Fallout 3 is The Force Awakens

[CT Phipps]

@CT Phipps means to say that he prefers mindless entertainment, with no other redeeming value, over art that entertains.

Source: He prefers Fallout 3 over Fallout 1&2.

Art is defined in many ways, @R.Graves. I don't, however, dismiss mindless entertainment out of hand even as I generally prefer games which have something to say.

The difference is those games focus on depth while games like Skyrim focus on length and width. The puzzles in Portal and tLoZ are the focus of the games while the puzzles in Skyrim and Bioshock are time wasters. There are tons of weapons in Skyrim while Zelda has a handful. Portal doesn't have ammo or health packs.

I don't actually think the Dragoclaw Barriers were meant to be puzzles. At least in the same context that I don't think safe combinations are meant to be puzzles. They're just means of explaining why no one has looted the tomb or tried to until now.

 

[CaptJ]

Art is defined in many ways, @R.Graves. I don't, however, dismiss mindless entertainment out of hand even as I generally prefer games which have something to say.

Art is about expression so one important quality of art is sincerity. While not provable, I assume that he believes that game is designed only with the intention what would make the most money. Similarly to how you wouldn't consider a Skinner box title to be art or the next Madden title.

I don't actually think the Dragoclaw Barriers were meant to be puzzles. At least in the same context that I don't think safe combinations are meant to be puzzles. They're just means of explaining why no one has looted the tomb or tried to until now.

I wasn't thinking that. Opening a door with a key isn't a puzzle in itself.

 

[CT Phipps]

Art is about expression so one important quality of art is sincerity. While not provable, I assume that he believes that game is designed only with the intention what would make the most money. Similarly to how you wouldn't consider a Skinner box title to be art or the next Madden title.

Specifically, I used to do a series called "The Social Satire of X" on my blog where I examined what artists may have been saying with their video games.

The Social Satire of Deus Ex: http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2012/03/social-satire-of-deus-ex-human.html

Then slowly but surely I started to realize most games didn't say anything at all about anything and I became very depressed before dropping the feature.

I wasn't thinking that. Opening a door with a key isn't a puzzle in itself.

Yeah, I think they exist as disguises for loading times.

 

[Jogre]

I don't actually think the Dragoclaw Barriers were meant to be puzzles. At least in the same context that I don't think safe combinations are meant to be puzzles. They're just means of explaining why no one has looted the tomb or tried to until now.

What?

So what you are saying is that the reason these tombs were never unlocked, is because nobody was smart enough to figure out the door slider trick?

Are you implying that Skyrim is populated entirely by idiots?

 

[CT Phipps]

What?

So what you are saying is that the reason these tombs were never unlocked, is because nobody was smart enough to figure out the door slider trick?

Are you implying that Skyrim is populated entirely by idiots?

Well, that and most Nords aren't graverobbers like we are.



That is probably why the Draugr exist, though, if someone is as much of an ass to open up the tomb by trial and error. I'm not sure if the Draugr are supposed to be there, though, or if they've been raised by the Dragon priests.

 

[Crni Vuk]

i saw a Draugr the other day. Nasty creatures.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

I think I agree with you on a lot here but for probably very different reasons.

Most Favorite:

• Vault 101 Intro. I'd say you are kinda right about that one, it is fun seeing the inside of the Vault. Perhaps they could have given you a few more choices here and there, but other than that it's good. Also, by letting the player choose how they responded to certain events in there life, and figure out for themselves how they played out, it took a lot of the edge away from.

I'd have liked to have seen more of Vault life but changed from what we were presented. The Vault was meant to be closed forever under the absolute rule of it's Overseer, so maybe if Vault 101 was like an Oceania-type place where the Vault's cameras watch every move of the dwellers and no one dares to speak out against the Overseer lest they disappear. A place that's ultimately safer than the wasteland but is not comfortable either.

 

[CT Phipps]

Both the original ending and the Broken Steel style ending - The default ending was crap, I agree with you there, not because you couldn't play after it, but because it didn't tell you anything new. I want to find out what happens to this stretch of wasteland in the future, how each town responded to my actions, whether I made the right decisions or not. The Broken Steel DLC didn't fix anything, if anything it made it worse. That heroic sacrafice in the Purifier chamber is now totally meaningless. With the default ending, at least the finality of it meant something. Broken Steel ending feels like they are basically taking away all that's meaningful about the ending.

