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From Football to Fantasy - Bethesda's Long Journey
This week's Escapist (which is themed around luck and odds) talks about the unlikely path Bethesda Softworks took from GridIron to Oblivion . The article discusses the company's lengthy and mostly successful past, and touches on the future of the company - the next chapter in the epic and much missed Fallout series of games. The unique tone of the Elder Scrolls games has well prepared them for taking on this 'biblical' development quest. Executive producer Todd Howard comments: "I think the first Fallout's tone is brilliant, but then they start to drift in the sequel and subsequent games. When it comes to humor, I'm very anti 'jokes' in games. Most designers try too hard to tell a joke, and it just doesn't work. I think good humor for Fallout is dry, almost satirical. Like getting your leg blown off, blood starts spraying all over the place and you get the little [PIPBoy] interface image giving you the thumbs up - I find that funny. Horrible situations juxtaposed against cartoon mascots. But that's just me."
To me, the pinnacle of Bethesda's works were in the early 90's, with the "Wayne Gretzky Hockey" franchise. This was the first hockey simulator that had decent intelligence and actually played like hockey rather than a videogame. My college friends and myself marveled at the quality of this game, and lost some much-needed study time with it.
As a side note, the third version of WGH was so bug-ridden that for many years I refused to buy another Bethesda product. Of course, now I realize that shipping a buggy release is less than uncommon.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
The article that's linked to shows up very strnagely in my browser. The print view has article text all one page:
* http://www.escapistmagazine.com/print/83/12
Ghoul: I saw a radscorpion today. Nasty creatures
Mutant: I avoid them whenever I can
Ghoul: I've heard others say the same
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?