Obsidian Entertainment

Imagine, for a moment, that Bethesda never took an interest in the Fallout IP. Obsidian would probably claim the IP, given that much of their staff were from Black Isle. Would New Vegas have been the game that they’d make? If so, how would it look without the creation engine? Well, I can say for certain that a lot of things would be different. The BOS and Enclave probably wouldn’t head east, and the backstory of ED-E and his copy would be very different because of that. There’s almost the matter of Chris Avellone having planned to break apart the NCR into warring tribes if he got a hand in making the next Fallout game. Now, lots of Fallout fans(including me) don’t like the sorry state the NCR is in in the tv series. So you can only imagine the reception if Chris brought them down a peg. Hell, would we get a show if the Fallout IP was under Obsidian’s helm? Would the IP ever go east, or leave America entirely? This is a whole can of worms I can’t quite work out. Anyone got any thoughts?

So, I hear Avowed hasn't got the best online reception. Which has me worried for the Outer Worlds 2. But honestly, does anyone else think Obsidian peaked at New Vegas? I mean, who knows if there's anyone left from the New Vegas team. Then there's the fact that they aren't independent anymore, meaning their games are prone to executive meddling from Xbox Game Studios. Look, what I'm trying to say is: our their other works worth checking out? Because I'll be real, I don't know if any of them can compare to New Vegas.

I mean, it's only really feasible if you ignore the drastic timeline differences between NV and The Outer Worlds. So, for the sake of the argument, let's do that.

Though Fallout 5 may be a ways away, I'd still love to see Obsidian's writing and player choice paired with Bethesda's gunplay and quirky characters. And though I don't know the full story, I know that there was bad blood between the two studios. Also, Xbox is putting way too much pressure of Bethesda to deliver with their IP's. So, is there anyway we can rekindle that old bond, or is it dead and done?

Forget New Vegas 2, Obsidian should create Fallout: Arcturus. With aliens. And Spaced Invaders references.

Howdy and welcome back to the weekly meme and discussionless image thread. Got memes? Give ‘em! Have cool things you’ve found, but no where else to show them off? Here’s the place. Posts still have to follow the normal rules, and keep out the politics.

This became a meme of its own by the end. My wizard was also my lockpick, so all mechanics and no athletics made for a very bumpy final 1/3 of the game for poor Aloth. I do think being a bit of a klutz worked for him, though. I struggle to say he was a very serious man because he definitely has a sense of humor, he’s just tied to serious endeavors. For those curious, yes, Isy is still there, but even she cannot help the poor man stick a landing.

When I say outlandish I mean like the creators could have made the game more realistic and have made the enemies not total bullet sponges.

To answer my own question, I'm going to go with Dead Money. First of all, the cloud shouldn't be so hard to evade. Like it's practically everywhere. I get that it's a bunch of pollutants in the air like copper and sulfur, but you should still be able to use the rebreather Jack gives you against it. The radios as well shouldn't interfere with the collar imo but that's just Obsidian making it a cool challenge which I like. The ghost harvesters are kinda tough to beat and they are somewhat bullet sponges, but their history (from what I know) isn't in the game, and they make zero sense to me. The holograms are outlandish I think because the emitters shouldn't be able to reach the long distance they have in the game to project the holograms.

That's what I think anyway! What are your thoughts? What DLC do you think is the most outlandish? Let me know!!

Well, the Xbox one and Xbox Series X|S will get more exclusive games besides Forza and Sea of Thieves, not to mention that the conglomerate known as Zenimax Media will go bye-bye thanks to this turn of events. Oh, and Id Software is of course also part of the Xbox family seeing as they have been part of Bethesda since 2009. What will this mean for the Fallout Franchise, overall?

Don’t know if this has been brought up. But i for one am happy about this because Microsoft also happens to own a little game studio called Obsidion Entertainment. I feel we could have a real case here of the next fallout game being produced by Obsidion as Microsoft has rights over all assets and creative titles of Bethesda meaning Microsoft could decide to give the IP to Obsidion to work on. Just a thought but it gives me hope.

Welcome back to Meme Monday, memeier and now with extra Monday. Do you have memes? This is the thread. Do you have a cool image you found, but have nothing to say other than “looky here” when you share it? Goes here, too.

Last month, played through Kotor for the first time, and funnily enough, the 15 year delay basically coincided with the announcement of a remake for the original. Sadly, it sounds like it’s going to be a PlayStation exclusive at launch, likely to come to PC and unlikely to make it to Xbox, unless the Mouse decides we are worthy. And now that I’m onto Kotor 2, I can safely say, I will never remember that damn ramp exits on the front of the ship.

