50's atmosphere - Why?

[Ausir]

I always liked this fact and I always didn't liked it that Fallout 2 has broken with it (P90, CAWS, FN FAL, ...).

BTW, my post was actually a copy of the same post I've been copypasting in dozens of threads now, asking about the very same thing.

And yeah, you might not like the particular selection of weaponry in FO3, but I at least appreciate the fact that they didn't include any real-world modern weapons.

 

[Dakilleux]

They should have kept the same gun, redesigned their appearance and changed the names for something fictional. That would have made sense. Engineering guns with identical capacities and different looks, 200 years after, doesn't sound impossible at all.

Edit : I just realised I'm repeating after everyone else. Please disregard this post.

 

[TheLastOutlaw]

Heh, you know this thread just made me think of something that had been bugging me about FO3 but that I hadn't yet put my finger on yet.

I remember back in the day one of the original developers describing the alternate timeline Fallout takes place in this way, "Imagine a world where the transistor circuit was never invented." (Sorry I can't remember a specific source but it was sometime between FO1 and 2.

You can see this design aesthetic everwhere in the first two games. Everything is big clunky and you can easily picture banks of old fashioned vacuum tubes powering them.

So how does the PiP Boy 3000 fit into this retro futuristic aesthetic? They did a decent job making it look like it's been put in a retro futuristic shell but what about the insides? Could this little wonder gizmo have been made without circuits as we know them? Does it look clunky enough to be full of vacuum tubes?

I honestly don't know but I'd love to hear discussion about it.

 

[cratchety ol joe]

I'm not sure where but I always went with this as my explanation of the 50's thing:

World is going aright, everyone is happy, business booming capital growth is going up and up and up, but as the growth ended and the world started to fall into economic collapse and possible worldwide failure of industries (ooh current climate anyone)
the governing bodies of the civilised 'western' world decide to implement a social plan to revert its population to living in what was seen to be the 'best socio-economic period' this was seen to be the prosperous 50's when aside from cold war unemployment was a fraction of the projected unemployment, business growth was rife and family life was beneficial and enjoyable. The overhaul of the world was a success bringing back the moral values and outlooks of that bygone era, yet allowing the modern world to progress without collapsing in on itself. Then the war hit.

As it stands things like P90's, FN FALS, M60's (or any other 'current' technology) would fit happily into such a time-line, as it doesn't merely state that its wholly retro-futuristic, yes the themes and values of the 50's were embraced, but technology would still have advance normally up until 2050.

I'm not sure where I got this Idea of the fallout world history, and it probably doest 'completely' fit cannon, but I think it makes the most sense, and well, I like it more than the now overdone "future as seen by 50's sci fi" theory, the explanation I chose to believe adds more body to the world of fallout as i see it, and allows for scope of technology.

Just curious, what do other think of this theory / any idea where I might picked it up from?

 

[Herr Mike]

I think they actually should have had the nuclear war in the early 60's. The Cuban Missile Crisis took a different turn or something.

There could still be vaults, but they were unknown to the general public (to explain why no one ever talked about vaults in the real world, natch). But there should only have been a handful, and only the best and the brightest got to go.

Which explains why the Vault Dweller kicks so much ass.

There could still be a few futuristic weapons, but they were secret prototypes. And some technological development could have continued after the war, of course.

That makes more sense to me, rather than developing a bunch of elaborate alternate history and having to replace the wonderfully wicked Soviets with the lovable Chinese.

 

[Fade]

I think they actually should have had the nuclear war in the early 60's. The Cuban Missile Crisis took a different turn or something.

There could still be vaults, but they were unknown to the general public (to explain why no one ever talked about vaults in the real world, natch). But there should only have been a handful, and only the best and the brightest got to go.

Which explains why the Vault Dweller kicks so much ass.

There could still be a few futuristic weapons, but they were secret prototypes. And some technological development could have continued after the war, of course.

That makes more sense to me, rather than developing a bunch of elaborate alternate history and having to replace the wonderfully wicked Soviets with the lovable Chinese.

A more elaborate alternate history gives the game depth that it would lack with your choice. Which would fit with Fallout 3, but not with 1 or 2... at least in my opinion.

Replacing the Soviets with the Chinese: The USSR collapsed in '91 and Fallout was made in '97 so it's probable that the designers were looking for a new enemy instead of going with the old standby.

