Thumbs on Fire’s Random Awards of 2010: Most Abusive Developer Award
Obsidian, you and I need to sit down and have a talk. I love you, I mean I really do. You’ve got all these grand dreams and lofty goals of making some of the best western RPG’s in the bizz, and I really dig that.
I mean, a Mission Impossible-esque spy game with Mass Effectian dialogue options and a deep plot that has multiple endings? That sounds great! Oh, and you’re also going to put out a sequel of sorts to Fallout 3, one of my favourite games of the last couple years, only with even more factions and a better story? It’s like you have the keys to my heart, Obsidian.
It’s like you have the keys to my heart and you broke them.
Man, remember in Alpha Protocol when I shot this guy ‘cause I thought he was a mole? That was awesome!
I mean what the hell happened this year? Alpha Protocol was so close to being amazing, but you guys just couldn’t get the combat right. Not to mention the stealth abilities kind of broke the game, and to call the AI retarded would almost be complementary. And the boss battles! The insanely difficult, only-way-to-win-was-to-glitch-the-system god-damn boss battles.
I had literally been waiting for Alpha Protocol since the moment it was unveiled, years back, and I tried so hard to like it when it came out. I really did. But I just couldn’t give it a pass.
Man, remember in Alpha Protocol when I had to re-do that boss battle a dozen times ‘cause my character wasn’t spec’d out right? That fucking sucked!
And then, just when I felt like I was ready to forgive you, Obsidian, you release Fallout: New Vegas, a game that was so goddamn buggy I got the flu playing it (Note: That’s actually true, but I think it might have been unrelated). I can count a number of quests off the top of my head that just wouldn’t work, I can’t count off the top of my head the number of times I got stuck in a mountain or the landscape. Oh, and the six hours I lost when the game stopped recognizing my save file broke my heart, Obsidian. It really did.
And New Vegas had so much going for it too…
I’m not giving you this award because I hate you Obsidian, it’s because I love you. Everything you guys make is always so goddamn close to being my favourite thing of the year, but you always manage to find a way to ruin it. Without fail. I sincerely hope that 2011 is the year you guys break out of this mold. Please, not just for my sake, but yours.
Oh, and I also haven’t forgotten what you guys did to the ending of Knights of the Old Republic 2; that shit still stings.
