I dunno, for me the best part of the bethesda games is when you ignore the shitty stories and just pick a direction and explore shit for the sake of exploring (and maybe there's some cool loot too). I think they have a real talent for building worlds that feel like real places, that are interesting enough to explore for their own sake. I really like that there's always a bunch of locations that aren't related to any major quests or anything, they just exist. You could strip out all the characters and the combat and the quests and I would still explore the shit out of them to see what's there. That's the main reason why Oblivion was such a letdown for me, because the world was just so completely half-arsed. Also why I bounced off New Vegas more than most - yeah they're better writers but they just didn't build the world itself as well and the places just don't feel quite real. For me, Morrowind, Skyrim, F3, and F4 to a slightly lesser extent really scratched that itch.
I dunno, for me the best part of the bethesda games is when you ignore the shitty stories and just pick a direction and explore shit for the sake of exploring (and maybe there's some cool loot too). I think they have a real talent for building worlds that feel like real places, that are interesting enough to explore for their own sake. I really like that there's always a bunch of locations that aren't related to any major quests or anything, they just exist. You could strip out all the characters and the combat and the quests and I would still explore the shit out of them to see what's there. That's the main reason why Oblivion was such a letdown for me, because the world was just so completely half-arsed. Also why I bounced off New Vegas more than most - yeah they're better writers but they just didn't build the world itself as well and the places just don't feel quite real. For me, Morrowind, Skyrim, F3, and F4 to a slightly lesser extent really scratched that itch.