Does Fallout 3 meet the criteria to be called Fallout?

[Black]

so yes, Fallout 3 is indeed and always will be a fallout game.

Because Todd says so?

Fallout 3 is a VERY different game then the originals

just because you don't like this fallout

Yeah, think about it for a sec. Whether it's about not liking it, or maybe about it being different.

 

[HellVaultBoy6660]

so yes, Fallout 3 is indeed and always will be a fallout game.

Because Todd says so?

Fallout 3 is a VERY different game then the originals

just because you don't like this fallout

Yeah, think about it for a sec. Whether it's about not liking it, or maybe about it being different.

im not seeing your point.

 

[Humpsalot]

I think through this post everyone is beginning to agree. This is not a sequel. But it is fallout. It shouldn't have been called Fallout 3. It should have been called something along the lines of Fallout: DC, instead of Fallout 3. But that would be a stupid name. So they could have either called it Fallout... but that would have been confused with original Fallout, if they called it Fallout: DC, new people to the series would have been "Whats with the DC". And if they called it 2277, for example, but then had all this pipboy icons and gear, it would have just looked like a rip off.

I'm sure Bethesda thought of all these name ideas and noticed that any name picked would cause some controversy. So what were they to do?

Actually maybe if they did call it "2277" or (something besides Fallout) And kept the game the same, it would have been a great game, and done well on its own merits and i don't think we would have ever had this conversation. Except we would have a conversation along the lines of "Why didn't they just call it Fallout 3" So damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

 

[Brother None]

I think through this post everyone is beginning to agree. This is not a sequel. But it is fallout. It shouldn't have been called Fallout 3. It should have been called something along the lines of Fallout: DC, instead of Fallout 3.

Exactly. Same setting - to some limit - but different mechanics. That's a spin-off, not a sequel.

But that would be a stupid name.

Why? It worked for Fallout: Tactics and Fallout: BoS.

I'm sure Bethesda thought of all these name ideas and noticed that any name picked would cause some controversy.

Not really, they've indicated they're calling it Fallout 3 from the start. In fact, they only licensed naming rights for Fallout 3 to begin with, never for a Fallout spin-off.

 

[Humpsalot]

With Bethesda's line of thinking Fallout Tactics should have been called Fallout 3, and Fallout: BOS should have been called Fallout 4, so why didn't they just call this new Fallout Fallout 5? lol.

But there are some things that the exception proves the rule. Fallout Tactics was meh in my opinion without the dialog and I've heard Fallout: BOS was not a success, so if they were to call it Fallout: DC, it might not have gotten the publicity that it is getting with current name. But that is the wrong reason to keep this as a sequel... for marketing reasons, that is a big part of the reason many people are mad, because they are calling it Fallout 3 purely for marketing, feels like the name is being whored out for the pimps gain.

If a pimp called a whore Angelina Jolie she would get more customers, but you wouldn't be fucking Angelina Jolie, just someone with the same name.

 

[EnglishMuffin]

What exactly makes fallout 1/2 fallout and what does fallout 3 not do or do too much of that makes it so unworthy?

It's post apocolipse, it's guns, it's gore, it's vaults, it's killing to get stuff done(or talking your way around it), mutants, it's leveling, it's different choices, stem backs, jet, drugs, hookers, power armor, it's NPC companions, karma, you can aim at certain body parts (not crotch, which is one thing im not happy about, that is a legit target in any book) but what else do you want to make it worthy of its name?

Other than the "talking your way around it" part, didn't Fallout: Tactics have all that? That was not a good fallout game in the least. I would try to push in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel in this argument but I don't think it had companions, karma, or aiming. But then again you can't aim at specific body parts in melee in F3.

Also considering that Bethesda games have been going downhill since Daggerfall, it is quite safe to assume that Fallout 3 will be between Fallout: Tactics and Fallout: Brotherhood of steel.

