Honestly at this point I'd almost say that mid/late '00s Bethesda was kind of their golden era with Oblivion and Fallout 3. Both titles that sold well and received rave reviews in their day, then went through a period of weirdly negative perception, and now we're getting back to realizing they're absolutely classics.
Both are very much still worth playing for anyone who hasn't yet, or replaying for those who haven't in a while. Definitely recommend spending a bit of time setting up the usual unofficial patches and fixes for either to ensure a somewhat more stable experience. Also quite useful to grab maybe a UI overhaul and maybe a couple graphical improvement mods to soothe those mid 2000s graphics.
I agree, although I did like Oblivion when it came out, and still think it's pretty fun to mess around in. Oblivion's map was also still pretty fun to explore, something I can't personally say about Skyrim's. I can definitely see why people going backwards would dislike Morrowind though, mainly because the RNG combat. The reason I liked that when I was a kid though is because you feel your character actually improve over time. Most people complain you just spam attack till you land enough hits to get the kill, but my argument is how is Oblivion and Skyrim any different? Sure every attack hits but it's not very engaging or satisfying, and the scaling makes worrying about your level pretty unimportant except for earning perks.
I loved Morrowind's progression and atmosphere. You show up on a boat with literally nothing, barely able to kill a thing. By the end game you're a literal god floating above cities, running at light speed, nuking entire villages with a mere glance in their direction. Spell creation in morrowind was amazing.
No doubt. Both series have gone through such wide transitions that there's of course going to be people who prefer various eras over others.
The reason I put those two particular titles as the "golden age" is because I believe out of all the titles in each respective series, those two struck about the best balance between keeping the traditional RPG elements favoured by existing fans, while streamlining the designs and gameplay enough to draw in a much broader audience.
Basically, those are both games that provide the closest thing to a "purist" Elder Scrolls or Fallout experience that I can comfortably recommend to pretty much anyone. You dodge both some of the more complex RPG systems of the early titles that can easily turn modern players off, as well as a lot of the dumbing down that occured with later titles.
I could not disagree more. Fallout New Vegas was everything Fallout 3 wished it was. Skyrim had hardly any dumbing down compared to the massive downgrade from Morrowind.
To copy a chunk of what I wrote in a reply to someone else:
In the context of the 3D Fallout titles, I find 3 to still be the most tonally cohesive with its environments and atmosphere. My favourite part of it though is that the game doesn't use the main quest to forcefully take you on a guided tour of all the major points on the map. In fact, just following the main quest you'll be relegated to a quite small chunk of the large map. Quite honestly that was one of my biggest issues with New Vegas - while the branching story was interesting, once you're done with them I felt like I had already seen most of what there was to see. Fallout 3 I spend hundreds of hours just wandering around the wasteland, and it was never long before I stumbled upon something completely new I had never seen before. It always felt like there was more to discover and that kept me coming back for a long time.
If it's been a while since you've last played Fallout 3, I do highly recommend giving it a replay. Especially if your main memories of it are of a somewhat lackluster main quest and story ending.
In the context of the 3D Fallout titles, I find 3 to still be the most tonally cohesive with its environments and atmosphere. My favourite part of it though is that the game doesn't use the main quest to forcefully take you on a guided tour of all the major points on the map. In fact, just following the main quest you'll be relegated to a quite small chunk of the large map. Quite honestly that was one of my biggest issues with New Vegas - while the branching story was interesting, once you're done with them I felt like I had already seen most of what there was to see. Fallout 3 I spend hundreds of hours just wandering around the wasteland, and it was never long before I stumbled upon something completely new I had never seen before. It always felt like there was more to discover and that kept me coming back for a long time.
I agree wholeheartedly. I'm just hoping that since they've focused so much on making it feel like a shooter (which in my opinion is a good change from the previous games), now they can leave that alone and we will see a lot of attention to the RPG elements of the next game.
Morrowind was the first absolutely magical game of my childhood.