I know we all have our own idea of the perfect fallout sequel. But I’ve had this idea for a couple years now. I’m just gonna say it. Fallout set in Kansas City MO. The middle of the country. I know it’s been explored a little in previous installments but a full blown game is my dream game. I’m from KCMO, and as someone who knows the sights and atmosphere of the condensed city, it fits the part. Whenever I would walk around old parking garages, I could just imagine an explorer in the post apocalyptic world roaming there. I would love to see Obsidian bring the sentry bots from older fallouts back, but beef them up into giant guardian robots that are scarier than Bethesda’s new sentry bot. Also bring back the original mister handys from the original fallouts. I can just imagine the player character exploring a dark, abandoned factory and see a bright spotlight shining at them and hearing an eerie synthesized voice warn them of approaching, out comes an original handy with six arms. I guess I wish this community tab could help me get in contact with obsidian and tell them my idea without bothering them. But no pressure everybody, it’s just a dream and will most likely stay that way. The game could be all obsidian or a chance for obsidian and Bethesda to work together. They were on opposite coasts, now they meet in the middle with Kansas City. 🙂. Thanks everyone for reading this

I think it would be awesome if Bethesda and Obsidian got together to make another Fallout game. What do yall think? (Also, if there are any others yall would like to see Bethesda work on a fallout game with, discuss it down below, id love to hear yalls thoughts!)

So this was a long time coming, but I really wanted to give this game enough time to run its course so that everyone who was really interested, would likely have a shot at playing by now. Maybe there’s a few hold outs waiting for Christmas, but with game having launched on game pass, I would imagine those would be in the minority. This might contain some spoiler adjacent topics, but generally speaking, I’m trying to avoid going into detail about the story itself.

Why the post here opposed to the TOW wiki? As mentioned a ways back during my first impressions post, not only was TOW developed by Fallout alumni, but the marketing for the game heavily pushed the legacy of the developers and their involvement with the Fallout series. Effectively name dropping the Fallout series twice in the first 10 seconds of its announcement trailer merits a comparison of this so called spiritual successor to franchise it latches onto. This is what I gathered during a roughly 28 hour playthrough, experience with all applicable quests for a standard run, and a few extra hours of testing various other outcomes at key story junctures.

A bite sized experience:

I would not say it became immediately apparent, but by the second new play zone unlocked (not counting the Grounbreaker), I had an accurate sense for the size of the game and what to expect, and by the time of completing opening at Edgewater, most of the mechanics were about as complex as they ever were going to be. There are no lock picking or hacking minigames, and time dilation can only be slightly improved. The final nail in the linchpin defining this game as more of slider rather than burger, was the approach take towards weapons and armor, both common and uniques. While I did enjoy the game well enough that I want to see it be successful for Obsidian and receive a fully-fledged second entry at some point, I do not know that the $60 is worth the purchase when it’s easily available as part of larger games catalogues like Game Pass.

Weapons:

I wanted to start off with what I found to be the most disappointing aspect of the game. One of the comparisons often made in argument of New Vegas being a more fully flushed out than Bethesda’s entries, is the number of available weapons, ammunition types, unique “uniques,” and a damage system where weapons from early game could remain viable throughout. Unfortunately, TOW betrays almost all of these aspects.

Not only are single weapons limited to their ammunition type, but there are only a few types of ammunition which are then applied broadly across the various weapons. There are mechanics revolving around damage type which can be altered by modifying the weapon, a process itself disappoint due to the slightest of visual changes being made. Oh neat, that white light is now red. How stunning. The actual application is fine, not quite a rock, paper, scissors affair, but it is as simple as matching symbols with target types.

While there are a small handful of science weapons which do more than simply output damage, none of the unique versions of regular weapons have any sort of visual distinction separating them from the common drop variant; essentially, this is no different than the F4 approach, but is still a regression from New Vegas.

And worst of all, is the quasi-leveling system and near complete lack of variety through the endgame that we see. Weapons are assigned a level which they will always spawn at, and this does two things: 1) level locks certain items from showing up either too early or two late in game and 2) acts as the only way to artificially expand the weapons pool via 2.0 weapons versions. Keep in mind this is a rough count, since the TOW wiki does not differentiate uniques from their weapons lists, but in reality, there’s only 5 pistols (everything from revolvers to burst fire), 6 heavy weapons (think Big Guns), 10 1h-melee, 10 or 11 2h-melee, 10 “long” rifles (shotguns, snipers, assault rifles, carbines, and anything else that’s neither a pistol nor a big gun), and 5 wacky weapons. 46(ish) total weapons. Only counting common weapons and uniques without a common alternative which were available in base game (no 5.56 pistol prior to GRA for instance), there’s roughly 113 weapons in New Vegas. An overall drop in the number of weapons of (accepting for a little dodgy math here) about 60% of the weapons available in New Vegas. A comparison that I remind you, Obsidian was actively inviting.

Now, aesthetically, I did enjoy most of the weapons available. Heavy weapons as a category was one of the most disappointing, with almost all of its members being unwieldy blocks. Pistols and long rifles split the difference between unremarkable weapons and delightfully stylistic weapons which leaned heavily into the visual themes.