Play Fallout 1 and go attack the Miltary Base without any followers. See how many of the Super Mutants you can take on at one time. I doubt you'll feel kick ass after that.

 

[Herr Mike]

A more elaborate alternate history gives the game depth that it would lack with your choice. Which would fit with Fallout 3, but not with 1 or 2... at least in my opinion.

Not sure what you mean. Fallout 3 shares the same history as the other two.

Replacing the Soviets with the Chinese: The USSR collapsed in '91 and Fallout was made in '97 so it's probable that the designers were looking for a new enemy instead of going with the old standby.

You prefer the current canon, that's fine. I have no problem with it, I just think it would have been more sensible, given the artistic goal of the game, if they actually did cut civilization off in the early 60's. Instead, they ended up taking the pop art of the era and shoe-horning it into the 21st century.

Play Fallout 1 and go attack the Miltary Base without any followers. See how many of the Super Mutants you can take on at one time. I doubt you'll feel kick ass after that.

Dude, you are talking to a guy who was captured by Harry in Necropolis and taken to Lt. Badass at no higher a level than 8 and managed to set the self-destruct and escape with a crippled leg and nothing but an SMG and a hunting rifle. And damn but I looked good doing it in my cathedral robes.

 

[Herr Mike]

No depth to my idea. Pshaw. Cold War intrigue, man. We were never closer to nuclear war. Clandestine science experiments. Employing Nazi war criminals. Spies. Berlin Wall. The red scare. Good stuff.

 

[Fade]

A more elaborate alternate history gives the game depth that it would lack with your choice. Which would fit with Fallout 3, but not with 1 or 2... at least in my opinion.

Not sure what you mean. Fallout 3 shares the same history as the other two.

It's suppose to, but in alot of places.... History is the sum total of our choices. Do this and that happens. I just cann't see alot of what happens in Fallout 3 fitting into Fallout 1's history. You might be able to make a case for 2 given that places like New Reno & San Fran exist.

No depth to my idea. Pshaw. Cold War intrigue, man. We were never closer to nuclear war. Clandestine science experiments. Employing Nazi war criminals. Spies. Berlin Wall. The red scare. Good stuff.

No depth to your original post about the idea. Which came across as "Why do we need this alternate history?". With a few throw away ideas tacked on. All of which has been done several times although not all in the same game usually.

We are/were as close to nuclear war as any group of crazies becoming president. Which is a debate for another time.

Replacing the Soviets with the Chinese: The USSR collapsed in '91 and Fallout was made in '97 so it's probable that the designers were looking for a new enemy instead of going with the old standby.

You prefer the current canon, that's fine. I have no problem with it, I just think it would have been more sensible, given the artistic goal of the game, if they actually did cut civilization off in the early 60's. Instead, they ended up taking the pop art of the era and shoe-horning it into the 21st century.

Ummm. You might want to browse the forums more. The developers have said they wanted the future as seen by the 50s.

As for what's sensible... Are we talking about Fallout 1 or 3? Because Bethsoft's Fallout 3 and the word sensible don't fit together.

Play Fallout 1 and go attack the Miltary Base without any followers. See how many of the Super Mutants you can take on at one time. I doubt you'll feel kick ass after that.

Dude, you are talking to a guy who was captured by Harry in Necropolis and taken to Lt. Badass at no higher a level than 8 and managed to set the self-destruct and escape with a crippled leg and nothing but an SMG and a hunting rifle. And damn but I looked good doing it in my cathedral robes.

Congrats. Managing that I can see why you consider the Vault Dweller 'Kick Ass'. I thought you were referring to Fallout 3's Vault Dweller which is hard to kill even when you try to play stupid.

 

[Herr Mike]

Ugh. Thanks for turning this into another Fallout 3 bashing thread. As if there aren't enough of those around.

 

[Wooz]

Stay on topic, or I'll lock the thread and whip out the e-peen strikes.

Ausir, everything fine and dandy, but I can't seem to find the quote of one developer stating that some of Fallout's setting is inspired by 80's 'wasteland/mad max' aesthetics.

Personally, I think Geoff Darrow's Hard Boiled played a role as well.

 

[Fade]

Ugh. Thanks for turning this into another Fallout 3 bashing thread. As if there aren't enough of those around.

Not trying to bash Fallout 3, but trying to say that Fallout 3 isn't close to Fallout 1's style & ideas. Bashing Fallout 3 would saying it sucked at being a game which it didn't. Parts of it look quite fun for short periods... they just don't fit together in the original setting.

