I've been playing video games since Pong. My first game on a personal computer was Civilization 1. And yes, I played the original Fallout. So I consider myself a true gamer in the best form. Bethesda has done good work in the past. Personally I fell their Morrowind was their true masterpiece, and that Oblivion was actually a step backward. If this truly is Oblivion Wtih Guns than I shall be most disappointed and saddened, but not particularly surprised. The biggest problem I see: Bethesda has always been light on the story fare. Let's face it, Oblivion is no opus. It's no Planescape: Torment, no Baldur's Gate II, and certainly no Fallout. Bethesda cannot compare with Black Isle nor BioWare in terms of storytelling capacity and so it must rely upon tired cliches and that I believe is what frightens you. Unfortunately, however, after having seen beloved game after beloved game destroyed by their contemporaries I must say I've become desensitized to this crime against gaming, and have long since lost my passion.

Quite frankly at this point I'm tired of caring. If Bethesda murders the Fallout franchise, which I believe they will, then so be it. I will, in a corner of my mind, pretend that Bethesda never released the game, and go on living. And try to avoid ever looking at the game, or any advertisements for the game, for the rest of my life.

The annoying thing for me isn't so much that an exclusive goes to the PC, it's that the company chooses to screw it's customers. For instance, it is confirmed that the extras packed into the PC version of Gears of War will not appear on Xbox LIVE for download, purchase or otherwise. That's just stupid. I am NOT going to spend $50 on a new Gears of War for PC just for a new chapter, but now I feel cheated because I spent $60 on the Xbox 360 version, and now they come out with a PC version with extras that aren't even coming to the 360?! WHY NOT?! Seriously, why do they want to screw us like this? It's that kinda stupidity that makes me hate the developers. Now, if they said that the extra content would also be available to those who already sank money into the company by buying the Xbox 360 versions of Gears of War, via Xbox LIVE purchase, than I'd be OK with it. Let the PC people have their fun, God knows I've had plenty. But no, they want me to spend FULL PRICE for ONE CHAPTER. Well forget that! Seriously...

And if I sound angry, I really am, because this is jacking the customer in the worst way. What incentive do I have to buy Xbox 360 games now that they pull stunts like this? So, let me get this straight. If I spend $60 now on Mass Effect, I can expect that in 1 year, not only will BioWare release Mass Effect for the PC, but they'll throw in extra content. But not only THAT, the extra content WON'T BE DOWNLOADABLE ON Xbox LIVE EVER?!! What kind of nonsense is this? And then they expect me to go out and spend $50 on a duplicate PC copy of the game?

And THAT, my friend, is why I don't like it when they port games to the PC. Because they like to screw the people who bought the game on the Xbox 360. As if both platforms weren't essentially both Microsoft. As if it weren't perfectly easy for them to make that content available to console owners. But no, they want to milk us for all the money they can. Well they won't get any from me.

Um, I did read the review (and I am the TC). Like I said, everything that was bad about Mass Effect was equally bad if not worse in Planescape Torment. PS:T had a terrible menu system that was far clunkier than Mass Effect's, in fact it was so clunky it took up half the screen. The game was riddled with bugs to the degree that you needed to have the patch in order to play it at all, and the whole game was at such a close perspective that it was almost impossible to use ranged characters. PS:T came loaded down with tons of problems that matched if not exceeded Mass Effect's and yet GameSpot (as well as just about every other reviewer) gave it AAA. Mass Effect, on the other hand, by the same company, did not get the same treatment. The very same ills that were completely overlooked for PS:T dragged Mass Effect's scores down nearly two points. Click the link for the PS:T review right here at Gamespot (9.0. Editor's Choice for good measure). You'll see the exact same gripes as for Mass Effect. Except instead of docking points, the reviewer ignored them, and focused on what made the game great.

So either the games have gotten worse, or the way people review games has changed a lot. Probably both, unfortunately. And I find that fact infinitely sad.

Well, perhaps I should qualify. I don't know if anyone remembered an RPG gem a few years back called Planescape: Torment. It didn't sell well, but it had nearly universal acclaim as one of the best feats that BioWare had ever managed to create. It was a masterpiece of storytelling: every character was a living breathing person, with quirks and downfalls and personality, and you genuinely felt for the doomed Dyonarra, or the quirky Morte, or the quick-witted Annah. It was truly a great RPG experience with a story that in my opinion has not been matched since. That was what RPGs were supposed to be. If that game had today's graphics it may well have earned a 10.0. I haven't played Mass Effect yet, but it was produced by the same folks. So, the questions are:

1) If Mass Effect is as good as Planescape: Torment, why isn't it getting the same kind of reviews and reception?
2) If it isn't, what's happened? How did BioWare manage to screw up the genre it pretty much defines?

As for Oblivion: it's a very immersive experience if you let it, but the dirty secret is that I prefer Morrowind. Nevertheless, I thought that Obivion was a very decent experience. However, if you ask me, the RPG genre was in decline ever since Planescape: Torment failed at the box office. A game of such greatness should never fail in a just and fair world. Too bad we don't live in one.

