Fallout 2 Lore is garbage too...

The general point here is that both Fallout 1 and 2 had overall very consistent worlds, so when these occasionally silly points come up that might break some lore or the internal consistency, it's easier to overlook them as simply being fun easter eggs, or a light-hearted joke/scene to balance the more serious stuff going on.

Whereas in 3 and 4 the entire world is broken, nothing makes logical sense, there's no internal consistency, and when these random lore breaks and other annoyances happen they're therefore considerably more jarring and actually stand out more as a direct result. Readers/viewers/players will tolerate a degree of rule bending if the world is consistent and none of those rule bends actively break something that was already established (unless it's done in a way that indicates what you've been shown might not be true, leading to an interesting twist/reveal later).

But when the whole world is a mess, people like us are way less forgiving overall (just look at Shamus picking apart Mass Effect over the last year, or my own Reconstructing series on Fallout 3).
 
Action games typically don't focus on consistency. There are occasional rarities, like the Half-Life series, but most of the time the important part is that all the writing only serves to connect one objective to another. It's not about stringing a coherent mission through a living world as an RPG usually does, it's creating several disjointed set pieces and using the world to bridge them all together. Usually, it's supposed to end up with better level design at the cost of having a less believable world.

Besides, I doubt the majority of Black Isle actually feel as strongly about Fallout 3 and 4 as NMA does. Fallout 2 looks like a game the devs actually had fun making, what with all the easter eggs and art design.
 
So? This is an action game with an existing lore and pedigree, and Bethesda are consistently (hoho) crapping all over that.

edit: Also, Emil is desperately trying to have a serious story in this game that the player will care about, and that demands internal consistency. Either drop the story, or make it consistent. They took the worst route of doing neither.
 
Radiosity said:
So? This is an action game with an existing lore and pedigree, and Bethesda are consistently (hoho) crapping all over that.

edit: Also, Emil is desperately trying to have a serious story in this game that the player will care about, and that demands internal consistency. Either drop the story, or make it consistent. They took the worst route of doing neither.
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Well, yes they are. I'm not denying that, I'm just pointing a common pattern out. Nevermind the fact that Fallout isn't even traditionally an action game. But since it is and we can't do anything about it, there's even less point in holding it up to the same standards as an RPG. There are much better things to bash Fallout 4 about than the fact that it, an action game designed for the sake of the action, has less consistency than a strategy game designed for the sake of the writing. Like the fact that it's not a very good action game either.

If Fallout 4 (by most opinions here) isn't a Fallout game, then why are we comparing it to past Fallout games rather than on its own merits, like say, its poor optimisation, unbalanced and repetitive gameplay, or its outdated visuals? That's a double standard in its own. If you're not going to consider Fallout 4 a Fallout game, then compare it with the flaws of other action games.

If Fallout 4 was not a Fallout game in name, but everything else about it was the same, no one would be holding its internal consistency in comparison with that of past Fallout games. So we might as well not do so, unless just for the sake of creating excuses to bash Bethesda again rather than reassess their real flaws. But if that is the case, then go nuts, it is NMA after all.
 
Well, if we are taking this route.

-The Chosen One is responsible for the malfunction of the water chip of Vault 13.
-Brahmin can spontaneously explode and speak.
-Some NPC know that they are in a game, they will sometimes even complain about not having enough AP during fight.
-The uncle of Dave in Vault 13 was decapitated by a watermelon.
-BB gun can be quite lethal.
-etc...

The point is, all of what we've mentioned up until now are jokes, not lore. A joke lasts but for a moment, if it leaves a misunderstanding, it becomes a lie. If any of us fail to realize that they are jokes, and are stuck with it, unable to laugh and move on, rather than wondering how they make, or don't make sense as lore (because they are not canon), we should think how they fail at being a joke, and how it might have been improved.

As for Willies, I found it better left unexplained. An important aspect of joke is to leave place to the imagination of the listener. If you explain everything, it cease to be a joke.

If we want to speak of garbage lore in Fallout 2, we should only consider what is connected to the main plot, side plot, and world design.
 
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GlutinousRice said:
If we want to speak of garbage lore in Fallout 2, we should only consider what is connected to the main plot, side plot, and world design.
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You are absolutely 100% correct!

The main plot is the biggest issue in my opinion. The whole idea of US goverment using a major part of it's last resources building a huge network of vaults just to do some stupid experiment on human behavior or some shit like that is completely ridicilous.

While I like New Reno and its quests and characters, it's way over the top. A porn studio? Really?
San Francisco is another area with incoherent factions like the Shi and the Hubologists.

Also as it has been said like a million times before, there are wayyy too much eastern eggs and pop culture references in the game. Most of these were fun but too much will break the immersion.

