Did you all forget..
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UniversalWolf
eaten by a grue.
Eyenixon said:
After ten years.
Randian Hero
First time out of the vault
Fallout 3 versus its predecessors
I've read a lot of bitching and moaning about how Fallout 3 is just an Oblivion re-skin, or how it doesn't capture the essence of Fallout, or an endless series of complaints about the game's lack of [insert insipid gripe]. I read these complaints, and then I decided to really test them against the original games. So I've decided to match a few of the most common complaints I've read against the previous two titles to see if any of them were really valid points. Interestingly enough, here's what I found:
Complaint 1.
Fallout 3 doesn't follow canon.
Die-hard fans will say that the game breaks from Fallout canon, and it does -- to a point. The more I play Fallout 3, the more I realize that Bethesda took a lot of elements from the Fallout Bible, discarded what didn't fit or what didn't translate well into the game, and condensed a lot of the previous games' elements into something that was neat and coherent. Frankly, from what I've seen, they took the raw elements of Fallout and they polished them up so they actually looked good. If they crammed in all of Fallout canon, the game would be a mess.
Complaint 2.
Fallout 3 isn't original.
Consider the source. Fallout 1 took so many elements from Mad Max you could almost call it The Road Warrior: The Game. And Fallout 2? Hell, the entire game is 95% pop culture references. Frankly, I'd go so far as to call Fallout 3 more original than the previous two games on account of the fact that I have yet to see one goddamn movie reference (I have yet to play through all of it, however, so I may be mistaken on that).
Complaint 3.
There aren't enough NPCs to interact with/they're not in-depth enough/I don't care about them.
Play the first two games again. The number of talking NPCs versus the number of floating text NPCs is probably about the same as it is in Fallout 3. Most of the NPCs in those two games didn't have very long or in-depth backgrounds either -- at least none that were longer than any of the characters in Fallout 3. If you can't be bothered to care about the NPCs in the game, I'm not sure what to tell you. Fallout 3 is a different type of game in that it's less party-oriented and more player-oriented. I don't know about the rest of you, but I personally think that the idea of a lone wanderer drifting from town to town in a long stretch of wasteland is a lot cooler than a posse of adventurers rolling into town. That's just my opinion, though.
Complaint 4.
The A.I. sucks.
Play the first two games again. All the enemies do is rush you and try to swarm all six hexes around you. At least Fallout 3 changes the action up.
Complaint 5.
The game is too easy/too short.
I can beat Fallout 1 in under 7 minutes and Fallout 2 in under 30, and any element of combat difficulty in Fallouts 1 and 2 can easily be overcome by a suit of power armor and more action points than your opponents. They are not hard games; they are fun games. Fallout 3 is the same way.
Complaint 6.
The storyline sucks.
Is it really any worse than "find the water chip to save the Vault" or "find the GECK to save your village"?
Complaint 7.
Fallout 3 is buggy.
I've got news for you: Fallout 1 was buggy. Fallout 2 was extremely buggy. Patches were released to fix these problems. Even with the patch, Killap had to make a fan-made restoration project to fix all the holes that Interplay left in the game. Bethesda is going to release a patch to fix some of the game's issues, and I'm sure people are going to release their own patches to fix whatever Bethesda doesn't. Games are buggy when they're first released. It's an unavoidable side-effect of the industry.
Complaint 8.
You can't kill kids.
Blame assholes like Jack Thompson for that, not Bethesda. Back in the days of the previous Fallout games, mom and dad weren't looking that hard at the games we played. You could have extremely edgy titles like Fallout 2 and nobody would raise a fuss. The gaming world has changed, however, and gaming companies have been forced to change with the demands of overzealous parents and idiot conservatives like Mr. Thompson. I personally think it sucks that Bethesda had to go that way, but I'm sure that there will be a child killing mod in the near future. People seem to be obsessed with that sort of thing.
In the end, I think if you die-hard fans are going to criticize Fallout 3 so much, you should at least put the other two games up to the same level of scrutiny. So what if the last Fallout title came out ten years ago -- it's not like making a game has gotten any easier in that time. Fallout 3 is far from a perfect game, but neither are the first two games. Even so, I have enjoyed every minute I've played all three of them. I got my money's worth out of Fallout 3. Too bad you didn't.
I've read a lot of bitching and moaning about how Fallout 3 is just an Oblivion re-skin, or how it doesn't capture the essence of Fallout, or an endless series of complaints about the game's lack of [insert insipid gripe]. I read these complaints, and then I decided to really test them against the original games. So I've decided to match a few of the most common complaints I've read against the previous two titles to see if any of them were really valid points. Interestingly enough, here's what I found:
Complaint 1.
Fallout 3 doesn't follow canon.
