Some thoughts on KotOR and Baldur's Gate II
1.) One of the strangest things I've noticed while replaying Knights of the Old Republic and taking a more thoughtful look at it is how KotOR handles morality compared to Bioware's later efforts. The player's Jedi partner Bastila Shan spends time lecturing the PC on the duty of the Jedi and the necessity of doing the right thing. Bastila starts these little talks often, to remind the PC of how easy it is to do the wrong thing and begin to fall to the Dark Side.
Admittedly I tend to be a goody-two-shoes in video games anyway, but Bastila's speeches don't ring true to me because honestly, it's very easy to determine the "right" and "wrong" course of action for a given quest. Most of the NPCs are very upfront about being scummy backstabbers or innocent bystanders and the options available to the PC tend to be equally obvious: if you're shooting lightning at someone for personal gain, then you're on the Dark Side. There's not a whole lot of "accidentally falling" involved.
I suppose KotOR is so transparent about good and evil because it's Star Wars and that series can never get too dark. However, it's interesting to compare against Bioware's Dragon Age games. In Dragon Age, good intentions don't necessarily lead to good outcomes and one can do the "wrong" thing for the "right" reason. I felt like Dragon Age: Origins was a better attempt at the writers exploring what it means to have your PC working for a worthy cause but making hard decisions, and maybe slipping up bit by bit until you look back and wonder if you did the right thing.
Of course, sometimes it's nice to just play a video game and not worry that every single thing you do in it sort of makes you a bastard. :)
2.) On that note, I took a break about midway through KotOR to play Baldur's Gate 2 (because my attention span is amaaazing). I've never played past the first two hours of Baldur's Gate 1, but I think I got the gist of it. I blazed through Shadows of Amn and am currently piddling around in Throne of Bhaal, enjoying myself and trying to decide if I want to become a god or remain a mere incredibly powerful high-level mage. (I don't know why NPCs keep lecturing me on why I should grab the power of a god; in D&D gods aren't all-powerful and immortal anyway, and wizards are practically as god-like as anyone needs!) I'm not remaining very true to the writer's original vision though, as I'm using a bunch of fan-made mods to add new characters, adjust quests, and I guess mess around with the end of Throne of Bhaal?
3.) Fan-made mods are great! I'm sad that so few modern video games are tweak-able like the old PC games were. It really breathes new life into a game to be able to replay with different NPCs and different outcomes to quests or storylines, and mods help create a sense of community.
Plus, let's face it, fans undertake these projects out of passion, with no particular deadlines or expectations placed upon them. They're able to look at the game as a whole and see if there are gaps in the party roster, or segments where the story didn't flow as well as it could have, or ideas that the original designers didn't go too in-depth on. Essentially, they have the benefit of hindsight and free time.