Planescape torment
the skull is awesome

If he was so awesome I wouldn't have had "Don't Trust the Skull" tatooed on me.

40+ comments and no one mentioned Beyond Good & Evil?! Or Far Cry 5?
I remember her apologizing after accedentally shooting me.

That just makes it more awesomer :P

Heh, i'm bound to forget such a request, so far it feels and plays like a modern version of baldurs gate though with a lot of unknowns in both presentation and skill mechanics. It does boil down to the same i guess, either you find the combination of skills that work together or you are doomed to reload and save every turn you make. Just now i ran into something big that my just level 2 chars can't defeat so it is back to roaming the world map to scrunge around for xp points, I could have chosen an easier starting character then a swordwielding wizard who holds his sword in one hand and uses the other to cast spells ( i actually had in mind a wizard archer but the game does not seem to provide that particular skillset ) but even a pure fighter would have gone down against that monstrosity!
The dialogues are pretty enhanced, as are the story moments with choices that can be found here and there, already applauded the camping sequences so.... not sure why you are holding back, get it during a sale and you won't be disapointed, even at full price if this is your thing i'm sure the game manages to deliver though i still need to get a taste for how it is to rule your territory or how the time based quests work exactly

I played Baldur's Gate in my teens I think when it first came out.

To this day, my mother STILL peppers in "Butt-kicking for goodness!" to our conversations. So that's gotta be something ;)

Dragon Age Origins did have some nice party members and banter.


Oh gosh yeah that was a HUGE part of the game. I think you had to actually buy / loot the "script" pieces. Getting the more advanced ones and unlocking more script lines in your characters as they levelled up let you make more detailed AI. It was actually a lot of fun to set up. And like I said, when you finally bought a couple of the ones you had been looking for it was almost as cool as finding a new piece of gear and just as game changing.

Most memorable to me:

Baldur's Gate: Minsc and of course his space hamster Bo

Bioshock Infinite: Elizabeth, extreme well written and one of the few action game companions who are not annoying but actually a real help

Planescape Torment: Morte, of course, and Fallen From Grace.

Starcrawlers: The Prototype... coming up with Haiku when malfunctioning... also amazingly powerful.

Witcher 3: Everyone who fights alongside you in the battle for Kaer Morhen... but of course especially the other Witchers like Eskel and Lambert

Inigo (a mod) for Skyrim. Easily the greatest companion I've ever seen in a video game, those who know him probably agree. He has almost as much effort put into as the entire game.

If we exclude mods, then its hands down the helper bot from Descent 2.

Jafs :-)

That might be the best line I've heard this week.

It's a CORPG. There's no open world with other people interfering. Before you enter an area to do quests you form a team that stays with you until you reach the next outpost (a place where you form teams and can meet other people) or return to the previous one. Instead of players you can bring heroes, which are AI controlled party members. However, you can control where they go, you can manipulate the way they use their skills, you decide which equipment they have and you decide which skills they use. Usually you have teams of 8 characters and the standard thing for me to do is to run with 7 AI controlled characters, because they're a blast to play with. They're nicer to play with than players, but apart from that, they allow for huge freedom in combining skills to make crazy team builds. Players would never agree to play things they don't know.

The closest thing to GW's hero system is probably Dragon Age Origin's companion system if you mod it so your companions use most abilities very well on their own and you make them 100% respecable at any time you're not in combat. And if you add 1000 more skills to pick from....

I've never seen AI companions which are, as I said in terms of gameplay, as convenient and effective as in Guild Wars.

With a properly set up hero team you can even play it more like a game where you control troops or minions while you just direct and watch them.

I really should get back to it.