As per its regrettable yearly habit, <a href="http://gamespy.com">GameSpy</a> has posted its <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index.html">2006 Game of the Year lineup for PC</a>. Apologies in advance for the length of this newspost, but 2006's GOTY account features <i>delectable</i> surprises for RPG aficionados:
* Neverwinter Nights 2 ranks <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index7.html">#5 on GameSpy's GOTY listing</a> with this exciting billing:
<blockquote>In a brilliant move (and one that deviates greatly from its predecessor), Neverwinter Nights 2 gives you full control of every character in your party in combat, granting the game's battles all the strategic richness such would entail. Though the game does a decent job of calling the shots for you if you don't desire this level of control, we suspect that very few people would balk at the chance to control the actions of a full party of powerful adventurers.</blockquote> So NWN2 is "brilliant" for doing exactly the same thing as every one of the Infinity Engine games from years ago, never mind all of <i>their</i> RPG predecessors? And I'm not sure which alternate universe features quality companion AI in NWN2, but I know it ain't <i>mine</i>.
Khelgar Ironfist also beats out Patrick Stewart and Boromir for <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index20.html">Best Acto^H^H^H^H^HCharacter of 2006</a>.
* Oblivion pulls <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index10.html">#2 on the list</a> and further bags <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index13.html">PC RPG of the Year</a>: <blockquote>Rather than rely on the common experience-point model, Oblivion uses a unique skill-based system that works excellently in the context of the game. Character classes have been reduced to a number of attribute and skill specializations, and even those become less and less constraining as you progress through the game. In very real terms, you can become the sort of character you want to be by using the skills that are important to you. You're only as bound to your early decisions as you choose to be. Many games purport to give you freedom, but Oblivion makes good on this promise in very real ways. This is why we have decided that it is the premier RPG of 2006, and it may be a good long while before such a superlative RPG comes along again.</blockquote>And yes, it's important to absorb <i>all</i> of that hyperbolic praise in order to fully understand the context of the next notable honor...
* In a move surprising for its (apparently) unself-conscious hypocrisy, GameSpy <i>then</i> turns around and declares Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul to be <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index15.html">2006 Mod of the Year</a>, for fixing the multifarious problems with Oblivion.
I really can't make this stuff up. See for yourself: <blockquote>[In standard Oblivion,] A level 2 player would encounter weaker creatures even in story-based dungeons, while one who had hit level 15 would begin to encounter even low-level bandits wearing glass armor and wielding powerful swords. The idea behind this was to make sure that no place in the world would ever be off-limits to the player and that the player would never run out of challenges. In practice it ended up discouraging leveling and created level 2 Arena champions. ...Playing Oblivion before and after installing OOO is a night-and-day experience. Suddenly there's a feeling of progression in the game. Defeating vampires and demons become much tougher, but at the same time, much more satisfying. The feeling of being at first afraid of highwaymen and then chewing them up for breakfast once you've leveled past them never gets old. Even better, Oscuro continues to update and enhance the mod.</blockquote> So, to recap: Oblivion is RPG of the Year and #2 on the list of best PC games of 2006, but it lacks "a feeling of progression", "satisfying" victories, and apparently even logic - all of which OOO introduces, thereby winning Mod of the Year.
Oh, and for the record - <i>technically speaking</i>, you can become Arena Champion, widely respected throughout Cyrodiil for your awesome fighting prowess, at <i>level 1</i>.
* In a move not at all surprising, Gothic 3 gets dishonorable mention as <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index23.html">Biggest Disappointment of 2006</a>. GameSpy actually places the game between "E.T. for the 2600 and Superman for the N64", both infamously awful games - <i>historic</i> human nadirs to the same degree that, say, Fallout represents the light of all human art and civilization.
Let's spend a few moments with GameSpy's expert commentary.<blockquote>Our "North American" box version included such gems as vicious memory leaks, crashes to desktop, a lockup that froze the whole computer, along with landscape bugs, movement bugs, collision bugs, and (our favorite) one that kept our mouse from being recognized in combat.</blockquote>The basic complaint is on target; Gothic 3 should have been more stable and more compatible out of the box, even in North America. (Of course, the same could be said for both Oblivion and Neverwinter Nights 2, which exhibited significant stability problems in their first few months of shelf-life and which <i>still</i> exhibit "movement bugs" and "collision bugs" - but that's ancient history! Bring on the accolades!) But this litany of bugs is pretty striking, since I can't even find some of them listed at JoWood's forums. A pity that GameSpy, passing judgment on this game's stability for a potential audience of hundreds of thousands of readers, is making broad claims about the game's stability on <i>all</i> machines without apparently having tested it on a range of hardware. I guess that's what it means to be a profeshunal.
GameSpy continues:<blockquote>Even if all of the bugs were magically fixed tomorrow, what remains is still a game chock full of good ideas and bad execution. The game has an expansive world filled with an excellent quest and character development system that really helps players feel like they're impacting the world. It's also got a pretty generic fantasy storyline, terrible voiceovers, lousy art design, a bad interface, and a combat system that relies as much on prayer and random chance as player input.</blockquote> I can respect criticisms of the combat system; it's not nearly the "click 'n' pray" system they suggest, but to each his own. (I <i>can't</i> respect misuse of "impacting" and "got", but let's leave that aside.) What gets me here are the other criticisms: Oblivion's fantasy storyline is arguably much more "generic" than Gothic 3's (and is executed with no impact whatsoever on the gameworld); Oblivion's voiceovers are unquestionably more "terrible" than Gothic 3's; Oblivion's XBox 360-based interface (for PC...) is obviously much more "bad" than Gothic 3's; and Gothic 3's art design, like that of its two predecessors, is among the best in the industry.
