Recent content by Bernard Bumner

NMA did develop something of a reputation for vigorously dismissing FO3 before much substantial gameplay was shown to the public, mainly based on criticisms of early reveals and Hine's puffery. The fact that those criticisms turned out to be almost entirely well-founded did little to undo the...

Still wandering...

Or, a game with sufficient market appeal to pay for its own existence and was better than Fallout 3. Hopefully, F:NV will prove that Fallout 3 could have been massively improved simply by introducing sensible RP mechanics and and coherent writing.

It turns out that human lifespan is shorter than the duration of the loading-screens required for even a short trip through space. I'm sorry, but until they find a way to place the human mind into suspended animation during those tedious minutes, you're just going to have to stick to that little...

Oh dear. Now I'll probably have to be disappointed all over again. Well, better writing and some kind of coherent plot would be a good start, if that is all they achieve. Let the turd polishing commence...

Don't worry. That IP will be sold to some conscientious developer, which will update the series sympathetically to meet the demands of a modern audience, whilst still remaining faithful to the originals. I mean, that's what they do, right?... Right?

Which would be acceptable, if they were completely honest about the fact that they have no idea about Fallout, but they generally aren't. The majority are spinning the line about capturing the spirit, and even some of those who profess to have never played the originals write about Fallout 3's...

It was actually fairly transparent to anyone with a knowledge of PnP roleplaying. The stats and modifiers intuitively translated into combat ability. Anyway, the system was what it was, and it worked. In this case, Bethesda has retained SPECIAL, but changed the combat system. It isn't clear...

It still isn't clear to me how the integration of SPECIAL stats works in regards to VATS. If VATS works, then it should be a matter of simply plugging in the SPECIAL stats and tweaking the weapons stats for balance. I still haven't seen any PR explaining how combat stats actually work. It...

The fact that anybody thinks that a ten-point scale is a useful way to score a game is baffling to me. This is especially so, given that scores of 1-5/10 seem so much rarer than 9-10/10 - unless I'm the only person who doesn't believe that the games market is so overburdened with immaculate...

The problem being that, for most of the people who've taken their time to explain their reasoning, isn't just a case of different = bad. The difference is that the original Fallouts are classic games, whereas Fallout 3 seems to have many, many problems. So the difference is that the...

Except that it is even worse than that in this case, because they actually inherited a working boat - maybe one that needed a little restoration and some refinement - along with plans for a new and improved boat. All they've done is spent their time sawing bits off and drilling holes in the...

So, the screenshots looked bad, but that was because they were static? The videos looked bad, but that was because it wasn't actual gameplay? The actual gameplay looked bad, but that was because it was being played by console junkies who just wanted combat and didn't care about the...

It may be that Fallout 3 is much, much worse than I'd thought possible. It will be interesting to see how other - and I'm mainly concerned about PC - reviewers judge it. Still, if this information is correct, then it would appear that nearly every element of Fallout 3 has been nerfed to the...

I think I've just worked out what Bethesda does best - commissioning one-sheets. Perhaps they should just go into the framed print market?