When I originally heard of Fallout 3 and the fact the Bethesda had worked on the title I thought to myself, "No way I'm gonna play this game. The Elder Scrolls 4 was just terrible, no way they could use the same engine for this game and expect me to enjoy it." I would later be proven wrong when curiosity got the best of me after seeing clips of Fallout 3 and ultimately found myself in Bethesda's "fanfiction" of what the East Coast would be like in the Fallout Universe. Now let me first get out that the idea for Fallout 3 to take place on the West Coast is a wonderful idea on Bethesda's part. Bethesda understood they could never truly continue of the story of the West so they decided it was best to go East.

Anyways, as I got through the games giant unskippable tutorial level (the one that Bethesda needs to stop doing) there was a certain feeling of immersion I got trying to escape. My life in this vault, while brief, showcased a point Bethesda failed to do in Oblivion. Roleplaying. I found myself choosing all the phrases that looked close to what I would say or what i deemed morally right (Or with Butch just being a total ass to him). What FO3 had was the ability for me to give my character more personality than just "the main character". I was no longer tied to asking about "Rumors" or "Town" but had the ability to ask things like "Have you seen my father?", "Thanks for everything", and "Get out of my face or else I will shoot you!".

The one thing that struck me odd though was the story of Fallout 3. Sure Fallout 3 compared to 1 and 2 does pale but that's the thing. While it did in some ways paled against those two it made The Elder Scrolls as a whole look like something a High School student wrote for English class all while saying "I don't wanna do this AT ALL." If Fallout 3 was just the first Fallout then I would have just said to myself, "Well their writing got better is all" but I couldn't. It was third game in a series I knew Bethesda had gotten the rights to so I knew something was up. The reason for Fallout 3 being so good is that Bethesda must have learned something when looking at 1 and 2. It could be said that Fallout as a series what sentient, Black Isle Studios had created a game that would not forget it's roots and wanted to be treated as well as it's parent. And so Bethesda gave into the series needs and put as much effort into 3 so that Bethesda would be known as the guys who completed Fallout 3.

But let's take another look into Black Isle shall we? Could it just be said that Black Isle ultimately has a team that rubs awesome onto the teams they work with and the games they make? While "awesome" is not the best word to use it's the only thing that comes to mind. When Black Isle shut down, it's members scatted into many different places. One notable group that had some Black Isle employee's was Troika Games. Troika would go on to create a game that would go on to be called on of the greatest RPG's ever made. They made Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. This game, while it's combat was extremely off and there were glitches galore, would be found by fans to be a wonderful game. Bloodlines would go on to have fan made patches that would help increase stability in the game so that the game could be played and enjoyed by all who came to play it. Troika as a studio unluckily would never be able to enjoy the success of the game as the studio suffered closure and the employee's would go onto other studios such as Leonard Boyarsky, who is now Lead Designer of Diablo 3, and Tim Cain, said to be the mastermind of the Fallout series and now works at Carbine Studios.

I still remember the day that New Vegas was announced. I thought to myself, "There goes Bethesda, trying to rake in more money as fast as they can." Little did I know that I would find out that Obsidian Entertainment would be working on the project and that New Vegas would ultimately be in some ways the completed Van Buren project. Obsidian Entertainment for the most part doesn't need introduction at this point. I looked into who was developing the game to see what the game would become and the game not only met my expectations it broke many more. The one member of the whole team that struck me as odd was Jorge "Oscuro" Salgado, the creator of Oblivions OOO or "Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul", Oscuro's attempt to make Oblivion a better game (a great effort that unluckily didn't work too well with Oblivion). Since I have played his mod before, it was obvious to me what would be the major change in New Vegas compared to 3. That change would be enemies who didn't level with you. To many gamers who grew use to Bethesda saying "You need enemies as strong as you are? Alright, everyone is as strong as you now" Oscuro would go in and say "Yeah you see that place called Sloan? The place that acts as a shortcut to New Vegas? Yeah your not gonna get through there unless your on a giant suicide mission."

