As anyone who played one of the earliest Elder Scrolls games can tell you, Bethesda has been doing open worlds before they were even possible.
Bethesda has been making boring games, since before everyone else was making boring games too. I bought and played Arena back in 1993(?) when it was first released. I found it mind-numbingly tedious. The only way Bethesda manages to make those huge game worlds is by re-using the same generic content, over and over and over again. Within a few hours of playing a Bethesda game, a normal person starts wondering why they should bother to explore any new areas, because they will be exactly like a dozen areas they've seen before. Same terrain, same critters, same NPC, same dialog, same loot. Sure, somebody who is easliy amused can play a Bethesda game for years and never do everything they could possibly do, but how sad would that be? And as far as story lines (the great strength of Fallout) - Betehsda games come up nil. Most of their "story" is only an illusion. They drop hints all over the place, alluding to mysteries that never get resolved. I don't want to play a Fallout game where there are notes and books laying around all over the place talking a lot fo blah blah blah that isn't even in the game at all. Prtending taht there is a reason why s-and-so is holed up in a cave conducting dangerous and illegal experiments isn't teh same as PROVIDING a story-basded a reason. It's all just btoo random and arbitrary, the way Bethesda does things. Their version of "story" is just a glorified shooter. And I do believe that the fans of Bethesda games are people who like action games, not RPG fans.
That said, Bethesda games aren't complete junk. I enjoyed Oblivion for a couple weeks when it came out... mainly by playing with teh edieter to see what I could do to spice things up. But Bethesda has never made a "classic" game, and I was kinda crushed when I heard Bethesda had picked up the Fallouty franchise. But then again, who even makes RPGs for the PC anymore? Bioware (and associates) and Bethesda, right? Bioware used to make fun games, but that was 10 years ago. It's a coin toss now, who I'd rather have making Fallout 3, so... whatever. I'm just glad it is getting made at all.
Tom Chick talking about how things used to be (according to his recollection!) has gotten me kind of nostalgic. RPGs were a hell of a lot more fun (and challenging!) during teh late 1980s and early 1990s than they are now. And longer, too! It used to take hundreds of hours to complete an RPG. It takes 20 or 30 hours to mcomplete most RPGs made these days. And developers invest so much time and effort into "eye candy" and bells and whistles now that they can't be bothered to provide much in teh way of content. How many "important" NPCs are there in the average RPG nowadays? 10 oe 12? Not talking about generic but critical quest givers here, I mean NPCs that really add something to the game. How many impoortant BPCs in one of the old Might & Magic games? Or the old Ultimas? And speaking of Betrayal at Krondor... that was a truly classic game. And it was released in 1992, same year as Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, Wizardry 7, etc. A lot of great games came out that year. And Bethesda cleverly realeased their mediocre "Arena" the next year, against no competition, since that was the first year of an RPG drought that didn't end until Fallout, Baldur's Gate and Might & Magic 6 came out in 1998.
I'd say we have been in another RPG drought that began in 1999, except people are releasing RPGs. They just aren't very good ones. Lets all just hope that somebody discovers the lost art of the CRPG before everyone forgets they ever existed at all. The mediocre products we've been getting of late are surely not winning over many new fans. Although Bethesda seems to be doing fine with whatever demographic it is serving. Bioware too... although Bioware seems to be making games for little kids and retards these days. I feel like a spectator when I'm playing any Bioware game since NWN. Good thing the combat is so easy that I still win, even when I'm not sitting in front of my computer, eh? :O
Just to be fair, teh combat in Fallout always needed work. And that is one thing Bethesda DOES know how to do well. So, whatver it's not, Fallout 3 probably will be a good tactical combat game.
PS-Those screenshots really do look a lot like Oblivion. All dark and dreary and rendomly generated landscapes, as far as the eye can see... which isn't far. Dark and dreary suits Fallout, luckily.