At least this feature has made me eager to leave 2006 far, far behind.
* Neverwinter Nights 2 ranks <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index7.html">#5 on GameSpy's GOTY listing</a> with this exciting billing:
<blockquote>In a brilliant move (and one that deviates greatly from its predecessor), Neverwinter Nights 2 gives you full control of every character in your party in combat, granting the game's battles all the strategic richness such would entail. Though the game does a decent job of calling the shots for you if you don't desire this level of control, we suspect that very few people would balk at the chance to control the actions of a full party of powerful adventurers.</blockquote> So NWN2 is "brilliant" for doing exactly the same thing as every one of the Infinity Engine games from years ago, never mind all of <i>their</i> RPG predecessors? And I'm not sure which alternate universe features quality companion AI in NWN2, but I know it ain't <i>mine</i>.
Khelgar Ironfist also beats out Patrick Stewart and Boromir for <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index20.html">Best Acto^H^H^H^H^HCharacter of 2006</a>.
* Oblivion pulls <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index10.html">#2 on the list</a> and further bags <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index13.html">PC RPG of the Year</a>: <blockquote>Rather than rely on the common experience-point model, Oblivion uses a unique skill-based system that works excellently in the context of the game. Character classes have been reduced to a number of attribute and skill specializations, and even those become less and less constraining as you progress through the game. In very real terms, you can become the sort of character you want to be by using the skills that are important to you. You're only as bound to your early decisions as you choose to be. Many games purport to give you freedom, but Oblivion makes good on this promise in very real ways. This is why we have decided that it is the premier RPG of 2006, and it may be a good long while before such a superlative RPG comes along again.</blockquote>And yes, it's important to absorb <i>all</i> of that hyperbolic praise in order to fully understand the context of the next notable honor...
* In a move surprising for its (apparently) unself-conscious hypocrisy, GameSpy <i>then</i> turns around and declares Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul to be <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index15.html">2006 Mod of the Year</a>, for fixing the multifarious problems with Oblivion.
I really can't make this stuff up. See for yourself: <blockquote>[In standard Oblivion,] A level 2 player would encounter weaker creatures even in story-based dungeons, while one who had hit level 15 would begin to encounter even low-level bandits wearing glass armor and wielding powerful swords. The idea behind this was to make sure that no place in the world would ever be off-limits to the player and that the player would never run out of challenges. In practice it ended up discouraging leveling and created level 2 Arena champions. ...Playing Oblivion before and after installing OOO is a night-and-day experience. Suddenly there's a feeling of progression in the game. Defeating vampires and demons become much tougher, but at the same time, much more satisfying. The feeling of being at first afraid of highwaymen and then chewing them up for breakfast once you've leveled past them never gets old. Even better, Oscuro continues to update and enhance the mod.</blockquote> So, to recap: Oblivion is RPG of the Year and #2 on the list of best PC games of 2006, but it lacks "a feeling of progression", "satisfying" victories, and apparently even logic - all of which OOO introduces, thereby winning Mod of the Year.
Oh, and for the record - <i>technically speaking</i>, you can become Arena Champion, widely respected throughout Cyrodiil for your awesome fighting prowess, at <i>level 1</i>.
* In a move not at all surprising, Gothic 3 gets dishonorable mention as <a href="http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index23.html">Biggest Disappointment of 2006</a>. GameSpy actually places the game between "E.T. for the 2600 and Superman for the N64", both infamously awful games - <i>historic</i> human nadirs to the same degree that, say, Fallout represents the light of all human art and civilization.
Let's spend a few moments with GameSpy's expert commentary.<blockquote>Our "North American" box version included such gems as vicious memory leaks, crashes to desktop, a lockup that froze the whole computer, along with landscape bugs, movement bugs, collision bugs, and (our favorite) one that kept our mouse from being recognized in combat.</blockquote>The basic complaint is on target; Gothic 3 should have been more stable and more compatible out of the box, even in North America. (Of course, the same could be said for both Oblivion and Neverwinter Nights 2, which exhibited significant stability problems in their first few months of shelf-life and which <i>still</i> exhibit "movement bugs" and "collision bugs" - but that's ancient history! Bring on the accolades!) But this litany of bugs is pretty striking, since I can't even find some of them listed at JoWood's forums. A pity that GameSpy, passing judgment on this game's stability for a potential audience of hundreds of thousands of readers, is making broad claims about the game's stability on <i>all</i> machines without apparently having tested it on a range of hardware. I guess that's what it means to be a profeshunal.
GameSpy continues:<blockquote>Even if all of the bugs were magically fixed tomorrow, what remains is still a game chock full of good ideas and bad execution. The game has an expansive world filled with an excellent quest and character development system that really helps players feel like they're impacting the world. It's also got a pretty generic fantasy storyline, terrible voiceovers, lousy art design, a bad interface, and a combat system that relies as much on prayer and random chance as player input.</blockquote> I can respect criticisms of the combat system; it's not nearly the "click 'n' pray" system they suggest, but to each his own. (I <i>can't</i> respect misuse of "impacting" and "got", but let's leave that aside.) What gets me here are the other criticisms: Oblivion's fantasy storyline is arguably much more "generic" than Gothic 3's (and is executed with no impact whatsoever on the gameworld); Oblivion's voiceovers are unquestionably more "terrible" than Gothic 3's; Oblivion's XBox 360-based interface (for PC...) is obviously much more "bad" than Gothic 3's; and Gothic 3's art design, like that of its two predecessors, is among the best in the industry.
At least this feature has made me eager to leave 2006 far, far behind.
