Big and Messy or Short and Clean

Big and Messy or Small and Neat

  • More Fallout 1 a more consistent world view, setting, and depth but shorter game

    Votes: 123 100.0%

  • More Fallout 2 with greater expansion and things to do, but less of the depth, consistency and setti

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    123
welsh

welsh

Junkmaster
Ok, here's a quick poll question that goes back to one of the differences of Fallout 1 and Fallout 2.

In Fallout 1 you get much of the original vision of the game- much of the game style, setting, dialogue, mood, the music, the look. The game is fairly neat in that the central tasks of our hero are pretty clearly set out early. While one has many side quests, at the end of the day, the game gets pretty boring if you don't finish up.

In Fallout 2 you get a big world. More of the Fallout world but it gets messy. More guns, but guns with names and types and lots and lots of them fairly early. You get lots of side quests and adventures to the point that you can almost forget that whole GECK thing if you really want to.

Fallout 1 can be finished in about 10 hours. Its a pretty short game really. Fallout 2 can take a long damn time but sacrifices a bit of the neat vision for a more messy production.

Ideally, we'd love to see a happy mix of the genuine vision and depth of Fallout 1 with the expansion that is offered in Fallout 2. But given a choice, which would you prefer?
 
The first, obviously. I'd rather play a quality game with a clear vision, than a game that keeps on pushing you out due to silly jokes and an incosistent setting. Fallout 2 is only better in quantity, not in quality.
 
Sander said:
Fallout 2 is only better in quantity.
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Really? So would you say Fallout 2 is less good and consistent in executing the pen and paper mechanic philosophy and choice and consequence open plot? I would say Fallout 2 beats Fallout 1 in there numerous times, noticeably in New Reno.
 
Good question, and simply too tough a choice to make... I'm not going to vote, but if someone pointed a gun at my head I'd go with Short and Clean.
 
Kharn said:
Really? So would you say Fallout 2 is less good and consistent in executing the pen and paper mechanic philosophy and choice and consequence open plot? I would say Fallout 2 beats Fallout 1 in there numerous times, noticeably in New Reno.
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Nope, it doesn't beat it. It just offers more, but the quantity it offers costs the setting a *lot*. New Reno is a very enjoyable roleplaying experience, but fucked up in terms of Fallout's setting and consistency. It's a city obviously devised for the sole purpose of offering the 'warring factions' bit of roleplaying.

Fallout 2 is excellent in several cases when it comes to choice and consequences, most notably Gecko and the Ghost Farm. New Reno - not really. The consequences there are very limited, and choosing for any of the factions essentially gets you the same result.
 
Sander said:
Nope, it doesn't beat it. It just offers more, but the quantity it offers costs the setting a *lot*. New Reno is a very enjoyable roleplaying experience, but fucked up in terms of Fallout's setting and consistency. It's a city obviously devised for the sole purpose of offering the 'warring factions' bit of roleplaying.

Fallout 2 is excellent in several cases when it comes to choice and consequences, most notably Gecko and the Ghost Farm. New Reno - not really. The consequences there are very limited, and choosing for any of the factions essentially gets you the same result.
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If you seperate setting and mechanics and the annoyance of New Reno, though, you'll find the overarching mechanics isn't *just* more. It's not Fallout ++ with the same execution and design ideas. The new design team had some fresh ideas about the implimentation of pen and paper mechanics which mostly followed the ideas of Fallout 1, which makes my argument that Fallout 2 is just not *more* mechanics/c&c, it's *better* mechanics/c&c than Fallout 1. And leave the setting consequences out of it.

I still prefer 1. But y'know, just saying.
 
Kharn said:
If you seperate setting and mechanics and the annoyance of New Reno, though, you'll find the overarching mechanics isn't *just* more. It's not Fallout ++ with the same execution and design ideas. The new design team had some fresh ideas about the implimentation of pen and paper mechanics which mostly followed the ideas of Fallout 1, which makes my argument that Fallout 2 is just not *more* mechanics/c&c, it's *better* mechanics/c&c than Fallout 1. And leave the setting consequences out of it.
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In some cases: yes. As I noted, Gecko and Ghost Farm were brilliant - but also were excellent setting examples (err...ignoring the talking 'let's take over the world' rat in Gecko for a moment).

There were some fresh ideas, sure, the same ideas you could see in Torment, really. But I don't think it does either *better* just different. Fallout had some excellent c&c/mechanics as well, most notably Junktown (especially the awesome original ending) and Necropolis.

Another thing I forgot to note about Fallout 1: the atmosphere was heaps and heaps and heaps better. I still remember encountering my first Deathclaw and going 'Holy shit, that's scary'. That aspect was completely lost in Fallout 2, when the Deathclaws turned into loveable talking beasties.
Exploring the Glow also counts as a brilliant piece.
 
Sander said:
There were some fresh ideas, sure, the same ideas you could see in Torment, really. But I don't think it does either *better* just different. Fallout had some excellent c&c/mechanics as well, most notably Junktown (especially the awesome original ending) and Necropolis.
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But the final endings of Junktown are just corny.