As for Mass Effect: I read the review. Everything they said that was bad about it was equally bad in Planescape: Torment. Just read the PS:T review here at GameSpot and you'll see the exact same gripes. Yet PS:T got AAA. Mass Effect? Only an 8.5. Where's the justice in that? However to be fair, PS:T really did have one of the most emotional, engrossing storylines ever told by any medium, imho. It really rivalled even hardcover novels in complexity and depth. And its ending actually made me sit there as the credits rolled by, mind still reeling. The sad thing is, I never had a similar experience before or since.

Hasn't anyone noticed, by the way, how the industry is constantly spending more and more time on getting l33t graph1x and therefore neglecting deep storytelling? Baldur's Gate II had totally awful graphics if you compare it to today's beasts, but because they didn't have much to work with in that department, they had more time and energy to spend crafting a truly compelling story. Nowadays it's all about how many pixels you can push out, and there's no room left for how many people you can flesh out.

I think the reason some people are disappointed with 8.0 scores is that they feel the game that recieved it deserved higher because it was "better than" some other game that got a higher score. For instance, an RPG fan (I won't deny it, I am one of those) might feel that Mass Effect was the best thing since sliced bread, and that it was a better game (in their opinion anyway) than, say, Halo 3. And so they're unhappy because they feel the game got jipped in the score department because it got a lower score than an "inferior" game.

All scoring is subjective to whoever's doing the scoring though, so I think that the real solution should be comparing apples to apples, and not to oranges. So instead of a single score across all genres, a game should only get a score relative to its own genre. That way, you'll be able to tell if Mass Effect is the best RPG since Oblivion, which is a fair comparison since they are in the same genre, rather than saying, "well, it's 8.0 vs 9.5", when it's not a fair comparison since Halo 3 is a shooter.

Sick? Not just yet but it's getting there. In a certain sense I'm already darn near desensitized to shooters. After playing Halo 3, Bioshock, Orange Box, Call of Duty 4, Resistance: Fall of Man, and soon, Haze, I think I'll have my fill of shooters for a long while. However, all of those gamers are so good that they actually still provide entertainment despite the fact that they're all shooters. But at some point you reach critical mass and you have got to say, "enough already".

It's for that reason that I'm looking forward to games like Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, and Mass Effect. Sometimes you just want a change of pace. Not to mention a change of scenery. After killing the umpteenth Covenant Brute, or head-shotting some dude on LIVE, even Halo 3 starts getting old...

The system is very similar to the United States Congress. Everyone believes it's being run one way, when everyone in the actual system knows it's run a completely different way. The naive person thinks Congress is being run by the Congressmen (imagine that!) and that policy is developed by calm discussion among Senators and Representatives, all gathered together to determine the best course of action to best preserve the state of the US. In reality, almost all policy is decided by Congressmen bought and paid for by special interest groups and lobbyists, and almost none of the bills coming out of the Senate or House are ever really in the best interests of anyone but those with the largest number of suits bought off.

Frankly, I take every reviewer's score with a hefty dose of salt, because I know that any system that can affect the profits of a firm is going to cause that firm to do everything in its power to influence the result. This "patronage" system is as old as the written word, it existed even during the time of the ancient Greeks. So, at least it isn't anything new. Is it right, neccessarily? Probably not. But it's expected and it's here to stay. But knowing is half the battle. Since we know, at least somewhat, how the system works, we also know how to "read" these scores.

What with the scores of Uncharted and Mass Effect, could it be that the golden age of the Role Playing Game is over? Remember way back when the RPG was still on the PC, when the greats first came out? The first game to revive the genre was, without a doubt, the classic Fallout. It's quirky humor and dry wit, set improbably in a post-apocalyptic United States, garnered the game near-universal acclaim. Following it came the universally praised Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, and the very entertaining Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind and Oblivion. But now, one of the biggest names in RPGs has released its most ambitious project to date, to a lukewarm reception from the reviewer community ... are we seeing the demise of the role playing game?

God I hope it isn't true!

If it is I will be very sad. The RPG is one of the best ways to lose oneself in an engrossing story, to really feel for a set of characters in a way that a shooter, racer, or sports game can't. Remember how you felt when Aerith died? Or when Jon Irenicus taunted you with that deliciously evil voice of his? While I am a huge Halo 3 fan, sometimes I just want to sit down with a quiet RPG and get lost in its wonderful tale. It's the video game version of a novel, in my opinion. Done well, it can do for a gamer what almost no other genre can.

But besides the one massive success of the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, we haven't seen a single RPG this year that comes anywhere near a decent score. Two Worlds was an absolute joke. Enchanted Arms wasn't much better. Folklore was decent, but had a raft of odd design decisions that ulitmately detracted from its charm. And now the best hope of RPG lovers everywhere has just flopped ... what happened?

To be frank, I must admit that I'll probably not give two cents what Gamespot says, Mass Effect is still a 10.0 to me, just because it's being released by Bioware, who has released more of my favorite games than any other company (Baldur's Gate series, Icewind Dale series, Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR). I'd pick it up tomorrow even if it had recieved a 1.0 here, so in retrospect, I guess I'm not as disheartened as this post might indicate. Still, I'm saddened. If even Bioware can't release a AAA RPG, who can? Here's to hoping Bethesda comes out with the Elder Scrolls V: L33TSAUC3 and get a perfect 10.0.