That emphasis gives me a certain insiight as to the nature of this wonderment and joy.
You have NO idea how bad it was... And I swear, you couldn't get a decent thread about 3.5 going THE WHOLE TIME since it ALWAYS, WITHOUT FAIL, turned into yet another edition flame thread. I've never seen /tg/ go to hell quite so thoroughly, and I was there during some pretty grim times, mind.
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On topic:
I will agree that Bioware make good games. Hell, I've bought almost every RPG they've churned out since KoTOR. However, I would never call them "great", in a Valve-level sense.
They make good RPGs, but make no mistake, these games are "light" on the RP-scale. For example, the fact that you can essentially use Jedi mind-tricks in every game so far is frankly ridiculous. That is to say, any number of murderous, pig-headed or simply stubborn idiots could challenge you dialog-wise, and you could probably get them all to back down with the simplest of phrases. Seriously, it's kinda funny when the text you've high-lighted in blue basically boils down to "please calm yourself", and of course the bleedin' idiots listen. Meh meh, just feels very artificial to me.
Also, Bioware are to the dating/relations-feature what Bethesda are to the morality-feature.
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Doesn't change the fact that I'll be shelling out for Mass Effect 2 the moment I finish the first one, likewise to any major expansions/sequels to Dragon Age. :P