2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
My main problem with the Oblivion game is that it doesn't really feel like the setting it's supposed to be portraying. Morrowind? Full of forests and villages. Skyrim? Full of hard living people in mountainous country. Oblivion is set in Cyrodil- the capital of the Empire and supposedly the most cosmopolitan province. So why does the game's cities feel so...dead? Why is there not more citizens walking around the great city of Tamriel? Why is there so much disconnect between what is happening at the Oblivion Gates and what is happening in the city centers? Does nobody get any word of what is going on? Furthermore, why is there so little in the way of sub-plots and other machinations a la the Civil War in Skyrim? Finally, the townsfolk in Skyrim all seem to have their own identities according to the towns that they actually inhabit. Oblivion at times seems to divide people into mages, soldiers and the rest- making for a decidedly less interesting experience. Perhaps this is a result of that strange conversation mini game that they brought in. If it is, then it had a massive negative impact on the actual dialogue of the game. Some might therefore put this down to bad game design rather than the actual writing, but I think that there is still actually a disconnect between the background of the game and the plot itself that seems to be the writers' responsibility.