Another Thing About New Vegas...

Yup... we're still here.

Well, I'm actually writing this ten minutes after writing the last Randomly Mine, so that's my context. Anyway, back into the Wastelands!

Once again, Fallout New Vegas has made me appreciating MODERN GAMING.

That's not a diss, I'm having a great time playing New Vegas. Its honestly kind of amusing how into it I am, like I was 10+ years ago when I played Fallout 3 and Oblivion.

There's just something about roaming a post-apocalypitic map with a beautiful ambient song in the background, not knowing what's around the corner is going to make you laugh, cry, or cripple your legs and force your poor character to chug five bottles of Root Beer, that is just compelling.

However, one thing I've noticed as time passes by is how much more context there is in a modern game like compared to golden oldies like New Vegas.

I'm not even talking about story.

Just things like...

Conversation options.
Conversation backdrops.
Conversation tone.

And then, outside of conversations, idle-animations, body-language, even character placement.

While I loved Cyberpunk from the start, I knew from the start that it wasn't a reactivity benchmark (insert Alpha Protocol here). The main-quest is Mass Effect linear with V's big choices really being saved for the end, which while I prefer over having every player arrive to the same chokepoint before the credits roll, I think we all prefer to have both relevant choices at the start AND the end...

Along the way too.

Because of this, I was curious to see back then how Cyberpunk's reputation would change over time, given that RPGs get "tested" more than maybe any other genre by their fans. Games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Fallout 3 go from GOTY contenders and winners to being considered "meh' or worse once it becomes apparent their alleged flexibility doesn't come to pasture.

Cyberpunks reputation did change, but not because its reactivity... instead, it's detail.

Whether its spotting Panam's first meeting with Nash, catching Blue Eyes in the background during side-quests, Silverhand commenting on almost everything you do, calling Jackie's phone, the man outside Misty's shop, and that's before Phantom LIberty...

There's just so much realized in games today that previously, due to deadlines, team-size, technology, game-scale, and in the case of New Vegas, probably all of the above, is left to either imagination or assumption.

Blowing up gangsters in Goodsprings with the help of everyone within the community has all the production value of a school-play, and everyone speaks with the enthusiasm of having watched one.

Meanwhile, we've got games with sub-sections that live rent-free in my head because of a particularly breathtaking backdrop, music sting, or line of dialogue. Some would argue these have nothing to do with video-games in-particular, that they don't take advantage of the artform, but having covered several games where style is the substance, I just can't agree.

What I can agree is that there's room for multiple styles of video-games.

What was previously a development necessity in Fallout New Vegas, can become a development decision and philosophy in Baldurs Gate 3, taking the concepts further than what was possible in the past.

I don't want to visit the alternate world where Larian decide to drop what they'd been building to over years of commitment, just to make their own Dragon Age Inquisition, in the name of broader appeal or copy/pasting another game's success.

I'd rather be in the place where two companies had their own distinct visions of how an RPG should be developed, and realized both to their fullest extent.

Which luckily, is ours.