The Best of Kotaku, This Week

By Tina Amini Published August 25, 2012 |

Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week’s best content.

I sure do feature a lot of Mario in these Best of round-ups. That just speaks to how iconic Mario remains, that so much art is based off of him and his games. Well, here’s Mario mashed up with Limbo to a delightful and yet terrifying prospect. Yeah, I’d play it. Thanks to StudioTamago!

Moving on to our Best Of content this week, we kick things off as usual with a comment from the community.

The Best Comment From The Community

Our favorite comment of this week comes to you from Smashboozer:

https://lastchance.cc/how-real-world-morals-and-video-game-choices-fit-togeth-5936391%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E%3Cdiv class="not-prose my-8 -mx-4 xs:mx-auto">

It’s strange because it tries to tiptoe the line of black/white morality in game mechanics while simultaneously trying to show various shades of grey through the storyline. I agree, the tone of how survival is imperative to Fallout, yet everything will fight to the death/aggro as soon as you get in range is a bit of bullshit. I’m not sure if it’s just the limitations of our tech/the budget/design of Fallout in general, but I wish they could have fleshed it out a bit more.

Interestingly, I feel that Skyrim did a much better job when in comparison, when it really could justify being a black/white system compared to Fallout. The dark humor and environment of Fallout leads itself to a grey area of survival being morally ubiquitous, while Skyrim having deities of varying power and ability to influence your character WOULD seem more restrictive, yet it’s a better designed system and feels more free form then NV. I haven’t played anything else from the Fallout series, but judging by game mechanics and implementation I can see why it plays the way it does; It’s not a sandbox and doesn’t really ever represent itself as one, it’s a very story driven game, which makes open world choices harder to implement, ect.

I’d love to see a sort of role reversal when it comes to the handling of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, not that either game should be overly restrictive when it comes to choice, but that Fallout should be more lenient, more free form then The Elder Scrolls. TES can have it’s deities that punish/reward/ignore the player based on moral choices and maybe the factions can be a little more cut and dry (I feel Nord vs Imperial was done respectfully well).

I mean, yeah I can learn to be a doctor/melee master in Fallout:New Vegas because I shot enough Rad Scorpions, whatever I’ll accept that. I greatly prefer Skyrim’s levels-as-you-use-it approach, but without the whole DERP cutting/combing a bunch of skills at the same time.)

Honestly they just need to combine Obsidian/whoever the hell is developing TES series and give me a great open world game with a well done storyline and good combat.

Also; Cliff Racers should be in EVERYTHING.