If I sought treatment for my addiction to Bethesda Softworks' games, would the counselors just laugh at me?
You first reeled me in with Arena back in college. You remember that afternoon during the summer quarter when my friend Gwen showed up at my door in those tiny jean shorts and bikini top, her roommate wearing the same and toting a small cooler full of margarita fixins? They were heading down to the river – the Ogeechee, as I recall – to a thin, sandy patch of riverbank that a few folks called "The Beach." We probably would've been all alone there, you know. But I just HAD to get my Khajiit character through Fang Lair, didn't I? Gwen forgave me later, but the confusion on her face when I turned her invitation down that day was, shall we say, very meaningful.
Why did you do that to me, Bethesda? It's not like I receive an offer like that every day…or decade.
You made me punch my big, expensive monitor with Daggerfall. That game was awful, even after I applied the mail-ordered patch (how did we ever function without the Internet?), yet I kept going like a man sifting through a mountain of manure for a penny until the futility of it all got the best of me.
I was a new dad when Morrowind came along, and my boy wasn't much of a sleeper, so I had to use whatever time I could to catch up on winks. That doesn't mean you and I were strangers, though, even then. Do you remember that time when I tried to play with Eli on my lap, and he cried when that Golden Saint got all up in my grille? He still gives mannequins a wide berth to this day. I'll accept the blame for that one, but I just couldn't help myself. Vvardenfell just kept calling to me, day and night; and this from a guy who was able to quit a 15-year smoking habit cold-turkey.
Oblivion. The name says it all. What kind of idiot would try to role-play three different characters – one from each major class – through a game of that size? Me. I did. Your junkie pal. Flash-forward two-and-a-half years later and I was behind on all of my other games by nearly twice that amount of time.
So I did the math and reckoned that I started Fallout 3 sometime in early February – although I might've actually started earlier than that and only backed up my save files for the first time then. I ran two characters through this time – one purely good, one purely evil – even though their experiences weren't all that different. I'm glad I did, though; blowing Megaton into its component elements with my evil avatar was really neat. It's June now and life is short, so I ask again, Bethesda: why? Why so big? Why so time-consuming? Why so doggone entertaining?
You removed a lot of the repetitious conversations and added more scripted sequences to Oblivion's engine this time, and I thank you for that. You widened the pool of excellent voice actors slightly, drew the Wasteland's borders a bit closer to reduce all that trudging between provinces, and added the VATS to give some battles a nice turn-based feel. Overall, you took the massive marvel that was Oblivion and gave it a welcome spit-shine.
My only complaint is that Fallout would crash bizarrely to the desktop if I spent any time in small, unpopulated spaces. I had to bring along a Follower just to get to the top level of SatCom Array NW-03d or else my system would freeze as soon as I entered that one empty room below the main dish. Surely that came up during one of your test cycles, eh? You knew that I'd keep playing -- keep "chasing the dragon" in junkie parlance – despite the bugs just to get to those Mini Nukes at the summit.
Other software designers must hate you: $40 for five months of entertainment must leave them sorely wanting for fans. I have a disc case full of neglected titles on my bookshelf right now, with everything published in 2010 and the first half of this year waiting for me (and, Lordy, but look there: is that New Vegas I see on the horizon?). I fell behind again, and it's your fault.
You wonderful bastards.