Let's Talk About How Saturday's Announcements Were Geek-Prophecy

The VGAs. They're pretty lame. Even if they do give the awards to the deserving, whatever legitimacy it has is lost beneath the advertising and flashing lights and how it seems like 3/4ths of the people who appear at the awards don't really know what video games are. But, people do tune in, which gives some developers reason enough to showcase what they're working on. In this case, two of the greatest RPG developers of all time, BioWare and Bethesda, chose the VGAs as their moment to step out and show off their wares.

And it was pretty awesome.

MASS EFFECT 3

Good golly, that was a nice looking trailer, and I honestly hadn't been expecting the last game to take place on Earth at all. It's very clear that BioWare's very proud of themselves, as well as this game, since they've been teasing this one minute trailer for a little over a month now with a bunch of silly barcodes. Still! I can't complain.

I'm very excited to see how it all comes to an end. I've laid down some harsh criticism of the games since I first got my hands on them, but they are some quality experiences. Maybe they're not technically RPGs, maybe the choices you make don't amount to much else than brief references later on...and maybe there wasn't much of a story in ME2...and maybe you spent the entire game working out family issues...and maybe...

Anyway, I do love those games. Shepard's story is one worth following, and I'm very glad that I've followed it for as long as I have. Again, very excited for this one.

THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM

I must admit, I never got a chance to play Morrowind, so my heart will always belong to Oblivion, the game that let you level up your aerobics by jumping around. I played that game for hours unending, exploring every bit of the world I was powerful enough to explore, breaking into as many homes as I could, selling as many stolen goods as I could. That game is still one of my favorites, so I am obviously very excited to see Skyrim is well on its way.

It'll be sporting a brand new engine in a brand new region. I don't know much about the provinces outside of Cyrodiil, but I can imagine it'll epic.

I keep wondering what they might change, what they might keep. RPGs seem destined to be streamlined into movie format, but I wonder if Bethesda will fall prey to this. I hear from the Morrowind faithful that things were lost in translation between it and Oblivion's release, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what they could have streamlined. Oblivion seemed like the "everything and the kitchen sink" kind of game.

The only thing I hope they change is the combat and implement the conversation system from Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Can't think of much else, though.

What sucks is that both ME3 and Skyrim have their release dates set for the end of next year which, according to math, means that we'll be waiting nearly an entire year to get our hands on these RPGs. Fire and damnation!