Oscuro's idea's for the most part seem to be everywhere in New Vegas. I don't want to seem to be giving credit to Salgado for single handedly making New Vegas a better game because he didn't. He just happened to take the idea's he had in OOO and applied them to New Vegas and I happen to recognize these idea's. The whole team is to be commended for their hard work. From Speech checks to story, Obsidian does many things that Bethesda needs to pay to attention to. New Vegas is a game that makes certain references to Fallout 1 and 2 that makes someone such as myself want to play the game again. Be it verbal references to the older games or even a character from there, compared to my experience in Oblivion, this just makes me want to go and pick up a copy of the original Fallout's. (This player admittedly has never played Morrowind for fear of wasting money on a game he'll end up never playing again.) While the writing of New Vegas and Fallout 3 doesn't fully need you to learn what happened in the originals, learning t
he story of these games doesn't hurt and one can get some enjoyment out of playing the older games or reading wiki articles on what happened.

There are a few issues with New Vegas I want to name. One issue I do have with New Vegas is the lack of quests relating to Marcus. I never did play Fallout 2 but I understood Marcus was in this game and went out to find him. I thought he would have more interesting quests than "Help the Nightkin with their schizophrenia" but alas no. This not to say I didn't like the way the character was presented to me and I thoroughly enjoyed the minor tease of having Marcus as my partner. The way he talks and acts just makes him a character I would happily travel with in the Wastes. The other issue is that Harold's story in Fallout 3 was not retconned. Yeah you know how I said Bethesda attempted to not touch anything relating to the West Coast? Yeah I missed the fact that Harold becomes rooted to the ground and can no longer move. Not to much to say on this it didn't feel right not to see Harold. Sure he's now rooted to the ground but I could easily explain how Harold stopped being rooted to the ground. The actual plot is that you use any of the two items on Harold's Heart that was suppose to either keep him from growing and make him grow more and he ultimately reverses back to being a himself in a matter of a year. He then goes back West and we meet Harold in New Vegas to be confused by the tree in his head. One final thing is the lack of various radio DJ's for the game and the music. I must admit, while I like Mr. New Vegas's voice I can't help but miss Three Dog in some ways. I personally keep thinking I need to get my friend who does voice acting to do the radio DJ and then find as much music that fits with New Vegas's list of songs. The ultimate issue with New Vegas is that while I CAN add music to the radio it's just that music from the "GNR More where that came from" mod doesn't have music that all too well fits with New Vegas. It's either that or I have heard all the songs (mods and original) in Fallout 3 that I don't want to to hear them again. The music still is generally less depressing than Fallout 3's line of music (MUST KILL JOHNNY GUITAR! REPLACE WITH BUTCHER PETE PARTS 1 AND 2!) so at least in that regard the music is still better. I just wish the was more rock music like Round House Rock to listen to. That was nice.

All in all Obsidian has done a fine job with this game and has it should appeal to both veterans of the franchise and the new comers from Fallout 3. Now if only Obsidian could get the full rights to making future Fallout games or help Bethesda with future titles. Obsidian further proves to me that Black Isle Studios was comprised of people who had mastered the art of creating RPG's with interesting characters and enjoyable plot. Having played games from Troika and having my expectations for New Vegas not only met but exceeded I look forward to whatever future game Obsidian Entertainment works on.

One other thing, could Bethesda have just gone to iD Software and asked if they could use their software to make a new game with? It makes sense to me. Why use Gamebryo when you've got the iD Tech 5 engine? And don't tell me you can't make an RPG with that engine, I just played Vindictus yesterday to see how the Source engine worked for it and to my surprise I found that another company used the engine to it's fullest potential. I'd seen many games under the Source engine and nothing compared to this.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'd like to see Bethesda team up with Obsidian and use the iD Tech 5 engine for Elder Scrolls 5. That's just a thought thought that came up in discussion at some point.

Indeed. Bethesda builds the world and Obsidian does the quests/writing on a new engine. Perfection.

Yeah, I agree. The possibilities for the Fallout universe would be much broader and expanded if Bethesda licensed ID Software's new engine. Plus, Obsidian's long history of script writing/story-boarding has always been the cornerstone of all of their IPs.

On another note, ID's new game Rage is looking like an absolutely incredible experience! I cannot wait to get my hands on it!

Even though Obsidian has never worked on a TES game and probably knows very little of it's lore?

Really? A good percentage of Obsidian's team are former Black Isle members who developed the original Fallout titles. They are responsible for creating one of the most prolific and complex universes/IPs in the industry, along with all of its corresponding "lore". Point being, I think they can keep up with the lore that makes up the Elder Scrolls universe as they have had plenty of experience in creating, building and maintaining complex digital worlds. If anything, I believe they would be THE team to contract, in the future, to develop (alongside Bethesda) a new ES title.

