Thoughts on Anthem (pre-public demo)

Anthem has been a tricky subject for me. Honestly, it's something that's been difficult to wrap my brain around since its initial showing. It looks like a solid game, but a few things haven't been sitting well with me about it.

You see, I'm a 20-year BioWare fan, and I can't shake the feeling that this game is being made for everyone but me, if that makes any sense. I love solo RPGs with lots of player choice in them that affects the world around the player. This is something that Anthem is not, at least from what I've played.

It’s not what I expect from BioWare, but I also don’t want to be that asshole that crucifies a studio for daring to try something new. I badly want a new single-player RPG from BioWare, but that’s just not going to happen for a while.

Disclaimer - yes, I'm aware that not every game is made for me. Trust me, I get that.

So far, I've played the Anthem alpha and last weekend's VIP demo. I didn't really enjoy the alpha, but I've had a good time in the demo so far.

I'm really trying to keep an open mind and see if Anthem is something that will expand my gaming boundaries, much in the same way BioWare did to me with SWTOR. I wasn't really into MMOs before SWTOR, and both Star Trek Online and SWTOR acted as gateway drugs for me in the MMO space. Now, MMOs are among my favorite genres.

So, maybe Anthem will do the same for me with whatever genre it ends up fitting into. 

I've been trying to approach it as a totally new kind of BioWare experience for me, and that helped me enjoy the VIP demo.

I really like the single-player Fort Tarsis bits. The writing is predictably solid, and it's gorgeous to look at. I wish it was a little bigger and a bit more interactive, though. 

Going out into the world from Tarsis proved to be a little tricky, due to a known technical issue with the demo. Basically, I had to launch the expedition from a screen, let it crawl up to 95% (where it would stay indefinitely), crash the game, kill the game process, and then quickly re-launch the game to get a prompt to rejoin the expedition. Sigh. This technical issue REALLY bogged down my play time with the game.

Once I got in, it was fun. The flying is great, though I looked like a drunk hippo while doing it. It's fun, but I have a long way to go toward mastering it. 

The combat felt really good. It definitely has a Mass Effect feel to the gunplay, so I felt right at home.

Pugging was OK. I normally hate pugging, but this seemed OK. This game definitely needs text chat, though. Regardless, the groups I was in were OK, and once I got a little more of a handle on flight and combat, I felt like a real contributor to the group.

Still, I've kept questioning if Anthem is something in which I can really invest myself long-term. I'm likely going to give it a shot, but story, characters, and choice mean a lot to me, and while I enjoyed what I played, I wonder how much staying power the game will have with me. We'll see.

I'm also hoping that the technical issue that I described is fixed. That was a huge bummer and kept me from playing more of the demo than I did, especially with hot sexiness like Resident Evil 2 remake at hand.

I'm hoping this weekend's demo lets me dig a little deeper and get a better sense of the game. I want to find what the game's loop is like and get a sense of how much story even matters in the game.

I'll report back next week about my thoughts with the public demo. I really hope I end up loving this game.

-Blaine

Aaand I'm back!

First, The 1UP Rejects is on hold at the moment. Short version - we started out too big and too aggressive. It'll be back, at some point.

For now, I'm back doing my own thing, starting this Friday!

So, I'm starting small, and I'll be streaming two nights a week, Thursday and Friday.

Thursday, I'll be streaming the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series from 2000-2300 (central US time). I'm already a few episodes in, and you can watch those below. The intent is that I'll play through KotOR 1 & 2, and if people want, a campaign in SWTOR afterward. The KotOR games are using a fair number of mods to update the visuals.

Friday, I'll be streaming The Witcher series from 2000-2200 (central) and various Elder Scrolls games from 2200 to whenever. I'm a few episodes into this one, too, and the intent is to play through all of The Witcher trilogy. These will also use several visual mods.

Aside from that, I'll pop in when I feel like it with some Final Fantasy or whatever I feel like.

