circ said:
Come January the critique over how much DA:O sucks will start pouring in and people will start circle jerking over ME2. Sure the 'marketing' for ME2 was horrible. LOL did you see that ridiculous female 'bad-ass'? But it's fun for what it is! This is how it started with Oblivion and FO3 too, only for the sheeple later to conform to some groupthink and concede that yes, OBLIVION SUX!
Well I can't speak for anybody but myself, but I began criticizing Bethesda when I became utterly disillusioned with its games. My first Elder Scrolls game was Morrowind, and I liked it. Sure, the NPCs were little more than signposts and much less interesting than those in Baldur's Gate, but the world was so much fun to explore. Half of my fun came from finding a book I had not read and learning a little more about the world. That game got me quite interested in the Elder Scrolls lore (sometimes I miss those times). I bought both of the expansions, but I never finished either. I finished the main quest at least twice, though. After that, I spent $30-$40 on a mint-condition box of Daggerfall to get a bigger helping of Elder Scrolls. When news of Oblivion began surfacing, I was quite interested. I remember drooling over the screenshots (I have not been awed like that by any game since; they sure were pretty) and reading about the groundbreaking Radiant AI. I remember reading an article where Howard specifically said that he was trying to match the interactivity of Ultima VII. These were my thoughts: "The massive and interesting world of Morrowind + the world design and interactivity of Ultima VII + awe-inspiring graphics that surpass Doom 3 = the best game ever made!" Needless to say, I bought it on release day, and I can still remember pacing back and forth in front of my computer while I waited for it to install. My initial reactions were positive. I felt the new combat system was smoother than Morrowind's, and I nearly jumped the first time a rat lunged at me. As I mentioned in my LP, the first 5-30 minutes after I exited the dungeon were rather incredible. It felt like I was emerging into a world where anything (and therefore everything) was possible. Of course, that feeling wore off after a while. I never did much of the main quest, and I quickly grew bored of the other quests. After the initial wow factor, the lifeless world just did not captivate me. Even Morrowind, with its lack of npc schedules, felt more alive than this copy-pasted potpourri of fantasy cliches. What really pisses me off is that my experience with Oblivion has destroyed any interest I had in Tamriel.
While Oblivion made me take Bethesda off a pedestal, I did not truly "hate" it until Fallout 3. I first played Fallout 1 & 2 back in 2001, and I enjoyed them of course. I was pissed off about Van Buren's cancellation, and I was actually glad that Bethesda picked it up since I thought they were good at crafting huge, detailed, nonlinear worlds. I remember excitedly playing the demo of a planned Fallout "total conversion" for Morrowind; it was just the first cave, but it still felt cool. I knew Bethesda would make it a first/third person realtime action-rpg, but I thought that this was the best way to update the series. The isometric, turn-based nature of Fallout 1&2 were never very important to me. The cool setting,
true non-linear structure (not fake like in the Elder Scrolls), relatively low emphasis on combat and dungeon crawling (i.e. you were not effectively limited to a fighter), relatively high emphasis on world, npc and quest design, and C&C mattered much more. Of course Fallout 3 failed in all of these categories as well, but I am getting ahead of myself. Once again, I eagerly anticipated the game in the weeks before release; I distinctly remember the adrenaline rush when I first saw the abandoned bus (?) advertisement with Ron Perlman's voiceover. To tide myself over, I tried to play through the first two Fallout games, but I did not allot enough time and only managed to beat the first one. Yet again I bought the game on release day and started playing. The first time I actually liked the intro. Since I had just played the first two, the escape from the vault was especially intense since I assumed the guards would massacre me if they caught me (what a gullible fool I was). I also remember how cool it was to take down a whole school of bandits (before I realized the score). It was also cool to read the bandit leader's computer and find out that the Vault's radroach infestation was a result of the bandit's trying to dig their way into the vault. Of course this bit of information had no practical relevance. Fallout 3 contained a lot of wasted potential. When I arrived in Megaton, I thougth the place was alright for a small-midrange settlement, but I wanted to get on to bigger and better places. Little did I know that Megaton and Rivet City were the two metropolises in the Capital Wasteland. I also remember being hesitant to disarm the bomb for fear of retaliation by the Church of the Atom; of course they don't care (again with the wasted potential). As I progressed through the game, I became increasingly less thrilled and more bored with it. It really was just a cross between Quake & Diablo while lacking any of their redeeming qualities. It seems that Bethesda spent far more time crafting nonsensical dungeons than it spent crafting believable towns. When I got to level 12, I mostly just wanted to finish the game, so I plowed through Little Lamplight, Vault 87, Raven Rock, and the Jefferson Memorial in one sitting. Of course, the ending was so shitty (I don't even want to go into that) that it completely destroyed any good feelings I had left about the game. Soon after, I came across NMA's
review, and that cemented my hatred of the game and its designer. Now, I want nothing more to do with Bethesda and their shitty games.
My hatred may be a bit extreme, but I have very good reasons for it. You cannot say I never game the game a chance. I gave them every chance in the world, and they still fucked me over!
