RPGmasterBoo

Well it was well known but at the same time never got the attention it deserved: Psychonauts

Think I only got a brief play at Stratosphere, I recall some things about it. Damn it, I need my ring of memory +2. When mentioning Defcon you must include the nice hacker simulation: Uplink

Played all those games except for the last two. All great stuff, especially Sanitarium.

Well, some honesty at last. You simply dislike FO3 for whatever reasons, but can't be arsed to make actual arguments with concrete comparisons and examples outside of "FO3 fails unlike game x" and "Game z is actually much better than FO3 at doing y". Further, you are apparently utterly lost in the fundamental difference between opinion and fact. And here I am wasting my time with you. Wake me up when you are willing to do your own thinking instead of being a broken record for others. Everything I said was quite obvious to anyone who actually played all those games, writing an essay to appease a noob or an argumentative, offensive "elitist" is not really my thing. I don't see the point of proving that Baldur's Gate has a better plot or Gothic a better gameworld. If you need that proven, you're either a total beginner or deluded or perhaps stupid. For me, this is fact - for you opinion, satisfied? Especially when someone already wrote Fallout 3's eulogy in a reasonable and well thought out article, that expressed many of my own views in the process.

Excellent. I had almost given up on an epic flame war for today. Bring out the torches

Oni was cool, but deeply flawed no?

From what I've seen in the videos it recycles Gothic III combat animation, and has slightly better graphics than it. Other than that I hope it'll work.

Elm

My comment wasn't aimed at you, as you are no longer arguing the point I made. I have experienced exactly what you suggest happens to journalists - advertising sales staff put pressure on them not to upset their customers. I am a living example that that does happen. My point was, and always has been, that journalists are not paid by developers. Since your initial post you have broadened the definition of what you meant so we are not disagreeing. Oner, if you are not arguing with me about journalists getting paid by developers...I'm not really sure what you are arguing with me about at all lol. Alright, but you have to understand, and I suppose Oner meant it as well - that for us - the customers, its irrelevant who is to blame in particular, because if one part of the system doesn't work as it should it compromises everyone in it. And that since demos are not extensive enough, and reviews not to be trusted - leads to backlash, which is at the very least distrust, at the worst piracy. Ultimately the industry is digging its own grave this way and tarnishing your reputation at the same time.

Here's my 20 something list * Strategy Homeworld Myth II Starcraft SM Alpha Centauri Company of Heroes * FPS Half Life Unreal Tournament Alien vs Predator 2 Call of Duty 2 Clive Barkers Undying * Adventure Grim Fandango Broken Sword Gabriel Knight 1/3 Secret of monkey Island *Action adventure GTA Vice City Mafia Max Payne Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) *RPG Baldurs Gate II Torment The Witcher Fallout * Sim/misc IL 2 Sturmovik Wing Commander 5 Sacrifice Startopia

Elm

So wrong in fact, that Gamestop never fired any of their reviewers for dissing Kane&Lynch. And some publisher never threatened to sue some gaming sites for unfavorable reviews for it's new top game with the excuse that they revealed those reviews days before the allowed date. Even though they made them public 2-3 days after it. (This may have been The Witcher, but I can't recall.) The Gamestop reviewer wasn't paid to give the game a good score. How does this back up the suggestion that reviewers are paid? If they had paid him, he'd still be in his job maybe! The other reference you are making is vague and irrelevant. My only point is that journalists have never been paid by developers to talk up a game. Having people from within your own company putting pressure on you to give a good score is very different. Ad reps don't want to piss off someone looking to spend money. I have had to deal with that crap in the past on newspapers. I answered this. He wasnt paid personally but Gamespot was. It was paid money for advertising the game, and the publisher expected a positive review. In this particular case he didnt get it, but everything suggests this is the way it usually goes, since they expected to get one. I repeat. how can I expect an objective review out of a reviewer when his paycheck is paid in part through the publishers ads?

ฉันไม่เข้าใจที่นี้ทั้งหมด

Civ IV is awesome. For some list fun here's the PC gamer Top 100 from 2001 and here's their top 50 from 2007. The former list has merit, the latter gets worse as you get closer to no1.

As I understood it from the Gamespot scandal it goes something like this: the publisher pays serious money to advertise the game on a major game site. For that money he not only expects the adverts to show but also a reasonably favorable review of the game. In that particular case the games was bashed to pieces by an honest reviewer, who in turn lost his job for this. Regardless what happened implies that this is common practice among major review sites. Eidos thought that the money they pumped in would give them a favorable review. Why would they think this? I doubt they're stupid and the only reasonable explanation is that they've done this before. Inviting journalists for exclusive interviews is also common, and this favor also makes them more inclined to write positively or at least not mention some of the games failings. Understand this: when I say journalists are paid - its in broad terms: someone gets money or favors to give popular AAA titles high grades, perhaps the editor makes the journalist know what's expected of him, perhaps they have a routine you scratch my back I scratch yours eg. developer funds the site through ads, the site favors the game in return. As long as your paycheck is coming partly out of their money, there's reason to suspect you're objective. Understand this as well: to the gamers its ultimately unimportant how this favoritism arises or who gets the money. What's important is whether a review is actually informative enough to let an honest gamer know what he is buying. That's just not happening with AAA titles. Most of those so called must play games have shown themselves to be fairly average. Its obviously something beyond simple opinion, that makes games gamers scoff at get such high marks.

WoW, Crysis, Battlefield 1942 and Civ IV are out of place on this list I think.

