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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