I recall seeing a blog along the lines of EA spouse blaming the delays and mismanagement on Chris Parker, and Sega's constant changes to their requirements for the game.

The success of New Vegas is one of the few bright untainted spots in Obsidians development history. "The publisher didn't allow us to take forever and ever, so the project failed" was getting to be synonymous with Obsidian.


KotOR 2 was pretty much a fail with an "impossible to fail" project. Gazillion fans waiting the game like a new messiah, the result a bug-ridden repetitive mess. Although I have to mention I really like the story, classy stuff.

NWN2 likewise. A dedicated following would have been perfectly happy with a graphics update and a new story. What we got, was a bug-ridden mess. There was no computer capable of running it smoothly, and given how there's no multiprocessor support worth mentioning, there never will be. Again, I liked the story quite a bit, but playing the game (and I'm replaying it right now) was and is a painful experience (3 camera control systems and none of them works in any likeable fashion).

NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer. Was as good as it was going to get with NWN2 system. The gameplay still wasn't fun or right, but it was a bit better and the story was just wonderful. A smaller story without the feel of being rushed.

NWN2 Storm of Zehir. Another rush job. The game was already over by then for NWN2. There was a plot, there were some improvements and it wasn't all bad. The modding community is thankful for new ammo, but I doubt it sold well.

Alpha Protocol. Well... I've tried... but didn't find the will to go past the beginnings. Seems like an another one where the pieces just don't click too well.

New Vegas is the bright spot. Get a well developed. pre-debugged game engine and Obsidian can be relied to tell a story with it.

Dungeon Siege 3 looks like another near miss. Sort of maybe good enough but not great. Not going to find out any time soon.

Personally I'm hoping Bethesda will let Obsidian do the next Fallout (or something else entirely) with the Skyrim engine.

It would be criminal to do another Fallout without using the Skyrim engine. Of course, there is no news on whether the new engine will be any less buggy than the old one, but frankly the Fallout games look pretty dated now and could really benefit from it.

I have a bit of a strange relationship with the Fallout games -- I didn't get around to playing the first two until 2-3 years after they were released and while I enjoyed them, I was all over the various Infinity Engine titles by that time, each of which I bought the moment they hit the store shelves and played and re-played so much that the Fallouts were always put on the backburner. So I've never finished the original two and the same goes for Tactics. I own them here on GOG.com now (thanks Interplay StayCation sale!) and definitely intend to finish them some day but right now, once again, other games (including, ironically, Fallout: New Vegas) have taken priority.

A friend of mine really got into Fallout 3 a few years ago, she loved the setting, the open world, the radio DJ, etc. and got me interested in trying it -- I was wary though, as I new the franchise's history and the fan-base's general opinion regarding Bethesda (and I'd never been a fan of their games myself, either) -- but I was, initially, pleasantly surprised by it. I also got bored with it pretty damn quick after that initial surprise and I think this was mostly due to the quests/writing, which I felt was bland and uninspired.

Then I found out that Obsidian was gonna do Fallout: New Vegas, and that got me really excited -- I'm a big fan of what they've done with Neverwinter Nights 2 (yes, the core game was disappointing upon release, but IMO they've turned it into a great series with the expansions and patches over the years and it ranks among my all-time favorite RPG's now) and felt that 1) these guys *know* Fallout, and 2) these guys can write! I didn't buy the game instantly upon release, preferring to wait and watch it a bit from a distance first, but after the horrible disappointment that was Dragon Age 2 I really needed a good RPG fix and went for FN:V. I've been playing it for a while now, taking it slow, with some extended breaks here and there, and I'm really enjoying it! And, yes, this is mostly due to the great writing, quest design and much more cohesive storytelling compared to F3.

So, I don't hate F3 -- it's just not my type of game and I prefer to just forget about/ignore it when thinking about the Fallout franchise. F:NV, to me, is the true modern Fallout game and I hope its success will lead to Bethesda allowing Obsidian to make more Fallout titles.

I think I was pretty unlucky with New Vegas. It was difficult to appreciate a lot of the game's finer points when it caused a hard lock-up every ten minutes.

Fallout 3 and Oblivion weren't exactly bug-free either.

No, they were both terrible. Fallout 3 less so, until the DLC came and made it worse.
But New Vegas is on an entirely different level. Most buggy game I think I have ever played, no idea how it was released in the state it was. And the patches made it worse somehow.

Some people I know had few or no problems, others say it's unplayable. I couldn't tell you as I haven't played it on my PC.

I have played Fallout 2, thoroughly enjoyed it, and never really thought of it as buggy. However, I only played it recently so I did not experience it in a pre-patch state.

Haven't had a single bug (or at least one I noticed as a bug or deem worth thinking about) in New Vegas, but 3 crashed on me regularly for a while. But when it comes down to it every PC game will have bugs even if the dev took pains to test them, because there is no standard video/graphics card or any other component in the PC like the PS3 and 360 has. It's impossible to predict the possible conflicts for all possible combinations of parts. The game probably works "perfect" for them at the office but unless they want to spend and untold amount of money to buy all possible parts and try them out in every combo they can't please everyone. I'm lucky enough to have only ever had real bad problems with Fallout 3 but I get it despite my dislike for bethesda (check my profile tag). On top of the usual problems it is apparent to me that beth is an art company at heart, i would never accuse them of being good at programming or storytelling, so I'm not offended when those are subpar (in my opinion or general). Same for Obsidian, they are a story company, look at their track record for bugs all the back to when they were black isle. I'm not offended or shocked at them. If they gave me a shoddy story I'd be pissed though. I could give the same analysis to many other companies as well. But I think my point is made.

And in defense of New Vegas, 3, and Oblivion. they did have the downside of being run on Gambryo which is not a well oiled engine to say the least. (Though I will note that I am unsure if running Vegas on Gambryo was Bethesda or Obsidian's choice).

Every piece of software has bugs and always will, no getting around it. They are written by humans of course. I think part of the extreme frustration over them is that many people do not actually know or understand what goes into programming an intricate program, and thus expect the moon and stars since they cannot identify with the pitfalls and difficulty. It can't be helped. Everyone just needs to learn to just complain about bugs (that is helpful or at least not terribly annoying) but the hate stemming from it (unless they are ignored by the dev purposefully for some reason or some similarly douchebagy action on their part) is just demeaning to yourselves and showing of you're own ignorance.

NOTE: This is not pointed directly at you Musashi just in general :P

Some games are released in a condition which implies little or no playtesting, where it seems unlikely the devs had the time or money or degree of concern to test the game in its entirety. Verily, there are games which do not seem to run well on anybody's computer.
Would you deny us the right to ever complain about these?

Not that I'm saying any of these qualify. I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, I'm a little curious. I've never really patched Fallout 2 very much, having grown up playing it with an unbelievably slow and inconsistent internet connection. Just what kind of errors did everybody else encounter?

Vegas had a major patch recently - the game's still being supported.

That's one good thing from all those stupid DLC:s (generally not worth the effort IMO), they tend to support a game while it's still being worked on. At least one DLC coming along, doesn't sound too interesting but as long as they fix bugs alongside, I'm not complaining.

Picked the two previous add-ons from steam summer sale, but haven't played them yet, so I*m not all fact-based grumbling here.

Bethesda are the ones who mandated the DLCs. Obsidian are just doing the job they were contracted to do.