Fallout 3, Bioshock: Videogames or not?

[Ausdoerrt]

^Well, Deus Ex and SS2 aren't pure shooters, so let's not mix them in...

I have personally not played Far Cry, but I know that Crysis was released on the XBOX. Your last sentence pretty much summarizes what I meant - the ill trends for FPS are a product of Microsoft console games.

That being said, there are still "classical" style shooters like UT or STALKER around.

Problem was that Fallout 1/2 was about a lot stupid trial-error with the SPECIAL stats...

I don't know about that, I was fine on my first playthrough. It may have been not the most balanced character ever, but if you read the descriptions for skills and perks and have an idea of what kind of character you want, it's pretty intuitive. Not too different from any other RPG. It's possibly only "trial and error" for gamers who have never played an RPG before, and who hate to read. I mean, what's hard about "perception boosts ranged skill", "END increases resistance and HP", etc etc?

And the FF games are not RPGs.

True enough, they are jRPGs, a very different, but still a subcategory of RPG in general. If you claim that jRPGs are not the least RPG, I do not see how you can consider Oblivion or Fallout as such, since they use similar gameplay and game design.

 

[Shattering Fast]

Not a deragotary term, but reflecting the fact that these aren't trying to challenge your brain or your reflexes. These are stories told using XBox instead of film or print.

With all due respect, it seems to me as though you
do mean it as a derogatory term.

Games are games. I expended far more mental energy wrapping my mind around the complex world of Bioshock than I ever would in some ham-fisted Nazi killer, finger-twitching and analog-jiggling aside.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

And the FF games are not RPGs.

True enough, they are jRPGs, a very different, but still a subcategory of RPG in general. If you claim that jRPGs are not the least RPG, I do not see how you can consider Oblivion or Fallout as such, since they use similar gameplay and game design.

They do not use similar gameplay or design and are quite different in their approaches. JRPGs are basically story driven while Bethesda makes games which are basically sandboxes with the story and plot seemingly being their out of obligation. JRPGs are all about the story while Bethesda RPGs are all about wandering around and doing side quests.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

^ a) I bet that Beth was trying to make a game with a driving main story and some random other stuff. We may not think so, but check the reviews and fans praising the immersive main story. There is a difference between a story being well-written and being the main focus;

b) Most if not all JRPGs (unless they are games like FF Tactics) provide you with an open sandbox environment with lots to do. It just sometimes takes a bit longer to get there than in Beth's games. If you hadn't played many jRPGs to completion, it's enough to take any FF game walkthrough, and it's likely to have a "world tour" at some point. They all have "extra stuff" like treasure hunts, chocobo forests/farms, extra locations, just to name a few.

 

[Crni Vuk]

a) I bet that Beth was trying to make a game with a driving main story and some random other stuff. We may not think so, but check the reviews and fans praising the immersive main story. There is a difference between a story being well-written and being the main focus;

The story was bad in Fallout 3. And thats a fact. Reviews count in this not much really.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

The story was bad in Fallout 3. And thats a fact. Reviews count in this not much really.

There is a difference between a story being well-written and being the main focus

That was the bottom line of the statement.

Also, there are as many people who claim stories in FF suck as there are those who claim the story in F3 sucks. Go figure.

 

[TorontoReign]

I think that there are times when you can say a story being good is an opinion and times when you can say "No. that story fucking sucks."

Final Fantasy stories while interesting at times are usually all the same. Bad guys come to destroy something. You must stop it.
Fallout 3 has the same problem. Is it a bad story. Well I wouldn't go as far as to call it horrible, but it damn sure has enough problems not to be good.

 

[Crni Vuk]

The story was bad in Fallout 3. And thats a fact. Reviews count in this not much really.

...
That was the bottom line of the statement.

Also, there are as many people who claim stories in FF suck as there are those who claim the story in F3 sucks. Go figure.

It might sound a bit rude. But its really not meant that way.

I never said the story of Fallout 3 has NOT good parts inside (I loved the thing about Eden and his secret. Really I did a lot).