Of note - the KotOR series will be moving from the 1UP Rejects channel to my own channel.

I'll be starting up this Friday, and I'm pretty stoked. I'd been having a blast playing through The Witcher before my spinal surgery, and I loved the game when I played it years ago.

But first, you need to get caught up!



And also, you should get caught up on my KotOR series!



And the Elder Scrolls bit will be fun, as well. I'll be bouncing between various entries in the series, maybe even in the same stream. We'll see.

And the random streams ... I don't stream much of games I've not played through before, but the 'random streams' will be either new games or MMOs. Not sure yet.

I think I'll also post in here sometimes, as well.

For the moment, I'm focused on work, family, and getting this side hustle going again. And let me know if you have stuff you want me to write or stream.

Also, as a reminder, I'm starting all of this back up on Friday (I'm going to the Cardinals home opener on Thursday.)

*HUGS*

-Blaine

MMOs and Time and Dollars and How Much Can I Really Enjoy Four of Them?

I love MMORPGs. I love the 'instant play' aspect, and I love getting to live inside their worlds. I love the community (usually.) Modern MMORPGs very much cater to the love of story that I have, plus they heavily feature math, which makes me swoon.

The problem is that there are too many that I like. I go through this every year or two, when I need to pare down, especially relative to the lack of free time that I have, and the fact that I mostly play gargantuan single-player RPGs.

So, here's what I have in rotation at the moment.

Star Wars: The Old Republic
This is my champion. Of any game I've ever played, I've put more hours into SWTOR than any other. I was in the beta, and fell in love HARD. I still play this pretty regularly. I adore this game. I've put over 1000 hours into it, and there's still a ton of content I've never played. This one stays, no matter what.

Yeah, I know, this game became fashionable to hate or loathe or whatever weird emotional assignment you tied to it, but it really is delightful, especially if you're a fan of the now-deleted Expanded Universe, specifically the KotOR stuff. This is a natural extension of it.

The free-to-play option is a good demo, but I'm a subscriber, and I feel just fine about that. The Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne mini-expansions were great. What this game needs is a proper expansion.

The Elder Scrolls Online
I had a bumpy ride with this one early on. Like SWTOR, I was in the beta for a long time, and it was decent, and then once the game launched, I decided to unsub for a time while they worked out some issues. At no point was it bad, but it had some problems that I wanted worked out before I came back. Eventually, I did, and really enjoyed it. I don't sub anymore, because it went buy-to-play, but I buy each of the DLC, and I've prepurchased the Morrowind expansion, which looks AMAAAZING.

What's interesting about this and SWTOR is that I approach each as a living single-player game. I'll group when I need to, and I belong to fairly active guilds, but I don't raid a lot. I do enjoy it when I do, but I'm fairly introverted, and MMOs are an OK way for me to brush up against being social.

I actually got my oldest son pulled in, and he's playing now. Once he's leveled, maybe we'll hit Cyrodiil together.

Guild Wars 2
This is another game in which I've been since the beta. I actually had some IRL friends playing with me for a while, but they've dropped out over the years, and I'm now the last man standing.

I finished the main campaign a while ago, and have been pushing through the Living World content, though I've hit a bugged dungeon, and have been waiting for it to be fixed so that I can continue. It is very frustrating, especially since I've enjoyed the game so much.

Guild Wars 2 is also the most fun 'just sit down and start playing' game that I play. It's just silky smooth.

The world is a hell of a lot of fun, too. Not only the lore, but the reactive elements, which, in my opinion, makes it the ultimate theme park MMO.

The lack of a subscription helps the enjoyment, too. I think the base game is F2P now, too.

Final Fantasy XIV
This is the tough one for me. I pay a sub for it, I used to really love Final Fantasy, I adore the combat and the mechanics of this game, as well as the structure of the world, but it has a few things that really bug me.

