100% agreed.

Sorry, I may have been unclear. I meant that it was a shame that Skyrim's almost childishly simple factions and world weren't nearly as good as Morrowind. I completely agree with what you've said. Of course, the almost alien nature of the world, and the way that it rejects you to begin with, is also wonderful.

I still remember when I was first recognised by someone in the street, who'd heard of my deeds. That was a good feeling...

Skyrim is a lot better and closer to Morrowind than Oblivion was, at least.

Oddly, I got Oblivion (GOTY) first, in the sale in the run up to Skyrim's release. I played it, and got to the end of Shivering Isles, and then returned and discovered that everyone had miraculously got stronger in my absence and I couldn't handle the first Oblivion gate.

I tried installing a few mods, and made a separate character to try a new action I'd been contemplating: systematically slaughtering the entire population of Cyrodiil as a vampire! Perhaps fortunately, Christmas (2011) came and I got Skyrim as my main present, so switched to that. I found it fun, especially the dual wielding, then came back to Oblivion after finishing the main quest and becoming fed up with the lag it had on my ok-but-not-great laptop (by the way, it really doesn't look very impressive at all with graphics settings turned down). When I played Oblivion, though, I still found it more interesting to join the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood, and kill everyone.

Then, some months later, at the start of Summer, I decided to try Morrowind. Some months later, at the end of Summer, I finished Morrowind, and began to observe the world around me again. The game had captivated me and drawn me in, and let me just exist in its world in a way which the later games, for all their voice acting and photo-realistic graphics, failed in. Just little things, like the number of people on the streets, and the fact that the majority of people were just...people, who had houses, but didn't have a burning desire to send me to a distant cave to recover an item for them. The fact that the guild quests, and the quests for the Great Houses, weren't linear, but that there were multiple different questgivers who were all willing to give me quests at the same time.

Spoilers for the Oblivion Dark Brotherhood and Thieves' Guild questlines follow:

By contrast, Oblivion had multiple questgivers, technically, but might as well not have done. 'You've done all my quests, now go and do X's quests' was, quite simply, a game mechanic, and a poor one at that. I also didn't like the linearity, too. My evil character was forced to kill the entire Dark Brotherhood [I've forgotten the name of the thing, it's been so long since I played] group? I belonged to, the only people who'd shown my character care. That could have been a major roleplaying feature, but instead worked out flat and boring. The reason? I was forced to do it to progress the questline. If I'd had the choice,I'd still have done it, true, but then my character would have been so much more...interesting and developed, as he'd had the choice.

If a game's sequel is truly worthless then it's probably been ruined because of console newbies:

Serious Sam 2
Thief 3
Deus Ex 2
Wolfenstien
Fear 3

All sequels ruined because of console newbies

Crysis
Deus Ex
Dragon Age: Origins
come to mind...

Definitely not Dawn of War though...failed attempt at a generic strategy game imo. The 2nd one is much more in the spirit of the board game.

Dude, you forgot to clarify that you meant Deus Ex: INVISIBLE WAR. *ducks and runs for cover*

With Serious Sam 2 I never really felt that it was consolish (also note that the console versions of the original game turned out much better than Serious Sam 2 which suggests that the problem lies elsewhere). A certain line from the second level (I think) perfectly summed what its problem was. There Sam asked why Netriska had a voice now and she answered something like "because the budget is bigger this time". Everything that's wrong about Serious Sam 2 can be explained with this ambition to make it bigger and better, really professional, just like all the Call of Doodies and Halos out there. To me it felt like they tried mixing the average heavily scripted "dramatic" AAA shooter with the oldschool mayhem that Serious Sam was and guess what - it didn't blend. I perceived the same problem with NecroVision which was kinda supposed to be a successor to Painkiller but tried so hard to be better and more professional that the result is a dull low-budget clone of Call of Duty with fantasy elements thrown in.

As for Thief 3 - I really don't get the hate for this one. I admit, I've only played Thief 1 and 3 so far so I can't compare Thief 3 to the supposedly perfect Thief 2 but I couldn't complain. Yeah, it sucked that the levels were divided into parts but I didn't feel that the gameplay was watered down, the style and atmosphere of the original game lost or that the visuals sub-par (three things that can be certainly said about Invisible War). I just didn't feel like I was playing the PC port of a console game back then. Guess I'll have to make full run through the series to get what all this fuss is about.

the original Deus Ex is much better than Human Revolution. I can't comment on Invisible War, as I haven't played it.

That's not nostalgia speaking either. I played Deus Ex 1 when it was already about a decade old.

That's kinda how I felt about The Second Encounter, actually. Not that it was more like Call of Duty or Halo, but that it suffered from trying to be bigger and better. Well, I guess it's entirely a matter of taste... I found the clean minimalism of The First Encounter to be refreshing, and the wacky setpieces (bouncy room, bowling, etc) and added mechanics of The Second Encounter just felt superfluous.



Feel the same way about Fallout. Sometimes more isn't better.

You know, we had the exact same discussion on some other thread already and we agreed on the simplicity and unnecessary mechanics thing there. ;) But well, Serious Sam 2 did this stuff on an even higher level than The Second Encounter did, so much that I didn't even bother playing it past level 2 or 3 (plus I believe it ran like crap on the machine I had back then).

ooooohhhh yeah, I remember that.

*sings*

THE CIIIIIIIRRRCCLLLEEEEE OF LIIIIIIIIIIIFE!!

why? It was a good game and unlike the original it didnt look and feel outdated by release date.

I think only of those two for now : Fear Effect, Guitar Hero.

You mean apart from stuff like the ridiculously large HUD and the equally ridiculously small levels, which were both a result of the focus on the very outdated consoles during development? And don't get me started on the dumbed down game mechanics. Yeah, it was a kinda good game on its own but a frankly abysmal Deus Ex installment.