Monday, July 27, 2009

Another day, another Zeta interview.

Well, as Mothership Zeta's release date get's closer and closer, it seems like new interviews come out every other day. Talking about games recently conducted an interview with Jeff Gardiner and while not a whole lot was reveled, it does give us a sneak peek of how certain DLC's at Bethsoft are made...boredom.

"We thought it would be a very unique environment to explore, a far cry from the dust ravaged wastes of DC. The lead designer, Emil Pagliarulo, and I are interested in Alien conspiracy theory...There's a lot of information to sift through on the internet, while neither of us is quite sure what to believe it makes for interesting coffee conversation."

So...Mothership Zeta is the result of Jeff and Emil getting bored and looking at various UFO and Alien conspiracy therories? Top not creativity as always Bethsoft!

"The high-level technology employed by the Alien invaders still has the 'retro' feel of Fallout. Mothership Zeta is also laced with dark humor - it was penned by the same quest designer responsible for the Fallout 3 'main' questline, Brain Chaplin."

Awesome! More over done retro nonsense! Ah, so gotta offer my apologizes to Emil, it turns out that Brain Chaplin was in charge of writing that abortion know as the Fallout 3 main quest.


Saturday, July 25, 2009

Fallout New Vegas, and Fallount in general mock interview.

It seems that Bethsoft has outsourced a new Fallout project to Obsidian Entertainment, a studio made up of several former members of Fallout and Fallout 2's development team, BlackIsle studio. So, what does this mean and what can we expect? Well, from my point of view, it's more than likely a move on Bethsofts point to try and please the hardcore Fallout fans and keep making Fallout games and keep public interest in the series high, while they make a another McRPG in the Elderscrolls series. So, I will offer my views and thoughs on this in a mock Q&A session.

Q: What is Fallout: New Vegas?
A: Fallout: New Vegas is a spin off in the Fallout universe that takes place around or in Las Vegas. Very little is know about the game, other than it has a rumored release date of June next year.

Q: Who's making New Vegas? Bethesda?
A: No. New Vegas is being developed by Obsidian Entertainment.

Q: Who are Obsidian Entertainment?
A: A California based development studio made up of former Fallout and Fallout 2 developers, BlackIsle Studios.

Q: Why is Bethesda letting Obsidian develop New Vegas?
A:Personally, it's for two reasons. 1. So they can keep the Fallout brand going and in the public light. 2. So they can try and appeal to the hardcore Fallout fans by having a studio closely related to some of the guys of BlackIsle.

Q: What will the game be like?
A: It's more or less a glorified Fallout 3 mod. It still uses Bethsoft's outdated version of the Gamebryo engine, is more than likely to use the same broken S.P.E.C.I.A.L and skill system, and will more than likely have the same broken third person view.

Q: Who much creative control does Obsidian have on this project?
A: No one really knows, but given the fact that Bethsoft is the one over seeing this project, I doubt Obsidian has much control.

Q: Well, What are some of the things you want to see in the game?
A: Better animations, better writing, skill and S.P.E.C.I.A.L checks that make sense, better voice acting, better third person mode, and less rehashed story elements from the past games.

Fallout 3 related:

Q: You and several Fallout fansites are very hard on Bethesda and Fallout 3, why?
A: Because as a Fallout game, it's just straight up awful. It's riddled with inconsistency (Fallout 2 and tactics where quilty of this as well, but FO3 takes it to a whole other level), the Capital Wasteland was a haphazard mix of ideas, factions are totally different, raiders are suddenly cannibals that wear crude and ineffective armor, the writing is just flat out bad, and the list goes on.

Q: Fallout 3 won an award for writing, so it can't be all bad.
A: No, it's terrible. I was shocked it won an award for best writing as that's a slap in the face to games with actual good writing such as Grand Theft Auto 4. The writing in FO3 was done by various people but most of the writing was done by Emil Pagliarulo, a designer for the overall visual theme of the game, and while I do think Emil is a great designer, he's a god awful writer. The writing in Fallout 3 was all over the place, some was decent, some ok, and most of it was just flat out insulting to any writer and to make matter worse, Emil has said that they hate hiring writers because they won't play the game, and I have to say it's attitudes like that which make me dislike Bethsoft even more.

Q: You said they changed Factions, what do you mean?
A: The biggest example is the Brotherhood of Steel. They have changed greatly from being a group of technology hording recluses to white knights that protect people and shout annoying pseudo-knightly nonsense like Hail sir knight, or the classic, Steel be with you. The Super Mutants are no longer the threat that they once where, the raiders are, like I mentioned before, are just your generic bad guys that for some reason eat people and wear ineffective armor. Seriously, take a look at the Raider Sadist armor, it's just pants with some leather bits and pieces while the upper body armor is just a leather shoulder pad with a strap that holds it on at the waist.