And Necropolis is a prime example of *broken* choice and consequence mechanics, considering the ways to trigger a mutant invasion weren't that directly related to the invasion itself (visit it too late? Wham dead!)

Besides, Fallout 2 has most of the concepts of Fallout 1 too in c&c/mechanics, it just *adds*, so how could you argue it equal?
 
Kharn said:
But the final endings of Junktown are just corny.
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Still a good example of c&c.

Kharn said:
And Necropolis is a prime example of *broken* choice and consequence mechanics, considering the ways to trigger a mutant invasion weren't that directly related to the invasion itself (visit it too late? Wham dead!)
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That wasn't exactly what I was referring too, but other than that: I think that that was actually a good thing. It solidified the mutant invasion, and the idea that you were up against a huge mutant army.
The only problem was that this wasn't properly finished, really. The mutant army would still exist after destroying the Vats and the Master.

Kharn said:
Besides, Fallout 2 has most of the concepts of Fallout 1 too in c&c/mechanics, it just *adds*, so how could you argue it equal?
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More is not the same as better, nor is new concepts. Mechanics can be approached in several ways, and the fact that they chose both ways doesn't make it better at all.
 
Sander said:
More is not the same as better, nor is new concepts. Mechanics can be approached in several ways, and the fact that they chose both ways doesn't make it better at all.
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actually, since it expans the pen and paper concepts without breaking it in any way, more IS better, in this case.
 
Kharn said:
actually, since it expans the pen and paper concepts without breaking it in any way, more IS better, in this case.
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Perhaps, although I'm not entirely sure about that.
There are many cases where they just threw it out the window, or fell into the trap of the cliche 'evil group v. good group' that Avellone seems to like so goshdarn much, removing any and all moral ambiguity (see the rather sucky San Francisco). So taken as a whole, I don't know whether it was any better. In some instances (Gecko, Ghost Farm) it was.
 
It's a hard question,but I'm going with FO2 style,since more to do also allows more to do when trying different characters...

If I compare with the Gothics,3 is too big and I lost focus in it,1 is the best,but I still prefer to play 2 since it has enough to do without losing the focus of the first one...(I'm not claiming they're cRPG's BTW,but they work well for comparison IMHO...especially since they've released #3)

I see no need to expand much on FO2 though,it was a nice size.
 
I would say that shorter game would be better, at least as Beth does it. There is always more room in the next game, so long as the game(F3) doesn't betray the audience completely.
 
Granted Fallout 1 was an absolute masterpiece, from a games-player's point of view Fallout 2 is somewhat superior. More characters are viable, there are more places to go, more things to do, places you actually have to find, enough leveling that you get to think about seriously certain perks and things like that, the NPCs are actually quite useful, Charisma is no longer a dump stat, etc.

Then there are Fallout 2's problems... the setting has been cheapened, radiation is no longer a real issue (not that it really was in Fallout either but two Rad-X is more than Zero.), some places are just wrong in their execution, the Talking Deathclaws and their plot is just wrong (why not have a human work some of the other computers? There were humans in Vault 13...), the "mob families" stretched things a bit AND the morals of the situation became too clear (Mordino=evil Salvatore=Evil Bishop=Sorta Evil Wright=Neutral). Loads of useless weapons, throwing becoming useless as a skill in general (There are situations where it's useful but it's not worth the skill points at all), and bugs, bugs, bugs.
 
Wow thats a huge conversation in a 2 day period!

What is C&C you keep talking about?

One of the problems for me with F2, if you get OVERleveled, and it's way to easy to get stuff. Escpecially drugs. Psyco pretty much breaks the game. Toward the end of F2, every single battle was Psycho-Jet, sniper head shots. They counter attack for 0 damage, or critical for 340, tough luck. I know that a small guns character is one of the easiest to beat the game with, but like I said, first time. I ended up not doing a bunch of the quests because it was simply way to easy. I had to go back and create a more handicapped character just to add chalange. In F1 I don't have that problem. Psycho is so much harder to find, and the enemies seem to get harder on par with you.
 
VirtualAlex said:
What is C&C you keep talking about?
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I think they are talking about the cause and consequence, an essential thing in both Fallouts.

As for the poll, it's really hard for me to decide... but I'll have to go with the "short and clean".

But I really don't know, the both have their pros and cons. They both work well in their own different way. It depends what kind the final game will be, I guess.
 
Difficult choice. Fallout 2 was my first 'love' because it was my first PC game ever and it took me a couple of months to finish (at eleven years old you're too dense to get everything, especially when it's in a different language) so the experience has always stuck with me even up to this day (almost nine friggin' years later).

I played fallout 1 for the first time about 3 years ago, so it was kind of a backwards experience. I was a *bit* disappointed with it because it wrongfully expected a bigger game, but that was basically my only grievance. On the other hand, I did find the game's atmosphere more consistent, which is a plus.

So my choice for fallout 2 is more of an emotional than a rational one, but isn't that what it's mostly like with things you enjoy?
 
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