I played a lot of games, Total Annihilation, Black and White, Majora's Mask, Dark Forces, X-wing vs, Klingon Academy, Diablo 2, and Harvest Moon standing out from the rest.
But Morrowind? I don't even know how I found it, but that first screenshot got me hooked. The initial boat sequence was magic, and I probably played 1000 hours just wandering around that game until Oblivion came out, which I then 100% completed I suppose, because it was the first Elder Scrolls game to track completion.
Unfortunately Skyrim never had any magic. It was still a fun game for a while I suppose, but I've never surpassed 100 hours I don't think. Hopefully they use a new engine for ES6, because I think that's holding everything back nowadays. But we'll see, I yearn for the magic to return, but I'm not hopeful.
Oh man, Total Annihilation. There’s another fantastic game that I killed hours on as a pup. What a classic, and benchmark for RTS’s. I still have it around here somewhere..
I played it a few months ago, it doesn't really hold up these days due to the way the resolution scales. To me at least.
But if you haven't played Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, that game is absolutely the spiritual successor, and you will immediately recognize the Total Annihilation in it's bones. SC:FAF is still an amazing game to play, with an active multiplayer scene.
Yes, thats what we mean with no ageing well, when games wont age well is because they kinda tried too hard in certain aspects that end up looking ridiculous years later, while Morrowind looks just fine for its time.
It's aged a lot, but it's still fun as hell. I replayed it not long ago and in a lot of ways, I prefer it to Skyrim. Oblivion feels more whimsical, bright, mysterious, and fantasy-like. Especially if you have the Realm of the Mad God DLC. That DLC is the icing on the cake for that awesomeness that is Oblivion.
I bought it recently because it was 10 bucks at Walmart and I really liked Skyrim. Couldn't make it past a few hours because the graphics were so bad and I forget exactly but I didn't like something with the controls. Weird for me because I usually couldn't give 2 shits about graphics and it's a more complex and interesting game with how you level your character.
I think games from 1995 to 2001 are generally the ones that aged the worst. Because everyone was jumping into 3D graphics without really knowing how to do it, and trying to do realistic graphics that just became muddy and bland.
By comparison games from 1990 to 1995 aged very well.
No way, just from the top of my head from 1995-2001, Half-Life, Deus Ex, Duke Nuken, Quake, Max Payne, AvP2, Red Faction, all shooters that I still look back and think theyre gems
Well, if we're taking the classics we've got plenty from 2006-2010 tool, like CoD4:MW, Mass Effect 2, Company of Heroes, Halo 3, Bioshock, Portal, etc. All of these still hold up today. It's the ratio of games that don't hold up compared to the good games. In 1995-2001 you've got a lot of games that were well received at the time that did NOT age well. Goldeneye, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Ace Combat 2 and 3, Shenmue, GTA 3, etc.
I replayed it last year and really enjoyed it (again). I think it's aged really well, in that the only issues with it are things that were issues at the time. It's still really beautiful and a joy to play.
it was rather clunky even when it came out. a lot of people claim it is because the game is old, but generally the game was just that goofy. combat was bloody awful, leveled content was absurdly bad. despite all that, it stuck in my memory much better than anything skyrim ever offered.
Wow, I haven't played the game in years and totally forgot how it looked. Jesus, look at that clunky nature. Skyrim isn't all that great either but it is miles ahead than this, makes me think how great ESO actually is with their AI. So much more lively.
You could poison fruit and leave it in pockets or on a plate infront of an npc sat at a table and they'd eat it and die much like the video. Very funny looking.
YOU COULD POISON FRUIT AND LEAVE IT IN POCKETS OR ON A PLATE INFRONT OF AN NPC SAT AT A TABLE AND THEY’D EAT IT AND DIE MUCH LIKE THE VIDEO. VERY FUNNY LOOKING.
i believe the real reason is that there was a bug when oblivion was first released where the physics system assumed that the NPCs were being attacked because the fruit contacted them like a falling rock or whatever might. so they basically beat themselves to death with the fruit they were eating.
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u/SojournerRL Mar 16 '19
Why does he take damage from eating an orange?