Weekly ‘What Games Are You Playing' thread #28

I don't have any grand ideas about Oblivion and Fallout 3, outside of things that I already previously mentioned in vidya threads. TES IV was an over-ambitious and sincere attempt of creating a living open world, which suffered somewhat from trying to appeal to an audience way broader than that of Morrowind Riding on the coattails of the LoTR films and turning the jungles of Cyrodiil into British countryside might've been a step too far, especially considering that with Skyrim they chose to embrace the weirder aspects of the the TES world once again. Many have drawn parallels between Mehrunes Dagon and Satan and how simplified and generic the main plot turned out to be, unless you are huffing copium about Martin being Dagon's champion in the daedra lord's plot to kill off the Septim dynasty. Still, appealing to normies is what made Bethesda the 7.5 billion company it is today, so my complaints can only go so far

Fallout 3 always had an uneasy task of modernising a franchise inherently characteristic of late ‘90s pc gaming with a rabid audience to boot Many would hate it just for its mere existence, as a sort of desecration of the dead, but I was in the minority that knew that Fallout: Tactics and Brotherhood already existed and that nothing could really be worse or less uninspired than those installments As I previously said - I like Fallout 3 I think it did it's job quite well, carrying the tones of the original games (yes, including the plot points ) while maintaining a modern take on the gameplay. Few mention how many assets were actually redrawn from the original isometric models and genuine care was shown to the spirit of the Black Isle games The aspect of isolation and decay in Fallout 3 can only be beaten by the random encounters in the original games, where the wailing of the wasteland winds invoked a sense of dread and lost hope that I rarely encounter in games either post-apocalyptic or not. I won't get into the “what do they eat?!” and “pre-war jet” arguments, as I find them too pedantic even for my own taste Suspension of disbelief still needs to be applied to any form of media to appreciate it most fully

I am unironocally loving the fact that we two weeks away from launch and we still have no proper exposition demo or vertical slice of Starfield available It means either the game will be an outstanding case of impotent marketing or it will be a total ludojank clusterfrick with no survivors I will be happy with either outcome, since I believe Bethesda's jank to be a significant contributor to their games' soul. I am looking forward to Starfield, may Todd be my witness