January 20, 2009 11:02:37 AM
"Man in the Arena" is an exceptional quote, but I'm not sure it's apt here.Fallout 1 & 2(a lesser extent for 2) were easily more innovative. They didn't have much competition, but that's because they were heralding the return of solid RPGs for gamers everywhere- something very few- if any- were daring to do at the time.Similarly, Fallout3 entered last year's PC arena without much competition to face(not so consoles). But what did Bethesda innovate? What risk was there? Bethsoft bought out a dying property for a song.(Thanks Herve Caen) And then handed us a glorified mod of Oblivion.-which was, in turn, was a glorified mod of Morrowind(their last semi-decent game and, itself, a poorly-executed, resource hogging, memory leaking console port).Ten years later- backed by Oblivion's sales, and an absurd amount of manufactured hype, was there really any question that TES V: Falloutwould garner so much undeserved praise?If we're to apply "The Man In The Arena" to this topic, then I would venture that the "Arena" has diminished greatly.Bethesda winning multiple GOTY awards rings hollow, like a preening professional athlete making the rounds of small town contests to "compete" with relative unknowns. He walks over every one of them without breaking a sweat, hollering and pumping his arms wildly as he dares anyone else in the crowd to challenge him. The judges, easily cowed into submission, award him the medal and the victory, to little applause.With a satisfied smirk, the "winner" takes his bows, tosses the medal into the trunk of his car with the rest of his trophies, and climbs in. The spectators, still reeling, stare mutely as he flips them finger, and then peels out, tearing down the main stretch of town in search of fortune and glory in the next podunk burg.Congratulations, I guess.
January 16, 2009 12:33:25 PM
Better to have kept silent and allowed the public's suspicions of poor ethics/standards in the gaming press to remain such, rather than confirming them here for all to see.Apart from its abysmal writing, Fallout3 fails to decide what it wants to be- even as a hybridisation of RPG lite(Bethesda's bread and butter) and FPS action. Unless you've invested heavily into a gun skill, you'll suffer greatly in ranged combat due to F3's gun wobble. I didn't find enjoy this mechanic in Deus Ex, and I'm no more fond of it almost ten years later. Wobble drags ranged combat down to a CQB slugfest where players load and reload game saves until their bullets hit "correctly". VATS, intended to remedy this somewhat, instead suffers the same handicaps while subjecting players to hours of mind-numbingly repetitive slow-motion.Top this off with a very a limited ammo supply, a clunky repair/degradation system, and an unreliable camera, and you have the recipe for a FPS nightmare.Having such cheques in place, in a FPS, where the most basic of abilities, aiming your weapon, is largely taken out of your hands, is frustrating. Sadly, it needn't have been this way. Bethesda could have ditched gun wobble in favour of a -more skill=more damage- system (a la Oblivion's archery system), and subsequently eliminated much the heartache from combat.Worse yet, is the setting. Fallout3's atmosphere shows how out of touch Bethesda is with the franchise. Per canon, 200 years have passed since the war. Why, then, does D.C. look like the bombs have barely fallen a week ago? Why, still, is mankind scattered into tiny pockets of civilisation that pale in comparison to the worst examples in the Mad Max films?200 years. Not only has the West Coast has saved humanity twice, they've also reestablished communications, trade, electricity, medicine, law enforcement, and a centralised government.200 years. And D.C. still lies in ruins. What a waste of potential. Game of the year, indeed...
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The games we're pulling together in this feature won't appear on any of those best-of lists and get confused looks when you mention them in conversation. Just because time has forgotten these titles, though, doesn't mean you should forget them, too. » Read On
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