Anyone else think Bethesda games are abysmal?

[zuhane]

Don't even get me started on the highly-acclaimed Oblivion.

No, this is my rant about Fallout 3. Since it's single player, I can't rant online to the people I play with, so I wanted to share my opinions with others
and see if anyone agrees. Also, to anyone thinking about getting FO3, just read this.

1. Graphics- Okay, so the graphics are good. They're not stunning, but they're good. My PC is really good. I runs the majority of games
I buy on max settings with a good 60+ FPS. Fallout 3 has blurry textures and bad character animations, yet it skips and lags regularly on medium settings. Why? Bad game
optimisation? I'd say that Bioshock and UT3 look MUCH nicer and lag considerably less.

2. The animation- People skid across the floor, the lip-syncing is awful and all the characters look like burn victims. All of them.

3. The shooting- Fallout 3 is not a FPS by any means. I know they said that, but they could have done a better job explaining that it was
absolutely not even remotely playable whatsoever as a FPS, and that we'd completely rely on just using the VATS system and randomly generate
luck for us in the hope that we'd kill the enemy. Bullets travel slowly, skew off in different directions, enemies don't react to damage, and close-up
headshots with shotguns and rifles sometimes take off around a quarter of enemy health. There's no point attempting to dodge enemy bullets or hide behind
cover, since enemy bullets always fire perfectly straight, without cocking up.

4. The mods- I added a few mods and forced VSync off to hopefully free up the controls and give it more of an "actual enjoyable game" feel. The mods
are very clever. It still baffles me why Bethesda never included the amazingly incredible power to sprint or hide behind cover. Still, with all these mods, it's
a bit like decorating a dead whore's corpse with really pretty decorations, when you could just get a really nice cake and not have to decorate it. That simile
basically means that there's no point modding something that's not remotely enjoyable in the first place.

5. The sound- Not much to argue with here. The voice acting can suck or be great. Can't really complain in this department. However, they were extremely
generous when giving us the radio, since they added five songs to listen to. 20 hours minimum to complete the game and you can me to listen to five songs
on a loop until the end? No thanks.

6. The polish- Wild creatures, such as wolves, have this tendency to chase you like normal, then jump through any obstacles and travel ten meters
towards you, being completely un-dodgable in every way, shape and form. Once an animal dives at you, it is physically impossible to actually not receive
damage. Nice one, Bethesda. Blocking would be a great mechanic, but it takes a few second to switch to melee, and reloading animations can't be stopped.
If you do block, it takes the Raynard's disease-baring hero about 2 second to lift it up and cover himself up. Useful if you're psychic, like Derren Brown. Unfortunately,
only Derren Brown is Derren Brown, meaning that for all the other players of this game, the blocking mechanic is rendered completely useless.

7. The RPGness- Wow. It's rewarding levelling up because the game is so goddamn fun. Once I've sold 92 cans of pigs' faeces and shot glitchy, burn victim, moonwalking,
out-of-sync, 80s, glam rock-style Raiders with my plastic gun that fires in every direction but forward, I can finally level up. I usually love improving characters. But this
is like being given a really good level up menu in a Leapfrog learning pad game. It's pointless.

8. Difficulty- One minute, you're fighting a small, furry creature with 8 health, then suddenly the last boss limps awkwardly through objects facing backwards and kills you
in 3 hits. They've taken a clever angle. Instead of making a learning curve, let's make a learning pile of dog jizz.

9. Fun- Whether you're picking up rusty car batteries or talking to old women about their past, there's always something enthralling to do on Fallout 3. I personally love finding
scrap metal in boxes and repairing pipes by looking at them and pressing E.

10. Level design- What do you do when you give someone a random level generator, corpses, and a terrible imagination. You get a Fallout 3 level, of course!

11. Strategy and Planning- When you're not walking over pixellated, blurry, hard-to-see mines and dying in a single hit, or being shot down by a robot 7 minutes
after starting the game, you can plan your attacks out, and use some strategy. I find that the easiest and actual only strategy is to open VATS, shoot them in the head,
since it does the most damage, then walk off and use health packs, then repeat until enemy A is dead. It's a rinse and repeat method, and they must've put lots of effort into
designing such an interesting battle concept.

