Fallout 3 Operation: Anchorage reviews

[Ranne]

Wikipedia[/url]]It is not clear exactly when the first FPS was created. Maze War is the most likely candidate, but even its developer cannot remember exactly when it was produced. The initial development of Maze War probably occurred in the summer of 1973.
. . .
Phantom Slayer and Dungeons of Daggorath (1982) restricted the player to 90-degree turns, allowing "3D" corridors to be drawn with simple fixed-perspective techniques.
. . .
1987 saw the release of MIDI Maze (aka Faceball), an important transitional game for the genre. Unlike its polygonal contemporaries, MIDI Maze used a raycasting engine to speedily draw square corridors. It also offered a networked multiplayer deathmatch. . . .
. . .
In early 1991, Data East released Silent Debuggers for the TurboGrafx-16. This game featured a minimum ability to look up and down. In late 1991, the fledgling id Software released Catacomb 3D, which introduced the concept of showing the player's hand on-screen, strengthening the illusion that the player is viewing the world through the character's eyes. In 1992, Ultima Underworld was one of the first to feature texture mapped environments, polygonal objects, and basic lighting. The engine was later enhanced for usage in the game System Shock. Later in 1992, id improved the technology used in Catacomb 3D by adding support for VGA graphics in Wolfenstein 3D.
. . .
In the year that followed the success of Wolfenstein 3-D, many imitators quickly arose, including Ken's Labyrinth by Epic Games, and several games licensing the Wolfenstein 3-D technology like Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. Softdisk also released a series of sequels to Catacomb 3D using a modified version of id's engine . . .

Putting the inattentive misinterpretation of my previous posting aside, let's just finish with the irrelevant "Is Doom the First FPS?" discussion. It is not, and your stubborn unwillingness to face the facts is silly and meaningless.

We are discussing whether or not Bioware's current game engine is as good as Bethesda's current game engine. It clearly isn't. I have to doubt the sanity of anyone who thinks that it is.

If we're discussing the engines, it's Unreal Engine 3 vs an older version of the Gamebryo engine. I don't know what else is there to add - the mismatch is so obvious that needs little explanation.

If we're discussing the games' elements, it's an unequal comparison of its own. Mass Effect is an artistically distinctive game that offers cinematic experience, compelling storyline, strong writing, memorable art direction, a number of innovative features that set a new high mark for modern game development. Fallout 3, on the other hand, is an artistic mess that looks more like a frat-house farce than a Hollywood-style blockbuster. Unimaginative storyline, atrocious writing, inconsistent design, forgettable art direction, and a number of truly idiotic features that manage to set a new low for modern gaming.

One game has fluid animations, photorealistic character models, soft shadows, top-notch voice acting, intricated quest design, less than stellar but quite tolerable NPC AI, and unique dialogue system with unusually strong writing. The other one features jerky animations, unsightly models, no environmental shadows whatsoever, exaggerated voice acting, tiresome quest design, moronic AI, and deficiently implemented dialogue system with—you got it—horrendously dreadful writing. Surely, one must be crazy to consider Mass Effect a better game.

And by the way... no jumping. Jumping is hugely important.

Well, I'll give you that.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Hey SM, I like your style

Now you are arguing semantics. Not going there.

I just mentioned it. Sematics or not but its today standart to licence engines from different developers as it can be cost effective. The Witcher is not build on a in house developed engine either but that does not make the game experience it provides worse since its just a tool. To say Bioware would be here worse/different then Bethesda would be not all to accurate in my eyes cause they work for quite some time with the embrio engine which is not their product. This of course is not saying anything about the crative and artistical energy and value they have. to work with a licenced engine can be a lot of work as well as you have to modify it that it suits your gameplay [the Engine Mass Effect used is current Unreal technology if I am not mistaken]. The things Fallout 3 is taking most of the time Flak here is usualy its story, dialogues and the use of the engine, like as already mentioned several times mediocre voice acting and stiff animations that get easily suprased by more then 5 year old games. For a team like Bethesda and such a company I think it really is not demand to much to ask for "good" animations and "good" voice acting. And I think its not wrong to say that for a RPG like Fallout there should be more a lot more emphasis on "good old" dialogues then combat and visuals. Except we are talking about a shooter where the second is more imporant. The visuals.

