Bethesda Blues

My particular corner of the internet is full of coverage on the imaginatively titled PlayStation 4 right now. It's exciting, and I missed all of it. I didn't stay up for the livestream, and a day of office-y stuff means that the only PS4 coverage I've been able to catch has been on my phone while on the bus this morning. So, whilst I digest all the (likely) amazing numbers and graphics, a guest post from a friend of mine, who is possibly a bigger gaming nerd than I am. Think of him as my new resident expert in first person RPGs. A genre I tend to stay away from, because I just don't click with them.

Skyrim. Arguably one of the greatest RPGs on the modern day console. Perhaps equally rivalled in my opinion by Fallout 3/Fallout New Vegas. Both of which are supremely competent in delivering a fresh, vibrant atmosphere that really draws you in. One flaw however. That moment where you’ve battled through hordes of enemies, used a considerable amount of arrows/ammo open the door to the final boss/leader of a gang and you’re excited to get some awesome loot and get some major experience or possibly an achievement/trophy and then… oh. Its froze on the loading screen. Bugger. Hard resetting the console, load up and…! OH! You haven’t saved for a while and the autosave isn’t from that door! It’s… from a few doors back… you know… through all those enemies?

Frustrating isn’t the word. I’ve been playing video games since I was 5, and the awesome colours and soundtrack to Sonic the Hedgehog on the Mega Drive fuelled an obsession that still burns bright now, 19 years on. But since the advent of DLC and extra in game content, the world of video games is as ever changing as the Wasteland. But for some games its more trouble than it’s worth in my opinion.

So, back to my main point… WHYYOUFREEZEEPICGAMES? Fallout 3, epitome of awesomeness, made even more awesome by 5 DLC Quests as it were. Now, I purchased the GOTY edition on PS3 and was pleased as punch! All 5 DLC packs at once. Epic! No. Apparently the code is only strong enough to support 3 of the DLC packs, as 5 prove too much for the game to handle! Constantly freezing, often just going into VATs mode froze the entire game, forcing a hard reset. Ridiculous. I found this happened increasingly often in the Mothership Zeta DLC; potentially because (after googling) it was the last DLC pack I had left to do, and the game struggled to load it. This, coupled with the fact it was actually a bloody hard bit of DLC, meant it forced me to put the game down for a few months! I just couldn’t bear to play it. I did, and bossed it, and now I’m happy again but there’s still that odd moment where I load a new area or enter VATs mode and boom. Frozen. That’s the gripes out the way, but it is relatively minor I guess in comparison to the rest of the game. It’s beautiful. As a quick side point, how awesome is the Cowboy Repeater in Fallout: New Vegas? One of my favourite weapons.

Skyrim is completely the same, beautiful game, delicious storyline, ample sidequests, but it’s a HUGE game. This game froze long before DLC was released. There is always an awkward moment where it freezes on the loading screen for a new area and you think… ‘Do I turn my Xbox on and off? Will it corrupt my save file? (Which is 100 hours +)’ Games shouldn’t do this; it is the responsibility of the studios to ensure the game on the shelf is as close to perfect as it can be. This again was a reason I put Skyrim down for a month or so before completing it… that and Halo: Anniversary. (GrownupGamer's note: That's just on Xbox. Think how the PS3 owners feel. They've had to put up with the famous framerate issue and a huge DLC delay.)

Those games are just two from a possible massive list but they are two that are my favourites and quite frankly have been spoiled on the whole by the incessant glitching and freezing. (Fallout 3 more so, admittedly) but what do they have in common? Bethesda. Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an attack on a fantastic games studio… oh no. Merely a gripe about a major chink in its armour. Bethesda have massive potential, just need to fine tune the DLC problem and I think quite possibly will make it to the coveted top spot of my favourite games developer. (2K currently hold this honour – for their blinding Borderlands and Bioshock games). 

However, the most recent Bethesda game I purchased was Dishonoured. Unfortunately this has not even made it to my disc tray yet! (Which after reading numerous reviews seems an abhorrent idea) but I just simply have not had the time. Although I am eager to scale the heights of Dunwall I am cautious. Cautious of getting so deeply involved in a game that if/(when?) it freezes I will be disenchanted and my faith will have plummeted once again. Hopefully I will be proven wrong. Only time will tell, and with the release of DLC already for Dishonoured, will this be enough or will there be more? Either way; just the look of this game excites me.  

(GrownupGamer's note: Fear not Guest Blogger! Dishonored is only published by Bethesda. All of the developmental heavy lifting was done by Arkane Studios. I've played it and didn't see a single glitch.)