Dragaera

OT games

Tue Feb 8 13:34:15 PST 2005

On Tue, 8 Feb 2005, Gomi no Sensei wrote:

@> > What the game Does Right is, of course, the freedom. There are very few
@> > games out there that let you murder someone and live in his house, for
@> > instance. Which is actually something I didn't do in the game, but it
@> > makes me feel better about myself knowing that I could and didn't.
@>
@> The problem is, you could do anything, but there wasn't anything to,
@> you know, do. There was no real sense of direction or mission or plot,
@> and thus no real reason to give a crap or choose a side. It might as
@> well have been The Sims: Ren Faire

That's not precisely true - the game loads about sixteen goals onto you
right at the beginning. It just doesn't force you to pursue any particular
one, which may harm the urgency a bit. (Perform your mission for the
Emperor, join all the guilds, join a great house, free the slaves, become
an assassin, etc.) I never felt like there wasn't anything to do - quite
the opposite, in fact; I always had six or seven things that I was trying
to do at the same time.

@> Fallout, by contrast, had large quantities of freedom, but with an
@> overarching sense of mission and urgency.

I'm not saying Fallout isn't a superior game in every single possible way.
Because it was, with a couple of very minor exceptions. But not everything
can be Fallout (and even Fallout can't be Planescape: Torment). Morrowind
is acceptable in Fallout's absence.