» Sat Oct 17, 2009 1:43 pm
Most definitely the Tops!
Perfectly captures the style, with the faded aesthetic over the top done very nicely. Really well-designed - everything fits, everything is the right scale, it's nice. The Chairmen are pretty damn cool too. Ring-a-ding.
The others a bit less so, and I've probably put way too much thought into why - mostly because I think they're prime candidates for mods.
Ultra-Luxe - really comes close to getting that slightly creepy vibe happening but never quite gets there. I think a major contributor is that it's perhaps too well-lit (and too evenly well-lit). I sort of think it needs a bit of an entrance atrium as well - the open expanse at the entrance kind of overwhelms the white glove guys at a first impression, and an atrium adds that sort of exclusivity vibe as well. Kitchen area is a bit big but I realise there's plot reasons. But overall pretty decent.
Gomorrah - easily my pick for the worst-designed area of the game. It's like they didn't really know what they were doing with it. The first problem is the layout - it's far too big with too many samey rooms, and the layout is confusingly labyrinthine for no real gameplay purpose. All these samey areas dilute it out so badly - I honestly can't see any reason why the bottom level even needs to exist, and couldn't just have the couple of quest-relevant things incorporated into the other levels. And the outside area is just so cut-n-pasted, which is a shame because it could have been a fantastic area with a bit more work and imagination.
Second, the theme is just all sorts of incoherent - some points are going for the whole sleazy low-rent hive-of-scum-and-villainy thing and others are going for the kinda upper-class decadence; hell, there's a whole bunch of skulls on chains hanging off the main dancing stage as if they're going for a raider theme. And all very thematically confused about the whole casino/cathouse/drug den thing - so it's not convincing as any of them. And there's really very little sense whatsoever that this is the most sinful place in the wastes. The Omertas are okay, although a little generic, and they at least ought to have different suits from the Chairmen. Also why does their boss hang out on a chair in a fricking corridor? I dunno, I could go on. This place desperately needs some serious modding.
Lucky 38 is very cool, particulary the kinda-creepy faded downstairs casino bit, but not really a casino as such.