Fallout 3 Hands-Ons #3

[Ranne]

@Anani Masu
You fail to count in the peculiar setting of the first Fallout. It wasn't supposed to be scientific. It was supposed to look retro and pseudo-scientific. Like, say, Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was reflecting the mainstream views of the 50s that saw radiation as dangerous and long-lasting and gene-altering to a degree where it could cause hereditary mutations in high-level species. Somebody said that no one believed in hereditary mutations back then. It's not true. There simply wasn't enough scientific data to support such conclusions, and I remember reading of both Chernobyl and Hiroshima studies that aimed to prove (or disprove) just that long after the 50s were over.

@BN
As I (and you) said, Interplay's approach to radiation was based on something. Bethesda's approach to radiation doesn't look pseudo-scientific. It doesn't look reminiscent of the 50s either. If anything, it looks completely moronic and is seemingly based on nothing but their ignorance of the concept. I fail to see a parallel with the previous games.

 

[Makagulfazel]

Now I’ve had some time with the game thanks to E3 and and while I couldn’t really get that far in just 30 minutes to tell you how the game truly plays or runs, what I can tell you is that new Fallout feels a hell of a lot like old Fallout, just with prettier graphics and all new gameplay mechanics. You’re dropped outside in the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout 3 and the same sense of a large desolated world that you got from the first game is right there. As I started playing, I felt almost exactly like I felt when I jumped into Fallout for the first time, except now I could see a gorgeous horizon of destroyed Washington DC instead of a bunch of pixels.

Urge to kill increasing.
It's still just a bunch of fucking pixels, you douchebag.

 

[Seymour the spore plant]

I think the crux of the whole radiation argument is that, while both Fallout's and Bethesda's approaches were indeed "entirely unscientific and unrealistic", they are very different from one another.

Fallout's world has been ravaged by radiation, and so it is presented as a very awe-inspiring and deadly element of the setting. It is also extremely rare gameplay-wise: in both of the original Fallouts there is only a couple of locations where it is a menace in itself, like The Glow.

Bethesda's approach to radiation is more akin to simply another gameplay element. Instead of managing, say, how much food you have, you manage radiation levels. Plus, it is omnipresent in Fallout 3 - Glowing Ones use it, the Fatman and exploding cars release it, food and water will irradiate you.

How come there is so much more radiation all around, when more time has passed? Even if Washington was more severely bombed, this amount and portrayal of radiation is wildly inconsistent with that of the originals'.

 

[Anani Masu]

Because it's a different game trying a new mechanic. I think it being a constant hazard to monitor with occasion pockets of extreme radiation could end up being a neat mechanic. It could also end up being a pain in the ass that doesn't really add a lot to the game. I just think it's a bit silly to start bringing real world science into the debate to criticize F3 when that train left the station long ago in the originals.

 

[Ranne]

Quick Google search (I don't have an access to my library from here)
http://topics.scirus.com/Ionizing_radiation_genetic_risks_and_radiation_protection.html

Muller’s discovery of the mutagenic effects of X-irradiation in Drosophila germ cells in the late 1920s, its subsequent extension to other kinds of ionizing radiations and other biological systems in the years that followed introduced a new dimension to the concern about radiation risks, namely, that of transmissible genetic risks and genetic health protection. However, it was the detonation of atomic bombs in World War II over Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the resultant radioactive fallout which sparked worldwide concern over adverse health effects of exposures of large numbers of people to low levels of radiation. In the mid-1950s, with the genetic effects assumed to be the principal effects of radiation at low doses, the scientific committees involved in radiation protection advanced the view that genetic risks should be the main determinant for recommending limits of radiation exposure of people.
...
By the early 1960s, it was clear that cancer risks were much more important quantitatively than genetic risks. Over the following 15 years or so, there was a gradual shift in perspective

As I said, the original game had a point and a purpose.

 

[Taskeen]

Take a modern radiated area like Iraq, for example. A modern, Middle-Eastern version of Fallout where Depleted Uranium is used consistently. Depleted Uranium contains low-level radioactive waste in which 1,200 tons has been addmited to have been used on Iraq (actually 320 in Gulf War I, and 1500 in II). I won't get into how horrible that obviously is. Anyways, the amount dropped is the equivalent of 10 times the use of nuclear bombs, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Nuclear test sites. DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Humanity is dumb enough to allow this to happen, which definitely screws everyone over in the Fallout universe. Assuming that more than one missile exploded in the U.S., the fallout would still be present, although in low-doses, but still can cause long-term radiation damage for a very long time.

 

[Ranne]

Er, when an Uranium-238-filled bomb explodes, you are no longer dealing with U-238 but with its fission products that are much more short-lived. Did you even read the Seven-Ten Rule and Chernobyl quote I mentioned?

 

[Taskeen]

Er, when an Uranium-238-filled bomb explodes, you are no longer dealing with U-238 but with its fission products that are much more short-lived. Did you even read the Seven-Ten Rule and Chernobyl quote I mentioned?

Yes, I'm aware that an uranium filled bomb exploding is different (the particles travel easily in dust over long distances, obviously making them no less lethal however). (Perhaps a moot point)

I am merely agreeing that the Fallout is a major point of the game and the consequences of nuclear war are always present. Certainly any ridiculous mini-nuke weapons in use or apparently "nuclear"-powered cars exploding, after lying around for a 100 years, in the Fallout universe would make the whole Seven-Ten Rule less feasible.

 

[Seymour the spore plant]

I just think it's a bit silly to start bringing real world science into the debate to criticize F3 when that train left the station long ago in the originals.

And I agree wholeheartedly, what is important here is consistency with the setting.

Which brings us, once again, to the age-old question of why exactly they bought the franchise, claiming to love the setting while implementing many mechanics that contradict it. More than once did people complain that the Fatman and nuclear cars represent a gross misunderstanding of the setting from Bethesda's part, as they banalize the same atomic power that destroyed, then saved, Fallout's world.

Keeping the setting intact was Beth's most used argument to why this is an actual sequel to previous games. If both gameplay and key elements are altered, what's left at this point?