Obsidian have much better writers than Bethesda does, so the story/characters/quests/dialogs are far superior. (the robots in NV have more personalty than Beths characters)
They have better RPG minds in there corner (some of the old Black Isle devs) so the RPG mechanics are better, actual choices and consequences, more skill checks outside of combat, there's actually diffrent ways to complete quests so the roleplaying is much better.
For example - My contact tells me to go kill something, and then I have to go kill it, or that part of the story ends there. And that's Skyrim, over, and over, and over.
Skyrim is just so much mindless violence.
I think this is where the feeling of linearity is coming from. In Skyrim, unlike in New Vegas, and many other great RPGs, I can't choose anything but mindless violence. You have two choices ultimately in Skyrim:
1. Mindless violence.
2. Stop playing.
In that way, it is linear, and it is shallow.
And generally, unless it's a person you're meant to talk to, speech is completely worthless.
Fallout 3 - you can solve every problem by killing someone. But even worse than Fallout 3, Skyrim encourages you into that way of thinking. Due to that, I couldn't really enjoy it that much, and I couldn't immerse myself in it. I mean, if you can just go from one group to the next, killing, killing, and killing some more without ever noticing your kill count or caring, then fine... I guess it's the game for you.
But I remember doing so many other things in so many other games.
Why has it all come down to this?
Why has the great RPG just been diluted down into killing things?
If I wanted to just kill everything and have the sort of depth that could be written down onto a napkin, then I'd play CoD. I play RPGs because they're supposed to offer me something different. Consider this: Ultima VII is thought to be one of the best RPGs of all time. Despite that, the combat is horrible, and it's almost better to go through the entire game without every using your sword or magicks on anything. Only very rarely will you be thrust into unavoidable combat. The depth came from the world, the characters, and the story.
Skyrim is like the opposite of that. The lack of depth comes from how I'm some genocidal maniac (like the Blades, like the Vigilants of Stendarr, like the Silver Hand, like the Thalmor, like Alduin's dragons, like so many other groups in the game), and I can't choose to be anything else. It's KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL.bussinrounds
This, this and one million times THIS! I hope we get to see real RPGs soon. They need to make a new Ultima!
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