Q: Well, the game also had top notch voice acting like Liam Neeson-
A: Yeah, so what? Oblivion had Patrick Stewart, and he was in the game a grand total of 10 minutes, a total waste of time on his part and a waste of money on Bethsofts. Most people seem to forget that the non big Hollywood talent in Bethsoft games tend to vary in quality greatly. Ranging from good (Wes Johnson), decent (Greg Sechler) and just flat out awful (pretty much everyone else). Also having big name talent doesn't always equal good voice acting, just look at Odette Yustman. Her deliver as Amata was just flat out stilled and dull.

Q: The music was also priased, what do you think?
A: Inon Zur's music in Fallout 3 was boring. It wasn't particularly bad, just boring. Inon Zur however has done good music before.

Q: Fallout 3 really nailed the 50's theme-
A: Yes, and they over did it. If Bethsoft played the first two as much as they claim they did, they would know that the 50's thing had more to do with the the optimism of a nuclear powered age, and less to do with pointless 50's songs, 50's styled clothing, and basically over doing it.

Q: Well, the first two had some of that stuff as well...
A: Keyword is some. The first two games focused on the choice and moral decisions in a post-apocalyptic world, where as Fallout 3 is about ultra cool gore, swearing, and over doing the 50's setting.

Q: But, Todd, Pete, and Emil said they played older games...
A: Oh, of course they SAID that, but having played Fallout 3 all the way threw numerous times, I really have to question their statements. Hell, Pete Hines never heard of the games until the picked up the license for the series and Emil has flipped flopped on weather or not Fallout Tactics is canon or not, however I'm glad they do at least consider it semi-canon as FoT is very underrated.

Q: Do you think Fallout 4 will be any better?
A: Doubtful. The best way to find out how Fallout 4 will turn out is to see what the next elder scrolls game is like.

Q: Last question, It has been said that Tenpenny is from England, what do you make of it?
A: It's makes no sense. Europe is even worse off than the United States, and to make matter worse, the EC (European Commonwealth) was already on the verge of collapse with the war between them and the Middle East, and once the bombs started falling, it wasn't a pretty picture. That's not to say the EC or other areas didn't have place to hide from the bombs and radiation, it's not the fact that Tenpenny is from England, it's just that it's never explained how he get to the D.C area. Foreigners or surviving nations are not a new concept Fallout as Tyco from Fallout has been to Mexico, and Marge Lebarge is from Canada as are a few people in redding. Mexico and Canada make sense as they are close to the US.

Peace!

Monday, July 20, 2009

Same ol' Same ol'.

Bethsda failure that is. It's been a busy few weeks at Bethsoft with new DLC coming very early next month, so MTV Multiplayer asked in an email interview with Jeff Gardiner if they have plans to up the level cap again, here's the actual question:

"In an email interview with Jeff Gardiner regarding August 3rd's release of the next "Fallout 3" DLC, "Mothership Zeta," I asked if it would even be possible to increase the level cap from its current 30 (as set by "Broken Steel.") Specifically, if the stat caps were boosted beyond 10 and skill caps were boosted beyond 100, would the game system simply break?"

Break the game? The game was already broken in vanilla Fallout 3. The fact you can cap out all your skills by level 12 sounds pretty damn broken to me, and the god mod perks added in Broken Steel and from the sound of it, added in Mothership Zeta as well. So, yeah, the game is plenty unbalenced already.

Mothership Zeta Info:

All new Alien weapons! More than likely to to one shot anything, just you wait.
New outfits! Like the Gemini-Era space suit and samurai armor, yes 15th-16th century Samurai armor, random much Bethsoft?
New perks like Xenotech Expert! Makes the already godly Alien Blaster and other Alien based weapons even stronger. Alien Epoxy, now you items can magically regenerate!

Jeff Gardnier Interview:

"The alien menace--err, presence--has been hinted at throughout the history of Fallout."

What? "Hinted at throughout the history of Fallout"? No they haven't you goofball. The Aliens in the past Fallout games where Easter Eggs, which where small, funny, and totally non-canon gag encounters. Oh, an before anyone throws a hissy fit as says "But...but, they where in the old games as well", I hate to break it to you, but the "Aliens" in Fallout 2 where not Aliens. Nobody knows really what they are, some say experiments, and some say they are simply mutants, but they where not extraterrestrials.

"In Fallout 3, there is a crashed alien space vessel hidden deep in the Capital Wasteland."

Ironically, this simply started out as an Easter Egg as well, but for whatever reason got turned into a full blown DLC. Well, the reason is the universal, Rule of Cool.