In closing, just because the game contains everything that fallout 1 and 2 had does not mean that the game will be decent in any way shape or form. Unless of course, you think that Fallout: Tactics and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel were good, but if you do...well, you are probably a bethesda fan. I know there are a bunch of people on their forums that actually liked both those games. So F3 is for the TES fans and because of this, will look, feel, sound, and read like a TES game.

 

[Herr Mike]

It should be called Fallout 3 if they want to call it Fallout 3. They bought the license. It's an RPG set in the Fallout universe. It's the next Fallout RPG game. Reason enough for the name. Also, it's a damn label and doesn't mean dick.

 

[M-26-7]

ok, so Fallout 3 is a VERY different game then the originals. to some thats a good thing, to others its bad.

but just because you don't like this fallout. doesn't mean its not fallout. i hated the phantom menace. that doesn't make it not star wars. just crappy star wars.

and whether the game will be crappy or not, thats unknown because its not out yet.

so yes, Fallout 3 is indeed and always will be a fallout game.

What people seem to forget is that the game has a soul like people do. Take a homo sapien, it's got everything you'd see on a normal human being. The only difference is that this homo sapien has a minuscule brain. He has no higher thinking abilities, he feels no need to create. All he does is sleep, eat, and breed or survive. Is this a human being? Can this thing, this monstrosity be consider the same as you or me? Of course not. It's our soul that separates us from animals. The same can be said of Fallout 3.

Sure it has the setting, the weapons, etc, but does it really feel the same? Well to some degree that remains to be seen, but just like the DNA that our parents put into us, the developers have put their DNA into the game. Fallout 1/2 put their DNA into the game. Basically what I'm trying to say is that I think the spirit cannot and has not been properly captured by the new team.

I think this is most observable in members of the teams comments. Every other paragraph has 'Oblivion' in it. Comparisons were bound to be drawn between the two games, but if the developers were truly intent on making Fallout they wouldn't allow them to be made or at the very least wouldn't make so many themselves. The two series are completely different. I think that every member of developments should've been made to play through both games. That way they would've had their feet firmly planted in Fallout rather than the game they had just finished.

So basically what I'm saying is you can have every element of the previous games and it still might not be Fallout . After all there have been plenty of post-apocalyspe games that haven't been called Fallout.

 

[pevvy]

What people seem to forget is that the game has a soul like people do. Take a homo sapien, it's got everything you'd see on a normal human being. The only difference is that this homo sapien has a minuscule brain. He has no higher thinking abilities, he feels no need to create. All he does is sleep, eat, and breed or survive. Is this a human being? Can this thing, this monstrosity be consider the same as you or me? Of course not.

Argh. The rest of your post are personal opinions and I will not go there however much I'm tempted, but let's at least get the scientific facts in the above quote corrected right now. We, the modern humans, as considered by present-day knowledge, are all of the species "Homo sapiens". You can start your studies from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

So if you wanted to refer to some ancestral pre-species, you could perhaps have replaced your "homo sapien" [sic] with "Australopithecus", and even then what could you possibly know about their "monstrosity" or "feeling no need to create"?!

 

[Raza]

I don't really think there aught to be 'criteria' for being called a Fallout game beyond using the worldsetting. I'm not sure it'll live up to 1 and 2, but saying "it's not fallout'"is just being no-true-scotsman elitist.

I'm disappointed in what I understand as their intentions to dumb down the game qua dialogue, relativist ethics, edgy subject matter etc. I expect that this will make it somewhat less fun to play. However, I think they're getting Fallout's other distinguishing quality - the post-apocalyptic atmosphere - quite right, and I'm excited to see it given shape in a wide 3D world with up-to-date graphic quality.

 

[Viliny]

First off, discussing souls sounds a little religion-oriented and that always goes bad when discussed...

Thing is i played Fallout 1 (Very little, fixing that soon), Fallout 2, Jagged Alliance 2 and silent storm and other games which all share a similar system of gameplay.

