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' Wrote:You really think so?
Oblivion: Ground braking, and all round amazing, perhaps my favourite game ever.
Fallout 3: Dumbed down from oblivion, roaming world constricted, boring old EXP level up system, but still enjoyable.
Wet: S**t
Would be better to look at it as Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3. These are all their 3D open world RPG roamers. Wet doesn't count, because you can't compare it - apples and oranges.
Morrowind was extremely in-depth in lore and atmosphere. Held true to the TES experience. Oblivion sacrificed a portion of the lore and atmosphere for game mechanics. Oblivion is a better game to play, but it's a worse RPG for it. FO3 was a good game, in the same way Oblivion is, but it was smaller and didn't strictly make sense for the FO universe. Still, it resurrected the franchise, and for that it has my love.
I don't know, I think that we'll keep getting some innovative stuff along the way with some companies willing to take chances etc. Think Rockstar with L.A Noire. That game is awesome. Bought it for the 360 and I couldn't believe just how realistic all the facial expressions etc are. I'll be very disappointed if more companies don't take advantage of this in the future as it helped make the game such a pleasure to play. So ultimately I think we'll find a lot more of this sort of thing happening from time to time, especially with the next gen consoles around the corner. I don't tend to do as much PC gaming as I used to, though there are still some good games out there.
There was one thing he was definitely right on: game publishers are too scared to take any creative risks. This is partially because games cost a lot, and partially because no matter what the media tell you the world is still in a state of global recession and the public is in general far more worried about individual countries failing entirely than about games.
I know this may be dismissed as optimist on account of the all encompassing model of "renting" the games that you play rather than buying the right to use them like we used to, but if we ever get out of this recession, chances are game developer creativity will shoot up as well on account of the publishers being more flamboyant with their money when their company's falling profit trends aren't sneaking looks at them from every nook and cranny.