BB,

You are just making excuses for substandard game engines. I clearly said "realistic environments". I'm not surprised you mention taking a shit, though, in your anal-retentive argumentation

Sorry, I haven't commented on an internet forum in years, except for this one. Not gonna bother to learn how to do it "properly" at this late date, just to make you happy.

I would not talk about realism but verisimilitude. Neither Fallout 1,2 or 3 really aim for Realism in a "realistic" sense. Not in a way like a simulation as how I understand it. I would not search for the same experience in Fallout 3 I want with either T34vsTiger, Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942, IL-2 Sturmovik . This is not the kind of realism I would want for any Fallout game.

What I am searching in a game like Fallout foremost is a experience somewhat consistent to the past games (that is Fallout 1 and eventualy 2 but to ad this I dont want a carbon copy of Fallout 1 ...) and a world with verisimilitude, not realism. Cause Fallout 3 neither provides realism. Not more then Fallout 1 or 2. I agree that the conception of the visualisation in Fallout 3 of course bear a difference compared to past games that can make it for the one or other easier to "pretend" his own character in to the avatar, which gets so willingly explained by people like Howard and Hines as "immersive" or the target to give the player the chance to imagine he is indeed playing "the vault dveller". But this does not mean its a more immersive world.

For me and quite others though immersive gameplay is not made by its view. Fallout 3 could be first person and a extremly immersive experience by providing a world with verisimilitude and that means not to see communities with 5 people where its questionable how they survive without any visible food resource or defence. Also buildings still standing out of wood mind you after 200 years or slaverly that has usualy no right to exist if you consider that no one is ever buying them, here it would have been already enough to show communities with farms that are using slaves, for example. They did this with Morrowind why not with Fallout 3?. Computers and equipment in the wasteland runing without visible power supply, gas leaks still working after 200 years and emergency power supply in almost every building to provide some light source.

All this might for the one or other sound like "nit picking" but it isnt. This things do not add to "immersive" gameplay when you have constantly to bend the setting to your liking. Obviously parts of Fallout have nothing much to do with a realistic setting like Mutation caused by radiation or Fusion cells in weapons and armor. But its part of the verisimilitude in Fallout. For example a location like the Glow, Sierra Army depot, Toxic Cave, Vault 15 etc. needed some player interaction to make those places run again, either reparing a computer, generator or elevator. Not everything was "believable", frankly I admit some things were rather cheesy (Melchior in Fallout 2 sumoning deathclaws ...), but those are rather the exception then the rule, which is different in Fallout 3 were the exception is the rule.

To say it with other words, Fallout 3 is not providing a inherently "more" realistic experience compared to either Fallout 1 or 2 if we let the visuals, purely graphical advance aside which could be rather easily tweaked for a setting like Fallout [Imagine DEMIGODS graphic engine with Fallout 1s tourn based gameplay as advanced like Jagged Alliance 2. You get the idea]

 

[FeelTheRads]

You are just making excuses for substandard game engines.

Excuse me, what? For a person who holds himself in such high regard you are really dumb... erm, I mean uniformed.

Unreal Engine substandard compared to Gamebryo? Bwahahaha. The fact that Bioware is also a bunch on incompetents (pretty much like Bethesda) who are unable to use an engine they acquired (just like Bethesda) says nothing about the engine.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Again, you are comparing modern engines to old engines. Pointless. We are discussing whether or not Bioware's current game engine is as good as Bethesda's current game engine. It clearly isn't. I have to doubt the sanity of anyone who thinks that it is

I believe you wrote:

You can't even manually climb onto anything in either Mass Effect or any other Bioware game...

Thus, I pointed out that Bioware did in fact make a game that allows climbing. Read your own posts before picking at others

If we're discussing engines, Unreal3 beats the crap out of Gamebryo in terms of stability and physics. It may not be as flexible, but for the style of game in question (3D FPP) it works best. That's why so many other games use it.

