, but it seems EVERYONE thinks bioware is one of the greatest game makers of all time

What plot holes? You haven't mentioned a single one. It's all there. In conversation or in the codex and lore respectively. If you didn't get what was going on in the games, you should probably pay more attention. The writing is the best in the industry hands down. Name one company that produces games with better writing. Pause menu? I guess you mean the lore. The lore is not necessary information, but rather information that will give more depth to the story. Do you know why? Because the game is heavily (and when I say heavily I mean HEAVILY) story based. Not gameplay based. Story based. You don't play BioWare games for the mechanics or the graphics or even the rpg elements (anymore, or so it would seem). You play them because, like me, you love to immerse yourself into a different world where you save the world instead of doing essays and revision. So there. I don't believe you will answer or even notice this, cause it's already been established that you wouldn't know a good game if it hit you in the face but if you do, please name some of the "many, many plotholes" as well as a game developer with a better writing staff.

 

[The Heik]

so, i've been trying to figure htis out for a while about why people think the mass effect trilogy and dragon age 1 were such great games. whennever i think about them i think they have bad locations that don't feel as epic as they're trying to be made out, an impenetrable story with many, many plot holes, bad writing where alot of the background is in the pause menu rather than weaved into the story, akward conversation options and bland, boring gameplay.

i understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if you enjoyed all of biowares games then good for you, but it seems EVERYONE thinks bioware is one of the greatest game makers of all time

For me Bioware games are awesome because of their ability to weave a narrative into the game. Every Bioware game I've played has always been easy to follow but if I dug deep enough I can find out so much more about everything in the game's universe. A lot of this is in the little details, like the idle conversation of people around you or in the manner and dress of the various characters. There's just so much there to be found if you take the time to look through it, and it's almost always rewarding either in terms of gameplay or your understanding of how and why things are happening.

In short, I love Bioware games because they put the extra effort into making your games feel like they're actual places, not just a bunch of ones and zeroes.