Armor:

Much like weapons, there was a great deal of disappointment in the armor categories. There’s only a few types of armor available in game, and the only real choice presented is which color scheme you would like to see it presented in. After only a few hours, you will have seen almost every single armor set in game, save for perhaps the iconoclast faction armors. The mods do appear to have a greater affected on the appearance of armor, not just the stats, but it can be a mixed bag. The raider armors go from being decent, to comical carnie-like suits fit for the big top. I have little to say about armor because there was little to see.

Armor did provided the single thing I hated most in game. Minor side quest spoiler here, but I would actually suggest reading it to lessen your own expectations, so that the quest does not jade you the same way it jaded me. There is a very long, somewhat annoying quest filled with world hoping (read: a shit load of loading screens) that supposedly culminates in creating a one of a kind, unique suit. A suit so deviant it was ruled not fit for society by the Board… unfortunately, about 40 feet away, there’s a generic rich NPC fiddling with a vending machine who wears the exact same ugly goddam suit. Fucking bafflingly design choice here.

Perks and Flaws

Not that it should be any surprise, but the perks system works. Everything it needed to do, it did. Every perk was utilitarian, few for style or flair, and there was a clear path set for perks which benefited solo players that wished to avoid companions.

What was a little disappointing was the flaws system. Do not confuse these with traits; they are far from being the same. Traits provided a clear gain and loss which were in some way thematically related, and there was a significant degree of player choice involved in determining whether or not that balance tilted in your favor. Flaws are earned seemingly randomly after being hurt by something, that “something” could be anything from fall damage to certain enemy or damage types. But the stat bonuses and penalties were lazy and uninspiring. Rather than some sort of result tailored to the type of weakness most, especially he phobias, only incurred a generic stat debuff when meeting the conditions of your flaw, and the only bonuses are an extra point to spend in the perks pool. On every difficulty save for the hardest, this can literally be ignored, since the choice to accept is optional.

Companions and AI

Overall, the AI in this game is an absolute joke. Enemies and allies both know one recourse: charging headlong into danger without the slightest thought of using cover or in any way mitigating the damage taken. A decade ago, this might not have been terribly noticeable…but the companions out of combat were handled well enough, that at times, I was reminiscing on the squad based cover shooter Mass Effect. This comparison only made it more jarring when everyone in this world was an idiot. I know saltuna sounds bad, but surely it must still be slightly better than hot lead.

But the Companions are alright. They were written well enough that I had favorites that I wanted to see succeed and ones that I thought were insufferable. Was it up to snuff with Bioware? No, not quite. But it was at least approaching the quality of New Vegas and far surpassing F3. Where it compares to F4 is likely up to personal taste, but F4 at the very least had dynamic combat actions and companions who sometimes wanted to survive combat encounters. At times, the TOW companions did feel like their personalities were floating a little too close to just being personified clichés, filtered through the corporate worship in game, especially that one sports idiot that worked the Groundbreaker’s docks. It is a miracle I let him survive at all.

Dialogue

Though I would hesitate to say it eclipses NV, it most certainly comes close. Not in terms of volume of options, in that regard it underperforms against all but F4 and 76, but in terms of ability to impact potential outcomes. Where F4 legendarily had 4 options all amounting to flavors of “Yes,” in TOW, you may only have 5 or so options, but you can bet your ass they are going to have varied responses. There are almost no mandatory “yes” moments in the plot since the game can be completed as a saint, a murderous fiend, and anything in between. I believe it can almost be completed without ever having to kill anyone or by killing absolutely everyone, or it comes very close if not. Because of this, those 5 little options can actually have some room to play with who can live and who can die. Yes, compared to most of the Fallout series, the number of purely flavor options are low, but they are usually there, even if token.

Final Verdict

I ended up with much more negativity written than I had intended, but all of it was accurate. Makes it even stranger to then say I would still highly recommend the game, but that is just as true. On paper, TOW should be a mediocre game which functions just fine (a rare thing among other high profile launches) but had little in the way of ambition. But there is some personality and charm in there that elevate the game. For the first time in a long while, I had that drive to return to the game and play n’ play n’ play for as long as there was more of the world to explore and narrative to unfold. But that’s something I might touch on in a full spoilers review, likely by the time it’s no longer necessary to give warning.

If you have Game Pass? 100% give it a shot. If you plan on buying it…I do not know that it was a large enough experience to justify full price. Being fair to the game, maybe worth $45 based on the $60 value of other new games. That drive to play, however, has yet to manifest in a full second run, so about 30ish hours might be a decent barometer of overall playtime, especially since I tend to waste more time than most while playing these sorts of games.

I keep hearing the term "obsidian is now Microsoft"

I feel like this is from uneducated people who do not know the history of the studio. If you don't know for a long time it was run by tyrants who didn't give Fair wages or Severance packages to people it fired. In addition it's been bankrupt for a long time so having Microsoft money backing it I think is a good thing.

I only mentioned a few problems the studio had. Trust me Microsoft Obsidian is a good thing