The thing that just makes it not a good story is just the bad parts that negate the good effects. You discover Eden HELL YES! now some nice good chit-chat with a villain just to get really really disappointed by the choices you have in the dialogues. Same to almost any other part in the plott. Talk to your father? not much ... part about the end game with the radiation? Not working to send a character inside that is immune to radiation ... how is that a good plot? When you count all the holes the story has inside it almost looks like a swiss chees

I dont complain about FF as I never played any of this games so I concentrate my oppinoin only to games I know and had experience with.

 

[smasha]

Fallout 3 is the most overhyped game in gaming history.

Love that French review.


Absolutely spot on.

Bored shitless playing this game.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Fallout 3 is the most overhyped game in gaming history.

Love that French review.

Absolutely spot on.

Bored shitless playing this game.

And that is what I am rather worried about, I still need to play this game and I am already looking against installing it just because so many people who have the same feelings about Fallout in general like me are really disappointed in this.

I do care about a good storyline and intelligent conversation.

Locations that actually make sense and have logical means to support themselves; agriculture, farms.

Salvagers that actually do what they are suppose to and aren't random traders and equipment repairmen in the wasteland.

I dislike the whole 'lets implement this gimmick or locations because its cool mindset'.

The quest "The replicated man" sounds interesting but for that you have stuff like "the Super Human Gambit" which is retarded, "Blood Ties" which basically turns into a mass disappointment once you find out about the Family, and the Moira stuff which mostly makes no sense, plus it is an annoying character.

Stuff like the Outcasts is barely used at all and they are made 'evil' because they don't share Owen's new vision.

Dammit, Fallout wasn't about clear good and evil!

Okay the Enclave in FO2 was but I can forgive that because I like the oganization, but now its being all over again.

 

[gregor_y]

Dammit, Fallout wasn't about clear good and evil!

Yee right you were on neutral status like other members of happy world of Fallout like slayers vs rangers bos vs enclave raiders vs everyone else...yep theres no good or evil only colors of gray...

 

[UncannyGarlic]

^ a) I bet that Beth was trying to make a game with a driving main story and some random other stuff. We may not think so, but check the reviews and fans praising the immersive main story. There is a difference between a story being well-written and being the main focus;

When the main story is a fifth of the total content (using there numbers which appear to be overly generous) then it's clear that said main plot is not the focus of the game.

b) Most if not all JRPGs (unless they are games like FF Tactics) provide you with an open sandbox environment with lots to do. It just sometimes takes a bit longer to get there than in Beth's games. If you hadn't played many jRPGs to completion, it's enough to take any FF game walkthrough, and it's likely to have a "world tour" at some point. They all have "extra stuff" like treasure hunts, chocobo forests/farms, extra locations, just to name a few.

No JRPG that I've played has a truely open world (they're all like FFT in that they slowly open up the world to the player and most areas [a handful of side dungeons and post game dungeons being the exception] are plot related) and none are sandbox games (they tend to be too structured to allow for it). The original Final Fantasy is really the only open world JPRG that I can think of and even it is enough less so that falls flat compared to open-world western RPGs. Minigames and side content don't make games into sandbox games or Onimusha (I'm thinking of the third) would be a sandbox game.

 

[k9wazere]

complex world of Bioshock

Complex world of BioShock?

Complex? BioShock?



Fallout 3 is not the most over-hyped game of this decade. That honour without doubt goes to the complex world of BioShock.

A world so complex; gameplay so emergent; plot so deep; that games will never be the same again.

Never.

Trust the reviewers. They knew that BioShock was a revolution in game design. They also knew that Fallout 3 is the best RPG to hit the market for years.

We are so wrong and blind and cruel when we criticise these masterpieces.

Game of the Year awards never lie.

 

[DOF_power]

^Well, Deus Ex and SS2 aren't pure shooters, so let's not mix them in...

I have personally not played Far Cry, but I know that Crysis was released on the XBOX. Your last sentence pretty much summarizes what I meant - the ill trends for FPS are a product of Microsoft console games.

That being said, there are still "classical" style shooters like UT or STALKER around.

Problem was that Fallout 1/2 was about a lot stupid trial-error with the SPECIAL stats...

I don't know about that, I was fine on my first playthrough. It may have been not the most balanced character ever, but if you read the descriptions for skills and perks and have an idea of what kind of character you want, it's pretty intuitive. Not too different from any other RPG. It's possibly only "trial and error" for gamers who have never played an RPG before, and who hate to read. I mean, what's hard about "perception boosts ranged skill", "END increases resistance and HP", etc etc?

