NMA's World of Pure Imagination
NMA's World of Pure Imagination
Review - posted by baby arm on Sat 15 November 2008, 20:09:06
Tags: Fallout 3In an attempt to avoid the reality of a Bethesda Fallout 3, NMA's Kharn retreated into a fantasyland where ZeniMax never bought Fallout and Fallout 3 is actually a new post-apoc IP from Bethesda known as Capital Wasteland: Revelation. The poor demented lad has gone on to write a review of this imaginary, Fallout-less game.
To come full circle, here's another way this game reminds me of Oblivion: it tries to wow you with first impressions and then just basically entice you on. Both games are like hot cheerleaders who you follow a year as they tease you on. And finally you sleep with them (both). And maybe this realization hits outright, maybe it takes a few years, but at some point you'll suddenly go: “hey, hang on, they were crap in the sack!” Capital Wasteland: Revelation works like that: it tries to wow you, sometimes in rather farcical ways (a mini-nuke catapult? Really?), and then it tries to take you by the nose and have you explore as you try to find the next awesome spot. But the thing is: most spots are really boring, a lot of quests are uninteresting and none of the NPCs come even close to being memorable...except for Moira Brown: I have never felt so passionate about killing any NPC as I did her, sometimes I had no choice but to exit dialog and shoot her in the face because she's just that annoying.
Here is the real shocker: even though this game does not excel at much except creating annoying NPCs, it is still a good game. Because sometimes, even when the cheerleader is crap in the sack, it's still fun to chase after her. But more importantly, for years now RPG designers have focused purely on pretty graphics and fun combat, and while Capital Wasteland: Revelation also does that, it is a rare return to values of quest design we know of from Black Isle Studios and Troika, an approach that says quests have to be interesting, have to have multiple solutions and your choices really do matter. The latter point is probably the weakest one for CW:R and there are plenty of bad quests to turn you away, but this is still a remarkable accomplishment that I did not expect after Oblivion.If you ever get into an argument with Kharn and don't mind pulling things out of context, just point out the time he compared Bethesda favorably with Troika and Black Isle. Game over, r00fles, etc.
Spotted at: No Mutants Allowed
To come full circle, here's another way this game reminds me of Oblivion: it tries to wow you with first impressions and then just basically entice you on. Both games are like hot cheerleaders who you follow a year as they tease you on. And finally you sleep with them (both). And maybe this realization hits outright, maybe it takes a few years, but at some point you'll suddenly go: “hey, hang on, they were crap in the sack!” Capital Wasteland: Revelation works like that: it tries to wow you, sometimes in rather farcical ways (a mini-nuke catapult? Really?), and then it tries to take you by the nose and have you explore as you try to find the next awesome spot. But the thing is: most spots are really boring, a lot of quests are uninteresting and none of the NPCs come even close to being memorable...except for Moira Brown: I have never felt so passionate about killing any NPC as I did her, sometimes I had no choice but to exit dialog and shoot her in the face because she's just that annoying.
Here is the real shocker: even though this game does not excel at much except creating annoying NPCs, it is still a good game. Because sometimes, even when the cheerleader is crap in the sack, it's still fun to chase after her. But more importantly, for years now RPG designers have focused purely on pretty graphics and fun combat, and while Capital Wasteland: Revelation also does that, it is a rare return to values of quest design we know of from Black Isle Studios and Troika, an approach that says quests have to be interesting, have to have multiple solutions and your choices really do matter. The latter point is probably the weakest one for CW:R and there are plenty of bad quests to turn you away, but this is still a remarkable accomplishment that I did not expect after Oblivion.
Spotted at: No Mutants Allowed