Isometric turnbased is essentially what fallout is to me. I find it fun and relaxing in a proper amount. Taking this over FPS won't allow me to go smoke a cig and come back and expect my character to be alive for instance. I just love the system.

I nearly started crying when i watched the movie where Todd runs the usual demo course with some american civil war era(?) music on the background and doing some apeshit stunts with teddybears and nuke launchers and getting... CHEERS from the audience? It sounds like a bunch of hooligans taking turns on the victim that is Fallout.

Of course that may just be todd misrepresenting the game and all but im not expecting anything groundbreaking from that front at all.

Fallout 1 and 2 were made by different people - These guys bought the name with money and slapped it on a game they wanted to make.

 

[Herr Mike]

Why pretend Fallout had a perfect combat system? It didn't.

I am a fan of turn-based, sure. I think it's a mistake to say it won't sell, a misconception that stems from how wildly popular Command & Conquer and Warcraft were compared to their TB strategy counterparts. But, while being in RT might have helped, and lended a bit of novelty, they were also good games that deserved to sell no matter what format they were in.

Anyway, I enjoy it because It creates a less stressful gaming environment. As a fan of wargames, I think it is absolutely the best way to handle that format. Tactical combat games can work both ways, but TB is better for that also. Jagged Alliance 2 is much more fun for me than Company of Heroes. There is too much to manage in real-time. Too stressful.

But, at the same time, in a game that isn't "pure" TB, such as Fallout, going in and out of TB mode can become an annoyance. Vault 15 comes to mind, there is always some stupid rat that sees you and causes the game to switch modes. In such a case, real-time or "continuous turn based" would make for a much smoother experience. Your character sees the rat, and automatically kills it. Or doesn't, depending on your settings.

In short, I'm not really sure Fallout would have been any worse if it had a combat system similar to Tactics. It's easy to manage a single character in real-time. Or CTB, in this case. For all the issues the game had, I felt the CTB system worked very well. Too bad they weren't able to put that level of work into the other aspects of the game.

Now, engineering satisfying and not overwhelming bouts of real-time combat would take some extra work from the developers. You don't want the player bum-rushed by dozens of enemies, at least not without giving him a chance to set up defenses. If you design the mutant base, you have to design it so the player has places to find cover, set traps, etc. The end product could be far more engaging than a simple "stand still and blast" turn-based system, which is what Fallout had.

How they have us shoot things doesn't really matter to me. I sure as heck didn't enjoy Fallout because of the super great combat system. It's all about the setting for me. The atmosphere. If you think you can't get a Fallout vibe from a first-person game, you are mistaken. I'm not going to say FP is the superior format, but it is the most immersive by a longshot. Bioshock and Half-Life 2 put that argument to rest for me. In many ways, Bioshock IS Fallout 3D (albeit underwater), and it is amazing.

To sum up, my personal standpoint is that I don't care how great the combat system is, what format the game is in, or how refined the RPG aspects are, all they need to do is not be crappy enough to break me out of the game world. That's the bread and butter for me. Is this world convincing? Am I in Fallout?

And I think the only way any of us can know if it works for us, is if we play it.

 

[Per]

Whoa, déjà vu.

Fallout wasn't a turn-based strategy game... it wasn't a turn-based RPG for that matter. It was real-time RPG with turn-based combat.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Why pretend Fallout had a perfect combat system? It didn't.

Lets see:

The History of Fallout[/url]]When asked to talk about Fallout's combat system, Tim Cain has noted "I think the strength of Fallout's combat system is that it was easy to understand and use, but still complex enough to give you many options on how to fight. Turn-based combat gives you more time to think of battle tactics, so combat feels richer - and a lot of people responded to that." (ref) Additionally, Tim explained "It also showed how popular and fun turn-based combat could be, when everyone else was going with real-time or pause-based combat." (ref) Feargus Urquhart later added "If you want to exactly represent GURPs, D&D or most other PnP RPGs then you have to go turn based, which was the decision for Fallout when it was GURPs." (ref)

Fallout didn't have an ideal combat system. It had combat system which perfectly suited to the priorities of designers what is always far better in art than "this is more popular this days so it will sell" explanation.

