Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Certain game experiences seem to suggest other, older games, and leave me longing for them. Age Of Conan, which I’ve been playing a great deal for the PC Gamer review, somehow left me longing for Oblivion. There was something about the way that Age Of Conan tantalises you with elements of single player gaming that left me quite hungry for a proper RPG romp, and so I reinstalled the last Elder Scrolls game and plunged in.

To tell the truth, I’d been meaning to go back and play Oblivion a some point this year after being reminded of it in PC Gamer UK’s Top 100 meeting. Tom Francis had talked about the moment he’d be most fond of in replaying the game: coming out of the underground tutorial into the bright, beautiful gameworld. “You get this incredible feeling of freedom,” he said. “It’s wide open and it feels like anything is possible.” It’s a feeling that, in some ways, is only possible in a game of Oblivion’s calibre. That kind of feeling could be an antidote to the pressures of real life, and definitely an antidote to too many hours in a traditional MMO. I wanted to recapture that, although I had wondered whether Francis’ was simply being hyperbolic. Was Oblivion better than I remembered?
Read the rest of this entry »

After Kotaku’s highlighting of Age of Conan’s Best NPC Of All Time (above) I was reminded to ask Tom Francis at PC Gamer UK to post his account of what is probably the Second Best NPC Of All Time, Thedret The Exaggerator. Possibly my favourite story of an in-game bug, ever.

I love my Thedret because no-one else has one. It took Valve six years to make Alyx a likeable aide, but this piece of sloppy code has made Oblivion’s Thedret far more important to me.

If I could have anything, I would have a Thedret like Tom. Anyone have any other nominations for what I will now call “The RPS Inadvertant Best NPC Awards 2008″?

I’m not quite sure what I think about the debate over “games are dumbed down for consoles”. I think games are made more accessible, certainly have their controls simplified, but I’m not convinced this means the game necessarily becomes more dumb. It seems that Bethesda agree, and while there’s always a sizeable baying crowd who will squeal, “Oblivion was rubbish because it was also on 360!/wasn’t identical to Morrowind!/I didn’t play it but I love having an opinion!” they have rather proven they can make a dumbed-up game for multiple formats.

Bethesda’s Emil Pagliarulo, project lead on FO3, certainly agrees, after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

More rumour-mumblings from within the home of Bethesda, ZeniMax Media, regarding a forthcoming MMO.

CVG reports (good luck Firefox users!) that ZeniMax Online have licensed Simutronics‘ MMO HeroEngine (the same one BioWare have picked up for their forthcoming super-secret (ohmygodit’ssoobviouslystarwars) MMO).

This is being linked to the story from earlier this month regarding Bethesda’s registering of the domain, elderscrollsonline.com, and thus speculation that an Elder Scrolls MMO is on its way.

However, it might not be that simple. In this month’s PC Gamer (print version), The Spy reports that there’s speculation it could be an attempt at preparing for the Fallout MMO rights landing in their laps. In a peculiar deal, Interplay only has a loose grip on the option to make an online version of the Fallout universe, and if investors aren’t convinced they can do it, the rights will leap over to Bethesda. Is Bethesda preparing a net for the post-apocalyptic world?

Which would you rather see? An Oblivion-style MMO, or have their attentions turned to bringing the Fallout universe online?

I’d be lying if I said we had started RPS for any other reason than funding secret cabal designed to rule the world by manipulating heads of state and undermining morality across the globe. Part of that plan would involve procuring a suitable headquarters where our sinister agents could be trained, briefed and deployed on complex espionage missions. We’ve got Castle Bran in mind, but apparently the electrics are out and the roof needs some work. It’s going to take us 15,000 years to save up enough money.

In the meantime I guess we could satisfy our castle-owning lusts by downloading the free stuff that Betheseda are knocking out for Oblivion next week. Yep, the Fighter’s Stronghold will be free for one week from tomorrow. If you’re a goblin-swatter you’ll be able to set up virtual residence in this beauty and marvel at the knights who patrol its grounds for you.

All this property porn does make me wonder how many people actually actually bought into the life and lordship aspect of Oblivion. I have to admit that it appeals to me at some absurdly geeky level, but I can’t see myself ever actually putting aside the time to “hire a taxidermist to craft lifelike trophies for your great hall”, as much I want to see what that entails. It’s a similar kind of impulse to the secret HQ in City Of Heroes, I suppose, and I never did get around to that, either. Perhaps since it’s free I’ll take a look this time – that taxidery talk intrigues me. I wonder if you can have a stuffed ghost?

This editorial over on the PC hardware site PC Perspective considers the age-old issue of why PC gamers stick with their format, rather than opting for the ease of consoles. It covers many tired old routines, such as the flexibility of the PC’s options and scaled resources, as well as the complexity of mouse/keyboard controls systems. One thing it comes up with that I’ve not heard before is this:

While Bethesda was having problems with certain Non-Player Character interactions, one can’t help but wonder if the AI was lobotomized to make it play well on the Xbox 360. If you never saw Bethesda’s pre-release demo videos they displayed at the 2005 E3, you can find them on YouTube. I would suggest the 5th video on which details the complexity of the Radiant AI specifically, as it shows the breadth the original version of the AI would display. If you never played the game, you can see the final implementation in many of the other videos on YouTube, from bizarre domestic violence to the death penalty for stealing bread. One of the most rabid fan bases for a PC game are having a collective convulsions in dread of what Bethesda will do to their favourite franchise. Fallout 3 is going to be released on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 as well as the PC, and will use the Radiant AI system.

Those are their own links in there, and the first link explains what he’s talking about. Anyway, I can’t help thinking that any reduction in AI sophistication must have been about making the game work on more lower-end PCs too, since anything that didn’t work on the 360 wouldn’t work on a whole load of lesser PCs, right? It’s interesting that there is, potentially, a more sophisticated Oblivion AI out there though, and you wonder if an AI mod might serve/break the game in interesting ways.

Ultimately I think we all know why we enjoy PC gaming and don’t really need this kind of editorial to explain it to us. Nevertheless I actually believe a number of cross-platform developments have proven that the process need not result in a “reduced” experience on PC. The different formats are increasingly just serving different tastes and personal gaming habits.

It’s just, well, if only you could lean in Bioshock…