And the FF games are not RPGs.

True enough, they are jRPGs, a very different, but still a subcategory of RPG in general. If you claim that jRPGs are not the least RPG, I do not see how you can consider Oblivion or Fallout as such, since they use similar gameplay and game design.

A game being a shooter in terms of combat doesn't exclude it from being an RPG, or better put from having rpg elements and true rpgs don't exist, if it gives you options (talk, sneak, special things like augmentations and so forth).

Crysis is a PC exclusive. It also has the possibility/choice to avoid combat more then some so called rpgs ironically.

Oblivion is predominantly an action-adventure game, if it had rpg elements they're very few, Fallout 3 on the other hand has more rpg elements.
The Replicated Man, Tennpeny Tower, Power of Atom, You gotta shout them in the head and other side-quests really have choices/branching/multiple outcomes.

And that's when the game really feels like a Fallout/rpgs and not like a reskined Oblivion/action-adventure.


Compare that to the piss-poor Mass Effect side-quests, the fetch quests of Oblivion, and STALKER Clear Sky, or the boring/repetitive/uninspired Storm of Zehir quests, or the lack of quests in Bioshock.

 

[k9wazere]

Just wanted to back up my post about BioShock with some reasoning.

BioShock is not complex, because all the choices are arbitrary.

A choice is only meaningful if it has a consequence, and that consequence shapes the way the game plays.

In BioShock, ammo was everywhere. This meant that choice of weapon was irrelevant. Moreover, you could pretty much kill any enemy with any weapon. Again, choice of weapon meant very little. Additionally, you could upgrade a number of weapons fully, so even if you felt you had made a bad choice, you could just write it off.

In SS2, choices involved thinking. For one, psi hypos were so scarce that choosing the psi route meant being a lot less gung-ho, making every shot count, and pumping all your upgrade points into making psi more effecient.

Second, weapons were often situational. Taken laser weapons skills? Well, you're great at killing bots, but you suck horribly against everything else. Etc.

Games which give you meaningless choices are not complex. Doesn't matter how many meaningless choices you have; whether 1 or 1000. If they're meaningless choices, the game is not complex.

 

[DOF_power]

It might sound a bit rude. But its really not meant that way.

I never said the story of Fallout 3 has NOT good parts inside (I loved the thing about Eden and his secret. Really I did a lot).

The thing that just makes it not a good story is just the bad parts that negate the good effects. You discover Eden HELL YES! now some nice good chit-chat with a villain just to get really really disappointed by the choices you have in the dialogues. Same to almost any other part in the plott. Talk to your father? not much ... part about the end game with the radiation? Not working to send a character inside that is immune to radiation ... how is that a good plot? When you count all the holes the story has inside it almost looks like a swiss chees

I dont complain about FF as I never played any of this games so I concentrate my oppinoin only to games I know and had experience with.

True the end game in F3 was bad and broken.

Sadly all Fallout games have this problem.

In Fallout 1 they turned the master into a "evil is too stupid and/or lazy" cliche as for some reason he didn't realized then couldn't cope with the fact that his super mutants where sterile.

And in Fallout 2 you couldn't escape the battle with Frank Horrigan.

 

[Crni Vuk]

True the end game in F3 was bad and broken.

Sadly all Fallout games have this problem.

In Fallout 1 they turned the master into a "evil is too stupid and/or lazy" cliche as for some reason he didn't realized then couldn't cope with the fact that his super mutants where sterile.

And in Fallout 2 you couldn't escape the battle with Frank Horrigan.

*Expect some Fallout 3 Spoilers now ...*
But the overall experience was better. You always get a shallow feeling when you have to decide who now has to ender the radiation champer and look over to either charon (the ghoul) or Fawkes (the supermutant) which both refuse to get inside for you despite the fact that they could save your live in the process. By the way considering the fact that you have a contract with Charon, there is no option to "command" him to do so? Or that you saved Fawkes from ... 100, 200 years of prison and saved his live and STILL refuses to save your live now ? Why did he bothered to get his ass to Raven Rock to rescue you from the enclave ?

