Then there is the dramatic Vaudevillian silliness of Irenicus. Great voice acting but really - so dramatic and over the top all the time. It is fun though, but Irenics - when he meets his end - is like scratching a self-righteous itch. No tears for Jon Irenicus. .
I’ve never played a video game that struck me as ‘great writing’. But while BG2 was full of nonsense, it had a nonchalant charm to it that BG3 simply doesn’t have. BG3 was made by 500 people, a whole-ass factory and a converyer belt – BG2 was made by a couple of dudes just having a laugh.
Apparently Irenicus was some kind of character these dudes used to roleplay at the ‘table’, so he had this massive history built up and they said, ‘hey, how about we put him in a video game’. At least from what I’ve read in the past.
It shows.
The voice actor was obviously brilliant, but it takes more than that. The lines weren’t Shakesphere but they had an earnestness to them, a lack of self-consciousness, that gave them the edge over BG2, which is just pandering to a certain ‘crowd’.
I’ve never come across a video game that met the subtlety of The Sopranos or The Wire in terms of lines or voice-acting, but BG2 is second best to any of the other garbage that we’ve had to endure.
As for Irenicus’s death scene – best I’ve ever seen in any video. In no way ‘melodramatic’. Just a cliff, some lava, and hissing demons. ‘To end like this!’
Very nice. Lowkey and horrible af. Actually felt sorry for the dude.
Badass as well that he managed to fuck one of them over the cliff before they piled on him.
BG3 trailer is all falsh by comparison. Glowing eyes, big-ass rays of light blasting from hands and so on.
Irenicus was great. The Tony Soprano of video games. And yeah, video games as I said don’t exactly attract the world’s greatest writerly genius, but BG2 had all the good stuff compared to the rest.
Edwin was funny. That thing that happened to him was hilarious – and would be completely unacceptable today. Minsc had great chemistry with the fairy girl. Haer’Dalis was cool. Viconia was proper hot.
Anyway, we’ll have all that again in a few years thanks to AI. We’ll have a lot of good things again soon, trust me on that.