My final thoughts: Thank you, Bethesda! I felt bad about children dying of famine and war, but this game made me realise how lucky they have it. They've never had
to spend 20 hours trying to enjoy it. They've not been through what I've been through. I feel like a charity should be set up for people who've had to play this game.
I need someone to tell me that I'm not dirty or bad, and that it's not my fault that the adverts told me to buy this game. It's also given me a refreshing outlook on game
design. We're all gonna keep designing, because I know that anything anyone here produces, including me, has to be better than this. I feel refreshed and happy knowing
that I've definitely tried one of the "greats", a "game of the year", that I've really given it a good knuckling down, and can honestly say it's time to throw in the towel.
I'm off to go and listen to some white noise and splash my face in hydrochloric acid, in the hope that it will purify my soul, in both a mental and spritual way.

I'd have to say that this is probably the worst game I've ever played in my entire life. I've played some bad games, too. Some really bad ones... like Killzone. But this... this
is just... abysmal, disgusting filth.

Do I buy your new game, known as Brink? It looks great. They always do. Fool me twice, shame on you, fool me three times, shame on me... and you... for making wank games.

EDIT: Oh God, I appreciate Valve even more now! I could make passionate love to Gabe Newell right now. He's what you call a "proper" game designer!

EDIT: It also crashes everey ten f**king seconds.

[Archem]

Yeah, deal with it. You don't like the games? Don't buy them. Everyone knows by now that Bethesda does good work, but their quality is sub-par. If you don't mind working for it, you get a great game. If you're lazy and bitchy, you've wasted your money.

[fruckert]

Also, they don't really play to your taste.
Some people like the roleplaying, you seem to be more into the action and gameplay.

[Nandez]

Buyer beware.

Though I think the games they  publish are better games than ones they develope.

[Zerlina]

Also, they don't really play to your taste.
Some people like the roleplaying, you seem to be more into the action and gameplay.

I like RPGs and didn't like Oblivion. It could also be a matter of preferring more linear RPGs rather than more open-to-choice RPGs. I enjoyed that game until I got out of the prison and then I lost all motivation. That being said, I know Oblivion's a good game- it's just not my thing.

[fruckert]

I meant "roleplaying" in the literal sense; you are pretending you are somebody else.

That being said: Opinions, Zuhane. Opinions.

[ZeroKirbyX]

Oblivion was balls. Morrowind was infinitely superior.

[fruckert]

Yes.

[Archem]

Morrowinf was balls. Daggerfall was infinitely superior.

But anyways, I've come to a point where I treat every sequel for every game as though it's a completely new series. Helps me get past the little stuff and just enjoy the game. It's made me a much happier consumer, given that the trend of decreased value over time in the realm of game development doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon.

[HobomasterXXX]

On the up side, Obsidian now hold the rights to the Fallout franchise. I'm hoping they can pull off something better than Bethesda could. Half of them are ex-Black Isle, who made the first game, so they should perform well.

[zuhane]

I think Bethesda have this way of hooking in literally masses and masses of people with, not false, by exaggerated pretences.

The ideas for Fallout 3 and Oblivion are fantastic, and nowhere have I shunned them, but the actual engines and game-play just
absolutely destroy the games into tiny shreds of awfulness.

Archem: I'm definitely not lazy and bitchy. I gave the game a good 20-30 hour pasting in the hope that it'd grow on me... but it didn't.
I love action games, but I also love role-playing games with no actual character control. Take Disgaea for example - spent a good 400-500
hours on that!

[Moosetroop11]

Oh man... really? I love Fallout 3. And Bethesda is one of the only companies left that seems to care about the long term value of their games rather than selling them all in five minutes based on a flashy trailer, in my opinion. Each to their own.

[fruckert]

Also, as I said, they don't really play to your tastes.
The comparison company in the OP (Valve, which makes completely different kinds of games) kind of proves that.

[zuhane]

I just... can't even contemplate... why... anyone...


Nevermind.

[ZeroKirbyX]

Every game uses exaggerated pretenses. Every game ever.