There comes a point where you just have to say, "Maybe this isn't working out so well." And when I say "You," I totally mean Bioware.
See, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is still my favorite game/story ever. I still get excited thinking about it, even five years later. I have a $70 action figure of Darth Revan up on my wall for Christ's sake. And I can still remember the day when I, by chance, figured out that Drew Karpyshyn had been the lead writer on that game. I was so excited: mostly because I subsequently realized he had published some books in the Star Wars universe. This was like...Christmas x 1000 to me.
So, I bought the crazily named Star Wars: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction immediately and began reading. Three chapters later, I sorta stopped. It was nothing like I had expected. There were no memorable characters. No fantastic, clever, and humorous dialogue like I had experienced in KotOR. There was none of that! Only a would-be Sith Lord who can't do anything right except lose. He wins at losing, I guess, which is...confounding.
Long story short: I did eventually finish the book a few months later and...eh, it was okay. It was no Shatterpoint by any means, but it was acceptable. I bought the second book just to see where the series would go from such an odd ending, but I was met by an author's apology and a book that I still have yet to finish to this day.
You'd think after two OKAY Karpyshyn books that I would have stopped there. But I didn't. I bought Mass Effect: Revelation not too long after failing to read the Bane sequel. It got some good reviews on Amazon, but I still don't understand the point of such a short novel, in which the villain isn't introduced until HALFWAY through the book! And the whole thing revolves around Saren and Captain Anderson, who are in Mass Effect: The Game so you know nothing bad happens to them. The book was a mess.
In short, Drew Karpyshyn is still one of the few literary heroes I have, but certainly not for his novels. But I can't exactly blame him. How does one find the time amist his job as Lead Writer for some of the best-reviewed and bestselling games of the decade to write SIX novels?! I don't know, but I would think it involves standing at a crossroad waiting to sell your soul to the devil.
This brings me to David Gaider: someone I never knew existed before the release of Dragon Age: Origins, but I would come to know him as the man behind the dialogue for Carth Onasi in KotOR, which instantly sent him tearing through the ranks of The Most Influential People of My Life. Carth was easily the best character in that game. That's not to demean any of the other characters, but his story of heartbreak and how well he was acted just allowed the game to hit home with me several times over.
After playing through DA:O, I had close to the same feeling I had when KotOR had ended. I felt sad; like I was leaving a world I had come to love behind (and I couldn't go back, explore, and finish my sidequests! Damn you, Bioware!). So, naturally, I was confused, but when I found out David Gaider's role in the game, I quickly downloaded his prequel to the Dragon Age storyline: Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne. This book I found to be much more interesting than Karpy's entries in the Star Wars universe; the characters were actually characterized and I could get a good feel of the world at times. And since it didn't so much rely on the event of the game, it didn't have that restrained feel to it.
I'm almost done with the book, but it still only amounts to an above-average fling. There's so much damn exposition in Gaider's prose that it rival's Karpy's. Neither of them allow their characters to breathe or interact. It's all interior, which gets annoying really quick. I mean...Jesus...these are men who are renowned for writing amazing dialogue, but there's hardly a trace of the stuff in any of these writers' books! C'mon!
I need characters that haven't miraculously gotten themselves into a position to save/enslave the universe. I just want simple adventures of a smaller scale, great characters, and conversations in between that I would actually want to take part in.
To sum this lengthy entry up: this is a plea to Bioware to hire people whose job is to write novels, and write them well. Your Lead Writers are busy writing games that take up days of my life, don't let them talk you into thinking that they can write entire books on the side that won't come out looking rushed or diluted. When Karpy has to put a foreword at the beginning of his novels more-or-less apologizing for the quality of his book...C'mon!
This is Chewbacca! This does not make SEEEENSE!
Look at the monkey!
Anyway, what I wanted to say is that these novels are a great opportunity to expand the much-loved lore of Bioware's games, and I think they need to be taken more seriously. They need to be more than just a side project. They need to be written by hardcore fans of their games that are absolutely drowning in the lore:
i.e. - Myself and Mister Buch, for your consideration.
THE END
No comments:
Post a Comment