I play games that lack voice acting all the time, but FFXIV's flapping lips really bother me. I'd rather that there wasn't any camera work or anything, and that it just had textboxes over static images, or even handled it like the old SNES Final Fantasy games. The flapping lips just bother me.

This is a game that I really need to get more into. The above games were all 'my main game' for some period of time, which allowed me to really propel myself into the game. I've never done that with Final Fantasy XIV. I was even a launch day player, and got to enjoy the debacle of the original version of the game.

I've got Stormblood prepurchased, I've paid my sub through August, so I am going to try and really take the plunge.

Star Trek Online
I played the shit outta this when it first came out. I am absolutely nuts about Star Trek (and Star Wars), and this was my only connection to the franchise for a period of time. The Abrams fan fiction films were fun, brainless action movies, and we'll see if Discovery ever amounts to anything in spite of CBS. This is all I had for a while, and it was really enjoyable. The ship-to-ship combat is great, the ground combat has improved, but is still basically crap, but the game is a fun dip in the Star Trek universe.

I haven't been a subscriber in years, and I really barely play anymore, but I want to play more.

In Conclusion
So, that's five MMOs, plus my constant itch to fire up The Secret World again. I just checked, and holy shit, that's an expensive game to jump into right now and buy the full game.

It's too many, flat out, and I could use some help paring it down. I'd love your opinions. SWTOR and ESO are definitely sticking around.

On the flipside, I could also dial back the single player games that I play, to make more time for the MMOs. I dunno. Having too many quality games to play is a good problem to have, and a very, very first world problem. Still, it can be a fun discussion, and I'd appreciate any input ya'll have.

BTW, one week 'til Torment/Horizon Day!!!

Hit me!

-Blaine

BioWare, I love thee, but we gotta talk

In my world, BioWare saved video games.

As I've talked about previously, the entire gaming thing was sagging for me badly in the early 2000s, as most Japanese developers were scurrying away from making games that were intellectual exercises, in favor of dumb, flashy, more action-oriented affairs (excepting the brilliant FFXII).

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic came to my rescue, and after I fell in love with that, I dove into their back catalog, and from there, discovered the cRPG genre.

BioWare was a breath of fresh air in the late 90s and early 2000s. They were bold in their approach, and brought a real sense of humanity to their games. By putting story and characters first, they made their games more engrossing than anyone else's, and really provided a visceral experience.

Choice. Story and choice. BioWare absolutely nailed this holy grail of gaming, and refined it more and more. From Baldur's Gate to KotOR, this concept came to shape the way that their games felt, and they developed a strong brand identity, at least among those that had discovered BioWare.

I think Baldur's Gate made a huge impact among the cRPG crowd, but KotOR on Xbox really brought BioWare to the masses. Jade Empire was also a really solid game (one that I would love to see sequelized), but Mass Effect is what, I think, made them a global brand.

Meanwhile, Dragon Age: Origins became my favorite game ever. I should write a post explaining my affection for this game, but it really is my favorite gaming franchise (despite having a lot of gripes about Inquisition).

Star Wars: The Old Republic is also a favorite of mine, but let's set that aside for a moment.

BioWare is now a part of EA, and has been for quite a while. I was concerned when EA bought them, but things to seemed to go pretty well at first.

As a side note, while I know it's been fashionable for a long time to call EA 'the evil empire,' and at times, they do things to actually earn that title, they got nothing on Activision. Seriously. Not even close.

Anyway, fast forward to now. The Mass Effect trilogy became more and more an action series. The first game was pretty clunky, the second game was waaay too streamlined, and the third game hit the sweet spot. ME3 is one of the most mechanically sound games I've ever played.

Dragon Age, meanwhile, has had a bumpier ride. As I said, the first game is one of my all-time favorites. The second game ... had some very real issues, but also suffered from the fact that most so-called 'gamers' are lemmings and love to hate-gangbang anything that appears weakened. Dragon Age II reused the same environment over and over, in a bold attempt to tell a smaller and more intimate story, which I really appreciated, but I also got a little tired of Kirkwall. I understood the complaints from the lemmings, but the means by which they expressed these complains was unhelpful, hurtful, and I think it honestly affected the Dragon Age team in a way that actually diminished their ability to make good decisions about the series going forward.