I'm not going to say FP is the superior format, but it is the most immersive by a longshot. Bioshock and Half-Life 2 put that argument to rest for me.

One example - Planescape: Torment. The most immersive game ever (anybody not agreeing is as good as dead ). Thesis about FP being most immersive is in my opinion the biggest lie (of these believed to be true) in gaming world ever and it works because of simple association - you see what main character see so you feel like you were him (or her). But it is only about what you see. But do you realise you have four more senses? The best way to give the impression of feeling them is to write good description with words.

The reason why Bioshock is immersive is not FP, but some brilliant solutions like woman talking to a revolver like it was her baby, song of little girls, journals of Rapture inhabitants (as I said - making use with words) and many other. Don't tell me it would be impossible to maintain such immersion in isometric game. Half life 2? Played, find nothing immersive in it so I have no voice in that matter.

 

[Herr Mike]

Why pretend Fallout had a perfect combat system? It didn't.

Lets see:

The History of Fallout[/url]]When asked to talk about Fallout's combat system, Tim Cain has noted "I think the strength of Fallout's combat system is that it was easy to understand and use, but still complex enough to give you many options on how to fight. Turn-based combat gives you more time to think of battle tactics, so combat feels richer - and a lot of people responded to that." (ref) Additionally, Tim explained "It also showed how popular and fun turn-based combat could be, when everyone else was going with real-time or pause-based combat." (ref) Feargus Urquhart later added "If you want to exactly represent GURPs, D&D or most other PnP RPGs then you have to go turn based, which was the decision for Fallout when it was GURPs." (ref)

Fallout didn't have an ideal combat system. It had combat system which ideally suited to the priorities of designers what is always far better in art than "this is more popular this days so it will sell" explanation.

I'm not saying it didn't work. It obviously did. I love the game to death. Sure, it worked better than a RT system would have, since they designed the game with TB in mind. But, none of that means you could not have had a slightly different Fallout of equal quality with a real-time combat system. My point is, turn-based combat is not integral to the Fallout experience, at least not my Fallout experience.

I'm not going to say FP is the superior format, but it is the most immersive by a longshot. Bioshock and Half-Life 2 put that argument to rest for me.

One example - Planescape: Torment (anybody not agreeing is as good as dead ). The most immersive game ever.

Brilliant game, I might like it more than Fallout. But I still disagree that isometric can be as immersive as FP. It just can't. That's the very nature of it. The whole point of isometric is to give you a bird's eye view, to SEPERATE you from your character and put you ABOVE the ground, with an impossible perspective. How can that increase the realism, or immersion?

It could be simply that you prefer it not to be so real, or visceral. And that's fine, but I'm not sure I can be convinced that those two things don't enhance the feeling of "being there", i.e. the immersion.

Torment achieved incredible atmosphere, to be sure, but not because of the perspective, it was because of the extremely engaging storyline. You put Torment in first person, it's going to be even better. Why wouldn't it be?

I think it was an issue of technological limitations, or those games would have been first person also. I would think designers would want to put things in the most real perspective possible. But, for a long time FP games just weren't very pretty, at least not what you could do on a comparable budget. Back then, you could get better looking graphics with less horsepower by using a 2D isometric engine. So that's what the developers used. Nowadays you can have immaculate graphics and faithfully interpreted art with a 3D engine. So why not use it?

Thesis about FP being most immersive is in my opinion the biggest lie (of these believed to be true) ever in gaming world and it works because of simple association - you see what main character see so you feel like you were him (or her). But it is only about what you see. But do you realise you have four more senses? The best way to give the impression of feeling them is to write good description with words.

