An Honest and Fair Way to Look at FO1 vs FO3

[WraithUV]

A series never needs a reboot. And changing the focus of a series is doing a disservice to the people who liked it in the first place purely to increase profit margin.

Well said.

I don't mind a little "sprucing up" here and there, nor do I mind when a remake or sequel breaks some new and different ground, provided the core feeling and direction remains true to the original concept.

I DO however absolutely hate it when a game or series gets a remake or a sequel, and when you really break it all down it's essentially nothing like the original except for a little flavor and some references here and there, and maybe a "neat feature" or two that supposedly make all the difference.

I've lost count now how many reviews and blogs I've seen which claim that Fallout 3 is "like fallout" rather than say "like Oblivion" simply because "It's got the VATS system!"

I'm sorry, but a pseudo-sorta turn-based half-system layered over pretty standard FPS style combat does *not* make this a Fallout title in any way true to origins. It's just a slight deviation from the norm, and worse yet, doesn't really do anything to make me feel like I'm playing a Fallout game.

Now, I'm not saying FO3 is "a bad game". Frankly, I find it rather average and unremarkable for the most part, but then so are most games I've seen for the past 10 years or so. I was (pleasantly) surprised that they at least *tried* with things like VATS (even if it does fall horribly short), rather than the tired and more typical trend lately to add some sort of "button mashing cinematic" mechanic which just makes every game series feel more and more like some alternate storyline for the God of War series rather than a sequel to whatever it was supposed to be, but eh... I digress.

Someone has a good idea to pick up and continue or remake a classic? Fine, go for it.. But for pity sake, make sure whatever you wind up with feels more like the original than it does some mutant-zombie, half-cousin wannabe which is no longer even recognizable. Failing that, at least have the decency to just call it something else, rather than riding the coat-tails of and leeching off the success of a true classic.

A good example would be the remake they did of Battlestar Galactica a ways back. I can appreciate the face-lift, and they really did a nice job with the effects and all, but in my opinion, they altered the core a bit too far to really justify giving it the same title as the original. I think I'd have enjoyed it a great deal more had stood its own ground instead, rather than trying to pretend to be a remake of a series which it ultimately wasn't.

Fallout 3 is the same deal. As I said, I consider it more simply average than some utterly horrid pile of garbage, but that's in terms of the game itself. When addressing its quality and qualifications as a sequel to the series, I really can't give it anything other than a grade of epic and utter failure, and I still insist that it should have at least been titled as an offshoot (like Fallout: BoS or the like) instead of a numbered and true sequel, or better still, perhaps something like "The Elder Scrolls: The Post-Apocalyptic Chronicles" would have been more fitting, and left less of a bitter aftertaste.

-Wraith

 

[Sir GlowaLot]

So in essence you are saying that it is better to have no new Fallout title then to add the changes of technology? This sounds like saying it is better to have no New Star Trek Series if it even slightly strays from the bright 60s look of the original Star Trek.

I choose the Star Trek comparison for a reason, because nowadays TNG is perfectly accepted by Star Trek Fans, even while it changed many things of the original Series.

A modernisation of Fallout was required, because 2D Isometric View is more or less dead at the moment. Yes a Graphic Update is needed, but before the Flames errupt, the Graphic is a secondary thing. What is more important, is that the Style remains intact and honestly even that can be argued and then we can go into nitpicking the Details.

What I mean with Style should not be changed. Technologies change, hell maybe in 20 years from now 3D Graphics on a flat 2D Screen will be something of the past. That does not matter. It does not even matter if it is turn based or completely real time and Voice or Thought-Controlled. That is just the Technology, or the Package if you will. What is important is, that Content is enjoyable and does feel like a Fallout Game.

Without some Changes and without evolving, in Storyline as well as in Technology a Franchise has no future and will die.

I prefer the Fallout Series to live and

 

[DexterMorgan]

What is important is, that Content is enjoyable and does feel like a Fallout Game.

Not to me it doesn't. It feels a lot more like Oblivion.

 

[Trithne]

Actually, I would prefer to not get a new Fallout game that "had" to change because of new technology or because isometric is "dead" (Diablo III wants a word with you). I detest overuse of an Intellectual Property over the making of a new one. And FO3 is the worst example of that ever.

In a similar vein, for example, I do not want to see a System Shock 3 made. Not just because I can't imagine such a game would be any good, but because doing so would cheapen the storyline the first two developed. It'd dilute the character of SHODAN and generally ruin things. Make something else.

It's not that hard to come up with a new setting, storyline, and ideas for a game. But sequels are cooler. So we get sequels and remakes, a blight on creativity and inevitably a slap in the face of the original fans when it all goes terribly wrong.

 

[Sir GlowaLot]

That is perhaps the point. I disliked the Sequel to System Shock and while I liked the first Diablo, I hated the second with Passion and will not buy Diablo 3. (Oh look another random generated level with random monster, random loot and somewhat random Quests and the next 1.000.000 Monsters have 0,0000000001% chance to drop an useful Item.)

Ok, that does not belong here and I will stop going into that matter.

That being said I liked Morrowind but was bored and disgusted with Oblivion. Both Games based on the same engine and are in many aspects the same game. I will even admit that Oblivion made something interesting, when they allowed to age the Face of the Character and every NPC in the Game (but then they overused it and effectivly made the whole Country into a Province for the Elderly)


But I think we can agree to disagree on Fallout 3 here.

