Long time coming

Feeling like a farmer who, after tilling a sizeable field by hand, mutters "that's done" and moves on to the next task, I finally — after 185 hours and seven minutes — finished my playthrough of Fallout 4 and retired my character to her cosy Red Rocket stronghold.

Credit where credit's due, Bethesda learned from the repetitive nature of Fallout 3 environments and created an (almost) seamless game world that can catch you off guard with how genuinely pretty it sometimes is.

Straddling Trinity Tower and seeing downtown Boston unravel below like a photogenic carpet; gazing into the depths of the Old Gullet sinkhole; or just taking a stroll through the Glowing Sea, with its mesmerizing discharges of radioactive-green, make it clear that crafting intricate environments is one of the studio's staples (and, possibly, favorite aspects of game development).

Writing and gameplay, on the other trotter, ain't.

Given the "meh" summation of Fallout 4 gameplay in my review, it won't surprise you I found the experience underwhelming. I didn't much care for the "plot" to begin with (forcibly saddling the player with a spouse and kid only to whisk them away moments later emotional attachment does not make); but placing its conclusion at the tail-end of almost 200 hours' worth of Combative Inventory Management was definitely a misstep. By the time I finally found Shaun, I could hardly remember why he mattered and was more intent on Finishing The Game than Indulging The Experience.

Given its preoccupation with environments, I was also surprised by how little effort Bethesda put into the end of the game.

In my ending (having had opposed The Institute), I got to watch the Commonwealth Institute of Technology erupt in a spectacular explosion that engulfed all of downtown Boston in smoke and, literally, wiped the C.I.T. off the (PipBoy) map...

Imagine my surprise, then, that – after donning my trusty Hazmat suit and heading to where the C.I.T. used to be – I found it completely intact and merely covered in the same green haze as the Glowing Sea... You'd think Bethesda, with its level-building fetish, would have seen the explosion as an opportunity to craft a big old nifty crater, or something.

But maybe, by that point, they were as tired of working on the game as I was of playing it...

Thinking of Troika

Cain, Boyarsky and Anderson. Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil and Bloodlines. Sierra, Atari and Activision. Three devs, three games, three publishers... And, okay, a studio that lasted seven years. Can't have everything neatly align: people would get suspicious...

After, recently, rediscovering the joy that is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura and Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines (and, I'll admit, seriously debating the purchase of The Temple of Elemental Evil, just to complete the set); it's occurred to me that – for the most part – it's studios run by people with passion, rather than Financially Viable Enterprises, that produce worthwhile gaming.

Meh-esda's been around for, what, nearly forty years? And all they've managed to produce is the same, Expansive But Ultimately Boring, template several times over. Re-skinned, to be sure, and, doubtless, not without any appeal, but – vapid: more concerned with scale than substance and overly reliant on Combat And The Acquisition Of Stuff... Walk here, kill that, lockpick a cabinet – here's a shiny whatsit. Rinse and repeat.

By comparison, Troika was a blip of an outfit. Just three games in seven years... But you know what? Despite their bugginess, even though not all mechanics fired on all cylinders and the Production Polish (TM) could hardly boast an even application, each one of the three was unique. A brand new idea, every time. Fresh mechanics, a plot that didn't boil down to "keep walking and shooting and things'll work out in the end;" intricate writing that allowed the player to actually role-play.

Longevity is advantageous, but it's not without its pitfalls. What starts out as "making games" can quickly turn into "making profitable games" and eventually into "turning a profit." Forty years in, Safeguarding The Business probably becomes as (if not more) important as Doing What You Love.

I don't wish Bethesda ill, but – given the option – I'll always favor devs like Troika. It's better to speak memorably once than stick around blabbing for ages without having anything to say...

Wind your neck in, madame Pres

Speaking of "memorable" — recall that bit in Phantom Liberty when you fight your way to the burning wreck of Space Force One and Rosalind Myers pops you in the noggin with a rifle stock? I got that far yesterday, except – this time (a first) – with a character rocking 20 Body, which allowed me to restrain the panicky politician and deliver a scrumptiously cheesy line.

I swear, it seems like for every instance of railroading or closed-minded design CP2077's Better Angels swoop in and plop down a golden tidbit to balance things out.

Oh – and I hacked an AV prior to the SF1 shootout, too, (nothing short of magic for an Intelligence of 3); which saw it veer and 'splode while Songbird was unspooling exposition in the control booth of an industrial crane. So much for reinforcements...

My third Cyberpunk playthrough will be the first one to comprehensively showcase all of the changes from 2.12. I've already seen some of the differences (mostly new item placement) and – honestly – at this stage, I'm no longer sure what's new and what I simply didn't notice before (like that gun case addressed to a certain Mr. Wick — was that always there?). Bottom line, CP2077 still delivers, which – coming from a pig (redacted)-hundred hours in – is saying something.

Whatever you're playing – whichever playthrough that makes – I hope you're still getting a kick out of it.

Pig — out.