The BioWare community was a great one, for a long time, but became among the worst I've ever seen somewhere around the ME2/DAII era. These people made personal attacks based on outlandish conspiracy theories, and the forums became a circlejerk of the worst fanboys one can imagine.

The interviews leading up to the release of Dragon Age II troubled me. I kept hearing things like 'when you press a button, something awesome happens.' The demos were all using a controller. The menus were console-centric and thus diminished in ease of use.

Ultimately, the PC version of the game was fine. Yeah, like I said, the constant reusage of assets and environments got a bit tiresome, but I liked the game, and not nearly as much as I did DAO.

The interviews leading up to the release of Dragon Age Inquisition were even more troubling. It was the first time that I heard BioWare talk about trying to do things that other studios were doing, namely Bethesda.

I like Bethesda, and I think that their use of open worlds is great, and I think that the types of games that they make suit an open world very well.

BioWare, on the other hand, doesn't really do that. They tell more linear stories with choice-driven sections and interchangeable parts that can be played in any order. And I love it.

DAI, ultimately, had some great aspects, but I think it may be the worst game BioWare has ever made.

My first time through, it was cool. I loved the reactivity of the save import, the various environments were really neat-looking, and I thought the overall structure was cool. And the story was awesome.

I did, however, feel that the story lost a LOT of steam with the endless slog through the big environments.

Honestly, nearly everything I love about Dragon Age was diminished in Inquisition.
 - the story was great, but lost a sense of urgency and I'd even forget major plot details because it was so long between major plot points.
 - the world felt less alive; this is hard to quantify, but I rarely got the sense of really being in a place with living people
 - combat was awful; yeah, the pause and play was still there, but it felt button-mashy and boring; I loved the combat in the first game so much; in DAI, even the dragon fights got dull; what I really want is the KotOR battle system, where you could queue up actions and make awesome shit happen; I also want the AI programming from DAO and DA2 back
 - it just didn't feel like Dragon Age; I understand the value in being inspired by another artist, but dawg, don't lose yourself in the process; I come back to BioWare over and over, and will continue to do so for at least a few more games, because of what BioWare brings to a game.

I love BioWare so much, and have had so many good memories with them, but I'm worried.

Today, there was a piece in PCGamer in which they acknowledged an issue with the side quests in DAI, which I think was a good thing to say, and then they pointed out that the side quests in MEA are going to be more The Witcher 3, and I kinda threw my hands up again.

I love The Witcher 3. It's one of my all-time favorites. But I worry when I see things like this, because I didn't used to see things like it, which is BioWare pointing at other studios for inspiration, instead of looking within.

Yeah, I'm probably overreacting. I'm sure they cribbed ideas from other studios back in the glory days, but it seemed like they also played it less safe. They were more OK experimenting in their releases. Yeah, being a big earner for EA probably restricts their ability to gamble a lot more, since they're putting more dollars into their games now than ever.

And I get that, with FOUR teams going now (Edmonton x 2, Montreal, Austin), they're potentially flooding the market with 'BioWare games,' and are worried about diluting their brand.

It would be very refreshing to see them take a step back, though, and make a cheaper and more risky game.

Maybe that's what the new IP is? I don't know. I keep hearing that it's not an RPG, and is instead an action game. That disappoints me, but I still have faith in BioWare to surprise me, and in a good way.

What say you? What do you think? Have you been down this road with a studio before? What's your opinion of the direction BioWare has gone?

Also, I'll be streaming tonight at 2000 central, and will continue my Road to Andromeda series!

