Fallout 3 reviews round-up #11

[ronin84]

i'm about 10 hours in. taking my time... only level 4.

the quests are pretty boring; if you know oblivion quests, these are the same. so far at least.

the voice acting is way too chipper for a fallout game; everyone seems happy. expletives are thrown in seemingly randomly and each time they're voiced it's like the actor is forcing it. script it subpar.

i feel no connection to any character, though i do feel compelled to find out what's going on with the main quest.

the landscape gets boring after an hour of exploring. it all looks quite bland - though i'm on PC and the textures / graphics look pretty great on the highest settings.

ammo is quite rare... i often have to revert to melee or waiting for my ac points to recharge whilst running away to conserve ammunition.

pipboy user interface on PC is less console-y than oblivion was, but it's still bad... takes some getting used to and ultimately f1 / f2 were much more intuitive.

all the while, i'm enjoying the experience; i'm not sure it's because the game is pretty good, or if it's because i miss fallout and this is an interesting take on it... but i'd give it a 7/10. worth a buy. on PC at least... just wait for mods.

 

[Dork Mage]

And i say u that - polish players murdering Fallout 3 now - at one positive review is 5 negative so that game is not 10/10 so far - im on doubt now - want to buy that game Collectors Edition and do not known what to do - is really that crappy...?? or is not..??

Marks from polish players
As fallout that game get 4/10-5/10
as RPG shooter get 6/10/7-10 so that is players opinions - even that guys who earlier belived in Bethezda shitty talk - that game is not that good as u can read in rewievs... Sad but true...

What I can gather is this: F3 is a much better Oblivion. It's a horrible Fallout.

So... if you found Oblivion okay/good, you will like F3. If you could tolerant OB then keep in mind that F3 is better.

 

[Ixyroth]

I hear that when you kill the overseer and Amanda the daughter appear, and you kill her too she appear again when the vault open, anyone can confirm this???

Make no sense to me...

She's unkillable and just falls unconscious. I killed her father and beat her up a few times and she still came back to help before I left the vault. Cool, huh?

 

[Continuum]

1: Modelling takes alot more time than making pictures.

Now, that's a total bullshit.

And considering the way they look (more details and more polygons than those in Fallout 3) I'm almost sure they took more time to create.

Not quite true. In case of characters in Fallout 3 you only see shitty, low-poly version of hi-res models on the screen. Hi-res geometry needs to be done, because you need to burn normal maps. It's a common standard in case of modern 3d games (or teh next-crap if you wish).

 

[MorbidMind]

Haha, I guess I was a bit off on the guns, didn't count the BB gun and forgot about the SMG. Besides that though I'm pretty sure I was spot on (also didn't count named weapons, as they're the same gun with slightly altered stats.).

To answer a question going around, I'm close to completing the game, having done quite a few side quests, and I've yet to find a way to modify your own weapons. The scoped 44. comes that way, there are no normal 44.'s. The silenced 10 MM is also found silenced, you don't attach a silencer to it. Interesting thing, if you find multiple schematics for the same weapon, it just makes that weapon more durable, or in the case of single use items it creates more of them.

 

[God is Dog backwards]

Game is miles better than Oblivion.

It feels like a union between ES and Fallout. Works well at times, other times (but not as often as you might think), it doesn't.

Dialogue's serviceable so far. Certainly more Fallout than ES - personalities are evident. Evidence of genuine C&C, and I like all the dialogue skill-checks.

Combat is OK but gets boring. Real time feels off - VATs does a decent job of replicating turn based, although you end up running around waiting for your AP to recharge then firing again. Kind of silly.

The world is pretty claustrophobic - lots going on, which is weird, as this is supposed to be the wasteland. However, mention is made of Vault 101 having ties to the various towns etc - I guess you could say this is the ruins and suburbs of a city, where things are more crowded. Still, there's never any point when you just walk and don't see anything.

Still. It's pretty decent and apparently it gets better. It feels like a Fallout spinoff - I think of it as Metroid Prime to the original Metroids, and so far I'm enjoying it. Pleasantly surprised.

 

[Zeld]

The voice acting is also superb. More than anything else, it pulls us back into that world. It’s clean, crisp, and straight-faced enough that the series' wry sense of humor shines through.

How can they say that with straight face?

 

[Beelzebud]

All I know is that last night I befriended a town full of children, just so I could manipulate a younger one of them to come outside and be sold into slavery.

