Ha, we probably used a lot of the same mods on Oblivion. My character is pretty damn cute despite Bethesda's best efforts. And yeah, don't even get me started on their animation. Jumping is the tip of the incompetent iceberg. I don't know how you played it in 3rd person. Looks ridic!

I actually think BioWare's stuff is incredibly boring from what I've played. And now that they're on the scammy DLC bandwagon, I'll only buy their games used and on the cheap if at all. Black Isle's old WRPGs were masterful. I also *really* got into Might & Magic VII (and bought I-VI, but never got around to installing 'em). Then there's the European "W"RPGs like Gothic and The Witcher that I really like as well (although Gothic's interface is among the strangest and most user-antagonistic of all time).

Completely Unrelated Topic: What's Kago been doing recently? You still following her? I stopped paying attention shortly before she released her first post-scandal solo single.

Thing is, they really do suck. And I'm not even trolling. They're good at building giant worlds, but are absolutely incompetent when it comes to the actual "game" part, although they've come closest with Fallout 3. Even slathered in mods, there's only so much that can be fixed when the whole affair is shit on a fundamental level, as was the case with Oblivion: UI, gameplay mechanics, polish. They just have no idea what they're doing. And have proven they don't learn, as the vast majority of issues found in Morrowind and Oblivion, are present and accounted for in Fallout 3.

The only reason Bethesda stays afloat is so few other developers are willing to tackle these kinds of ginormous open-world RPGs, and there's a definite market for them. As soon as somebody competent comes along and delivers big on this genre, they're done.

I say all this as a relative long-term fan of WRPGs. I have no axe to grind there. They really are completely different games from JRPGs, and shouldn't be compared as though they're both striving for the same goals.

So I demo-ed the game!
It was pretty nice.
Although it was definitely different from what I expected.
Still good.

Recomendation success!