Now to rebuild my reputation of being a disagreeable (and disagreeING) git!
Oblivion did not help or fix any problems with Oblivion. The setting went from interesting and unique to the same dark ages England that I'm sure none of us have gotten sick of by now slash sarcasm. The one dimentionality of Morrowinds characters wasn't changed at all. The skills were dumbed down even further then they were in Morrowind from Daggerfall. Aside from the Dark Brotherhood, the quests and factions are utterly banal - you can become high archmagus with your collective magic scores all at zero, and the game never even bothers giving you the illusion of choice. To top it all off, the main quest is one giant escort mission, and the game ends with a demonic invasion of ten enemies (QUITE THE ARMY THEY'VE BUILT THERE) and you're teamed up with the greatest military presence the world has ever known. Which is five soldiers, who can easily kill the invading demons on their own. But don't worry, that's just the end of YOUR role - the game itself concludes in a fantastic battle between the end boss and the DMPC while you stare paralyzed! Because when I think of awesome gripping endings, I think of NPCs fighting other NPCs.
Fallout three is 4/5ths good depending on how you look at it. Bethesda learned in almost all aspects. I'd love to say combat can be boring and easy, but quite frankly, there's something I found inherintly entertaining about going Fist of the North Star on any enemy I saw. I say "depending on how you look at it," because the game could be called Grim and Gritty Adventures in Grey and Brown Land for all it has to do with Fallout. Oh sure, it has a few throw outs, but that's really what they are; throw outs. If you judge it as a Fallout game, it falls short, but if you judge it as a Bethesda game in the future, it excells, and I'm not ashamed to say it's one of the recent games I've really enjoyed in the pitiful wasteland that is modern gaming (especially for us poor RPG fans). So why 4/5ths? Because the ending will ruin you. The ending will ruin you. It will destroy any good feelings you have for the game. For every positive remark about this game that you make up until the ending, you will feel more and more insulted. You will create a blog on the internet just to rant about how much you despise this ending. It really and honestly is that bad. End result? Fun game, do not, for the love of god, do not do the main quest through to the end. Oh, and the radio is awesome because 1) the music is great, and 2) the in game music is horrible.
Mass Effect is entertaining in one and only one way - treat it like a B movie. Something you'd watch with the help of your robot friends. Go max intimidate, grab everyone's collar, and think of it as a so-bad-it's-good action movie. The NPCs are the usual host of whiny co-dependent child-men who could never exist on their own in real life yet somehow have become an elite team of fightan mans, except the whiny co-dependent alien woman romance option and the male jedi (bionics are jedi powers, yes they are) romance option. Those are whiny co-dependent child-men and, well, child-alien, who can not only exist on their own in real life but, quite frankly, would weight about a thousand times more and would live in a house made entirely out of cats. Go for the human woman - she's the only one that approches more then one dimention as a character, even if Bioware fans hate her (most likely because she approches having more then one dimention as a character). You will learn to loathe elevators. And for the love of god, never, ever get in that MAKO, because whoever designed that needs to be shot out of a canon, and not in the cool circus way, but in a way that ensures said person dies in a horrible manner, and is then spread everywhere.