Is this a perfect game? Nope.

Is it a decent Fallout game? Yes.

 

[ShatteredJon]

The slaver side quests were my favorite. They were well done, and I give props to whoever designed them. They are one of the feel aspects of the game that remind me of Fallout. *and i do mean few

 

[MorbidMind]

I'd like the slaver quest if there a bit more depth to them. As is, they're pretty much just get A person to location X and everyone goes on their merry way.

 

[mulaalia]

Bethesda's atomic wasteland is one big generic piece of junk and debris, filled with generic people, quests, loot, just like it's predecessor Oblivion(excluding junk and debris and including trees and rocks). Dungeon crawling is boring as hell, no meaning whatsoever, also Bethesda stole VATS system from star trek http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1eFdUSnaQM
I am referring to unarmed, melee and throwing part of the VATS.

 

[Mutoes]

Ive played now about 15 hrs of f3, i bought it yesterday.

Most of the time it really doesnt feel like fallout, animations are BAD (especially the facial animations) and the 3rd person view looks like (when running) im skating. Also some voice acting is somewhat amateurish and even irritating (megaton general store clerq comes to mind)
But still i found this game to be worth of my money. Theres been some quite good (side) missions.(havent played much of the story since i got out of the vault). Im playing on hard and it gives me some challenge unlike i was expecting.

The one aspect that i was pleasantly suprised by was combat, maybe because really low expectations but im enjoying it far more than say mass effects or oblivions. Vats hasnt been imo a "god" mode as if im matching up a against considerable foes. They will catch me up quikly as they can move in vats but i cant, and vats isnt unnessacessary either as cripling enemies in that situation is often nessecary to escape.


But as im not very far yet hard to tell for quality of the whole product.

 

[Forhekset]

Still. It's pretty decent and apparently it gets better. It feels like a Fallout spinoff - I think of it as Metroid Prime to the original Metroids, and so far I'm enjoying it. Pleasantly surprised.

The Metroid Prime games managed to capture the classic look and feel of the 2D Metroid games almost perfectly (particularly the first MP), so if Fallout 3 has really been that successful, then I'd be impressed.

I haven't played the game, but from all of the gameplay that I've seen and everything that I've read, it seems to me that Fallout 3 has just as much in common with Oblivion as it does the previous Fallout games (as you alluded to when you mentioned that it felt like a cross between Elder Scrolls and Fallout). So I think that calling Fallout 3 the Metroid Prime of the Fallout series might be a bit much. The sticking point for me is the combat - the original Metroid games emphasized exploration and action, not turn-based, strategic combat, so the move to a first-person perspective went a lot smoother for Retro than I think it's gone for Bethesda. The exploration aspect is still there, but the combat's a complete mess.

Thanks for your (and other NMAers') opinions on Fallout 3 - I can't trust mainstream reviews of this game, because most reviewers adore Oblivion, and I personally loathe it. But I do know that you're a true fan of the Fallout series, so I appreciate your honest feedback so far. I think I may wind up buying this game after all, if for nothing else than curiosity's sake.

 

[BowserJesus]

The voice acting is also superb. More than anything else, it pulls us back into that world. It’s clean, crisp, and straight-faced enough that the series' wry sense of humor shines through.

How can they say that with straight face?

FO3 has pretty good voice acting compared to some of the most recent games.

You want a REALLY BAD game with HORRIBLE storyline and voice acting?

Take 5 minutes to download this game and just watch the intro movies. They'll make you piss your pants in laughter.

http://www.gamershell.com/download_19328.shtml

 

[God is Dog backwards]

Still. It's pretty decent and apparently it gets better. It feels like a Fallout spinoff - I think of it as Metroid Prime to the original Metroids, and so far I'm enjoying it. Pleasantly surprised.

The Metroid Prime games managed to capture the classic look and feel of the 2D Metroid games almost perfectly (particularly the first MP), so if Fallout 3 has really been that successful, then I'd be impressed.

I haven't played the game, but from all of the gameplay that I've seen and everything that I've read, it seems to me that Fallout 3 has just as much in common with Oblivion as it does the previous Fallout games (as you alluded to when you mentioned that it felt like a cross between Elder Scrolls and Fallout). So I think that calling Fallout 3 the Metroid Prime of the Fallout series might be a bit much. The sticking point for me is the combat - the original Metroid games emphasized exploration and action, not turn-based, strategic combat, so the move to a first-person perspective went a lot smoother for Retro than I think it's gone for Bethesda. The exploration aspect is still there, but the combat's a complete mess.

