It strikes me as rather odd that a number of W&W reviews that I've come across are rather negative, and few rate the game highly. Despite a multitude of minor annoyances in the game, it's still the best and most immersive crpg I've ever played - but I seem to be in a minority. Most reviewers wax lyrical over the supposedly etherial beauty of BG2 and Torment, and claim that they have 'set new standards for the genre'. I beg to differ. I *loved* the original BG, and played it to death - but Bioware should have let the Stupidity Engine die. Instead they just keep pumping out more of the same with a few bells and whistles - *yawn*. BG was more of a fantasy tactical combat game than a rpg, and the sequels just delivered more of the same, with new annoyances to add to the old ones. No D&D game should ever allow characters to rise above level ten, where the whole game system just collapses in a horrifically unbalanced heap.
But that seems to be what the public wants - Diablo 2, BG2 etc. So what's the future of the immersive single -player, first-person crpg? Is it going to become a small niche market dominated by primative shareware products, while the mass market laps up the latest over-hyped D&D puke? The M&M and Wizardry series' seem to be in limbo, and their developers are having serious problems. I doubt that HP have even come close to covering the development costs for W&W, and the community is tiny. About the only 'real' crpg on the horizon is Morrowind, and it remains to be seen if it will sell well enough to cover costs, let alone make publishers rich. Has there been a quality first person crpg in recent years that was financially successful?
I'm concerned about the hijacking of the genre and it's devolution into mass-market, consolish mediocrity, and even moreso at the collective attitude of the press. Can you imagine if food critics applauded how McCrapburgers had redefined the restaurant industry, and that 'real' restaurants were just lame throwbacks that should get with the program? That's how I feel about the gaming press response to BG2/D2 vs. W&W.
*sigh*
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