RPG Codex - 2009 In Review

RPG Codex has posted their annual acerbic look at the past year. It's divided into "stuff that didn't happen" and, obviously, stuff that did:

Dragon Age: Origins, what is promised to be the first of many games in the Dragon Age series, was released by BioWare on the 3rd November 2009. Dragon Age was very much the only "A grade" title released in 2009 (fuck you Risen et al). That of course guaranteed it the "RPG of the Year" accolade from every website that even bothers to mention RPGs these days (with a mandatory "RPG of the decade" because gosh, why stop at just RPG of the year when you can give one for like, 10 whole years because it's shiney and new).
The process of selecting the title for RPG of the year goes something like this:

1. Were any RPGs actually released this year?
2. Were any of them released in English?
3. Give the English one the award.

And give the award they did. In all seriousness, I'm sure Dragon Age is good, as surprisingly, BioWare actually put a reasonable amount of effort into Dragon Age. Namely in that all the choices are not bleedingly obvious. At least according to some. Not so much according to others.

More information.

Why give that website any attention at all?

Yay for superficial smartassery.

It's perfectly valid content. I don't agree with it all but that doesn't make it something I wouldn't post.

I applaud the comment on Risen , also it is a very interesting read.

An interesting read, but I think there was too much 'apparently this happened' - still full of opinions but lacking actual first-hand experience. Seems he could have managed to have the folks who actually played some games in '09 write some stuff

Half the article is about games none played (not released) +other news and at the bottom there is a headline started with "I" , i think it is well written for what it is .
Yes we could have some people add stuff but this will make the article more serious than he wanted to be i guess.

Originally Posted by Tragos
Yes we could have some people add stuff but this will make the article more serious than he wanted to be i guess.

I dunno - if you hit the threads where he linked to opinions, I can imagine those folks could have added some colorful opinions to the main article )

Not sure about the site itself; but the pointer to this review:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=197
—
Is precious. I actually agree with much of the content. While I have played DA:O twice and think the voice acting/interaction is quite good at some places; the game itself feels horribly wrong. For the most part I call it dumb'ed down; but that is an over simplification. While BG II has many flaws (I much prefer the graphics and presentation in DA) the game itself is IMHO significantly better.

Originally Posted by you
While BG II has many flaws (I much prefer the graphics and presentation in DA) the game itself is IMHO significantly better.

I would be interested in what made BG II that much better to you. "Feels horribly wrong" tells me nothing.

I laughed at this one :

Remember: What has been seen, cannot be unseen.

Still, I was quite astonished the author filed Drakensang 1 among "others".
Or so it appeared to me.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
I would be interested in what made BG II that much better to you. "Feels horribly wrong" tells me nothing.

What does he have to explain?

(not speaking for Thaurin but…)

"The game feels horribly wrong" because…
…it had polka dots
…the initials spell Dao
I dunno, something specific would be good to hear.