Last night was probably the biggest awards event in the British video games industry, the BAFTA Video Games Awards. There wasn’t one in 2008 for some reason, so this one had an odd amalgam of 2007 and 2008 games in it’s shortlists, which was slightly unfair to more recent games I think – I mean, who really has much of a chance against Super Mario Galaxy (which is one of the very few games it’s worth owning a Wii for)?
What puzzled me is that, although the awards got a little 3-minute slot on BBC news where Peter Molyneux and Charlie Brooker got a few words in, no-one seemed to be covering them on TV. I would have happily watched them if they’d been on, but I certainly couldn’t find them on terrestrial or Sky, and even YouTube doesn’t have very much. It’s refreshing that the few short interviews I saw on the news with people there were devoid of the sort of pretentious, glitzy nonsense that tends to blight film awards – but maybe that’s also one reason why game awards aren’t nearly as popular as those for film.
Anyway, of the winners I’ve actually played, they were very worthy in my book – SMG got the overall award, Left4Dead well deserved the multiplayer award (it would either be that, Rock Band or Gears2 for me), Fable II for action / adventure, Professor Layton for handhelds, LBP for art direction (there really should be an ‘innovation’ category for this one), Boom Blox for casual. All very good games and deserving of recognition.
I finally picked up Fallout 3 this week, which was nominated heavily but lost out last night. Despite all the good reviews, I hadn’t bought it before because I was concerned that they might have trampled over my deeply treasured memories of the original games (1997/8′s Fallout & Fallout 2 that is, not the sub-standard Tactics). Oblivion made it worse – developed by the same company, that game was rated super-highly too, but I couldn’t stand it – a sprawling world filled with poorly acted NPCs handing out a thousand quests, most of which were so derivative and uninteresting I really couldn’t give a damn whether the whole world imploded on itself by the 5th hour – in fact it might have been a relief had it done so. It just felt like the most cookie-cutter fantasy world you could have come up with, just magnified to a colossal size. Size isn’t everything – it really doesn’t matter how big a world is if you don’t give a damn about anything in it, and that’s certainly how I felt – I think I spent about 3-4 evenings with it before deciding I had far better things to do with my time.
So far, Fallout 3 has been much better; the atmosphere is surprisingly close to the originals (even the opening sequence is strikingly similar), and thankfully they appear to have kept the characteristics that made the originals so good – interesting, morally grey characters and quests, good dialogue, toungue-in-cheek references to 1950′s futurism. I’m actually interested in what goes on in the world rather than being bored by it like in Oblivion, so that’s a good sign. As a single-player game, I probably won’t get a ton of time with it (most of my 360 time is co-op these days), but I’ll certainly keep chipping away at it.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Fallout 3 is far more foccused you might say, ut definetly the dialogue is very good as compared to oblivion, including gray areas, and quest feel more important. All the same I liked exploring in Oblivion also, though it didnot had depth and dialoge of NeverWinter nights or Kotor. Still Fallout 3 is agood step in right direction by betheseda. Definetly fallout is more interesting and I also care about the world more. Oblivion was just like walking in a new world, whereas Fallout 3 is like living in that world, and I will say KOTOR and NWN were like wanting to live in that world.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Also gothic 3 seems more action oriented and world feels more organic, though it is so much focussed on orcs, whereas oblivion has new world. Though the game itself is good and I liked it, but then I liked Oblivion also. A really tongue in cheek funny game on Tolkien mythos id Overlord. even the way sheeps jump seems funny. very funny game.
March 12th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
I ended up following via twitter. Sad I couldn’t see it on the telly, was very happy Fable II got a result though
March 12th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
@Paul: I take it you’ll be adding the words ‘award winning’ to your CV soon then?
Congrats, as I said it was deserved.
March 13th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I was disappointed with Oblivion too. I read lots of reviews but ultimately it is exactly as you describe it; a “cookie-cutter fantasy” game. I loved Morrowind, despite never finishing it. I considered getting Fallout 3 but I can’t justify getting it until I’ve pounded through more of Oblivion, which is getting harder and harder to do. Especially as my wife bought me Oblivion for Christmas, I think. Damn shame.
March 14th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
@stodge, Dont ever compare Fallout 3 with Oblivion. It is totally different with amzing depth in choices, dialogue, setting, Its world and characters. While Oblivion is a pond, Fallout 3 is atleast a river.
March 14th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Though I still think oblivion is far better then ‘cookie-cutter fantasy’ It is lot better, and actually closer to a MMORPG.Though personally I would like the depth of NWN or plane scape Torment in Oblivion.
March 14th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
“It just felt like the most cookie-cutter fantasy world you could have come up with, just magnified to a colossal size”
If you thought that about Oblivion, then you probably wouldn’t have enjoyed their earlier game: Daggerfall. 161600 square kilometres, 15000 towns, 750000 npcs. Oblivion is only 41 square km.
If you ever want to give Oblivion another try, I strongly recommend putting Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul mod on first. It changes so much of the game’s mechanics, adds tons of content, and makes it feel like a much different game. The level scale thing is removed, every chest in the game has hand edited treasure tables and every dungeon has hand edited monster tables. It’s vastly harder, and there’s tons of new content.
http://jorgeoscuro.googlepages.com/ooo1.3readme.html
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:53 am
I recently learned that Fallout 3 will not be released on XBOX 360 in India because
“Microsoft constantly endeavors to bring the best games to Indian consumers in sync with their international release. However, in light of cultural sensitivities in India, we have made the business decision to not bring Fallout 3 into the country.”
and
most people guessed it was because the game contains two-headed mutated cows called Brahmin (which may have been an intentional misspelling of brahman), which is also a class of religious scholars in India, as well as the fact that the cow is revered by Hindus”
This is rela funny and downright stupid, but then really religious people here are too sensitive to cows in some parts.
Anyway, people are playing here though.