Some of it does fit the 50s Science! for example the Behemoths & the 'super heroes', but doesn't fit with the rest of canon. Behemoths contradicted by how FEV acts in Fallout 1 and the super heroes not fitting the barren & harsh world.


Wooz, sorry if I dragged the topic off-track. Not my intention.

 

[Noneoftheabove]

Personally, I think Geoff Darrow's Hard Boiled played a role as well.

If you read Leonard Boyarski's developer interview, he does mention the Hard Boiled comic as influence. Actually you could look at the comic as a glimpse of what the Fallout world must have been like before the bombs dropped, it is that close.
Amusingly, the pistol the main character in Hard Boiled uses is identical to the 10mm pistol within the game.

 

[Tagaziel]

Because it's that same pistol. Even the car that drives into our lovely cyborg on the first pages was placed as a wreck in Fallout.

 

[Noneoftheabove]

The trucks and vehicles in Hard Boiled all have the same bulky tech, with vintage styling that Fallout has. A very great look and design choice. Makes me wish Geoff would do a comic version of the story of Fallout. (Just Fallout as envisioned by the original team.) Maybe we should pool our money here and see if Mr. Darrow would create something for us? (Wishful thinking... Others would get in the way and piss n' moan. By others, I think ya'll know who I mean and need not say more.)

I was introduced to the game first, and as I kid I thought it was just a neat post apocalyptic game, while the subtleties of the world were a bit lost on me. Well to be fair, I knew that the game had a very quirky setting for a future story, but the term "retro-futurism" hadn't been coined yet or appreciated by me.
It wasn't until I discovered the Hard Boiled comic fairly recently did I finally put the two together. The art of the game and comic are nearly the same.

 

[Chancellor Kremlin]

Apparently Hard Boiled is to be adapted to film, starring Nicolas Cage, and directed by David Fincher.

 

[Keegah]

http://comics.ign.com/articles/739/739742p1.html
Is this the comic everyone's talking about?

 

[Noneoftheabove]

No, this one.

Great synopsis of the book can be found here:
http://www.comicbookbin.com/hardboiledcomic1993.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/18...&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463383351&pf_rd_i=507846
And Amazon lets you look at a few pages from the book. I was looking for a specific image from the comic that shows the city of Hard Boiled where the story is told. But if you're a fan of Fallout, Hard Boiled is a comic worth picking up.

 

[torben]

Just to throw in my five cents, I never even realized that Fallout takes place in an alternative timeline until I read about in a article on the game.

(On a sidenote, I only read that article because my half-year old Super-Notebook has crashed and now I cannot play my newest Chrismas present. )

And I actually played both Fallout 1 and 2 quite excessively, exploring a lot and actually reading almost all of the in-game information that I could find in pre-war bases, etc.. It appears to me now that this whole "alternate timeline"-thing seems a bit more prevalent (or rather: blunt) in FO3, with new dates for space program and all, whereas in the original FO games, I could completely overlook it. Of course I noticed the 50s look of cars, pre-war art, etc., and the strange design of computers, etc., but I did not really put too much thought into it - after all, the theme was consistent, and I hardly felt the need to look upon the details of technology in a world where radiation creates two-headed cows and giant scorpions. For what it's worth, I usually accept far more anachronistic combinations of technologies from different epoches in the run-of-the-mill fantasy/ medieval game than a "waterchip" looking like somewhat 120 years older.

I just assumed that there had been a cultural backlash to the 1950s in the 2070s, a 'Renaissance' of sort, and in my eyes that seems still more plausible than the cultural standstill canon seems to imply.

Anyway, to sum it up:
1. IMHO the "alternate timeline" thing is of little importance to the setting of FO.
2. I would even assume that it was deliberately toned down in both FO and FO2, because the designers wanted the player to explore the world of FO, rather than trying to explore what had happened in the alternate timeline.

 

[Ausir]

2. I would even assume that it was deliberately toned down in both FO and FO2, because the designers wanted the player to explore the world of FO, rather than trying to explore what had happened in the alternate timeline.

In FO1, it wasn't really explored in-depth, but in FO2, it was simply ignored by the almost entirely new dev team, who did not understand the retrofuturistic concept at that time, and included lots of real-world weaponry and cultural references, and who admitted their mistakes later.