Pop culture references in BG
Maelora69
Member Posts: 75
NPCs called 'Bub Snikt'... The 'Peter North' conversation... References to the development staff... And a lot more.
How generally do the old-time fans view these?
Fun easter-eggs that bring a knowing smile to your face?
Or pointless fourth-wall breaking silliness that detracts from immersion?
Just curious...
How generally do the old-time fans view these?
Fun easter-eggs that bring a knowing smile to your face?
Or pointless fourth-wall breaking silliness that detracts from immersion?
Just curious...
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(after all, it's possible to have a self-referential, in-universe easter egg... like the conversations with Centeol and Prism...)
Bears talking about Yogi? Wolverine cameos?
A bit of fun or an immersion-breaker?
The key with a reference, I think, is to make it only a reference to those 'in the know', but completely unobtrusive to everyone else.
Basically I find endless pop culture references obnoxious, but don't mind when I can ignore them and not feel stupid for not getting them.
I do like the quotes some NPCs have (specifically Eldoth and Xzar); that is semi-subtle, yet perfectly in character.
And I really like the Walking Dead reference with Kryll's zombies. All characters piss me off so bad in the show, and it's pretty clear that Rick won't die since he's the main character. It is very... satisfying to see his skeleton pop out. I assume over time, I'll start to overlook it though; I'm not watching TWD anymore and have a bad memory. Once I forgot the show exists or why exactly I didn't like it, the reference will fade into background noise like most others.
And they can also be educational. Hands up of people who actually heard of the show Newhart before playing Baldur's gate and getting an ee-lek-tronik autograph.
-Jaheira's command line: "By your command." Spoken in a robotic tone. This is a reference to the original "Battlestar Galactica" series. The cylons would say "By your command" whenever given orders by Baltar or one of the command cylons such as Lucifer.
I like the few 'Easter eggs' I get. The newer shows and references I don't get because I don't watch them. My son explains some of them to me. He's the one who got me this game and is playing it himself.
Of course, BG is now 15 years old, so some of the pop-culture references are a bit dated!
(Am almost 29)
"I'm not in danger, Dorn. I am the danger."
Larry just rolled really well!
The only other game I recall with so many pop-culture references was 'Fallout 2' and that got quite a bit of flak for them.
I notice that recent Bioware games, like Dragon Age and Mass Effect, have really dialled back the in-jokes... Aiming for something more 'serious' maybe? Or maybe now I'm old, I just don't get them any more?
I personally think they found a great middle ground, the references and jokes are entertaining and they don't take away from the overall world and story, when I was a youngster the majority of them went right over my head, which makes them all the more enjoyable now honestly. When you've been playing a game for 15 years a good 20+ times start to finish and still manage to discover new things, its really a delight and makes you realize just how much was put into this game.
Later they started to have a lot of Bioware in-jokes. The Mark of the Assassin DLC for DA2 had many, including the wonderful "heavy risk... but the priiiiiize."
But self-reference like Blasto isn't so bad... The ME universe must have exploitation films after all!
Likewise the horrible Jacob romance... I guess the later references are just being more subtle, maybe...
Star Wars: The Old Republic, Bioware's flop of an MMORPG has this red haired, spicy NPC lass named Kira joining your party. During her introduction quest as she is activating some sort of a personal stealth field, she goes " Now you see me..now you don't"´ Nice little nod to roots right there.
BG2 is another matter entirely, though.