Die-hard fans will say that the game breaks from Fallout canon, and it does -- to a point. The more I play Fallout 3, the more I realize that Bethesda took a lot of elements from the Fallout Bible, discarded what didn't fit or what didn't translate well into the game, and condensed a lot of the previous games' elements into something that was neat and coherent. Frankly, from what I've seen, they took the raw elements of Fallout and they polished them up so they actually looked good. If they crammed in all of Fallout canon, the game would be a mess.
Complaint 2.
Fallout 3 isn't original.
Consider the source. Fallout 1 took so many elements from Mad Max you could almost call it The Road Warrior: The Game. And Fallout 2? Hell, the entire game is 95% pop culture references. Frankly, I'd go so far as to call Fallout 3 more original than the previous two games on account of the fact that I have yet to see one goddamn movie reference (I have yet to play through all of it, however, so I may be mistaken on that).
Complaint 3.
There aren't enough NPCs to interact with/they're not in-depth enough/I don't care about them.
Play the first two games again. The number of talking NPCs versus the number of floating text NPCs is probably about the same as it is in Fallout 3. Most of the NPCs in those two games didn't have very long or in-depth backgrounds either -- at least none that were longer than any of the characters in Fallout 3. If you can't be bothered to care about the NPCs in the game, I'm not sure what to tell you. Fallout 3 is a different type of game in that it's less party-oriented and more player-oriented. I don't know about the rest of you, but I personally think that the idea of a lone wanderer drifting from town to town in a long stretch of wasteland is a lot cooler than a posse of adventurers rolling into town. That's just my opinion, though.
Complaint 4.
The A.I. sucks.
Play the first two games again. All the enemies do is rush you and try to swarm all six hexes around you. At least Fallout 3 changes the action up.
Complaint 5.
The game is too easy/too short.
I can beat Fallout 1 in under 7 minutes and Fallout 2 in under 30, and any element of combat difficulty in Fallouts 1 and 2 can easily be overcome by a suit of power armor and more action points than your opponents. They are not hard games; they are fun games. Fallout 3 is the same way.
Complaint 6.
The storyline sucks.
Is it really any worse than "find the water chip to save the Vault" or "find the GECK to save your village"?
Complaint 7.
Fallout 3 is buggy.
I've got news for you: Fallout 1 was buggy. Fallout 2 was extremely buggy. Patches were released to fix these problems. Even with the patch, Killap had to make a fan-made restoration project to fix all the holes that Interplay left in the game. Bethesda is going to release a patch to fix some of the game's issues, and I'm sure people are going to release their own patches to fix whatever Bethesda doesn't. Games are buggy when they're first released. It's an unavoidable side-effect of the industry.
Complaint 8.
You can't kill kids.
Blame assholes like Jack Thompson for that, not Bethesda. Back in the days of the previous Fallout games, mom and dad weren't looking that hard at the games we played. You could have extremely edgy titles like Fallout 2 and nobody would raise a fuss. The gaming world has changed, however, and gaming companies have been forced to change with the demands of overzealous parents and idiot conservatives like Mr. Thompson. I personally think it sucks that Bethesda had to go that way, but I'm sure that there will be a child killing mod in the near future. People seem to be obsessed with that sort of thing.
In the end, I think if you die-hard fans are going to criticize Fallout 3 so much, you should at least put the other two games up to the same level of scrutiny. So what if the last Fallout title came out ten years ago -- it's not like making a game has gotten any easier in that time. Fallout 3 is far from a perfect game, but neither are the first two games. Even so, I have enjoyed every minute I've played all three of them. I got my money's worth out of Fallout 3. Too bad you didn't.
frosty_theaussie
Still Mildly Glowing
A lot of your arguments are based around the idea that "because this was a shortcoming of the original games, then we should forgive it in Fallout 3". Need I remind you that there has been a ten year span between them and that in such a long period of time and with improvements in technology and production, it is kind of expected that developers should strive to improve on them?
