Company News GameSpot remembers Black Isle

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Black Isle Studios

<a href=http://www.gamespot.com>GameSpot</a> posted a <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/features/6085963/p-2.html>history</a> of <b>Black Isle</b> talking about old games and good times
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<blockquote>Fallout is one of the best, and, I contend, one of the most misunderstood computer role-playing games ever. It received critical acclaim for its open-ended nature. Using the game's "S.P.E.C.I.A.L." character-creation system (an acronym that stands for the character attributes of strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck), you could produce a great variety of different characters, like an eagle-eyed sniper, a heavy weapons specialist, a charismatic diplomat, a nimble knife fighter, an experienced wilderness scout, and others. It also let you travel just about anywhere across a fictitious and highly irradiated version of the United States. This included areas designated for low-level starter characters to the very final areas of the game. However, Fallout was also a highly compact game and actually had an end in sight. You had plenty of time to meet interesting characters and could solve frontier disputes in your adventures. However, most of your time was spent adventuring--not wasting dozens of hours fighting wave after pointless wave of the same monsters or walking mile after pointless mile. When you were finished (because finishing the game before getting bored of it was actually feasible), you'd want to play through it again as a different sort of character. When Black Isle was officially created in 1998, as a result of the development of the sequel Fallout 2, this vision seemed lost. Fallout 2 did preserve many of the features of the original Fallout, but it was also a long-winded, sprawling game that was, in many ways, more linear than the original game</blockquote>
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Kinda makes you want to take the Fallout disk out of the frame on the wall and play that nimble knife fighter for old times sakes
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPGDot</A>

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

At least someone admits Fallout 2 is less than Fallout in terms of quality.

 

[EEVIAC]

This sort of reminiscence is pretty pointless. Its tantamount to journalistic "me too"-ing. Who cares if Gamespot or GameBanshee or whoever the fuck puts up "tribute sites" now. If the larger gaming sites had some spine and decided to stand behind good games, read the shit-smeared writing on the inside of any Interplay press-kit that stated FALLOUT FOR CONSOLES WILL BE THE DEATH OF FALLOUT FOR PC, and refused to cover IPLY's digital console abortions, Fallout might actually have a future.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That's a damned good point, and GameSpot is extremely guilty of this. They were one of the first ones to post a preview of that shitty console game that rapes the name of Fallout, IIRC. They've gone out of their way to pimp it, including getting exclusive movies, hands on impressions, and so forth.

Yeah, nice tribute, but EEVIAC is totally correct that GameSpot is one of the ones who could have done something other than just pimp a shit product in order to rake in hits. To say that Fallout was great for such and such reasons following the testicle tickling they've done in order to promote Fallout Enforcer is just plain incredible. The key word in journalistic integrity is integrity, after all.

 

[Aldin]

*shrug*

Still inaccurate. As a Cali resident I can assure you that travel over a large portion of the US wasn't remotely possible. I suspect this is another case of someone who's read the reviews but never played the game...

*sigh*

~Aldin

 

[Rosh]

It also let you travel just about anywhere across a fictitious and highly irradiated version of the United States.

Very good observation, Aldin. I hate it when those media whores post ignorantly about these topics. Some idiot is going to cause irritation about how BIS made Fallout Tactics as well, and knowing my luck, it will be on my own forums.

Fuck GameSpot.

 

[Rayt]

That's a damned good point, and GameSpot is extremely guilty of this. They were one of the first ones to post a preview of that shitty console game that rapes the name of Fallout, IIRC. They've gone out of their way to pimp it, including getting exclusive movies, hands on impressions, and so forth.

Yeah, nice tribute, but EEVIAC is totally correct that GameSpot is one of the ones who could have done something other than just pimp a shit product in order to rake in hits. To say that Fallout was great for such and such reasons following the testicle tickling they've done in order to promote Fallout Enforcer is just plain incredible. The key word in journalistic integrity is integrity, after all.

Wouldn't that only be the case if they were all written by the same guy? In this case, some console editor/writer wrote the FOBOS previews (or just copy-pasted the press material, judging by the raving positivism) and another, probably the pc rpg editor or writer, wrote this tidbit about Black Isle. I'd agree with you if the same guy wrote both hystericly postive about FO:BOS and then later on mourned BIS and the Fallout series.

Since Gamespot/ Gamespy/IGN/etc are such huge websites and have a massive staff who each have their own opinions about what makes a game a game, I think it's inevetible (?) to get things like this. Some console reviewer looks at FO:BOS and thinks it's going to be a decent action game and applauds certain aspects (like big guns and explosions) that make these games. Which doesn't mean these opinions are shared by the rpg pc games reviewers. Or that they're interested in the game in the first place. It's like editorials in a newspaper, they can contradict each other, criticise their own (the paper) articles or have a different stand on matters than the paper generally has. That doesn't mean the journalistic integrity of the paper is at stake.

Point is that the Fallout games were rpg heaven for pc gamers and the reviewers recognised that. FO:BOS is going to be a mediocre action game for the Xbox, which means that it's marketed towards a completely different audience and is most probably reviewed by a completely different reviewer who finds things important that have nothing to do with the original Fallout games, like explosions, big guns and fast action. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Gamespot is for all gaming platforms and all types of games which means you automaticly get a truckload of different opinions, as opposed to for example RPGcodex, which only covers rpg games for the pc.

 

[EEVIAC]

Since Gamespot/ Gamespy/IGN/etc are such huge websites and have a massive staff who each have their own opinions about what makes a game a game, I think it's inevetible (?) to get things like this. Some console reviewer looks at FO:BOS and thinks it's going to be a decent action game and applauds certain aspects (like big guns and explosions) that make these games. Which doesn't mean these opinions are shared by the rpg pc games reviewers. Or that they're interested in the game in the first place. It's like editorials in a newspaper, they can contradict each other, criticise their own (the paper) articles or have a different stand on matters than the paper generally has. That doesn't mean the journalistic integrity of the paper is at stake.

Comparing a mass-gaming-media-whore site (in their current state) with an actual published newspaper, with a REAL reputation, is laughable. It all stems from this ridiculous notion that its perfectly acceptable to post dross, especially "professional" dross, so long as its on the internet. Its like information gathered on the internet is expected to be of sub-standard quality to that which is published in dailies or journals. Bullshit - the same basic precepts of writing will always apply.

The problem, as I see it, is that a majority (if not all) of the bad press about the game was doled out by "crackpot" sites which IPLY and Vivendi and whoever couldn't give a shit about. Now if Gamespot and Gamespy got together and said STOP RAPING FALLOUT!, they might have listened. But they didn't, they didn't even publically rebuke their own console arms - they took their free beer and hookers and copy/pasted the press-kit nonsense. So writing an obituary detailing their deep love for a game they didn't lift a finger to try and save is insulting to me.

The only people that win in this situation is the gaming sites - IPLY are still left with their piece of shit game because no one with any clout (read : people with money or advertising space they need to break even,) had the guts to tell them what a mistake they were making. Fallout fans might have been right but they've lost Fallout. The gaming sites still get their daily content and advertising dollars though.