Best of the Decade: Fallout 3

Fallout 3

Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Windows

Release Date: October 28, 2008

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Bethesda games are broken. There’s no way around it. I was intimately familiar with Oblivion’s brand of broken before their new project was even announced. Fallout 3 followed faithfully in its footsteps in being a technical mess of a game. If we’re being honest, most of Bethesda’s games would be laughed off of the shelves were it not for their one primary saving grace.

But oh what a saving grace it is.

Like its fantastical predecessor, Fallout 3 nails the feeling of an epic scope like no other game this side of World of Warcraft. It’s pretty safe to say that Bethesda’s games are the largest, most detailed worlds in all of gaming, at least on the single player end of the equation and perhaps beyond. Exploration is present in spades. There’s so much to do and see it boggles the mind. I may go back to WoW periodically for my “holy bejeezus this gaming world is huge” fix, but in my off months I’m playing games like Bethesda’s, and no one does them better than the studio that brought us Elder Scrolls.

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Best of the Decade - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Platforms: Windows, Xbox 360, Playstation 3

Release Date: March 20, 2006 (Windows and 360 versions)

Publisher: 2K Games; Bethesda Softworks

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Most of the games on this list were carefully chosen as modern experiences that still hold up as such. I have previously discussed my modernist mindset when it comes to gaming, a mindset that makes it difficult to enjoy certain older titles. In the fast-moving gaming industry, a game doesn’t actually have to be that old to feel aged. A glance at many PS2-era titles is proof enough of this. Even in just 10 years, games have come a long way indeed.

Oblivion is a good example of this. It wasn’t the first of its kind, as one need only look at its predecessor, Morrowind, to see where it came from. But Oblivion did represent a huge leap forward from anything that had come before. When it was released, it was definitively a “next-gen” open-world RPG. It was gorgeous, stunningly large, and complex. Perhaps it feels dated in some respects now, but Oblivion raised the bar when it was released and it’s telling that, even after all this time, few games attempt the sheer scale and depth it delivered. 

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First Impressions - Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout: New Vegas

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment

Release Date: October 19, 2010

Date of Play: October 19, 2010

When I first heard that Bethesda was making a sequel to Fallout 3 set in their take on Las Vegas, I was immensely excited. When I read that it was being developed by Obsidian, which happens to include some members of the team that made Fallout 1 and 2, I was even more excited. Fallout 3 was a tremendous game, surely one of my all-time favorites. I spent easily 100 hours in that world, and I was certain that a sequel could convince me to spend 100 more.

The more I read about the game, however, the mroe worried I became. It seemed as if Obsidian wasn’t bothering to raise the bar. It seemed as if New Vegas lacked ideas of its own, as if it were simply recreating Fallout 3 as-is in a new setting. This was not discouraging enough to prevent a purchase, and even if true I’m sure I’ll still squeeze plenty of fun out of it, but going in I have to hope that there’s something more to this experience. As good as Fallout 3 was, it wasn’t perfect and two years have now passed since its release. I want something more than just Fallout 3 again.

Can New Vegas deliver or am I in for a serious sense of deja vu and a lot of the same problems back to haunt me.

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Best of 2009 - Honorable Mentions, Part One

And now for those unfortunate games that just didn't quite cut the mustard. In some alternate universe these could be just as deserving of a slot in the top ten, but for some reason they got left behind. They are grouped here so they can at least get some shot at the recognition they so clearly deserve.

Fallout 3 DLC

The elusive definition of a “good value” in gaming is getting trickier and trickier to define in these times of inevitable downloadable content, dirt cheap iPhone games, and digital distribution that sometimes costs inexplicably as much as a physical product.

I have not lost sight of the fact that the downloadable expansions for Fallout 3 have cost me nearly as much as buying the game new in the first place. This on top of the fact that I paid extra for the Limited/Collector’s/Special/Suckers edition, which is an entirely different maddening variable in the value equation.

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