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This article contains minor spoilers for BioShock and Fallout 3.
I finally completed three of the most popular releases in my Xbox 360 collection: Mass Effect, BioShock, and Fallout 3. Although I enjoyed every one of them, I think many reviewers overlooked their many flaws.
Perfect video games don't exisit, even among the biggest blockbuster productions.
As I played through each revered modern classic, I discovered how each game uncovered new capabilities of the current-generation consoles.
Mass Effect presented an exciting new way to play role-playing games. I don't think I've ever had so much fun simply peeking around the corner to fire. Each battle felt like a shootout at the corral. I still hate exploring abandoned planets, but the adventure put a refreshing twist on how to present dialogue and combat in a title.
BioShock was incredibly cinematic. As far as I know, it's one of the prettiest-looking first-person shooters I have ever seen. All the shooting grew a bit redundant, but I love how the entire story played out. The plot twist also spawned an incredibly silly Internet meme. Without giving too much away, I'll just say that the narrative development in question made me want to say "Would you kindly" to every person I met.
Oddly enough, my favorite title of the bunch is Fallout 3, a game that I used to really hate. In the first few hours, I really disliked how the adventure showcased the dialogue. The barren, rusty buildings looked disappointing. They looked more impressive than the ones in the original Borderlands, but I literally had to strain my eyes just to see through the dark corridors.
I slowly started to enjoy Fallout 3 more and more, however. I discovered that I could loot and pillage nearly every single person in the wasteland. Technically, the epic journey had a plot, but I had more fun toying with how the narrative played out.
One of my favorite sections is the special confrontation in Vault 112. I ended up trapped in a virtual-reality world known as Tranquility Lane. Although I was supposed to follow a character's order to kill everyone in town, I decided to try the alternate path by activating a "Chinese Invasion" failsafe code in an abandoned house. I then watched in glee as a band of Chinese commandos killed everyone.
I actually thought I could save the citizens with the failsafe, but this scenario was too funny to watch. Tranquility Lane was just one of many amusing quests throughout my epic journey.
As awesome as all these titles were, none of them were completely perfect. They each provided a new flavor of gameplay, though. Honestly, I hope that all of the big-name developers behind the releases could collaborate together to create the ultimate epic of all time. Chrono Trigger managed to pair SquareSoft with Enix, so I don't see why Bethesda shouldn't collaborate with BioWare or 2K Games.
Unfortunately, business is more intense in the Western world. As much as I'd like to see such a superstar production actually happen, these companies are still at odds with each other. Maybe in 10 or 20 years, everyone could finally learn to team up like the Japanese companies.
Maybe. That would surely blow my mind.
Which other current-generation games would you consider as classics? Let me know in the comments below. I could use some entertaining suggestions.