a rant by any other name....
It seems every group I'm involved in hits this "purist" flamewar...
I glanced through this thread and felt it was the best place to put my $0.02 in:
I'm a FO1/2 person myself. I loved those games for their simplicity. They didn't need state of the art graphics to keep me entertained, because what they lacked in 3dfx and whatnot, they excelled in wit and FUN. I was/am a huge fan of the stupid pop culture references. It was fun and funny to me to come across a scene from Monty Python, or Star Trek or something new like the Cafe of Broken Dreams. That's why I played the first two so often, wasn't to beat it numerous times, but to discover all the easter eggs..
I also liked the hex grid, turn based combat. and yes, I'm a cheater. and some of you probably think I waste my time playnig games because I don't play them for the challenge so much as I do for the story line. So I used the character editors to max everything out and basically be a god walking around killing whoever for whatever reason and talking to NPCs.
I preordered FO3 but have been deployed and won't be able to play it for another couple of weeks, but just by reading reviews and this forum, I have prepared myself for MASSIVE dissapointment.
A friend who was sent home early told me it's an awesome game and he loves it, but this is his first FO experience, so I am trying to tell myself to treat it as a nameless game with no history to see if I can enjoy it that way.
I was apalled when I found out Bethesda bought the rights because I've always hated massively immersive RPG's like Elder Scrolls, I prefer my RPGs to play in the fashion of ChronoTrigger, simple and fun.
Another thing that made interplay great, and probably part of why they went under, was that they didn't seem to care as much about revenue. Their motto said it all "For Gamers. By Gamers." they made games they would enjoy and as a by-product a lot of the public enjoyed them as well.
I think Yahtzee from the Zero Punctuation said it best while reviewing a game a long time ago, (paraphrased) "It's like a random stranger walked into my house thinly disguised as my best friend and you aren't sure if they are leaving soon or plan to disembowel you."
Like I said, I haven't played yet, and maybe I'll love it, but I have a sinking feeling that I'm going to severly regret giving Bethesda money for this. I think I'm going to wind up traeting the Fallout franchise like I'm treating Indiana Jones, FO only has 3 in the series (1, 2 and tactics) just like Indiana Jones only has 3. The last in both seem to be crappy attempts at making a buck on an established fan base.
/climbs down from soapbox.