My top 5 BioWare Games.
If you know anything about me from my twitter page, you know I’m a BioWare fan. For me this developer has produced some of the best RPGs. From the critically acclaimed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 to the two huge franchises Mass Effect and Dragon Age. BioWare creates compelling games, displaying how progressive BioWare is. Featuring women and LGBT characters as priorities in many of their games. BioWare, listens to their fans and strives to create games based off of feedback from the fans. The reason I love their games is due to their progressive nature. They enable you to create a character you can identify with and tell your own story (so to speak), with choices in-game. These choices are what set the game up for several play through and has consequent in future content.
I will preface this by saying although I have gamed for a while, I took a sabbatical from gaming for two years or so while I was pregnant with my son and after he was born. If you are a parent you’ll understand the zombie I became and thus my reason for taking a break. During that time I didn’t even consider games a part of my life until my husband purchased a Xbox 360 and brought home Dragon Age: Origins.
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Taking place 4000 years before the events of the original Star Wars Trilogy, you are a small fish in a galactic sea of Jedi and Sith. I think what I found the most fun in this game, was “changing the lore” of the Star Wars universe. We all know how things will turn out in the very distant future, but it was fun use of the moral system seeing how far you could get to the dark side or become one with the force. Although, this game is over 10 years old it still has remarkable replay value and a feel of nostalgia. Everything from the combat to the fetch quests was engaging enough to keep you wanting to play again and again. For now we’ll see if EA ever gives BioWare the green light for a KOTOR3 and if Microsoft makes the Xbox One backwards compatible with the original Xbox.
Video from Youtube User: Machinima Trailer Vault
- Jade Empire
An action-adventure cleverly disguised as an RPG. I recently stumbled on this game from a mom gaming group. I believe the game released while I was in the middle of a break from gaming again (this time because work decided it and then WoW came along…). The best part of the game is for the time of its release it incorporated a dynamic combat system. Borrowing heavily from Kung-Fu movies, Jade Empire features combat style now common in RPGS. Again you make use of the choice and moral system BioWare loving features in their games. The game was a fresh take on the western RPG in an Asian inspired world; creating some of the most beautiful backgrounds and interesting way of interpreting the moral system. Nothing is grey in JE more strictly speaking you follow a path and basically stick to that path, although, neither side of the paths were truly good or evil. The reasons this game doesn’t rank higher on my list are because of how short it is. It clocks in at about 20 hours if you do everything in the game. Also, in a world filled with lore and interesting places that should be visited, you never visit them, you only see four places including a trip to heaven. So, while it is a great game and a good way to spend a few hours I wish BioWare left us with more and made a sequel.
Video from Youtube User: GameBanshee
- Dragon Age: Inquisition –
The newest addition to the Dragon Age line up, a game many fans have waited on for years. I though it was never going to happen, until really recently. The game promised fans a more open world feeling game, without actually being open world. A beautifully designed game with hours and hours of content, and recently they released the final DLC for the game. It finally wraps up a lot of questions that have been left to answer in past games. Featuring the biggest cast in a Dragon Age game, they answered fans wishes by allowing you to have an overpowered party of warriors, at the cost of course of getting rid of healing magic completely. With all the DLC released, recently as well as the choice and moral system, this game begs you to return for many play-throughs.
Video from Youtube User: Dragon Age
- Mass Effect 2 –
Although, I believe the franchise of Mass Effect is a great series, I think ME2 outshines the other games. It brings a better combat system, cleaner story telling and leaves the horrible clunky Mako where it belongs in the cargo bay. BioWare expanded on the Milky Way and gave players a chance to explore it. They expanded the cast by introducing new races and adding grit to the game with hardened personalities. These new characters bring in fantastic stories and new options for building loyalty. The game does not suffer from tons of fetch missions, but rather missions that actually tie into the story. The choice and moral system makes another return with a twist in this game. Overall, this game takes all the negatives from the first game and improves upon them. Showing yet again BioWare listens to their fans.
Video from Youtube User: Official EA UK
- Dragon Age: Origins –
I owe it to this game for bringing me out of my gaming sabbatical. Seeing how it is the first installment of the Dragon Age series, it does start out slow and builds up to an incredibly rich world with dark undertones. It takes the run of the mill fantasy story and throws a twist on it. Turning the elves into a sub race and not an untouchable race , giving each race a different accent to round out the game. The combat system is fun and engaging although at times, can be a little boring due to the auto attack feature. Dragon Age relies heavily on lore carefully penned by a “brother of the chantry”. Using the choice and moral system again players are encouraged to return back to the game again and again. With the addition of an expansion and the DLC Dragon Age: Origins story and origin stories are the top of my list simply for content alone. It has the richest story of any of the Dragon Age games and some of the toughest choices you’ll have to make. The games features an amazing musically score that really opens up the world of Thedas drawing you in deeply to the story line.
Video from Youtube User: Dragon Age
If you’ve yet to play a BioWare game, you should give one of them a try, I think you will be in for a pleasant surprise. If you are already a fan of BioWare what is your top 5?
