1. Reusing Skyrim's Broken Game Engine - Fallout 4
It's hard to look at Bethesda's latest near-masterpiece and not think back on what could have been, had they not elected to continue using the already unstable Creation engine. Originally made for Skyrim, that game was remembered just as much for its 'Bethesda jank' as it was impressive dragon-filled skies and treasure-filled caves. Come the time for Fallout 4 to enter development, Bethesda weren't about to discard all the hard work they'd put in, and so this leap to the next generation of console hardware was built on an outdated model. The results were obvious, as although Fallout 4 is still a masterpiece of interlocking systems like loot and item/weapon progression, basic animation for yourself and especially the NPCs around you is stilted as hell. Faces animate to varying degrees of fidelity depending on their importance to the story, and aside from the shooting mechanics which were tightened up with the help of Doom devs iD Software, it's a very similar-feeling product to both Fallout 3 and New Vegas. There's plenty to celebrate within Fallout 4, but just imagine everything it completely nails, bolstered by a game engine as polished as something like Metal Gear Solid V... it would've been spectacular. What big-budget or highly-reputable game from this year managed to get one thing wrong? Let us know in the comments!
