There's lots of flaws to talk about in the Oblivion and Fallout 3 games, and there's a lot of great things to say about them too (I own them both and have played the crap out of them), but I wanted to focus on the Story telling that ruins the experiences for me.

I probably should have named this "Video games suck" but I digress.

Why can't Bethesda tell a decent story? The most complex characters are usually based on some pop culture reference, while the original characters only have the most basic desires and needs. At no point have I ever empathized, understood, or cared about these people because they're all caricatures with silly flaws.

Quests boil down to going from point A to point B, and the variety in these quests comes from the items you have to carry, and if you choose to be a good guy or a bad guy.

The world is built, and the immersion is there, but I'm still just playing a glorified delivery service simulator set in the post apocalyptic DC and a generic fantasy world. I'm the center of everyone's universe, and the only way I'm going to fail a quest is because of a bug. There's no risk management, the decision making has everything to do with your inventory and nothing to do with gameplay itself, and there's absolutely no character development. It's set pieces and scenery.

The overwhelming amount of fun I have with these games comes from exploring and finding the unique parts of the game, all of which are throwbacks and references to other games, movies, or books. If I have to play one more H.P. Lovecraft inspired level in a game, I'm going to stop buying video games.

I want to play a non-derivative Oblivion engine game that takes itself seriously and puts storyline before gimmicks and nerd references. Oh, and VATS. I need my VATS.

The only things I really enjoyed in Oblivion was the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves(sp?) Guild quests. Other than that it's pretty bleak.

What I loved about Oblivion was modding it. The game itself, and the way the forests and world reshape themselves every 10 feet you move, drove me berzerk.

I'm thinking of getting Fallout 3 for the PC just to mod it, but I,m not sure how well my crap computer will do. It didn,t do so hot with Oblivion.

Oblivion was a resource hog. Not sure how Fallout 3 does. Isnt it on the U3 engine?

I thought it was on the same engine as Oblivion... It has the same popup issues, its just much further away.

Fallout 3 runs on the Oblivion engine, just somewhat modified.

They're both crappy, and it's not even the storyline that bothers me. It's the massive amount of bugs. Nothing annoys me more than falling right through the ground and dying, or having some vital quest piece just disappear.

Remember the days when games couldn't be updated on the fly, and game designers actually released games that worked?

*sigh*

heresy

I had fun with both Oblivion and Fallout 3. I have my complaints, mostly about Fallout 3, but it was still fun. It just could have been a lot more fun.

This is the one point I disagree with.
Comparing notes with my room-mate I have discovered we have dealt with many missions and conflicts in vastly different ways, it's not just good vs evil (vs neutral) theres still all kinds of ways of getting the job done.
(Fallout 3 that is, can't comment much on Oblivion apart from saying it's extremely boring)

They are video games what do you expect, all the money pays developers to give you good graphics, they could care less about the story and writing.

Oblivion was pretty much a horrible pile of steaming crap.

Oblivion was crap until I modded the everloving poo out of it, and then it just crashed every 10 feet.

"Daggerfall"

ALL of the Elder Scrolls games were.

I agree on all the bugs, but I think there's still a lot of fun to be had here that is wasted on trite design choices. Half of the game is a big in-joke.

All the conversations (and hence story since that is like how the entire game plot is delivered) in Oblivion felt like talking to a barbie doll that's being held up and "talked" for by a 14 year old with a blossoming neckbeard

The whole gameworld seemed so fake and lifeless, it drove me crazy

"Oblivion and Fallout 3 suck"

So...don't play them.

.

Let me analogize for a second here. You have two episodes of Star Trek: The Best of Both Worlds (TNG #74-75) and Unimatrix Zero (VOY #146-147). Both feature the Borg, both had excellent special effects and artwork, and they both had pretty huge budgets for a TV episode. I'd be willing to bet that they both took roughly the same time to conceptualize, write, film and edit. I'd even guess that the same number of actors had to show up at roughly the same time in the morning to get their prosthetics attached. They both took the exact same amount of work, but The Best of Both Worlds is some of the best TV ever created while Unimatrix Zero is an abomination.

The problem here is that most people don't recognize story-writing as a complex art form. The game companies have already created all of the designs, code, tools and artwork to tell a story. That's the unforgivable part of the situation: it is absolutely zero extra work to implement a good story in their existing engine than there is to implement the awful one. Programmer art is an industry in-joke, but it's pretty common in the game industry for a programmer to be in charge of writing the game's script. Programmers, game designers and graphic artists have no business telling stories for money.

Gene Roddenberry got his start as a writer. When he died, Rick Berman - a producer, formerly for childrens' programming - took over the creative reins of Star Trek. And look at the fantastic job he did with it.

What the hell -- I actually agree with Jon`C whole-heartedly. I can only hope that, if I ever have the opportunity to write for a videogame, I can set the bar higher.

EDIT: I actually agree with Jon`C on a number of his past posts, but it's rare I want to hug him after something he says.

I thought Fallout 3 and Oblivion were a lot of fun.

Hey, now. With the exception of a few episodes, Enterprise was decent.

Let's not turn this into a Star Trek debate.

No, this here is about video games!!

Eh, as far as Fallout 3 storytelling, there are some good moments.

There's the place where you teach the people how to fend off supermutant attacks.

Then there's the choice you have of saving a certain android, turning him in, or playing both sides against one another.

Ah, and the "robot" that gaurds the declaration of independence.

Or the "little girl" brauner.

Indeed there are a few other quests that have a certain degree of charm to them, and choices you get to make that effect the game world, or at least entities in it. The only thing I don't like about fallout are the water beggars. Those guys are just good karma mills.

Also, Fallout never glitched on me. Nor did oblivion, come to think of it.

Then again, I also liked stalker, which was similar in many ways. It's pretty easy to use your imagination in conjunction with a game to make it something grand. Also, if you don't want to be the center of the universe, play an MMO, or "Real Life".

You know I think Mafia had a pretty decent story, but it's not hard to tell a story about the mob.

I find the problem with combining your imagination with a game like this is that the graphics are so good or 'realistic' that they're basically telling you to not use your imagination at all, and let the game do everything for you. Then you're left with a pretty world with lifeless automatons telling you the story (with surprisingly good voice acting that doesn't match the facial expressions at all) and you're supposed to believe them.

For example: Bombing megaton was awesome, until Mr. Burke turns to you and says 'Excellent! Excellent!' with absolutely no expression. The story telling was awesome, but they failed completely at delivering it even though there was something exciting like an atomic bomb going off in the background, the delivery ruined it completely.