-Blaine

whatcha playin'? 2016/07/28

Maybe I'll start doing this every Thursday lunch. We'll see. I always like talking to people about what they're playing and why. I guess I originally got the idea from gaming podcasts, mainly 1UP Yours and CGW Radio. By the way, those were amazing podcasts when the mainstays of 1UP were still around (Jeff Green, Shawn Elliot, Mark McDonald, Shane Bettenhausen, Luke Smith, Garnett Lee, John Davison, etc.) Such great memories. And we can't forget about the 1UP Show. Changing subject, getting sad!

Anyway, this will be my last weekend in St. Louis for a couple weeks, since I'm traveling again next week. We're going to Vegas for the Star Trek 50th Anniversary Convention. Also, I'll be soliciting advice for that this weekend, but feel free to leave any in the comments right now, in regards to what to expect, and how to go about making sure I get to all the panels I wanna see.

Anyway, the weekend is nearly upon us. Whatcha playin' this weekend?

I'm eyeballing lotsa Wasteland 2. I think I've said it before, but I have a terrible habit of not really giving my full attention to games that aren't in my core series, and this was a victim. ADD like a muthafucka. Now that I'm making myself focus when I play it, I'm really enjoying the hell out of it. And this game features some REALLY tough decisions. I love it, and as a big fan of Fallout, I really appreciate both the similarities and stark differences.

Guild Wars 2's Living World Season 3 has kicked off, and I am nowhere near ready. I'm still pushing through Living World Season 2, and I still have Heart of Thorns waiting, sooo ... I'm gonna continue catching up. I adore this game, but I took like two years off from it to play other MMOs.

I'm going to do another episode of my Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Director's Cut: Lotsa Colons series this weekend. In this series, I'm replaying DXHR (but the Director's Cut for the first time) to get myself refreshed for Mankind Divided. It's a fun series, and it's been cool to compare and contrast the game with other games that have more recently come out.



I'm also excited to get back to SWTOR. I've recently switched to a new guild, after dealing with a dying one all here, and holy shit, having an active guild makes a huge difference. Also, the Dark vs Light event is awesome. I might stream more of it, though the fact that I can't monetize the SWTOR videos is annoying. Anyway, I love this game so damn much, and I'm so glad that they got it back on track after a couple years of slumming it with dumb stuff like macrobinocular missions and starfighter and other nonsense. Knights of the Fallen Empire, eventually, became awesome, and if they carry that into Knights of the Eternal Throne, that will be awesome.

I still want a proper expansion, though.

Also, if you wanna try SWTOR, hit up my referral link, please.

Last, I wanna continue more of Fallout 4: Vault-Tec Workshop. I had a good time with it earlier this week, even though that type of DLC usually isn't my kinda thing. I'm more stoked for the Nuka World expac that's coming, which will be the final release for Fallout 4. I just prefer more story-driven material than the 'more shit to do' DLC. However, the Vault-Tec stuff is pretty rad.

And I think that's it, for now. I really should poke at I Am Setsuna more, but, the more I think about it, the more it didn't make a great first impression. We'll see, though. Maybe I was just in a bad mood at the time.

So, what about you? Whatcha playin' this weekend?

-Blaine

Killing Time

Few things are as likely to flip me out as my work computer rebooting while I'm coding, especially when it's updates forced by group policy. Time that shit so it's off-hours, moron. GAH. Anyway, I'm being forced to take a few minutes, so I thought I'd throw something up here real quick.

Star Wars Celebration was this past weekend, and it was very cool. I always really enjoy the panels, and the Thrawn announcement had me spasming in my chair.

I finished Blood and Wine (the final expac from the final Witcher game), and it was a really emotional experience. Geralt, the main character, and I have been adventuring together in both games and novels for about a decade now, and it was tough knowing that was our final new adventure together, at least with a mouse and keyboard. It was a beautiful experience, except a horrendously difficult final boss battle. Seriously, the shit was on the level of the final boss in the original Ninja Gaiden (NES), which was fun when I was 10, but not fun as I approach 40.