My biggest issue with the ending of Fallout 3 was that it fell into the trap of "sacrifice in place of theme." A lot of video games end with the protagonist making a heroic sacrifice and I automatically deduct a large amount of good will from the game as a result. I consider it one of the most singularly lazy storytelling tools and think it's written by people who generally don't have any actual skill in writing. About the only exceptions I make for this are Infamous 2, Dragon Age: Origins (if you choose to die), and (of course) Planescape: Torment.

In the case of Fallout, I felt the game's idea of sacrifice was bullshit from the beginning and the game didn't help the matter because your father died for a very questionable reason (only temporarilly delaying the Enclave in activating the Water Purifier--which isn't a bad thing since the WP ISN'T a superweapon--yet) and because you die when you have a Super Mutant beside you who can take the risk yourself.

For me, Fallout 3 was about rebuilding the Wasteland and constructing a new society versus sacrifice.

As such, a better ending would have been about trying to figure out who deserved the Water Purifier instead of who dies to push the button.

USE A STICK for godssakes.

 

[R.Graves]

Fallout 3 is nowhere near about rebuilding. Stagnation seems to be its main theme. Nothing has changed And if fallout 4 is to be believed nothing ever did. Its a dumb game, a horrible sequel, and a disgrace to the name fallout in every way. The ending is dumb bullshit because
A) no one needEd the water
B) forced sacrifices with better alternatives in the room are dumb. Fawkes could brave the radiation for you, in fact earlier he did...That... Exact thing.
C)this is a big one there are no endings for any of the communities or companions. Which means... ULTIMATELY NOTHING YOU DID MATTERED.

 

[CT Phipps]

Fallout 3 is nowhere near about rebuilding. Stagnation seems to be its main theme. Nothing has changed And if fallout 4 is to be believed nothing ever did. Its a dumb game, a horrible sequel, and a disgrace to the name fallout in every way. The ending is dumb bullshit because

Oh yes, the bullshit about the idea the people should rebuild on their own. Listen, I'm not going to judge people who can't rebuild in a radioactive desert full of Radiation Orcs, Giant predators, and endless numbers of cannibal bandits. However, YOU, PERSONALLY, can change the Capital Wasteland.

A) no one needEd the water

People in Africa survive with limited water. You tell them they don't need more. Also, Project: Purity is fixing the environment.

B) forced sacrifices with better alternatives in the room are dumb. Fawkes could brave the radiation for you, in fact earlier he did...That... Exact thing.

Yes, that's B.S.

C)this is a big one there are no endings for any of the communities or companions. Which means... ULTIMATELY NOTHING YOU DID MATTERED.

No, they just did the Ending Slides with Three Dog. He praises you for fixing everything instead.

 

[R.Graves]

Oh yes, the bullshit about the idea the people should rebuild on their own. Listen, I'm not going to judge people who can't rebuild in a radioactive desert full of Radiation Orcs, Giant predators, and endless numbers of cannibal bandits. However, YOU, PERSONALLY, can change the Capital Wasteland.

that's another thing... the capital wasteland shouldn't be a desert. it should rain. there's water there. there shouldn't be any radiation there anymore. hell I doubt the glow has much radiation left two hundred years later. these were atom bombs, not nuclear power plants slowly leaking through the years. the super mutants shouldn't be there. but they are and really only ever attack big town and rivet city. what's everyone else's excuse? endless number of cannibals? you mean the raiders? yeah that doesn't make sense either. there shouldn't be 25 raiders for every civilian. because after 200 years there would be no civilians left. you're just helping to point out how horribly thought out this "world" was.