Skynet 2.0
It Wandered In From the Wastes
It's not that Bethesda didn't put in all the stuff we wanted, it's that the game breaks canon on numerous occasions. Why are there so many Super Mutants on the east coast, when the labs that made them are on the other side of the country? Why is the Brotherhood of Steel helping people out, when in the original games, all they cared about was getting more technology? Bethesda gave explanations for all these inconsistencies, but just because they can be explained doesn't mean they fit in Fallout canon.Randian Hero said:
Fallout 2 was somewhat over-saturated with pop culture references, but the ones in Fallout were part of what made the game so fun. And Fallout only took the elements from Mad Max that all post-apocalyptic settings share. It had several references to it, but I don't think they're enough to call it 'The Road Warrior: The Game'Randian Hero said:
Yes, most of the NPCs didn't have much background or dialog options, but the ones that did were compelling characters that had a well-defined and interesting personality, and worked well considering the technical limitations of the game. I actually found them to be interesting to talk to, and wanted to know what their responses would be to the dialog options - something I can't say about Fallout 3. And the original Fallout games weren't party oriented. You could get a party if you wanted, and it would make things easier, but the game left that option up to you. In fact, the first time I played Fallout, I beat the entire game without having anyone in my party.Randian Hero said:
Yes, the AI had some major issues in Fallout 1 and 2, but the games were released 10 years ago, and Black Isle Studios did the best they could. Bethesda doesn't have the same excuse with Fallout 3, as it's been in development for a long time, and they should have fixed the problems with their AI.Randian Hero said:
You COULD beat the original games very quickly, but only if you knew exactly what you were doing, took a very specific set of skills at the beginning, and essentially knew the entire plot. Otherwise, the game takes a very long time to beat, and has a lot of replay value - it was impossible to do everything your first run through.Randian Hero said:
The story lines in the original games were, essentially, find the Water Chip/GECK. However, they had a lot of backstory that was up to you to discover, and they both changed into something very different from what they were, and were executed in an interesting and often unexpected way.Randian Hero said:
Yes, Fallout 1 and 2 were very buggy. However, as I've stated before, they were released 10 years ago, with limited resources. Bethesda should have had plenty of time to find and fix the bugs in Fallout 3.Randian Hero said:
We're not obsessed with child killing. The mods that some people are already working on are because we want the same freedom the original Fallout games gave you - which was a large part of why the games were so much fun. You could go through the game guns blazing, killing everyone in your path. You could gather together a group of people, outfit them with excellent equipment, and then let them do all the work for you. You could talk your way through the game. And yes, you could kill children if you wanted. The freedom to do whatever you wanted in the game world were a major part of the game, and we want the same freedom in the most recent installment in the series.Randian Hero said:
We do. We find, point out, discuss, and potentially fix every bug, issue, imbalance, exploit, and inconsistency in the original games. However, we have been doing this for 10 years, ever since Fallout was released, and most of the issues have already been resolved, or at least noted. Now, we're doing the same thing to Fallout 3, but people like you misinterpret that as being biased against it - simply because we don't complain about Fallout 1 and 2 as much. Fallout 3 was released a few days ago, and we're trying to mod it into the kind of game we want it to be - a true sequel to Fallout.Randian Hero said:
Skynet 2.0 said:
The US is ~3000 miles wide. A person can walk 10 miles in two hours if they walk briskly. If they walk 10 miles a day for 300 days, you see where I'm going with this. If they up the pace, or more realistically, lengthen the period of time they walk - they can decrease the total time dramatically. That of course assumes that the person traveling has no means to access any alternate forms of transit.
Whenever people complain about how it makes no sense that X traveled such a great distance to Y in the Fallout universe, well, that's just dumb. It makes less sense to sit and stagnate in a desolate world where you have to scrounge to survive.
Just had to get that off my chest as I get annoyed every time I see the 'hurf durf east coast supermutants' argument.
frosty_theaussie
Still Mildly Glowing
Marx said:
I guess in a land that is ~3000 miles wide, it just doesn't make much sense for a finite number of Supermutants to suddenly relocat, all together, to the same area. If you had 3000 of them and spread them across easily, that's 1 per mile dontchaknow.
Just my two cents.
Bloody William
First time out of the vault
Skynet 2.0 said:
Do you have a good example of those AI issues being fixed in an RPG with as much interactivity as Fallout? These issues are present in Oblivion, which came out two years ago, and in Morrowind, which came out six years ago. Hell, games like NWN2 have these issues, and NWN2 was developed by what's left of Black Isle Studios. Fable 2 just came out this month and the social interactivity is broken to the point of hilarity.
The more complicated, interactive, and open-world-ed an RPG is, the more open it is to AI issues. It has been ten years, which means we've seen a lot of improvements in complexity of design, physics, et cetera. Unfortunately, unless you're just making a moving target that can work with other moving targets to hide behind cover, AI hasn't improved that much. The more you try to get it to do, the more it's going to screw up.
Skynet 2.0
It Wandered In From the Wastes
As I said, just because it's possible to explain doesn't mean that it fits into Fallout canon. It's entirely possible that some Super Mutants went to the east coast. However, after the Master died, the Super Mutants, with nobody to lead them, scattered. Some joined settlements, like Marcus in Broken Hills, some survived by attacking caravans and travelers, but there were no large groups of them left. There's no good reason for them being on the other side of the country.Marx said:
I think they specifically said at the end of Fallout 1 that the super mutants began to head east.
Considering that Fallout 3 takes place, what, 200 years after fallout 1 it isn't that ridiculous to think about.
The only inconsistancy I can think of is how so many of them actually made the finished journey there (how many were actually made in the first place??) But I guess that follows the old movie magic rule of "unless it's specified exactly, don't ask questions"
I do agree that they completely screwed up the brotherhood of steel, though.
