athom

Full disclosure: I would have greatly perferred a Shadowrun RPG - it seems silly to use the IP to make anything else (Madden: the turn-based RPG!). If it was more or less a good game, I probably would have bought a 360 just to play it, and a LOT (at least half a dozen) of other people I know who don't even OWN consoles feel the same way. Oh well, ce la vie (however the hell you spell that)

Okay, how does this guy not get the point? You made an awesome game - quite a few people have said so. BUT A VAST, _VAST_ MAJORITY OF PEOPLE HAVE SAID IT IS OVERPRICED. A $60 game with no single-player mode (and thus no story) would be acceptible - if the multiplayer game had more content! Only, what, four maps and three game modes? Sorry man, but that just isn't enough meat for most people to spend 60 bucks on. A lot of reviewers factor in the price of the game into the score (While others don't, that being the root of the Calling All Cars crisis), and I you can't really blame them for giving the game a 7 when it just doesn't have the content to justify the price. Don't hide behind corporate doublespeak ("I had an idea for a price, they did, they may or may not have been the same" - just tell us if you thought 60 dollars was too much or not already!), and don't ride the bullet train to crazytown when it becomes apparent you don't have a leg to stand on ("This game cost a lot to produce, so gamers should just get used to it" ... Uhh, I think you, y'know, have it BACKWARDS. If gamers don't think your game is worth 60 dollars, they just aren't going to buy it, or they wait until its in the bargain bin, and it will fail. YOU have to get used to THAT.), and don't go the whole "buy my game or the terrorists win" route ("We took risks, and now that our game hasn't wildly succeeded, developers will be unwilling to take risks anymore" First, get over yourself - the success or failure of a single game will not change broad industry trends. Second, most companies avoid change or risk like the plague already, and even if this game had succeeded that wouldn't have changed their minds. Third, as pretty much every fan of the Pen and Paper Shadowrun has pointed out, WHAT IS SO DAMN RISKY ABOUT MAKING A SHOOTER FOR THE 360? That is about as safe a route as you CAN go, and the fact that you STILL failed is a testament TO YOUR OWN ABILITIES, not to the evil of gamers).

People seem to fall into two camps: the people who are excited about Beth's invovlement (People who like Oblivion) and those who aren't (People who don't). Considering Beth has made it pretty clear they AREN'T going to preserve the entire Fallout experience (when asked how they were going to handle perspective and combat, the lead designer replied that they "wouldn't want to go with a style of game that we don't do very well" [FYI, Bethesda has previously only made first person, realtime games]). What irks me (other then the fact that most of the anger would go away if they took off the "3" and made it a spinoff) is the rather clear commitment to NOT innovate on Beth's part, to churn out a first person, realtime Oblivion clone, maybe with Fallout-style dialouge if they are feeling generous. I firmly believe that Bethesda, if they comitted to it, could produce a world-class game that would be beloved by ALL (casuals and Fallout fanatics alike), WITHOUT dumbing the game down or removing critical gameplay elements (by no means does it HAVE to be topdown viewpoint, but turn-based combat is basically impossible in first person view mode, and turn-based combat IS an essential component, at least in my humble opinion). Rather then doing, or even TRYING FOR that, Bethesda has seems to just want to make a game that will please its fans (because it essentially WILL be The Elder Scrolls), but disappoint the Fallout faithful. I have no doubt the game will sell well, but in five or ten years, will anyone really remember it? Will there be people saying "Man, what a game. It really CHANGED me"? I think not.

I feel sorry for Sony fans who actually CAN jump over to 360, people who care about technical specs and release delays and initial pricing. I don't consider myself a Sony FAN as much as someone who has nowhere else to go; I like RPGs (JRPGs mostly, but I'm not adverse to a well-made ARPG), and I learned my lesson from the original Xbox. I bought one based on the promise of a MMORPG made by the creators of Dark Cloud, and that game never materialized. I played a grand total of SEVEN games on my Xbox, four of them rented. Very clearly it was not a system designed FOR me. If it turns out that 360 has a more robust RPG lineup, then I can buy it after the price drop, when there are some actual GOOD GAMES out. One thing I do know is that eventually a new Shin Megami Tensei game will come out for PS3, and buying the entire console will be worth it to play that game alone.