People in Africa survive with limited water. You tell them they don't need more. Also, Project: Purity is fixing the environment.

how the hell is that going to fix the environment? look at the map. the purifier is located in the south east corner of the map. damn near the southern most part of the river in game. the river flows south. it cant purify the water upstream. therefore the capital wasteland remains horribly irradiated and the pure water must be distributed by the BOS... who apparently abandon the capital wasteland 10 years later.
also they don't have limited water. they have plenty of water. sure, its irradiated. but that only seems to bother 3 specific bums in the wasteland. everyone else lives just fine with it. they don't need the purifier. we're told they do but aside from those 3 bums there is no indicication that that is true. to paraphrase shaemus young "its like if in skyrim we never saw any dragons but instead we only saw bums who claim to have been attacked by a dragon and demand a healing potion".

No, they just did the Ending Slides with Three Dog. He praises you for fixing everything instead.

again nothing was fixed. all is stagnation. even that POS fallout 4 "confirms" this. also a fallout game needs several ending slides for each community depending on your choices. fallout 3 lacks them. sorely. its just... lacking. and what it doesn't lack is bullshit.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

No, they just did the Ending Slides with Three Dog. He praises you for fixing everything instead.

I don't want praise, I want to know how my actions ultimately affected settlements and what became of them.

 

[Jogre]

My biggest issue with the ending of Fallout 3 was that it fell into the trap of "sacrifice in place of theme." A lot of video games end with the protagonist making a heroic sacrifice and I automatically deduct a large amount of good will from the game as a result. I consider it one of the most singularly lazy storytelling tools and think it's written by people who generally don't have any actual skill in writing. About the only exceptions I make for this are Infamous 2, Dragon Age: Origins (if you choose to die), and (of course) Planescape: Torment.

In the case of Fallout, I felt the game's idea of sacrifice was bullshit from the beginning and the game didn't help the matter because your father died for a very questionable reason (only temporarilly delaying the Enclave in activating the Water Purifier--which isn't a bad thing since the WP ISN'T a superweapon--yet) and because you die when you have a Super Mutant beside you who can take the risk yourself.

I agree the original ending was crap, but at least it gave you some kind of choice, and at least it stuck by that choice.

Broken Steel took the only choice which had any impact on the original ending and decided it was meaningless. Because the same thing happens either way, there is literally no consequence of deciding to sacrifice yourself(Apart from Sarah Lyons staying alive). The only meaningful choice in the game is no longer a meaningful choice.

Plus, there's the issue that selling a new ending to the game can mean one of 3 things:
A. Bethesda didn't realise that the ending would cause controversy in the first place (In which case they seriously lack critical thinking)

B. That at the time they genuinely did think the finality of the ending was the best for the story despite what people say, but then when push came to shove decided to go back on it(In which case they care more about either profit/crowd pleasing then they do about artistic integrity)

or

C. They knew very well people would be outraged by it, and had planned this from the beginning, intending to cash out on the outrage by selling a £10 DLC fixing the problem they knew was there (In which case that's bad business practice)

See the problem here?, There is no way that Bethesda can justify selling an extra ending to the game, without it reflecting badly on them as a company.

It's the Inconsistent Triad of Bethesda Games.

 

[R.Graves]

tbh i always thought that the end choice was the most meaningless one in the game. Harold is argueably the most important thing in the capital wasteland and we don't get an end slide for him. shame.

 

[naossano]

- Eden isn't much a rippoff of the master, but rather of president Richardson + The Calculator.

- There is a lot more gangs of raiders in fallout 1, if you count all the gangs you meet and interact with each settlements, those mentioned in backstory and all those minor groups that appear in random encounters. The vipers, jackals and khans are only mentioned together because they come from the same vault ( vault 15, same vault as the founders of shady sands and ncr)

- if you mean fo3, as copy paste, it would rather be a copy of Martin Luther king speech In. Which you replace the voice by Donald trump speech, add a daft punk song, and replace the black and white by green and orange. And still call it a martin Luther king speech.

- fallout 3 has a lot of themes. It is called a theme park for a reason

- about entry level fallout games, the problem is that this isn't as fallout 1 and fallout 2 on one hand and fallout 3 and 4 on the other hand, were the only options. We already had fallout new vegas as the game faithfully to the lore and overall strengths of the ip, while brought to a broader audience and a more casual gameplay. We alreadyhad fallout tactics for the game that wasn't made by the ip creators, made on a new engine, with a rushed schedule, and lesser but still worthy and faithful addition. Fallout 3, fallout4, fallout brotherhood of steel don't have much h reasons to exist other than " we need more money to pay todd next pool"

 

[joevonzombie]

Project: Purity is fixing the environment.