I agree (with the last bit) to a point, but by this logic we should all be playing Infocom games. Heck, I love those. Very immersive. But we all know they won't be making a comeback. Even if they did, I still like graphics.

Besides, there is nothing to say you can't have text descriptions of things in a first person game, just like you can in an isometric one.

The reason why Bioshock is immersive is not FP, but some brilliant solutions like woman talking to a revolver like it was her baby, song of little girls, journals of Rapture inhabitants (as I said - making use with words) and many other. Don't tell me it would be impossible to maintain such immersion in isometric game.

Sorry, I'm telling you it would be. Lets look at it scientifically. You see something, and you process it. The more abstract it is, the more you have to process. The more your brain works at converting an abstract image into something you can recognize, the less horsepower your brain has to notice "all the little things" in the environment.

Of course you can still get a lot of immersion from an abstract viewpoint. Heck, you get immersion from reading text, the ultimate in abstraction. But you can't get as much.

You cite the woman singing to the gun in Bioshock, with the shadow splashed on the wall. Absurdly brilliant image. Can you remember a scene in Planescape so vividly? Maybe, but a scene that ultimately has no impact on the game?

Half life 2? Played, find nothing immersive in it so I have no voice in that matter.

You didn't? I thought it was fantastic. Sure, it was more or less a movie, since the player does very little but move as told, shoot as needed, and manipulate a few objects, but the environment was superbly realized, and the story was fascinating.

In some ways, it succeeded where Bioshock failed. You didn't have to worry about "gamey" stuff like hacking countless vending machines, and switching plasmids, etc. You only had to consider which gun to use. Mostly you could sit back and enjoy the show, and soak in the experience.

Not the kind of game for everyone, I admit. But if I want a game where I have to think and strategize, I want a game that doesn't half-ass it and ultimately turn it into work, like a lot of FPS' and RPG's.

 

[EnglishMuffin]

I'm just going to add that the most immersive experiences that I have had are probably from lying down and reading a fantastic book. Well written words can convey a fantastic world and lead the reader on an amazing story that is more in depth that a movie. Text to text, visuals to visuals. The words win.

Also valve has some very good writers and can make very linear games feel anything but. They can actually put you in a story that makes you want to turn the page.

 

[Ausir]

I think it was an issue of technological limitations, or those games would have been first person also. I would think designers would want to put things in the most real perspective possible.

FPP games have been around long before Fallout or PS:T. If they wanted these games to be FPP, they would be. I'm sick of the "technological limitations" bullshit, this has nothing to do with it.

Back then, you could get better looking graphics with less horsepower by using a 2D isometric engine. So that's what the developers used. Nowadays you can have immaculate graphics and faithfully interpreted art with a 3D engine. So why not use it?

No one here is advocating the use of 2D. But isometric gamplay is vastly different from FPP gameplay and this is what we prefer, as did the designers of Fallout.

 

[Herr Mike]

I'm just going to add that the most immersive experiences that I have had are probably from lying down and reading a fantastic book. Well written words can convey a fantastic world and lead the reader on an amazing story that is more in depth that a movie. Text to text, visuals to visuals. The words win.

That's true, but a book isn't really a sensory experience like a game is. You don't see or hear anything, you just imagine everything based on words that more or less tell you what to imagine.

Also valve has some very good writers and can make very linear games feel anything but. They can actually put you in a story that makes you want to turn the page.

Yes, and on that note, I can't wait for Episode 3.

Did you play Portal?

 

[Herr Mike]

No one here is advocating the use of 2D. But isometric gamplay is vastly different from FPP gameplay and this is what we prefer, as did the designers of Fallout.

But why? What is so much better about it? It's better 'just cause'?

If I was a designer, and I wanted my gaming vision to be as faithfully interpreted as possible, I'd want to use first person. Because that is how people see things.

 

[Per]

But why? What is so much better about it? It's better 'just cause'?

Why do some people like puzzle games instead of platformers? Just because?

Also,

edityourpost