Sorry. One can of course say that Fallout 1/2 had some "weak" points, but the story and quests for itself were at least consitend. The Master did not just decided to give up cause it happens that YOU tell him to do so (unlike the President in Fallotu 3 ..."hey yorue wrong! Evil not good!" - "youre right ... I give up ... good bye. Blow up now everything". Convincing the master was more then just a usual "task work". Fallout 3s story, has the appeal of a swiss chees. They both share a lot of holes. And same applies to the whole world of Fallout 3. It LOOKS all nice, and stuff and such. But its not convincing only for a minute. Computers in the wasteland that seem to work even after 200 years without any cover of visible power source, same to the light in ALL buildings you can enter. Seriously almost everywhere is a light source somehow working. Same to the toilets and sinks. I mean that is not what should even work in the Fallout timeline ...

I am not a expert when it comes to stories or writting ... but the time when I entered the last part of the game where I had to decide who should sacrifice himself and tourned over happily to Fawkes and thought that it payed of to get him alongside ... boy was I wrong. I somewhat feelt like ... watching the alternate ending of The Shawshank redemption ...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSazaSqTqis[/youtube]

 

[Commiered]

Well convincing the Master still required doing things before meeting him so that you had something to back up your arguments. In F3 you convince the 'big bad' to roll over and die on account of your 'strong' persuasive skills.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

No JRPG that I've played has a truely open world (they're all like FFT in that they slowly open up the world to the player and most areas [a handful of side dungeons and post game dungeons being the exception] are plot related) and none are sandbox games (they tend to be too structured to allow for it). The original Final Fantasy is really the only open world JPRG that I can think of and even it is enough less so that falls flat compared to open-world western RPGs. Minigames and side content don't make games into sandbox games or Onimusha (I'm thinking of the third) would be a sandbox game.

Well, I thought FFIII, FFV, FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX were pretty open-ended. It's true that they did not open all of the world at once, you could only access some parts of it from the start, but you were welcome to travel around and do the "quests" (there really weren't any, but still) in pretty much any order. If anything, FFVIII had a lot of locations to explore that the game only gave you hints about, but it was up to the player to decide.

In FF games too, the time you spend with the story vs the time you spend power-leveling is about the same ratio...

I'm not saying that they are the same type of game as Beth sandbox "RPG", I'm just saying that they seem to use similar approach.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Well, I thought FFIII, FFV, FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX were pretty open-ended. It's true that they did not open all of the world at once, you could only access some parts of it from the start, but you were welcome to travel around and do the "quests" (there really weren't any, but still) in pretty much any order. If anything, FFVIII had a lot of locations to explore that the game only gave you hints about, but it was up to the player to decide.

In FF games too, the time you spend with the story vs the time you spend power-leveling is about the same ratio...

I'm not saying that they are the same type of game as Beth sandbox "RPG", I'm just saying that they seem to use similar approach.

Haven't played enough of FFIII yet to say on that but FFV, FFVII, and FFIX are certainly too structured to fall anywhere near Beth games. FFV is pretty damn linear and you pretty much are forced to go where you're supposed to next and certainly can't skip any part of the main quest or do sidequests. FFVII (which is probably second closest but still miles away) really doesn't open up until you get the airship but again, the optional dungeons are limited (I think there are two that have no connection to any character's story, one in the sunken ship and one on the KotR island, along with the Weapons). FFIX has the Chocobo crap but that's all that I can think of for it, though I'm sure it has a handful of optional dungeons aswell.

FFVIII is really the closest thing but that's only after you have air travel (which I guess is only something like 10-20 hours in) as it does have a lot of optional areas which make up a decent portion of the game (half the GFs) but I can't say how related they are to the plot of the game or back story of important characters. That said, the first time I played through FFVIII I used only one save slot and ended up stuck in the second to final area, put in about 10 hours of trying to beat the final boss or getting skills to beat it (was only in the low 30s with level 2 weapons with my characters [3 with Squall and maybe one or two others]) before getting completely frustrated. Haven't gotten around to replaying it yet. They all have world maps but they always control and limit where you can go on them, usually until the very end but always a fair way into the game, while Bethesda sandbox games are pretty much completely open to exploration (except for a handful quest related areas) as soon as you finish the tutorial.