I thought personally some more praise for U7: Serpent Isle was called for, but that's just me. :) I didn't find any particular issues playing it myself with dead-ends... only two come to mind.
One is that I had a character trapped in the List field once, so I used a gunpowder keg to blow the doors off so he could escape. Afterwards, I could never train again, because the guard who went to open the door would spew a bunch of C error jargon about missing objects and then followed with "Uh... the list fields are closed right now! Bye!" I find it hilarious that they worked their debug code INTO the game.
The second was less dramatic; you could find the Chaos Hierophant's spirit in a small house north of the Sleeping Bull Inn, near the swamps of Gorlab. In-game, you're supposed to summon his spirit much later at once of the shrines near Spinebreaker, but the game lets you short-circuit that a bit. I think this bug was repro'ed even in Exult.
Also, you failed to mention the early game engine issues with Fallout... namely that it was originally going to use the GURPS engine, developed by Steve Jackson games. Why it was dropped and a custom-designed game engine used instead has been debated for awhile; both sides tell their own tale. (One rumor is that Steve insisted on total creative control, which irked the designers, another was he was offended by the small cinematic of a soldier gunning someone down with a shot to the back of the head... most of the rumors tend to be slanted to make Steve the bad guy.) I suppose it wouldn't be relevant, except that it explains why some tabletop game companies have been reluctant to enter the CRPG market.
I thought personally some more praise for U7: Serpent Isle was called for, but that's just me. :) I didn't find any particular issues playing it myself with dead-ends... only two come to mind.
One is that I had a character trapped in the List field once, so I used a gunpowder keg to blow the doors off so he could escape. Afterwards, I could never train again, because the guard who went to open the door would spew a bunch of C error jargon about missing objects and then followed with "Uh... the list fields are closed right now! Bye!" I find it hilarious that they worked their debug code INTO the game.
The second was less dramatic; you could find the Chaos Hierophant's spirit in a small house north of the Sleeping Bull Inn, near the swamps of Gorlab. In-game, you're supposed to summon his spirit much later at once of the shrines near Spinebreaker, but the game lets you short-circuit that a bit. I think this bug was repro'ed even in Exult.
Also, you failed to mention the early game engine issues with Fallout... namely that it was originally going to use the GURPS engine, developed by Steve Jackson games. Why it was dropped and a custom-designed game engine used instead has been debated for awhile; both sides tell their own tale. (One rumor is that Steve insisted on total creative control, which irked the designers, another was he was offended by the small cinematic of a soldier gunning someone down with a shot to the back of the head... most of the rumors tend to be slanted to make Steve the bad guy.) I suppose it wouldn't be relevant, except that it explains why some tabletop game companies have been reluctant to enter the CRPG market.