A little while ago I borrowed Fallout 3 from a friend of mine. I'd enjoyed Mass Effect very much on my Xbox 360, and was looking for another RPG to fill the big BioWare-shaped hole that had suddenly appeared in my gaming life. Fallout seemed to be an obvious choice, it had received very positive reviews and I had quite enjoyed the previous titles in the series.
I think in the first week I had the game I spent a full day playing it. I thought it was absolutely brilliant how you were just plunged into this huge, immersive living world.
However as I spent more time playing the game, something changed. It's hellishly addictive, but the addiction seems to lead nowhere. The more I played, the less what I was doing seemed to matter. I came to realise that the world, though huge, was just an ugly, flabby, empty mess. Far worse though, it never seemed to be alive - the people and towns clearly existed for the sole purpose of providing quests and buying weapons, and you never gained any insight whatsoever into their lives amd personalities. I know there was an overarching plot in there somewhere, but I never found it very compelling and always ended up getting distracted and wandering off into the wasteland. Before long, my experience of Fallout 3 consisted almost solely of managing the inventories of myself and Star Paladin Cross so we could lug as much loot as possible back to Megaton. For me, levelling up and getting better weapons is not a good enough motivation to play a game, I like RPGs to be about the story and characters first. So, I saw how much time I was spending in the Capital Wasteland doing essentially nothing, and quickly got rid of the game, leaving it incomplete. And I'm glad I did.
I was wondering if anyone has ever had a similar sort of experience with a game, where you've bought it, loved it for a while, then realised some pretty fundamental flaws that caused your opinion to change both quickly and dramatically? Why did you fall in love with it in the first place, and what caused you to subsequently -*ahem*- fall out?
I think in the first week I had the game I spent a full day playing it. I thought it was absolutely brilliant how you were just plunged into this huge, immersive living world.
However as I spent more time playing the game, something changed. It's hellishly addictive, but the addiction seems to lead nowhere. The more I played, the less what I was doing seemed to matter. I came to realise that the world, though huge, was just an ugly, flabby, empty mess. Far worse though, it never seemed to be alive - the people and towns clearly existed for the sole purpose of providing quests and buying weapons, and you never gained any insight whatsoever into their lives amd personalities. I know there was an overarching plot in there somewhere, but I never found it very compelling and always ended up getting distracted and wandering off into the wasteland. Before long, my experience of Fallout 3 consisted almost solely of managing the inventories of myself and Star Paladin Cross so we could lug as much loot as possible back to Megaton. For me, levelling up and getting better weapons is not a good enough motivation to play a game, I like RPGs to be about the story and characters first. So, I saw how much time I was spending in the Capital Wasteland doing essentially nothing, and quickly got rid of the game, leaving it incomplete. And I'm glad I did.
I was wondering if anyone has ever had a similar sort of experience with a game, where you've bought it, loved it for a while, then realised some pretty fundamental flaws that caused your opinion to change both quickly and dramatically? Why did you fall in love with it in the first place, and what caused you to subsequently -*ahem*- fall out?
H. when I realized I had to trudge through that one dungeon over and over and over and over and over and over.... 
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