AlperTheCaglar

I think Obsidian is peerless currently in the isometric arena. With Tim Cain and this awesome friendship with inXile, they've become like Barcelona in 2009. A mix of talent, experience and enthusiasm which I believe can make them surpass all their contemporaries. They wouldn't need to regress into first-person when isometric needs/deserves the renaissance 1st Person had in early 2000s. There is something both poetic and voyeuristic in games which let you see a given area like a drone hovering 50m above the ground, what all your team wears, says. It removes the personal immersion of a 1st person, and adds a game-world immersion, something the non-linear adventuring rpg most needs.

As with all Bethesda games, it's at its best when you're new to the game, just wandering around the landscape and discovering new sights, phenomena, etc., while it's at its worst when Bethesda's "writers" try to "write" "stories" and "characters" intended to be "interesting," "compelling," "deep" or such terms which denote some minute degree of value to the human brain in a narrative. I think I've said it before, but Bethesda's strong suit is level/"world" design and atmosphere; when it comes to actual depth of narrative and gameplay they falter or just fall flat on their figurative faces. i.e. They did an overall great job designing the "world" of Fallout 3, but mostly failed as far as populating it with decent stories and/or characters. If exploratin' an open world isn't your thing, then Bethesda should just be crossed off your list of developers whose games you're going to play. This is so true. Bethesda, while murdering Fallout 3's story (and ironically succeeding with the first person transition somewhat), does make the raw visuals and physical exploration of the gameworld be incredibly satisfying. Morrowind was the high point of their storytelling in that given setting, and I'm always willing to give their games an enthusiastic chance on the merit of that game alone. Skyrim was a step in the right direction, I'm sure they were inspired by the fan backing New Vegas' faction-dominant storyline received.

I have always been a zealot for AD&D 2nd Ed. Mathematically it was the most coherent role-playing system. Statistics and alignments we very well enforced and combat was exhilarating-- before over-simplification destroyed what strengths it had in 4th edition. 3rd edition was so-so, but their fixation on "oooh you can play a mage with an axe" was the beginning of the end.

Just completed the game -- 108 hours. Subtract 5-6 hours of that savescumming, obsessive money grinding, and we have 100+ hours for Wasteland 2. Worth every minute of it.