I'm not saying I didn't have fun exploring these areas but rather that they are out of place in the world of Fallout.
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
Besides, I doubt the majority of Black Isle actually feel as strongly about Fallout 3 and 4 as NMA does. Fallout 2 looks like a game the devs actually had fun making, what with all the easter eggs and art design.
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Who can know... but this immediately came to mind:
Fallout 2 [to me] looks like several devs hadn't a clue about the setting, and what's appropriate to it, (and/or where it is appropriate). In every subsequent Fallout title to date, the setting has been like a degenerated copy of the one before it... and getting worse each time; it's because the principle leads left Interplay.
...and because they never worked at Bethesda.

Bethesda ~specific, did cherry pick some of the least significant aspects of the IP to dress their Oblivion 2.0 Fallout sequel as a legendary RPG reborn, but it was just the Emperor's new clothes.

None of the significant aspects from Fallout made the cut; and it was like playing TES set in a retro 1950's. :(
 
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GlutinousRice said:
Well, if we are taking this route.

-The Chosen One is responsible for the malfunction of the water chip of Vault 13.
-Brahmin can spontaneously explode and speak.
-Some NPC know that they are in a game, they will sometimes even complain about not having enough AP during fight.
-The uncle of Dave in Vault 13 was decapitated by a watermelon.
-BB gun can be quite lethal.
-etc...
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I think easer eggs and jokes should not be blown out of proportion though. Particularly the part you mentioned with breaking the 4th wall. I mean com on. That's close to nitpicking. The things that are mention about Fallout 3 and 4, are for the most part, not just nitpicking. No one here denied the stupidity of Fallout 2 and yes, even Fallout 1. But Fallout 2 contains also a lot of really very great and well made stuff. You don't have to look really far to find it. Where as in F3 and F4, you are greated by silly commedy and nonsensical stuff on every corner. Because the game is not crafted as role playing game with a good narrative, but as amusement park, where you play whack-a-mole on one place, enter a rollercoaster on a different one and buy some sweets and candy once your finished. There is no real conection.
 
GlutinousRice said:
I was joking. OP was complaining about Fallout 2 lore being garbage, by citing only Easter eggs that have no relation with lore, so I've only cited Easter eggs as a response. As for breaking the 4th wall, I personally like metajoke, so I don't see any problem.
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Hey umm guys... I didn't know they were Easter eggs. Calm down. Now folks have mentioned the shi and hubologists what is wrong with them?
 
To be fair, if Fallout 2 had the Bethesda FanBoys, they would think anything is canon.
 
R.Graves said:
Hey umm guys... I didn't know they were Easter eggs. Calm down. Now folks have mentioned the shi and hubologists what is wrong with them?
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Eh, they havn't been really that well writen and kinda out of place in the Fallout world. THe Shi for example, didn'T even had much of a plot outside of, lulz, we are chinese and have a super computer that we named emperor. And the Hubologists ... well. Best if you just killed them.
 
All the pop culture references, (although some here like it), I hated it.

As brought up a million times before, F2 was goofy and it was mostly accepted/tolerated because the CORE feeling of the series remained (ending slides/multiple endings, non-action shooter mechanics, heavy dialogue and mostly good lore, etc.
 
Gizmojunk said:
Fallout 2 [to me] looks like several devs hadn't a clue about the setting, and what's appropriate to it, (and/or where it is appropriate). In every subsequent Fallout title to date, the setting has been like a degenerated copy of the one before it... and getting worse each time; it's because the principle leads left Interplay.
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Well, I don't think the original Fallout was ever that great. So I suppose I can't garner much care about whether or not a Fallout game was faithful to the first one. Do people really think the first installment in the series is the one to define that series? It's certainly the one to start it, but in most cases it's usually never the pinnacle. It's just my opinion, though. Easter eggs and a couple of lore breaks prove that a game isn't taking itself too seriously, and I can appreciate that.

AlphaPromethean said:
For the 2 billionth time, NMA both fully acknowledges and realizes the faults in the lore of Fallout 2. It was a major point of complaint back in the day. You are not a special snowflake for pointing it out and we've had so many threads on this exact topic.
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Hey, nobody new ever uses the search function on any forum. You might as well get used to people regurgitating anything that isn't on the front page of each subforum. No one but the dedicated regulars here is going to move through the entire forum history to find out if what they're about to post has already been posted.
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
Do people really think the first installment in the series is the one to define that series?
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Yes! [of course; how could it be otherwise?]
harry-2.gif



(One cannot improve a thing by discarding it. A new and improved can-opener ~that doesn't open cans... is not a can opener. This is why FO3 is more like a sequel to FOBOS than Fallout.)
 
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