why bioware is awesome

[rivendellrose]

File under "why I like these guys": BioWare staff give an outright smackdown to an annoying, privileged straight male gamer who insists they need to pander more to his wants in their games.

Relevant quote:

The romances in the game are not for “the straight male gamer”. They’re for everyone. We have a lot of fans, many of whom are neither straight nor male, and they deserve no less attention.

Thank you, BioWare! Can't wait until MassEffect 3 comes out (and I hope you'll take this path further and clear up that little problem of offering male/female and female/female, but no male/male romantic options, too! Come on, guys - after a statement like this, you've got to go the last yard). ♥

No, I'm not a gamer. But almost all my friends are, and I'm marrying one, and BioWare has the distinction of making some of the few games friends and The Boy play where I actively follow plots, become very attached to characters, and get frustrated when I can't sit and watch the game progress. I loooooooved the Mass Effect games.

Comments

[nightsinger.livejournal.com]

I'd been hearing all kinds of good things about DA2, but somehow THIS is the one that's making me put it on my Wishlist.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there was a fantastic review of DA2 on one of the writer blogs that I follow, and now this? I may have to put aside my generally unfavorable opinions of DA: Origins. (Nothing terrible, I just thought it was a fairly cliche fantasy game and wasn't at all interested in it like I was Mass Effect.)

[ursula]

For what it's worth, I thought Origins was better than both DA2 and Mass Effect 2. You'd probably find Merrill in DA2 adorable, though.

[ursula]

Also, DA2 totally has M/M romance options! And one of them does *not* involve the apparently de rigueur slutty elf.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Aha! My bad, I was thinking of Mass Effect, which, sadly, does not. And I'm glad they don't all fall on the elf, because... yes. That is more than a bit cliche. ;)

[ursula]

What I want to know is, how come you never get a romanceable NPC dwarf?

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Poor dwarves. They simply don't get the love. Maybe The Hobbit will serve to make this better?

[gaslightgallows]

Yay! Mass Effect isn't one of Brian's games of choice, but I've heard a lot of good things about the game and the company, and this just makes me verra happy. <3

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I have some advice for you that may sound strange, but believe me when I say - convince him to play Mass Effect 2. Convince him to play it, and convince him to play it with a female lead. Why? Because it is awesome, because it's terribly pretty, because it has a good story, because the female voice actor is freaking amazing, and because it has so so so so so many fantastic fun aliens. ♥ You will like. I am almost certain.

[gaslightgallows]

He's expressed interest, but he's the kind of gamer who likes to start at the beginning of a series, and the first Mass Effect is only available for Xbox and PC--we don't have an Xbox and he won't touch PC games. So until it gets ported over to the PS3, I'm out of luck. :'(

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Damn, that's right. I'd been thinking they'd released the first one on PS3 recently, because I remembered The Boy talking about how the graphics engine was better, but I think what he might've been talking about was them releasing Mass Effect 2 on PS3, but he wanted to carry on with his save data from 1. Drat, drat, drat.

If you can find screencaps or something, though, the graphics are highly worthwhile.

[gaslightgallows]

I think I've seen my friend Wyatt play part of Mass Effect 2, because he specifically wanted to show me the pretty and the awesome voice acting and the alien male/human female romance.

[shadawyn.livejournal.com]

I ♥ that statement.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

No kidding! I was so happy when I saw it! ♥

[seachanges.livejournal.com]

BioWare is awesome! Dragon Age: Origin is the first game like that I have ever played because they offered gay and lesbian romance options. Well. That, and because it kicks major ASS. &hearts

I have DA2, though I haven't started playing it yet. Was going to do it tomorrow. Now I think I may load it tonight and get started. :D

ETA: How is Mass Effect, btw? I have a copy of the first one, but haven't played it yet.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I admit, I didn't pay enough attention to DA:Origin when The Boy was playing it - I got kind of "meh" about the seemingly cliche fantasy look of it at the start and ignored it. But I did highly approve of what I heard about the romantic options! I think he's planning on going back to it at some point (or picking up 2) and I'll make more effort to pay attention when he does.

ETA: How is Mass Effect, btw?

I liked it quite a bit - admittedly, I paid more attention to the sequel, but I found both to be really fun, if faintly run-of-the-mill, sci-fi. Good graphics, though, and really awesome aliens. Definitely play with the female option - the voice actress is much better. The Boy tried to replay with a male main character, and we couldn't stand the voice actor.

[seachanges.livejournal.com]

The former housemate used to play DA:O on PS3 all the time, and I got used to hanging out in the living room while she did. At first, I didn't get what all the fuss was about, but as the storyline unfolded and I saw how interactive the game was with the multiple choice dialog options, I got sucked in. Wound up getting my own copy for PC, and have been really looking forward to playing the sequel.

Even better? You can mod it almost as heavily as you can mod The Sims. So, if you don't like how a character looks, you can just head to the modding communities and download a different version. I did that with Zevran, one of the elven NPCs. He talks like Antonio Banderas, but looks like a bad Legolas rip-off. So, I downloaded a mod to give him dark hair and eyes to go along with his Hispanic accent and brown skin. That was MUCH better. &hearts

Re Mass Effect: Yeah, I heard the sequel was better, but I wanted to start from the beginning. Just ... haven't gotten around to it yet.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Even better? You can mod it almost as heavily as you can mod The Sims.

ORLY? That does make it sound more interesting!

Mass Effect doesn't have any mods for the NPCs, that I know of, but it's got actually quite a nice character design engine for the main character. And the one in 2 is omgsofun. I had a blast making characters for a while, and they actually have darker skin colors that -gasp!- look really nice.♥

The sequel is flipping fantastic, but I do recall quite liking the first as well. It's worth it. At the very least you will probably enjoy doing as I did, sitting there going "and that bit's like BSG... and that bit's like B5... and that bit's like BSG, too..." It's like playing sci-fi bingo. ;)

[seachanges.livejournal.com]

It's like playing sci-fi bingo. ;)

Heeeee, I can imagine! DA:O is chock FULL of SF&F in-jokes and geekery.