Flashback: Never Changes

Whenever I have to think back to why I love Bethesda, two series come to mind—The Elder Scrolls and Fallout. I’ve talked about both numerous times on the Workshop, namely Skyrim, Oblivion and New Vegas, but I think that it’s time to champion the one that I feels stands out the most from the 7^th generation of gaming: Fallout 3. This is something I had to put a lot of thinking into. I loved Oblivion, and even spent more time on it then I did on Fallout 3, but as I’m about to get into, there’s a strong reason why I gave Fallout 3 the best of the 4 choices.

Most people would expect when comparing Skyrim, New Vegas, Oblivion and Fallout 3 for greatness, you’d end up with an order like the one I just listed. After all, TES is debatably one of the biggest franchises in all of gaming right now, and although Fallout is big, TES is considered Bethesda’s crowning achievement. However, I think that in this case, Fallout 3 reigns supreme, even over one of my all-time favorites, Oblivion, giving my overall ranking system as:

1.      Fallout 3

2.      The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

3.      The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

4.      Fallout: New Vegas

Now comes the hard part of justification. Starting out with why the two older games got the top two slots takes a bit of referencing back. Even though there are some nice improvements in New Vegas from 3, it doesn’t feel the same. I don’t know if this may be because Obsidian was the lead in making the game, and Bethesda was on Fallout 3, but it is a let-down.

 Oblivion, on the other hand is beaten in a large amount of ways by Skyrim; better graphics, better voice-acting, heavily superior combat system, new and improved items, and more. But, there are two things missing from Skyrim that Oblivion did have—a good central story, and huge amounts of charm. Now, I will admit that of the charm of Oblivion comes from the quirks: being able to jump for 5 seconds, wearing the gray cowl around town and taking it off just before guards come up to attack you so they angrily say “How are you today, Citizen?”, the fantastic effects of Skooma and of course, the fantastic voice acting by all of the guards. I played more than 1000+ hours of Oblivion before I got bored on 3 different characters. I played for just over 400 hours on 2 characters of Skyrim before I got bored of it.

So, how did I decide between the two games in the end? I looked at how I felt playing the two of them. Fallout 3 has a fantastic storyline, and the two games have completely different combat systems, magic and medieval weaponry vs. limited guns and ingenuity. I enjoyed the 2-toned system of Fallout 3’s Enclave and Brotherhood more than the huge amount of sprawling quests of Cyrodil. Although there may be more to do in the bigger world of Tamriel, the wastelands of D.C. truly are alive and unforgettable, giving them my top spot. Deciding 3^rd and 4^th wasn’t hard after that, I love Skyrim, just not as much as Oblivion. Obsidian, although not quite as magical as Bethesda still did a good job, and 4^th place is not a bad spot—they were up against impeccable competition.

Bethesda is a powerful producer and idea maker, but I think the next direction they may want to consider moving in, is one step back. The games, although more resourceful, are missing on what made them great in the first place. They took a chance on the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” idea, and fixed good systems and made them better, but lost something on the way. Fallout 3 is a prime example of a game that wasn’t perfect, but came damn near close to it. We don’t expect games to be 100% perfect and accurate all of the time. Fallout 3 is a game that gets closer to that bar than any other Bethesda game I’ve played.

--Santa

Xbox: How do You Keep Dragging Me Back?

I have to admit that over the last year, I have moved away from my Xbox. I haven't properly payed my Xbox since the beginning of the year, when I was still on my Honeymoon with Skyrim. But, I just can't seem to forget about my 3rd true gaming love. I was able to let go of the GameCube in a couple of seconds to get the Wii, I swapped the Wii for the Xbox without one tear shed, but now with my transitioning from PC from Xbox, I'm slowing down. I admit, it may have something to do with the fact that running TF2 on my computer makes the things shake with fear, but I think there's two titles that are still holding me back.

For those of you who guessed by looking at the picture, my first game should come as no shock. Halo 3 remains in my all time top 5 games, (which I will probably talk about at a later date) I played Reach, although I feel it had the same problem that Skyrim had. Skyrim was better than Oblivion in every single way Graphics, storyline, attack features. Everything was an improvement. But, the character was gone, and I no longer felt that special spark that I got from the raging at SWAT or getting Red Team on Avalanche. I missed the stupid guards who would want to attack because I wore m Gray Cowl, but if I took it off a second before they were to attack me, they'd ask me how my day was going. I miss that stupid charm.

So why am I excited for Halo 4? well, this is why. Go ahead and click the link to the pretty YouTube video, I assure you it'll get you going too. I will miss the Covenant, that's for sure, but I just can't help and feel amazed by the graphics, the overall feel of movement  that the game generates. I have personally felt that Video Games look pretty enough for the last few years, what we're going to see instead are dynamics. Improvements in movement, textures, differences in the bricks of houses, and maybe different sized trees. Maybe I'm just a bit too hopeful, but I do see a new realm beyond our current generation of games, everything can get better. Hit the page break to continue our heated discussion.