In Fallout 2 it is established that a GECK can do a hell of a lot more than purify water. It would have been more advantageous to the capital wasteland to have used it for its intended purpose rather than attach it to giant Britta filter that no one actually needs. How does that help fix the environment?

 

[CT Phipps]

In Fallout 2 it is established that a GECK can do a hell of a lot more than purify water. It would have been more advantageous to the capital wasteland to have used it for its intended purpose rather than attach it to giant Britta filter that no one actually needs. How does that help that help fix the environment?

Uh, mostly because the Purifier is fixing the entire tidal basin of radiation and probably will fix the rest of the environment too.

Clean water is great but not just what Purity does.

After all, it's killing all the Mirelurks.

 

[joevonzombie]

Uh, mostly because the Purifier is fixing the entire tidal basin of radiation and probably will fix the rest of the environment too.

Clean water is great but not just what Purity does.

After all, it's killing all the Mirelurks.

I'm pretty sure that's all it does. That's all they ever circle jerk about in that game. Also it's not that hard to purify irradiated water. None of that also changes the GECK by itself does more and it would make more sense to use it for its intended purpose.

If Bethesda actually gave a fuck about the lore ...

 

[R.Graves]

Uh, mostly because the Purifier is fixing the entire tidal basin of radiation and probably will fix the rest of the environment too.

Clean water is great but not just what Purity does.

After all, it's killing all the Mirelurks.

Did you not read my whole thing about how it won't fix the capital wasteland in the slightest? And that fallout 4 confirms it?

 

[lolpop109]

I think I agree with you on a lot here but for probably very different reasons.

Most Favorite:

• Vault 101 Intro. I'd say you are kinda right about that one, it is fun seeing the inside of the Vault. Perhaps they could have given you a few more choices here and there, but other than that it's good. Also, by letting the player choose how they responded to certain events in there life, and figure out for themselves how they played out, it took a lot of the edge away from
• The Pitt - It was an enjoyable piece of DLC. It feels less generic than the rest of the wasteland because it doesn't reuse creatures. The Industrial feel to it adds a lot, the backstory, how it feels like an actual city state rather than just another rundown wasteland yet at the same time still has a Mad Max style vibe to it, I like how they used industrial smog instead of cliched radiation to justify the harsh conditions, ect. What I didn't like about it was the backstory before hand, I honestly can't understand why there were people living there before Ashur came along. All in all I did like a lot of details, also how the Raiders refer to the slaves as "Scabs", which feels very appropriate for an industrial town.
• The Art Style - While the actual content isn't great, the art style is on point. The grand deco-punk architecture, the distorted heads coming out of buildings, the big impressive statues. Plus the Supermutants and Ghouls look grotesque as ever, how they should be.

Least Favourite:

• Little Lamplight - For obvious reasons. Agree with you on this one
• Both the original ending and the Broken Steel style ending - The default ending was crap, I agree with you there, not because you couldn't play after it, but because it didn't tell you anything new. I want to find out what happens to this stretch of wasteland in the future, how each town responded to my actions, whether I made the right decisions or not. The Broken Steel DLC didn't fix anything, if anything it made it worse. That heroic sacrafice in the Purifier chamber is now totally meaningless. With the default ending, at least the finality of it meant something. Broken Steel ending feels like they are basically taking away all that's meaningful about the ending.
• Removal of Traits - Traits meant that you could trade a disadvantage for an advantage. They were an interesting aspect of character creation, and added more complexity to it. What possible good does removing them do?
• The way they handled Supermutants/Raiders/Brotherhood - Supermutants are generic dumb-dumbs, Raiders are psychopaths with no sensical motives, every single character in the Brotherhood feels like the same one sided, goody-two shoes character.

I mean yeah even when I played fo3 frist with playing other fallouts it always annyounyed me that raider where a;ways shoot on site all of the time. Something witch is actuall different in Fall out 1 2 and NV