Regardless, it was both beautiful and heartbreaking, and I am truly grateful to CDPR for the amazing and excellent trilogy. Playing through the trilogy was an experience that brought me a lot of joy and reshaped what I thought games could be.

I'm also enjoying the new SWTOR event, Dark vs Light. It's kinda like Diablo 3 Seasons. You roll a new toon for the event, blast through content, and your Light vs Dark decisions add up and contribute to an overall score game-wide. And leveling is insane now. I finished the first planet at double the level you're supposed to be.

It's also cool seeing the OG content again, AND general chat was the least toxic I've ever seen it. It's a lot of fun.

Also, SWTOR got a cool new expac announced at Celebration, Knights of the Eternal Throne. I can't wait to check it out later this year. If the last few episodes of Knights of the Fallen Empire are an indication of quality, KotET is gonna be great.

Last, I Am Setsuna hits today, which has me spazzing completely. It looks to be a blatant throwback to Chrono Trigger, and it's from Squenix's Tokyo RPG Factory. It unlocks in a couple hours, and I plan to stream it tonight.

And that's it for now. I'll probably be back for a bit at lunch. I want to discuss boss battles in the modern era.

-Blaine

Yeah, it's like that, but whatever

I'm a bad bloggist today. I'm almost in awe of how busy I've been lately.

Regardless, I wanted to share my enthusiasm for the upcoming Star Wars Celebration, and in particular, its live stream.

SWC starts tomorrow, and they'll be streaming from London live. The SWC stream last year was TREMENDOUS. In particular, the Force Awakens panel, and the on-stage stuff with Mark Hamill, and especially Carrie Fisher were fantastic. This year's looks just as awesome. Check it out.

Otherwise, I'm just hoping to catch my breath. Fuck being busy. I hate being busy. I don't mind moving fast, but I'm a very deliberate person, and I badly need to just chill.

I'm much looking forward to kicking back with some Star Wars interviews, trailers, and more all weekend. While I play some games. Maybe some Shadowrun Dragonfall? More Blood and Wine? My second Dragon Age Inquisition playthrough? Hmm. I still haven't played the latest Knights of the Fallen Empire chapter.

And, I wanna stream some of my own stuff. Anything you wanna see me play?

Alright, back to work. What do you got going on this weekend?

-Blaine

Saturday! Pheeew!

I might've said it before, and if so, it's worth saying again. For a short week, this felt like a looong week.

Now, it's Saturday. I got to sleep in until almost 9AM, I'm showered, I'm relaxing with my sons, I'm listening to Elder Scrolls Off the Record, and I'm typing at you. Good times. I'm thinking about taking the boys out for lunch today. Not sure where. Suggestions are welcome.

I fully plan to engage max chill this weekend. I got my sister-in-law and her boyfriend coming down today, and they're both cool people. I'm buying the UFC thing on PPV tonight for her man, for his birthday, I got a buddy coming over tonight to shoot the breeze, and we haven't seen each other in a while, and I got an itch for some MMO action, so either SWTOR, ESO, FFXIV, or Guild Wars 2 (or some combination thereof) is/are going to get played. Probably SWTOR, at least, since I wanna play the next chapter of Knights of the Fallen Empire, and I wanna continue in the Dark vs Light event.

Your vote here might matter.

All four are amazing games, I don't have nearly enough time for all four, three cost monthly money, I know, but all four are amazing games, and I love MMOs. I love RPGs in general, but I love having a main single-player RPG and an MMO to focus on. I'm fickle about the MMOs, though. I dunno. I'm weird.

I'll probably stream a bit, too. I wanted to stream my first foray into Red Dead Redemption on Xbox, since it's on backwards compatibility now, but I don't think I can stream to YouTube Gaming from Xbox One, which sucks ASS. I don't want to stream to Twitch, but I might anyway. We'll see.

