Tuesday, August 29, 2006

I borrowed Baldur's Gate 2 from Tim last night, and I already like it a little better than the first one. For the most part, it's exactly the same--same interface, similar graphics, and several of the same characters. But the dialogue has been slightly better so far, and the characters seem to interact more. And although the NPC portrait art is slightly better than the images of oily people from 1, I was still very happy I was able to replace them with custom portraits.

For my own character, I found an antique drawing of Blackbeard the pirate on Wikipedia. I named the character "Goodbeard", deciding he was the pirate's reincarnation, out to redeem himself.

There were too many kids bouncing around at the Starbucks yesterday. Gods, I hate kids. Children ought to be pinned to cardboard backings in giant glass jars and not heard.

Still, I miss the presence of children in Oblivion. The Elder Scrolls games have been impressive endeavours to create big, functioning, beautiful worlds for your characters to explore, but they've gotten increasingly family-friendly, and as a consequence they feel less credible, even as the environments and A.I. grow more sophisticated.

How I miss Fallout 2. Not only were there children roaming the streets--including barefoot, homeless, pickpocket children--they were even killable. And there were drunks, and drug pushers, and crazy people who'd jabber at you senselessly. There were prostitutes you could not only hire for yourself, but also for your NPCs. And gambling and cussing and exploding bodies and yakuza . . . Gods, I hope Bethesda doesn't fuck up Fallout 3.

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