Well, unless you take Beth's word for it ( Rolling Eyes ), it classfies as an FPS/aRPG hybrid, meaning that it will inevitably be compared to both FPS and RPG games. And, as it stands, it doesn't look too good in either category.

Bioware's games also fit into that category, these days, and would fare even worse using your standards. Using MY standards, Bethesda's game engine supports many things that FPS game engines do not, and are therefore is superior to them. But then again, I'm not a fan of FPS games and never have been. I've played a few, but only to pass the time when I was bored.

[/quote]

Now you are being vague and not correct in may statements. Aside from Mass Effect, I cannot name a Bioware game in the last 8 years that can be remotely classified as an FPS hybrid. Care to name some?

Also, as an FPS Mass Effect fares way better than FO3 - better action sequences, more natural physics, more intense gameplay, not to mention that it uses an engine that's best suited for FPS-styled games. As an RPG, it's a standard Bioware experiene, which is relatively mediocre, but then again FO3 doesn't exactly shine in the RPG department either.

As a side note, I have played fan-made RPG modules and official action-RPGs on the Unreal1 engine. I am pretty positive that Unreal3 can do that and more, and Mass effect is not the limit. You couldn't make an iso tactical RPG on it too well, probably, but then again, I do not know of an example of that done on Gamebryo, and definitely not by Bethesda.

Bethesda's game engine supports many things that FPS game engines do not, and are therefore is superior to them.

Troika's TOEE python engine can do even more things than Bethesda's Gamebryo can, is it then even better (even though it crashes even more often)? You have interesting standards.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Unreals engine is pretty flexible in general though, particularly for shooter games.

There are some mods out there that even offer top-down gameplay. Shadowrun as ful prise game which can be purchased on Steam comes here in to my mind.

I would say the uneral engine is at least as flexible like the gameembrio engine.

 

[programmer.craig]

There are some seriously pig-headed folks on this website. You want to "win" arguments by setting up straw men, falling back on semantics, changing the terms of the discussion midway through, incorrect paraphrasing and a variety of other cheap tricks, have it it! You guys win. Enjoy... whatever it was you won

 

[Kyuu]

There are some seriously pig-headed folks on this website. You want to "win" arguments by setting up straw men, falling back on semantics, changing the terms of the discussion midway through, incorrect paraphrasing and a variety of other cheap tricks, have it it! You guys win. Enjoy... whatever it was you won

Yeah, I like how you're unable to counter a number of completely valid points (and your whole tirade about the Doom-3-first-FPS-or-not issue was completely ludicrous, not to mention being nothing but an argument about, guess what, semantics), and now you're attempting to back out in a way that makes you look somehow superior. Didn't work, btw.

If you really believe all those embarrassingly random accusations you made about all the arguments made against you, back them up. Otherwise, no one with half a brain is going to really give a rat's ass that you think you're somehow being "cheated."

And pig-headed? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Oh, and debates are rarely ever "won" by either side. The majority of the time, both sides are wrong to some degree. The point of debating should be to provoke thought and bring both yourself and the opposing side closer to the truth, not to be focused on "winning."

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Oh, and debates are rarely ever "won" by either side. The majority of the time, both sides are wrong to some degree. The point of debating should be to provoke thought and bring both yourself and the opposing side closer to the truth, not to be focused on "winning."

Have to agree on this one. And from this perspective programmer.craig contributed very little exciting to the discussion. Too bad he's taking it to heart, as seen from his last post - apparently online debates are supposed to be "srs bizness".

 

[FeelTheRads]

There are some seriously pig-headed folks on this website. You want to "win" arguments by setting up straw men, falling back on semantics, changing the terms of the discussion midway through, incorrect paraphrasing and a variety of other cheap tricks, have it it! You guys win. Enjoy... whatever it was you won

No, before people actually start to believe you, let me explain what happened. You were beaten shitless out of your idiotic arguments and now you're resorting to ad hominems and other pathetic cop-outs to look like you "won".

 

[Brother None]

programmer.craig, FeelTheRads, strike.

I saw this debate devolve into pure meaninglessness but was hoping you guys would find a way out. Nevermind, I guess.

Regardless, we're done here. Please refrain from furthering this debate, new posts in this thread will be removed.