They won't ever do this because the engine isn't meant for the kind of open-world RPGs that Bethesda does and also because their development team is pretty much married to Gamebryo at this point. There is a new Gamebryo out however, called Gamebryo Lightspeed. They will most likely be using that engine for the next TES/Fallout release.

Good point. Hopefully this Gamebryo Lightspeed provides Bethesda more options when creating their next games.

Edit: Why does it seem like everyone said "TL:DR" at this post but went to read the last sentence?

Even being married to the engine doesn't mean they need to keep using old software, that's just not a good idea. Now it's a good financial decision for Bethesda to keep using Gamebryo, as for the Lightspeed version of the new Gamebryo it's still built on the old Gamebryo so I question how much it will actually change or upgrade the future releases....is there any games out now using the Gamebryo Lightspeed?


bigcrazewolf

Not only that, a lot of what went into NV came from their PnP games. Thats right folks, they never stopped creating Fallout really, they just scaled down a bit.

Actually in some ways they scaled up if they went PnP.

That is true. A lot of the elements that were supposed to make it into the original F3 game (code-named Van Buren) have been re-imagined, if you will, in the NV game. i.e. Ceaser's Legion.

Indeed, it is in that regard I sometimes think of FO:NV as the real FO3.

"You see the problem with The Elder Scrolls is that the games are written so that not only does the story of past games not need to be known for future games but the stories of those games don't need to be known anyways because their written so badly."

Though I agree with the rest of your post I would have to disagree with what you're saying here. Because really, this whole farcical argument of "bad" vs. "good" writing is far too vague to support so strong a statement as you have made here. And, besides that, the fact you speak of "The Elder Scrolls games" already proves you've likely only played Oblivion. Oblivion can be considered crap, depending on what aspect you are judging. I wont deny it was a cliched good vs. evil fantasy main quest, but I found for example the Dark Brotherhood questline to be wholly engrossing and a prime gaming experience. And, putting aside TES:IV, you've probably never played Morrowind, because it's a totally different game from Oblivion, probably closer to Fallout 1 and 2 in terms of originality and "better" writing, if such a thing objectively exists.

Anyway, Bethesda is, in my opinion, an awesome company, when it comes to RPGs. (Not shooters like Rogue Warrior, mind). As far as I'm concerned, they're the best. They pass Bioware by miles and they're capable of making epic and thrilling gamin experiences with actual intellect and depth. On the flipside, they're also capable of oversimplifying stuff to create a standard good vs. evil romp so as to appease the masses. But when you look at Morrowind, certain aspects of Oblivion and the vast improvements made in Fallout 3, you see they are capable of a lot more.

Oui bien sur.

Many times I have attempted to do written reviews on the Elder Scrolls games so here's the low down on the series: I play 1 2 and 4. I skipped three because after playing 1 and 2 I just went and saved myself the pain of having to go through and attempt to see if Bethesda in all their years making the Elder Scrolls even made one that had a compelling story. With one and two I just could not get out of the tutorial dungeons. The gameplay was the worst part of those games, click and drag to swing a weapon and to cast spells was just a mess. I think it was click spell and click general direction while face was pummeled in.

My major issue with the Elder Scrolls series as a whole is that there's nothing in Oblivion that compelled me to go play Morrorwind. I went to play Arena and Daggerfall hoping I could find some redeeming factor in the companies past and I got nothing. Again I skipped Morrorwind because the game didn't compel me to play it. Oblivion never acted like the stuff in Morrowind was important. There weren't stories told of how the hero went and killed Dagoth Ur, there didn't seem to be any quests that related to something happening in Morrowind because of an action during a quest or even some form of plot relevance. Just nothing that connects Oblivion to Morrowind, Daggerfall, and Arena except the mention of Jagar Tharn in one of the opening tips and minor pieces of lore.

I am indeed totally engrossed by the Dark Brotherhood but that is because the way these people were written was spot on. Little detail was given about Sithis and what detail was given to me left me wanting to play a future Elder Scrolls game to see if they reveal more. The Dark Brotherhood also had two key NPC's that I really liked, Vicente Valteri who probably should have that Breton voice exclusively to himself, and Lucien Lachance, a character who is also well acted and well written for the time I knew him (Oh how I wish I could have saved him). Sadly, I doubt any of this will matter in the 5th game so why bother showing interest? They'll probably go on with the Morag Tong or something.