Setting the stage for playing a role is what RPG games are about. In this F3 fails miserably, just as Oblivion did. That's called choice. What mattered was that the main quest made at least remote sense. You have a vivid imagination. If you want a flaw I'd just point in the general direction of Fallout 3. - The story is short lasting and paper thin unlike: Torment/BG/Witcher - The characters are simplistic and often make no sense unlike: Torment/Bloodlines/BGII - The system behind the game is broken - The gameworld is not cohesive unlike: Fallout/ Gothic II - The writing is mediocre unlike: Toremnt/BGII/ToB/MotB - The interface is is impractical - The combat is a mediocre shooter unlike: Deus Ex/System Shock/Bioshock - The game is too easy/ the advanced equipment too quickly available to the player - Bonus: It presumes to be the sequel to a game that did most of these things right If you want in depth explanations read the NMA article. I finished the game and exorcised it from my hard disk a long time ago. I agree, if compared to Two Worlds, Oblivion or many newer games, then Fallout 3 is fine attempt indeed. Otherwise it has nothing new, and what it does it does very much average.

It was sarcasm but if you want reasonably deep plot and characters by video game standards, you've got Torment/Baldurs Gate II/Fallout games/Jade Empire/MotB/the Witchers story etc.. Compared to any of these F3 is a Saturday morning cartoon. In every Fallout settlement it was obvious how the community functioned regardless of the fact that the NPC's didnt have work/sleep cycles. In F3 these things make no sense whatsoever, oh and lets look at the calendar - my, my its only been a decade, making a convincing gameworld must be arcane lore by now. Given the stupidity of the NPC's its unclear how they survived those hundred years. Was farming too complex for game designers at Bethesda?. Every post apocalyptic story tries to envision a sort of community that arises after the disaster, and to explore how life goes on. That's practically the point of the genre. Fallout 3 just says: bugger this for a bigger plasma gun.

That's right, and I dont trust them. And its happening more than ever, as games become more and more risky and expensive. However that shouldn't stop us from coming down hard on them and pushing for the type of game we would like to play. Not many but the name gave the game "pedigree" and anyway I doubt the license cost them a great deal, with their budget.

Yeah, oversimplification makes everything so much easier. "Uh, I'm looking for a water chip/holy GECK, have you seen one?" See, I can do it too! Hmm. Apparently you missed President Eden, for one. I don't know about 5th graders, but if your own arguments are anything to go by, I doubt YOU could have written anything better. Just sayin'. What are you talking about? That's not the atmosphere. That's the character progression and rewards design. Atmosphere are things such as being jumped by a Deathclaw while exploring an automated distress signal you picked on the radio, or an Enclave Vertibird ambushing you while you stroll happily through the ruined National Mall. Seriously man. I'm supposed to be the resident elitist jerk. Don't steal my thunder, m'kay? Then perhaps you should explain the unreachable depths, and nuances of the plot behind Fallout 3 because I think it went over my head. Along with the Shakespeare quality characters, that spend their post apocalyptic lives writing survival guides, collecting nuka cola bottles, fighting for the rights of androids, playing DJ, nuking small towns and just finding ways to occupy themselves in general - with everything other than a useful, life sustaining activity. Or perhaps the fact that 200 years have passed and no one has run out of ammunition, despite WWIII going on. Or the nuka-cars that seem about as safe as a grenade with a pulled pin. Or the incredibly populated wasteland. Um, something wrong right there. If that doesn't kill the atmosphere for you, then congrats - really.

Fair enough, but when a casual action game that passes itself of as an RPG gets the same grades and praise as Fallout/Baldurs Gate its obvious that something is horribly wrong here. Because the game would sell under the name Fallout. And there would be a justification for all the reviewers to rate the game absurdly high because they could rave on about how they were playing *that legendary game again*. Which was a mammoth sized lie, but there you have it.

Did you? Then what are these lies about the game not having a story, an atmosphere or characters? If you are going to be a troll, at least be a little subtle about it. Have you seen my father, the middle aged guy? That story? What characters? The ones that have 2 lines of spoken text that a 5th grader would write better? It does have an atmosphere of sorts. Something in the vein - kill everything that moves, because you really want to level up and see all these cool perks and because you like random body parts flying around, right? Its juvenile. The only mature rated game I've seen designed for impressionable 14 year olds.

What are you talking about? I completed F3. If you mean the NMA guy, he reviewed it fairly, even spent more time playing it than most since their review was about 2 weeks after the major game sites.

We hate Oblivion because we've played much better games than Oblivion a decade ago. Its like someone is trying to convince you that the old, rusty, wheel-coming-off pickup truck is in fact a Jaguar E type, regardless of the fact that you can see what it is for yourself.

Just to clarify, I'm not even a fan of Fallout 1 and 2. I admire them for their originality and uniqueness, but that's about it. All the criticism I have for this F3 stems from its failings, not from my expectations for it. How anyone can praise that moronic, piece of rubbish that is Fallout 3 is beyond me. No story, no characters, broken rpg system, too easy, total lack of atmosphere, bad as a shooter, bad as an RPG... the list goes on an on. Hell I even had to use the console to pass a game breaking bug with a locked door, something that I haven't done in years. It might have been better than Oblivion but that wasn't really hard to achieve was it? Much of the game just doesn't make sense as the guy on NMA pointed out quite well, and while it might be playable or even enjoyable provided you could switch your brain off it has nothing of what made Fallout 1 so great, or for that matter anything else to be proud of. Except graphics, yaaay.