 

[WraithUV]

So in essence you are saying that it is better to have no new Fallout title then to add the changes of technology? This sounds like saying it is better to have no New Star Trek Series if it even slightly strays from the bright 60s look of the original Star Trek.

No, that's not at all what I'm saying.

I'm saying that if you want to do a remake or a sequel, fine. If you want to "add the changes of technology" (or whatever else you want to call it), fine. But don't make something that doesn't even feel anything like the original, bears no real resemblance to the original aside from a casual nod or cute little reference here and there and then try to pretend it's a sequel.

More importantly, I'm saying that "the technology used here is too old and outdated" is not in itself enough to justify a sequel or a remake. Saying that something is no longer enjoyable and needs to be redone simply because it's not "cutting edge" would be akin to suggesting we scan all existing books into PDF files and burn them. I mean.. actually READ those OLD paper things? Pshaw!

Basically, if you haven't got some good ideas on how to implement new content and/or upgrades and changes while still staying true to the original at heart, I say leave my classics the hell alone, and make up your own damn title for this new product which clearly doesn't belong as the next in sequential order on the shelf.

So, to fix your analogy about Star Trek, I would have said something more akin to "It is better to have no new Star Trek series if what they give us doesn't feel like a Star Trek series, but rather just any generic sci-fi space romp that just so happens to have a Star Trek name slapped on it."

Better technology doesn't bug me. Not in movies or TV, and not in games. I don't necessarily agree that 3D is always "better" than 2D or isometric, but that's a totally different argument.

Would I have been happier with some sort of new and modernized 2D, isometric , turn-based Fallout sequel? Absolutely. Was it the fact that they decided to make it 3D and update the graphics to modern standards which causes me to berate the game and say it's not a Fallout title? Absolutely not.

I still believe that even though an isometric implementation would have been superior, it would have been possible to build the game around a 3D engine while still making it *feel* like a Fallout game.

I would have still been pretty happy with that, even if it might not have been my "first choice", but that's not what they gave us. What we got is called Fallout 3, but acts, feels and plays much more like some sad cross between Oblivion with guns and <insert>.

-Wraith

 

[Viliny]

Sorry to kinda cut in here, but didn't Morrowind share the Torgue engine with games likes Tribes 2?

I faintly remember it was Torgue.

 

[TyloniusFunk]

Also I've met and worked with people who actually say they would rather watch the movie of something than read the book in almost any circumstance, and I have since rediculed these people for their ignorance.

A movie can share a name, a plot, themes and meanings with a book. A book is paced by it's reader, a movie by it's creator. A book can be read, as can a movie. A movie can achieve things that a book can not, and vice versa. A movie that only tries to reproduce a book can not be better than the book, which can achieve things that a movie can not. A movie must be a movie and take advantage of it's differences, as must a book. You can say that a particular movie is better than a particular book only in so much that the movie is worse at being a movie than the book is at being a book. You can not say that books are better than movies in general, at least not without appearing ignorant and being ridiculed.

And neither are these video games.

Your analogy, that Fallout 3 did not take advantage of it's merits as much as Fallout 1 did, holds.

 

[Crni Vuk]

So in essence you are saying that it is better to have no new Fallout title then to add the changes of technology? This sounds like saying it is better to have no New Star Trek Series if it even slightly strays from the bright 60s look of the original Star Trek

I think one point that is somewhat important here is not that anyone would be against the "modern technology" as I think no one here would refuse a game with new graphics and technology.

What one now has to accept though is that tourn based combat for example is not a technology but a "gameplay" gameplay for it self can be improved by new technology like more power and visuals but gameplay is not inherently a "new/old" technology.

I have read the analogy with a book and would like to add my own one as well to it. Tourn based combat is to real time what is maybe "classic" to "modernism" (seen from art). Neither is better or worse then the other they both are here to satisfy a specific taste and experience people search for. New drawing tools might help to paint faster and more accurate (for example electronic tools make quite a lot of things faster and help to improve sometimes). It still doesnt mean though "old" tools become completely obsolete. It just means that you have to use different tools for different targets.

Now if Fallout 3 would be a pure "update" of technology the people here would be the last one to complain about it. But actualy Bethesdas FINO (Fallout In Name Only) is not a "update" but a "shift". Its not a move updwards but just to the side, it shares the setting of Fallout but a lot of the other things are borrowed from Oblivion starting from the way how you obtain quests, how they play and feel to many parts of the gameplay and mechanics. The camera angle is the same as in Oblivoin so as like anything else from the engine (see the animations ...) but the worst is that it shares many of Oblivions gameplay mechanics like the stats and values you have for protection and damage in the game which are almost a copy paste work from Oblivion (which also leads to the useless Powerarmor that is very close to the Deadric armor from TES ...).

So what Bethesda basicaly did was not to create a completely "new" game with own gameplay and mechanics but they just forced the "TES formula" on the Fallout game but in favour for the TES mechanics.

Almost no one here is against "updates" in mechanics and visuals. What "we" (speaking about the people that think similar like I do) just dont like is if someone is serving us ordinary "hamburgers" as Filet Mignon with the annotion "meat is meat, why dont you like it?"