If you think a bad Will Smith impersonation that was horribly out of place in the rest of the film was "awesome", I'm curious what you think is bad. I like John Boyega and I've seen him in other movies, but he was terrible in The Force Awakens and it felt like they just edited in Will Smith from Bad Boys 2 in almost all of his scenes.

I've seen Bad Boys II (I still feel like I need brain bleach from watching those rats fucking in the missionary position), and I don't see the comparison at all.

Really? When he shot the TIE fighter wand was screaming "YEAH!! DID YOU SEE THAT?! DID YOU SEE THAT?!" was almost word for word (and perfectly identical emotion / facial expression wise) to Bad Boys 2's car chase. Having an inconsistent tone just completely breaks the immersion of a story and channeling an action-comedy is not the tone of Star Wars.

To the extent that I find fault with that, that had a whole lot less to do with him than with the script; I suspect they were trying to channel the excitement of Luke and Han in the Falcon dogfight from IV, but it felt a bit like trying to convince the audience that what just happened was awesome. Not like they needed to try, though, since I enjoyed it just fine.

Also, Episode IV, while not without its heavier moments, was so fun and lighthearted that it could have easily passed as one of the old adventure serials it was inspired by; given that precedent, the tone of TFA wasn't a problem for me.

Again, there is a big difference.

In the game itself, it pushes a very stereotypical real-world image of how the popular transgender acts and behaves when the conditions are different here in Faerûn. This is a fictional world in which magic items and spells can completely change you, at times unintentionally. A great deal of the things a real-world transgender would go through are completely unnecessary in this fantasy realm, as you are able to go from a biological man to a biological woman or vice versa; you become what you become. Even the term "transgender" wouldn't apply to that.

Another thing I personally take affront to is how the neatly-packaged life story given is far too close to many of today's stereotypical popular transgenders, who treat it more as a fad than a life-changing experience. Too many who jump on the band wagon of actual transgenders, who struggle all their life to discover their personal identity and go through the long process of transition, just treat is as a hot current topic and basically play dress-up and post blogs and tweets about how they've come up with their mystical and random names. There's a difference between those who treat it as a fad and those who struggle to find themselves.

I have known friends and others who have gone through similar situations, this is just pushing current politically-correct politics by the current generation that'll age poorly in generations to come, when things hopefully mature. If this were about bigotry, I think you'd find most of the people complaining about this and other things would agree with you. But it is a deeper issue than that; shrugging and blaming it on bigotry would be ignoring the poor attempts by the writer(s) to enforce their own very specific political values in a much beloved series of games.

There are ways this could have been done without making this NPC a poor caricature of a current real-world stereotype that doesn't even fit real transgenders. In the end, these kinds of things are just unintelligently filling in the quotas, making sure everyone gets represented so the devs can pat themselves on the back, even if it's not very apt or done very well.

You would be wrong. For one thing, I personally am happy to see same-sex relationship possibilities in games, as long as it's done appropriately for the world it takes place in and not written poorly on the whole. I enjoy some of the better written ones in games I've played before.

Another thing being that many who have complained of this overall issue have stated that they don't have a problem with gay characters or gay relationships in the games they play. As I said for myself, it seems most prefer it when it's done properly, with dignity and care, and certainly not in your face about it to make sure you know. I wouldn't care to be annoyed by a character's sexuality, hetero or not.

As I've said before, it's easy for people to disagree with someone when a criticism pops up that even loosely relates to a more politically-delicate topic like gay relationships. The whole point of discussion is to chip away at a subject until it's a finely-carved set of thoughts and ideas, leading to people finding common ground and understanding each other. But in a topic like this, accusations of homophobia and general bigotry carry the day and many feel secure in having shut someone up even if that someone isn't bigoted at all.

It's especially hard for those walking in to see anything but the accusations of bigotry and do anything else but assume that that's all it is.