The aspect of Good vs. Evil never bugged me. We as fantasy lovers tend to want to defeat the big bad guy wanting to destroy the world. All of our motivations in defeating this ultimate evil in terms of a roleplayed player reasoning could be to bring down this evil, to stop this evil because he would ruin our fun, or because we just like being ordered and slaughtering things in the process. It's just the game should also make players feel as though they are indeed accomplishing something in a virtual world. When I'm given a quest I should feel as though the quest I am doing is very important and I should complete it as soon as I help that other guy with his problems. I shouldn't feel bored and contemplating what other game I could be playing right now, I should be engrossed in the game itself.



I never truly like talking about Oblivion in a negative way because I know the Elder Scrolls series has legions of fans who have enjoyed the game and would try to tell me otherwise that the game is good. It's not that I don't want to hear it (which I don't), it's just that I understand that people have an opposing opinion to mine and I've never truly gotten Oblivion off my chest. Still haven't.

I'll probably buy Morrowind so at least I can say "Yes I played Morrowind and I still am disappoint."

EDIT: I edited that part of the review out as I realized I never did put enough effort to support that claim and I don't want this turning into an argument of Oblivion vs Fallout and the such.

Also it would seem I missed you comparing Bethesda to Bioware in which case I laughed. Bioware, from what I could tell in Dragon Age, may have a very linear way of telling a story but at least all around their story is very compelling and well thought out. Bethesda to me doesn't seem like they put too much effort into writing the story of Oblivion and making the world a very fully realized one. Bioware went and made Dragon Age: Origins with all their heart. They went on to write a story and explain go in depth with certain aspects of the world such as how magi are feared for their magic power and the fact that they could easily be controlled by evil spirits. I know Oblivion and Dragon Age also happen to keep some of the writing in books but I feel more compelled to read stuff in Dragon Age than I do Oblivion. It's sad because I know that many aspects of older games and aspects of lore are written in these books and yet one could burn all the books in Cyrodil and the world would still be the same.

When it came to RPG's I never really had a company to look up to except Troika Games. Not only did they take a P&P game and make it a video game but they also introduced the game in a way for players to understand. Loading Screens would sometimes give Lore so you could better understand the world you are in, the characters were written in such a way that you do feel as though you are in a world of darkness struggling to survive whilst being ordered to do the work of others. And then the combat is... uh... nothing special.

There's something in the testament of a game when a player goes back to it just to play it and enjoy the story and characters in the game. I look at Fallout 3 and say "Now that's the right direction Bethesda. Now make sure you follow the GPS directions" and with New Vegas I say "Your GPS broke? Well this guys willing to giving directions to ya. You best follow them." I hope to see Bethesda use what they learned in FO3 to make a more compelling Elder Scrolls title but I just can't bring myself to say that they will.

I agree. Writing just isn't Bethesdas strong suit (I know about Morrowind yes, but that's pretty much everything) at all. Comparing them to someone like Bioware(weak exploring in their games) just doesn't work.

That's just not true. There is so much lore in the Elder Scrolls series and it's so complex that even Bethesda often gets it wrong. The total amount of Fallout lore pales miserably in comparison to that of the TES series, and this is coming from someone who has studied up on both. Fallout has a lot of lore, but TES has dozens of times more. This is mostly because Fallout never took the time to really explore the lore of it's world. Yes, there are a lot of details, but it's not nearly enough. Obsidian could make a good TES game, but they would constantly have to consult either Bethesda or the website The Imperial Library. Unlike Fallout, it is impossible for an entire team to simply learn every bit of lore needed to make a TES game. My point is, keeping up with the lore of the TES series is ridiculously more difficult than keeping up with the lore of Fallout. And while I know you'll probably argue with me about it while not even looking up any TES lore and maintaining your position with the assertion that Obsidian can do anything, I would appreciate if you took the time to visit the Imperial Library and just took a look at just how massive the amount of lore there is to read up on.

You know the amount of TES lore decreases exponentially (both quantitatively and qualitatively) depending on which pocket guide you consult. Considering that 60% of TES awesomeness comes from one dude and one pocket guide, the moment you go by other "newer" one, is the moment the required lore to know becomes a lot less and a lot worse.

