Baldur's Gate 2: EE - Editorial @ Kill Screen

Couchpotato

Part-Time News-bot
Joined
October 1, 2010
Messages
36,185
Location
Spudlandia
Alexander Saeedy has written a new article on Kill Screen were he gives his confession on why he quit playing Baldur's Gate 2. I foresee many comments so keep it civil.
The dungeons of Baldur's Gate 2 have yet to be plundered. Inside its halls, goblins await a band of heroes. The keys to the library sit in the second sewer tunnel, directly behind a black cauldron. An NPC Golem sits inside of a laboratory, not yet fooled into leading me inside his master’s crypt. And in the middle of all this, I pray for vindication and satisfaction. Because this has been a pretty damn dull experience.

I felt one thing within the ten hours that I played of Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition: frustration. Bitter, difficult, and unrelenting frustration. I'm a huge fan of getting nostalgic, especially when it comes to videogames. Sixty hours of turn-based combat in Fire Emblem? No problem. But to really enjoy a game, you need more than passive, inanimate respect for structure and mechanics. It requires a certain nameless excitement. Sometimes, we call it “fun.” But as I sat playing Baldur's Gate 2 on a borrowed PC from my university's library, I couldn’t grasp any sort of joy, ecstasy, or insight. Everything felt … outdated. Unprovocative.
More information.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,185
Location
Spudlandia
I don't recommend anyone reading anything from that site (including the comments) if you have anger issues and don't want to lose some of your thinking ability.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
1,596
To paraphrase this article's ridiculous fairy floss for purple-prose, "what a boring piece of writing". Roaming the dungeons of BG2 is infinitely more interesting than reading that pseudo-intellectual clap-trap. Bah. A try-hard Gamasutra article, to be sure.
 
Joined
Jul 12, 2009
Messages
1,974
Location
Australia
Could not bring myself to read the article but from that excerpt i get the distinct impression that he simply could not get over the graphics.
 
Joined
Sep 30, 2010
Messages
213
He could not get over himself Biff. "A man of my refined tastes and intellect needs something much more sophisticated than BG2". I wonder what games he actually likes…
 
Joined
Jan 10, 2008
Messages
4,721
His only concrete example is being a "little mouse" and clicking, the rest is pure rambling. With his references being the Last of Us, Resident Evil and examples like Zelda it's obvious he's a console gamer. Doubt he spent more than a few hours with it, both the screenshots he used were grabbed from the internet.
 
Joined
Aug 17, 2008
Messages
1,718
Location
Dear Green Place
He is just too sexy for a PC. Or a laptop apparently.
 
Joined
Jan 10, 2008
Messages
4,721
Pretty funny to me. He says:

We can debate whether or not BG2 was a "good" or "bad" game—public opinion will suggest the former, obviously—but I believe that what’s at stake is the right way to think about videogames. I've come face-to-face with a wall of awards collecting dust, and it tells me that this game is great and I'm an idiot for thinking otherwise. Perhaps it's easier at the end of the day to play the "context card" and blissfully reflect on the eclectic ways of the past. Call me a n00b and call it a day.

I guess the bottom line for this guy is he feels he has to justify why he didn't like a game and perhaps convince the whole world they should feel as he does. It's not that he's a noob, he just a little immature.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
1,762
Location
Los Angeles area
I'm glad to have him to tell me the "right" way to think about videogames! Because, ladies and gentlemen, nothing less than that was at stake here! Whew we really dodged a bullet!
 
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
518
Very sad, but not surprising. Some people can only enjoy Skyrim or Diablo type RPGs, in other words, an CRPG which would make an incredibly shallow pen and paper game. Deep and interesting mechanics never were able to draw a huge audience, as the comparatives sales from RPGS and Shooters clearly demonstrate.
 
Joined
Jan 29, 2014
Messages
2,717
Location
Vienna, Austria
Having just finished BG2:EE, in just under 100 hours, I have to say that I liked it more than when I played it when it came out. But it is a really hard game. I don't have a lot of time to play RPGs any more (on anything else for that matter) and my skills are certainly lacking, but I've played a lot of infinity engine games and don't suck completely. And I found it hard. Awesome, but challenging. I finished ToB (so good, man) on the lowest setting and still had to repeat a couple of battles. I had actually played through BG:EE just before and, honestly, I don't think that you can play that game without quite some skill and have fun at it. And already Irenicus' dungeon in the beginning is tough. And actually not that good.

I think he got the "context" thing right, but mixed up the context. It's not about nostalgia or "period" context. It's about whether you bring what it takes to the table and that means at least having played BG1 not too long ago.
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2012
Messages
7
This Yale undergraduate and aspiring historian could have saved himself a lot of effort and just said it wasn't his cup of tea.
 
Joined
May 25, 2007
Messages
95
So this guy doesn't even own a PC, but he's attempting to review a PC game? Wow…

Exactly what I thought. It conjured up images of that obamacare add with that picture of an infantile boy-man sitting in his pajamas drinking a latte.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,897
Location
Oregon
Another stupid "against the stream" article.Ok i'm gonna make a 3 pages article full of verbalism in order to say why games like PES are outdated and should be abandoned in the name of human evolution.It doesn't matter that i played very little to nothing of these kind of games cause they are not my style.If i write my "heretic" opinion with style than it will be ....ehm .....it wil be......well whatever
 
Joined
May 22, 2012
Messages
32
He could not get over himself Biff. "A man of my refined tastes and intellect needs something much more sophisticated than BG2". I wonder what games he actually likes…

Fire Emblem, he mention it at the start of the article (it's a console only series made by Nintendo).
 
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
7,313
This Yale undergraduate and aspiring historian could have saved himself a lot of effort and just said it wasn't his cup of tea.

But he thinks that he's so awesome that one-liner would never do!
 
Joined
Jan 10, 2008
Messages
4,721
Obviously part of the social media generation. Facebook and Twitter apparently aren't enough of an avenue to vomit his opinion on subjects he knows very little about to a small group of friends. Problem is, subject matter knowledge is sort of critical if you're going to dribble out articles and expect folks to take you seriously.
 
Joined
Apr 5, 2011
Messages
1,748
Location
San Juan Islands, WA
But he thinks that he's so awesome that one-liner would never do!

Seems so. But with that awesomeness comes the burden and mental anguish of having to resolve how one's opinions could differ from those of others through mathematical equations and lengthy diatribe.
 
Joined
May 25, 2007
Messages
95
Obviosuly I'm in the minority, but I've never gotten into the Infinity games as much as everone else. Lovingly crafted, great stories, engaging characters...and awful combat mechanic. To each his/her own.
 
Joined
Sep 15, 2012
Messages
31
Back
Top Bottom