"The aliens are the same type that people claim are currently abducting people around the globe, small grayish-green with long appendages and big heads with huge eyes."

Ummm, Jeff... that kind of Alien, the Greys, is an 80's deal. Oh well, as long as it's fucking awesome with asploding alien heads right?

"They are studying humanity to see if we're a threat."

Wait, what? A threat? That makes no sense at all. Why would the aliens see a ruined planet with people having trouble surviving a threat? Does anyone at Bethsoft even try to make logical plot lines?

Stay tuned for more in the on going saga of fail that is Bethsoft!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Bethesda, truely the most arrogant company in years.

It seems the folks over at Gameobserver conducted an interview with Ashely "The AZN" Cheng and among other things, he mentioned how they have no plans change engine. Oh yeah, this is the same Ashely Cheng who was disappointed that Blizzzard didn't make Star Craft 2 a first person shoot....stupidity of this grade can only come from Bethsoft folks.

"We’ve been building on top of Gamebryo for the past 8 years."

8 years and it still looks god awful compared to other middleware engines and hell, even other games that use Gamebryo.

"
you name it -- we do it faster than anybody else in the industry. No one can match us when it comes to vast, open-ended beautiful worlds full of NPCs, quests and dialogue."

Hahahahaha, are you serious? They can't be THAT stupid. Games such as The Witcher, and the Gothic series did the open world design much MUCH better. Beautiful worlds? Never mind the fact that both Oblivion and Fallout look horribly dated when compared to games released around the same time. Quests? Bethesda certainly does have quite a few quests, too bad 95% of them are generic fetch quest that are poorly though out. Dialog? Yeah, too bad it's amateurish at best, honestly porn scripts have better writing.

"
I am responsible for the overall schedule, making sure everyone is completing their work to a high quality and overseeing test cycles. I’m also responsible for voice recording and casting, localization and our relationships with outside entities like Microsoft and Sony."

Holy fuck! Did high quality get used in the same sentence as voice recording and casting, and test cycles? Bethesda's voice acting and casting is awful. The most common tactic used in a Bethsoft game is to hire some random big name actors or actresses and have them record maybe 3 hours of dialog each for there shallow and lifeless characters, then the gaming press has a fap-a-thon over how great Bethsofts VAing is, and ignore the real mean and potato's of the VAing in a Bethsoft game. If you look past the big name celebrity talent, you are left with some of the most down right mediocre VAing around. Oblivion and Fallout 3 had some of the worst VAing in the last couple of year. With the exception of Wes Johnson, Malcolm McDowell and Greg Schlear(spelling?), the VAing is a fucking train wreck of poor delivery, and piss poor direction. Test cycles? They do that at Bethsoft? I guess that explains why the game is buggy as hell and two DLC released a total train wreck.

Here's a new slogan for Bethsoft... "Bethesda, arrogant as fuck."

Sunday, July 5, 2009

The Last Remnant, PS3 version canned?

It seems at a recent share holders meeting, SE pretty much gave some hints towards the PS3 version of The Last Remnant being canceled, and honestly I'm not surprised. For those who don't know, The Last Remnant is a JRPG/Strategy game hybrid released in November 08' for the XBOX 360 and early this early this year for the PC to lukewarm reviews and rather awful sales.

Why was the PS3 version seemingly axed? Quite a few reasons actually, and they are mostly poor decisions on SE's part. The biggest problem facing the PS3 version from the start was the use of the Unreal engine, which is wildly know as being less than PS3 friendly, and not like it would have mattered anyways as the 360 version is an absolute mess if you didn't install it to the 360's hard drive. If they couldn't get the game working on the 360 or PC, then the PS3 version would more than likely ended up unplayable. During the early stages of development, SE said that they developed TLR with a western audience in mind, and I have to say, they did? The game is pretty much a straight up JRPG threw and threw. The only thing western about it s the fact that it uses the Unreal Engine and that the English voice acting is the original language. In addition, it's clear that SE saw the 360 as a way to make a quick buck, well, so they though. The sales world wide have been poor, with the 360 version selling around 200+k world wide last time I checked, and the PC version I'm unclear of. In other words it was a total flop, much like SE's other JRPG's on the 360.

So, the big question is what would the PS3 version be like? Well honestly It would probably be half way decent, and more than likely have the Japanese track (gotta make the Weeaboo's happy amirite?!) and maybe the DLC the PC and 360 version had. At this point I feel it would be pointless as the PS3 has quite a few JRPG and WRPG coming out that would likely over shadow TLR. It would probably sell decently in Japan and SE could maybe even break even.

A word of advice SE, JRPG's rarely sell well on the 360, so better luck next time.