Disappointment.
Having played the two KOTOR's before this and absolutely enjoying their virtues while recognizing their faults, I was excited to see what would come next from BioWare..
The first contact were the reviews.. game of the year, 9/10, whatever, you've seen it.
somewhere along the reviews, you'd see key phrases like the ones you'd expect from KOTOR and the likes: deep storyline and character development and involvement.. also heard about the sex possibility (hey, should always count as a plus).. so pretty excited, yeah. and sounded reasonable too.
of course, in retrospect, the main plot involving a galacting confrontation between a human and another guy seemed to simple, but hey, that's just the main story, right?
well.. wrong. terribly.
basically, the game is all flash. I finished it. I delved as much I could, but it simply is that: flash and no substance.
The problem is that the flash is quite good. I mean, I had never seen a game that was so.. theatrical, almost movie-like, even. That certainly helped the ratings. A shame the movie sucks, really.
The story is completely idiotic, the kind you'd expect from a sad sci-fi B-movie. A confrontation between galactic civilizations and some unknown force.. and guess who's coming for the rescue.. humanity! and better yet, the "hero" always acts like a tough guy. ALWAYS. nevermind good or evil choices.
but speaking of choices.. choices? Well, yeah, there are choices. But they choose them for you.. you have a circle of choices, 3 on each side, and all the top choices are nice, the middle are neutral and the ones in the bottom are evil. and no, it doesn't work. I felt constrained everytime, cause I was already so used to picking always the choice on the top.
dialogues are more or less good. they're something you would expect to see on Lost. and when I say that, I mean that you can easily guess the next thing you're gonna say, cause it's REALLY predictable. nevermind you're talking with aliens, AIs or whatever, everyone still acts and has the same values as any american john doe.
and what about the action? it's an action RPG, don't know if anyone said that before.. and well.. it's average, at best. it wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't affected by the RPG part. because there's a bit of a problem there: wander a little from the story and.. you'll end up rich. INSANELY rich. the kind of rich where credits and omni gel stop making sense. I was on veteran and didn't use medi gel or grenades (i like to keep stocks high, even if it kills me) and in the beginning, it was either difficult or very easy. shortly after, it turned to "pushover" mode.
and i'm not even going to complain about the oversimplified combat system..
but another thing I will complain are the bugs: really, crashing 1 out of 10 loads is way too much. and in the end, if any of my weapons overheated, you could forget about it. either reload, or never use that weapon again. fortunately, you can beat the final boss with melee (did i mention difficulty yet?).
so yeah. my favorite genre felt sodomized, by the developer that I thought would bring the much needed revolution to it.
and that's the only reason I would write a review this big. the years go by, and I still feel as gullible as ever..
and as a final note, of course I can't rate this negatively, a flashy game is still a game. enjoyable sometimes, even. this rant is only about its potential.