The Ross 117 – Day 5

We close in on the top 100 today with a few games that made a splash at the beginning of the generation, and one that shouldn’t have been made at all.

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105. New Super Mario Bros. [DS, 2006]

What on Earth was Nintendo thinking when they shat out this soulless pile of rubbish? Really! For the life of me I cannot fathom how we went from Super Mario World to this, it is as if they willfully neglected everything that made the early Mario titles great, choosing instead the swindler’s path of least resistance.

One of the things that made Super Mario Bros. 3 truly great was the incredible world variety, taking us to unforgettable places like Big Island and The Sky, their titles not quite matching their design. Nostalgia plays it part, admittedly, but I stand by that assessment. New Super Mario Bros. couldn’t have been more pedestrian in locale if they tried, and perhaps they did. Even the more traditional worlds of 3, such as its second, were designed in an interesting and compelling way, the geography slowly sprawling out amongst the dunes as you progressed. Compare that to ultra compact, left-to-right rectangle worlds of New Super Mario Bros. It’s almost embarrassing.

And what could possibly be more Mario than timeless, memorable music? Rare is the tune that doesn’t pop right to mind after the first note. I can recall exactly one song from New Super Mario Bros., and it’s for all the wrong reasons. Bland, boring, and uncharacteristically disposable.

This is Mario as designed by amateurs, taking an established outline of what makes Mario great, then doing an apprentice’s job trying to fill in the details. That it comes from Nintendo itself is almost pathetic, and not just a little bit alarming.

We can, however, rest easy. It only took them a year to right the ship.

104. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky [PC, 2008]

Whenever I fire up Half-Life: Opposing Force – which I really ought to do again soon – I have a few basic expectations, what you could call the Three Rules of Expansion Packs. One, it plays like Half-Life, the base game. Two, it adds things that were not present in Half-Life, the base game. And three, it does those things competently. Hit those marks, as Opposing Force does, and you’ve likely got yourself a respectable expansion pack. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky does not hit these marks. Not by half.

Imagine for a moment how harshly you would judge Opposing Force if every new weapon was a five polygon model and fired bubbles made of milk. Or if half the new scenarios in Rollercoaster Tycoon 2: Corkscrew Follies would hard lock your system on load. This may give you a sense of just how horribly broken Clear Sky‘s faction system is.

Every new section of Clear Sky is a warzone on arrival, as rival factions duke it out for supremacy. What the developers may not have realized is that by doing so, by turning these sprawling areas into veritable deathmatch arenas, they robbed the game of any real sense of progression. In Shadow of Chernobyl, each zone had a rugged cadence to it; you slowly worked your way through the treacherous terrain, giving the game a great sense of adventure and isolation. Clear Sky features none of that.

You find yourself tiring quickly of the assistance requests and attack order notifications, wishing every moment that this ham handed and gamey system would just shove off and let you get on with it. But it never does, an endless cycle of Clear Sky, Duty, Freedom, Bandits, and so on fighting and fighting and attacking and defending, always in your face.

This is S.T.A.L.K.E.R. devoid of all isolation and atmosphere, drowned out by the din of gunfire and radio chatter. I want nothing to do with it.

103. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion [PC, 2006]

I can say with confidence that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was one of the most awe-inspiring games I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing; never before had I experienced anything close to its scale, and surely nothing like it that young in the generation. It took over three years, broadly estimating, for me to finally come to terms with the truth: Oblivion, as tremendously impressive as it may be, simply falls to pieces on a mechanical level.

Repeating oneself is a sin, as a wise man once told me, so I would ask that you consider every criticism I leveled at the combat of Skyrim and slot it in right here, because let’s be honest, it’s the same damn thing. Same spongey leveled enemies, same unpredictable shield, and the same tedious backpedaling, though in defense of Oblivion, at least it improved on its predecessor.

We all know of the enemy level scaling, and I think we’re all in agreement on the topic, so I’ll touch on it only briefly. It’s a sham, and an embarrassment to the genre, completely depriving the player any sense of progression. How such a mechanic made it into the game, or even avoided being laughed out of the room upon suggestion, is beyond me.

It’s not all bad, however. For as dully forested and generically European the scenery of Cyrodiil is, there are some genuine good times to be found. Where Oblivion manages to handily outdo its successor is in the quest department, featuring some truly memorable content. The Thieves’ Guild is a terrific line, featuring an unsettling quest for the boots of Springheel Jak and an epic, daring heist for the Elder Scroll itself. I also particularly enjoyed my time in the Dark Brotherhood, of note here being the morbidly exhilarating job at Summitmist Manor, where you use the tongue, not the sword, to execute your targets. Imagine that, compelling gameplay that doesn’t involve hacking someone to bits.

Just as Skyrim likely deserved to be lower, I’m not convinced that Oblivion doesn’t deserve to be higher. As woeful as it is mechanically, which is quite, there are some really fantastic quests tucked away inside.

I look back fondly on the hours I spent exploring Cyrodiil, made all the more nostalgic in knowing that Bethesda will likely never return to their pre-Fallout form. But my time in Tamriel may have come to an end.