Again, these developers are walking in and expanding on a beloved series of games, taking established characters and ideas. It would be fine if everyone, or nearly everyone, felt it was on par with the originals, but clearly the writing isn't as polished as it could be, and it doesn't help when the writer comes out and says she's deliberately changing characters to suit her own political vision, instead of accepting the characters for who and what they are. It's certainly not that far a stretch to see new and original material added in that's just as poorly and politically implemented.

There are lot of issues with this expansion, but being gay isn't really one of them.

So, I better buy all the EE to support the evil all-encompassing SJW agenda which will destroying gaming for everyo... well, only for regressive idiots.

If there's more diversity in games, fine - even if it's for diversity's sake.
I can't imagine why someone should have a problem with that except s/he is homophobic/sexist/racist/etc.

Some characters are gay now, so what? That's great!
And including a trans character is a nice addition, especially if the story isn't a big deal - because it shouldn't be. There's loads of transphobia in the real world and too many of my friends are suffering because of it. So why is it bad if there's a trans char included in the game to make a stand against the exclusion of transpeople?

The catch is, it has to be positive representation. Negative representation, especially when it's the only representation you encounter, has a tendency to have the opposite effect.

So fans have been screaming for new BG content since TOB. Fans get what they want. Fans want the game to tank because the game has 1 npc in it they don't like. Moronic.

Fans did not get what they wanted because the story / writing in this game is a joke compared to the actual Baldur's Gate games. Hence the outrage. Instead of putting in some forced "diversity" politics, they should have put more effort into just decent writing for the game. Also, they proudly proclaimed that they drastically changed the personalities of two characters from the original games to "fix" them for not promoting the SJW agenda. And yes, the main writer, Amber Scott, identifies as a SJW and said she hopes to put more SJW crap into video games in the future.

Seems I was a bit off. Trandgendered gamers are attacking her too. I looked at some of the writing, as well. It is terrible.

I stand corrected. I was wrong.

Of course. Don't think about it too hard. Just call anyone who objects sexist, racist and homophobic. How often does the word "hamfisted" need to be repeated?

The problem isn't that there's a trans character. The problem is that it was not handled well. If they wanted to include a character that is trans, in a setting where it shouldn't matter as much as it does in the real world, there are better ways to do it.

Here's how I would have done it. Have the party come across a character that was cursed after innocently picking up an item in a cave. The item caused them to become a biological man. This character still has the mind of a woman, which is what they were born with. The character hasn't been able to find anybody to believe them, take them seriously or de-curse them in a few years (maybe they are far away from any wizards). After this much time, and knowing that their body is wrong, they are starting to have mental problems. They are getting close to a full break down when the party finds them. The party can then go on a quest, with this character, to break the curse and restore the character to how they want to be. This gives us more content, while also providing an in-universe way to bring up the idea/politics that the writer wanted to work with.

Now, there are problems with this, and it would have to be fleshed out considerably to be made a part of a game. That said, if handled right, this setup could be used as an allegory for what trans people go through. I am not a writer and I have zero experience with trans gendered people, but I'm willing to bet that this would be a way to handle the topic in a more subtle and dignified way than what Beamdog went with.

Which is the problem. They want to inject their own ideas, politics, issues, etc. into a game that is beloved by a lot of people. Then, they went and did it in one of the most hamfisted, blunt and, quite frankly, amateurish ways imaginable. Now, they don't understand why people are a bit upset about it.

One NPC and a joke line from Minsc is "ruining games". Okay fella... please stop this nonsense, all of you. You are overreacting to nothing.

Judge the game based on the game, not one forgettable, nothing NPC and a JOKE LINE from Minsc. Ugh... it's unbearable watching this good game getting review bombed because of fake outrage.

Really great to see the OP troll's comments hidden by low rating
Excellent

That guy obviously has sexual issues; probably covert and repressed ambivalences
People like that find difference and diversity in other people offensive and threatening
like religious fundamentalists
it is a very immature, regressive and undeveloped psycho-emotional condition

I do have compassion for people who have to live in that kind of mind state
and for those around them who have to put up with them

The irony...