I did have a couple GREAT streams the last couple days, though. PLEASE, if you haven't watched any of my stream recordings yet, check these out. The Doom one starts out slow (I had some dog issues), so jump ahead to six minutes. I guess I could just edit it.

Also, playing Inside was interesting. I do not play platformers, especially 2D, and especially puzzle-heavy. I got a request to go way outside my comfort zone with a game, and this one was suggested, and apparently, the results were hilarious. This was kind of a special video. Give it a look-see.

Anyway, check those out, and please give me some feedback, either here, or in that video's comments. And feel free to poke around my channel, take it all in, and give me some overall feedback. I love doing this stuff, and I wanna do it better.

If you have any requests to see me play something, lemme know. I'm pretty open.

Alright, time to plan for lunch. If I'm gonna stream later, I'll throw something up on my Twitter.

Word.

-Blaine

PS - I love Dark Matter and Killjoys SOOO MUCH. Give 'em a look.

Fuck Off Friday 2015/7/24

My concept of time is one that is often skewed. I will eventually associate linear concepts to it, such as a date, but typically, for whatever reason, I always associate memories and events with what I was listening to at the time.

For example, the summer of '95 was a really special one for me, for a number of reasons, and all those memories are bound to Everclear - Sparkle and Fade, Neil Young - Mirror Ball, Mad Season - Above, White Zombie - Astrocreep 2000 and more. I couldn't tell you when, exactly, a lot of things happened, but I can tell you what was in my Walkman, and later, my phone, at that general time.

Which is why it was so puzzling to me, the other night, that I associate Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic with Velvet Revolver and Melissa auf der Maur. Contraband and Auf der Maur, I was certain, came out a couple years after KotOR.

And I was right. KotOR hit in 2003, but I wouldn't touch it. I also didn't have an Xbox.

Now, I'm also not someone that views nostalgia as a good thing, in fact, I tend to have a pretty low opinion of those that are hung up on nostalgia, as if all good things stopped happening after they turned 18, so I tend not to dwell on the past.

As such, I was fairly surprised and amused when I thought through the events that led me to KotOR.

There was a time, pretty much from sixth grade (when I got the first Final Fantasy the day it came out at the local Wal-Mart after going ga-ga about it from Nintendo Power previews), all the way through high school, that pretty much all I played was JRPGs and other Japanese console games. Western development and PC gaming were nowhere on my radar.

Then, the transition from Final Fantasy IX to Final Fantasy X happened. It was a really hard time. Personally, from 1996 to 2001, I had a pretty substantial 'growing up' transformation, but also, the gaming landscape changed dramatically. JRPGs hit their peak, the Final Fantasy movie happened, Sakaguchi was tossed out of Squenix, and we were handed the very bland Final Fantasy X. It's not a bad game, and actually has some very strong points, but overall, it served as a death knell for the genre and the series.

In that time, a funny thing happened. Microsoft entered the console race. I initially sneered at this, since at the time, I knew Bill Gates and Microsoft were little more than the Borg manifested in reality.

I played through Final Fantasy X, despite the story and characters and overall bland experience (though combat was pretty rad), I tried Final Fantasy XI, which I hated (I'd never played an MMO before), I actually kinda dug X-2, mainly because it had great systems and didn't feature the heavy-handed pseudo-angst of X, while slowly, western RPGs started to creep into the console world.

I remember a roommate showing me Morrowind on his PC during this time. It was ugly, different, and weird. I just flat-out ignored it.

I remember seeing KotOR get previewed in EGM, GamePro, and a few other magazines. I remember seeing it on gaming websites, which were still kind of a new thing for me then.

I remember seeing it, thinking it looked more like an action game, and since it wasn't turn-based, I wasn't even going to look at it.

I remember all this stuff, and I smirk and shake my head. Ah, youth (despite being in my 20s at the time).