Considering that Fallout 3 takes place, what, 200 years after fallout 1 it isn't that ridiculous to think about.
The only inconsistancy I can think of is how so many of them actually made the finished journey there (how many were actually made in the first place??) But I guess that follows the old movie magic rule of "unless it's specified exactly, don't ask questions"
I do agree that they completely screwed up the brotherhood of steel, though.
Bloody William
First time out of the vault
Skynet 2.0 said:
Actually, the super mutants in FO3 are explained, and they're not because of some migration.
[spoiler:0d2d390942]The East Coast super mutants are a different strain than the West Coast super mutants. They were developed in Vault 87 as part of the Vault Experiment. Vault 87 was flooded with a slightly different version of FEV than from Mariposa. That explains where the Capital Wasteland super mutants come from, and why they're more savage, less intelligent, and eventually become super mutant Behemoths.[/spoiler:0d2d390942]
Roflcore said:
There *IS* a possibility: 150 years after FO1 a person named Greyana Richards, the exiled beauty-queen of Vault 108 was hired by a Raider named Rholda to ambush a merchant caravan. The merchants fled, and in a rush of bloodlust they followed them into the Butterfly-Base. After killing all of them they discovered a FEV-Store which they thought to be an old make-up factory, and soon started capture people and dip them into the vats to create a legion of cosmetic-hawkers who are in truth agents of Vanity.
An interdimensional rift caused by the nuclear bombs that allowed an army of Orcs to invade Earth who then soon learned to use modern weaponry but not to adopt modern civilisation would be as immaginative and plausible, though.
ShatteredJon
It Wandered In From the Wastes
If you read all the info in Vault 87 it clearly states that the scientists starting mutating humans after the bombs dropped and the vault sealed. This makes no damn sense. Why would a group of vault dwellers, perfectly protected, start making super mutants? There is no link in the plotline to Westek. The funny thing is, if you look at the dates of the journals and transcripts, they didn't start doing this until 70 something years after the bombs dropped. Not only is this breaking canon, but its raping it too.
Uh-huh, FO1 and 2 had flaws so FO3 can have them too.
Hey buddy, wake up. FO1- 1997. FO2- 1998. FO3- 2008. Sooo next-gen!
Something's wrong here, don't you think?
Anyway, just another poorly written devil's advocate job. Once you stop using previous games to justify the flaws of the next instalment and you'll start using some real arguments, give me a call.
You're silly. Not only you're comparing 11 year old games to current one but what's funnier you're comparing game like Fallout 2 which was being developed for about 1 year (literally: ONE) to Fallout 3 which has been in development since 2004 !!! They've had 4 times more time to bring better product and they've failed miserably. 6 months (sic!) took them creating PipBoy the way it is and they failed (I know about it from Todd himslef, in one of his interviews he proudly said how much time it took them to perfect it). If Black Isle had 4 years to make Fallout 2 it would be a perfect game. Unfortunately they didn't have such luxury like Bethesda.
East Coast super mutants are a different strain than the West Coast super mutants. They were developed in Vault 87 as part of the Vault Experiment. Vault 87 was flooded with a slightly different version of FEV than from Mariposa. That explains where the Capital Wasteland super mutants come from, and why they're more savage, less intelligent, and eventually become super mutant Behemoths.
Also the East Coast BoS is independent from the West BoS and under Lyons they took the path of really good guys witch meant they lost support from the west cost BoS.
This lead to the splintering cell Outcast BoS witch follow the path of the true BoS.
So STFU if you don't know what you're talking about.
Also the East Coast BoS is independent from the West BoS and under Lyons they took the path of really good guys witch meant they lost support from the west cost BoS.
This lead to the splintering cell Outcast BoS witch follow the path of the true BoS.
So STFU if you don't know what you're talking about.
I also think that part of the reason so many people complain about poor AI in FO3 is because the game is generally combat-centered. I mean, you spend roughly 80% of game time exploring/dungeon-crawling. If FO3, like the original Fallout, was more geared towards complex dialogue, there would be less such complaints - I would personally not care if AI is bad if I could beat the game without drawing my gun.
Depends on what you define "did better". Economically? Sure...
You're also picking games to compare pretty deliberately. If you compare it to Fable 1 (at least it was polished) or Witcher EE, I don't think you have a "much beter than the rest" game anymore. You could also compare it to STALKER, which pretty much makes FO3 seem weak.
DOF_power said:
Depends on what you define "did better". Economically? Sure...
You're also picking games to compare pretty deliberately. If you compare it to Fable 1 (at least it was polished) or Witcher EE, I don't think you have a "much beter than the rest" game anymore. You could also compare it to STALKER, which pretty much makes FO3 seem weak.