So it's really not that difficult to do a Bethesda game with the new pocked guide, as it's just an epic pile of mundane details and fantasy cliches after another. Cyrodiil was a jungle, not an amalgam of medieval England, Rome and fairyland.

However, gameplay wise, Oblivion still rocked.

While it was an excellent read, I couldn't find for the sake of myself, what is your point. You were going from you having doubts over Bethesda which were proven wrong, to Bethesda doing a good(?) job in the storyline, then touching some of Black Isle's past, and then going forward into the New Vegas times and expanding a little about some guy who helped in New Vegas creation. Finally, you pointed out some aspects in the game which you did not like.

What the hell is the main point of the entire article? Just a bunch of paragraphs connected into one article with one line at the end which might, explain carefully what you really wanted to write all long.

A though for the future.

I feel been behind in this discussion. The only RPG's I completed were Fallout 3, New Vegas and Dragon Age. All which I loved. I never fully experienced Oblivion ( I quit in the middle since RPG's weren't my cup of tea back in the days) so I can't say if they have a success with TES. A few of my friends were a big fans of Oblivion though so I'm guessing it's a successful game.

I felt Fallout 3 was a magnificent game. The environment, probably beats the crap out of New Vegas. Especially when I experienced 'Fallout' for the first time, ever. From been in a vault since a child and suddenly going into the wasteland to find my father is pure epic. One thing I know, Bethesda knows how to do their games.
Bethesda's Writing however is something I can't yet rate. I'm ashamed of this but I have't explored much of Fallout 3. I finished the main quest ( Which I found was great) a bunch of sides quests and thats it.
In short words - I don't have enough experience to judge Bethesda. I do believe that they will make a magnificent game In the next installment ( I believe it's announeced they're making it?)

HOWEVER, New Vegas was, by far the best RPG I have ever played. While respect to Dragon Age and it's great story, it felt thin. New Vegas was something...Something that I can't explain. Having so many factions and trying to be liked by one and shunned by the other was brilliant. The companions are truly well written, I was attached emotionally to a couple of them, especially Veronica, she is a cutee.
I never played the first two fallouts, so once again I don't have enough evidence that Obsidian really are good. But from the look of New Vegas, I guess I won't mind, or agree that these two should team up to create the best RPG in the current time.

If all you've been doing is reading pocket guides then you're missing 99% of the lore out there. Pocket Guides are stuffed with Imperial propaganda and many details you read in there shouldn't be trusted. Even if they could be trusted completely, they've made barely any lore obsolete. I would say you should really look into more lore than what the pocket guides tell you, but if you already think it's all just "mundane details" and "fantasy cliches" then I guess it wouldn't really matter anyway.

The point of the article is that I find that studios like Obsidian that consist of Black Isle vets have this ability to put some form of quality in their games that make you really attached to the world you are in. That is one of the points, others is me criticizing Bethesda but I really hope to get as little flak as possible for my criticisms.

As with Dragon Age, I know what you mean man. Dragon Age is a game I bought because I heard so many great things about and I bought it and ultimately fell in love with the game in terms of writing. Unluckily the game makes you wish for something else. It doesn't leave you coming back a second time to play the game a different way is an issue of Origins, it leaves you in a way full. If to put this with food, yes your big heaping meal was good but the issue is that there's something that keeps you from wanting another helping. Even while eating your dish you sometimes felt like quitting and moving onto something else because there was something wrong but you could not (and never will) put your finger on it. You couldn't name the reason for this feeling. Maybe it was because you were made to eat with chopsticks instead of much simpler utensils such as knives and forks.

With New Vegas it close to the same dish only one difference is you ask for a second helping. With New Vegas because the games more simpler to get your hands onto and because it is also less linear than Dragon Age: Origins, you can't help but want to go in a second time. New Vegas and Origins both let you make choices but when you put the two games in front of yourself you just want to explore the choices you could have made in New Vegas more than in Dragon Age: Origins. This is not to say Origins is a terrible game to all those who are reading but it is to say there is something about Origins that sorta keeps one from wanting to play through a second time. For me it's that there's something keeping me from even beating the game and my complaint is in the combat itself. I don't want to go into the combat too much but it was very stiff and slow and because of this I would go "Ugh, combat" whenever a fight began.