I did my undergrad in Chicago. One weekend, I went back to St. Louis (where I've spent most of my life) to visit family and friends. One particular evening, a very good friend, whose tastes I've come to trust, told me about being at another buddy's house and watching him play that new 'Knights of the Old Republic' game, and it was super-awesome, because there was this part where you had to clear a room of Sith, and you could either hack a computer to blow shit up in there, or you could reprogram this droid, and there were all these choices throughout the game that got you light and dark side points, and it was so awesome.

So, I mulled it over, then went out and bought KotOR for PC. And my PC wasn't beefy enough to run it. So I went out and bought an Xbox and KotOR. This was 2004.

Bear in mind, this was my first BioWare game. I'd ignored PC gaming all through the 90s, so this kind of game was just mind-blowing.

Having a JRPG junkie, I was very much accustomed to the 'illusion of choice' that JRPGs gave, and which, years later, BioShock would point out is actually in nearly every game. While KotOR definitely had some of this illusion going, the order of magnitude was far less, in terms of how much of it was illusion. Choices actually produced multiple and seemingly profound outcomes. Companions reacted to me. Situations had multiple approach vectors. AND I HAVE A FUCKING LIGHTSABER.

I was in love, and at a very key time. Some personal things had completely fallen apart, and at a critical juncture. Long story short, I was a free agent, on all fronts, but I needed to go home (St. Louis) and take care of some things there. While St. Louis and Star Wars were all-too familiar to me, they'd also changed a lot in my absence, and I needed that combination of familiar and new.

I played the hell out of this thing, still managed to graduate that spring, and then during my move back to St. Louis, the HDD in the Xbox was damaged, and I was heart-broken.

I went to my local GameStop (one of the old FuncoLands I'd run as a managed, actually), and got a brand-new Xbox and a trial for Xbox Live. I bought the Xbox-exclusive DLC for KotOR (some station where you rescue a guy and you can buy shit), and started my game over. Replaying all the stuff I'd already done was actually more fun than I thought it would be. I actually made some different choices that time around, completed some things I hadn't before, and marveled at how some of the companions reacted a little differently.

That summer, I started to hear about KotOR 2, which was coming from a different developer, but they were friends with BioWare or something, and it was going to hit that holiday. So, I accelerated my play even more, to make sure I was ready.

Anyway, playing through KotOR was a transformative experience, and one that I am so glad happened. It really did forever alter my trajectory, not just as a gamer, but as a developer, and person. My narrow tastes were expanded greatly, and there was so much more out there for me to enjoy. I went back through BioWare's back catalog, same with Obisidian and Black Isle, and then eventually found my way to Bethesda, and on and on.

Also, JRPGs, Final Fantasy XII aside, seemed to go straight into the shitter. I guess I do like Final Fantasy XIV, as well.

Anyway, as you may know, KotOR 2 got a big update out of nowhere, which led me to finally mod up my KotOR1 install to 1920x1080, and I've been replaying it. As I said, I tend to look down on nostalgia quite a bit, and I still do, but it's been interesting to hear echoes of the past as I talk and fight my way through the underbelly of Taris. It's also interesting to compare my more recent adventures on Taris in SWTOR with what I'm seeing now.

I've also found it interesting to see, first hand, just how far BioWare has come as a developer since the release of KotOR in 2002. And not only from the obvious technology standpoint, but in terms of how they implement that technology, and how design sensibilities have evolved, both in terms of development choices, but also how those choices have shaped consumer expectations.

I have many more thoughts on this that I'll share here, but not right now. Time and trying to avoid the 'mega-post' are constraints right now.

Oh, and I don't even have time to talk about the amazing mods out there for KotOR2.

Anyway, I'll be replaying KotOR, KotOR2 (TSLRCM), and then the Jedi Knight story in SWTOR, and I plan to post some thoughts as I go. I might even stream some of it on Twitch. I'll let you know.

Do you have any particularly fun or interesting memories regarding this series? Any plans to replay any of these great games?