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The History of BioWare
It seems somehow appropriate, given the day, to link over to a historical perspective on the developer BioWare. Eurogamer took a look back at the house the doctors built to give us some insight on where the company came from, and where it's going. "The modding community had always rallied around Baldur's Gate, so Neverwinter Nights wisely shipped with the game's toolset available and ready for use by fans. Improved quests were soon blooming all over the internet, like so much role-playing lichen. BioWare also supported the game with their own official expansion packs, and later through smaller downloadable modules, while the game brushed seductively alongside the world of the MMORPG with a hefty multiplayer component that enabled players to join up across the internet to tackle the main story."
Funny, I don't remember any of those in... say... Battle for Middle Earth, C&C3 or Crysis, to name but a few.
Of course, had Bioware been bought out by Nintendo, we could have expected to see:
1) "Lovable" mascot characters running all over every game from the moment the first intro screen flashes up.
2) Menus that look and feel like they were designed in 1980, with sound effects that appear to have been produced on a cheap keyboard synthesiser of a similar vintage.
3) Voice acting? What voice acting? All you need is a bunch of random squeaks and twitters. Surprised nobody yet released an epic science-fiction RPG that sounds like the Teletubbies?
4) A soundtrack that might, just might, have been passable on the SNES.
5) Mass Effect: Red and Mass Effect: Blue. If you want to see the entire game, make sure you buy both versions!