Thanks for your (and other NMAers') opinions on Fallout 3 - I can't trust mainstream reviews of this game, because most reviewers adore Oblivion, and I personally loathe it. But I do know that you're a true fan of the Fallout series, so I appreciate your honest feedback so far. I think I may wind up buying this game after all, if for nothing else than curiosity's sake.

I'd never played a Metroid game before Prime, so might be citing the example from ignorance. However the move to 3D doesn't harm the setting, IMO, and VATs is nowhere near as bad as some had predicted. The called shots thing is still there and works well; I don't actually miss the TB combat as I thought I would, perhaps because the viewpoint makes the game feel different anyway.

If you couldn't stomach Oblivion, I doubt you'd get on with this game, as they share foundations with each other. However, from the little I've played (well, ten hours or so just fooling around in and about Megaton), Fallout is here fighting for dominance too. Worth checking out as a die hard fan of the series, IMO.

So far, there are plenty of interesting ways to solve quests, and early evidence of genuine choice and consequence (Sheriff's son takes over quest duties if the Sheriff dies.... Tell a girl to keep the gun she offers you to protect yourself, and she ends up pulling it on someone later... lots of ways to get information, via computers, lockpicking, talking, combat, sneaking...)... promising. And I haven't met an immortal NPC yet - Mr Burke is mortal, which in older builds I was fairly sure he wasn't.

 

[Sander]

And I haven't met an immortal NPC yet

Amata is immortal. A large part of the Brotherhood is immortal. Doctor Li is immortal, I think. Your father is immortal.
Half the bloody game is immortal.

Most choices and consequences are immaterial, too, outside of the Megaton one, which is reflected in the radio broadcasts (but that's about it, since Megaton seems to have 0 relevance later in the game). Any choice that could be relevant (like angering the Brotherhood) are simply not possible.

[spoiler:2eb92cef92]Harold the tree is my current favourite example. He wants to die, 'cause he's a tree now. His treeminders want to either accelerate his growth to flush the wasteland with trees, or stop it to keep the Oasis secret.
If you kill him, the treeminders 'Eh, okay, he wanted to die'. If you accelerate his growth, Harold goes 'Ah well, maybe these people aren't so bad, I don't care.', same goes for the stopping his growth. Even though he was very insistent about him dying just minutes before.[/spoiler:2eb92cef92]

 

[UncannyGarlic]

and that just there is the core problem why some on this site might lack the ability to form an objective view of FO3

As long as it's billed as a sequel it should be compared and contrasted with previous games in the series.

No, the game isn't Fallout 1, i doubt Beth, ever wanted to make it as such nor do you need to know the originals to enjoy it or ciriticaly accept it.

No one said it is Fallout 1 or 2 but as long as it claims to be Fallout 3, it claims to be a sequel to them and thus, should be compared to them. Does it need to be like them to be enjoyable? No. Does it need to be like them to be critically accepted? To some degree, yes. It doesn't need to be a clone but if it's a poor sequel and feels more like a stand alone then that should be duely noted.

Its a spiritual successor of Fallout franchise and as such the game seams to be a huge success, on the road to be a GOY.

No, it's billed as a sequel in the Fallout franchise, not a spiritual sucessor. Bethesda has never stated or agreed that it is anything less than a sequel and have recently defended it as a sequel. How commercially sucessful it is means jack and shit in terms of how good of a game it is. Britany Spears was once a really popular singer but was she ever very good? Titanic was praised and won awards when it was new but now many critics have preformed an about face on it and it's even been dubbed the worst movie of all time. We'll see in a couple years how good it really is.

I kinda understand that some people tend to be overly idealistic as far their favorite games go but that kinda kills the fun, being open minded here not having too huge expectations (face it noone can beat the old F games) helps

Bethesda didn't even try to match the quallity of past games in some areas (Emil said it specifically about writing) and yes, games can be better than Fallout 1&2 and it's absurd to suggest otherwise. Yes, they are great games but look at how many problems with them have been pointed out on this very forum? Note how many people want a Fallout sequel with, for instance, improved combat.

 

[tazo]

Hmm, I couldn't stomach the morrowwind stuff...it was to repetitive and choices had no influence on the world. So although I'm a huge fallout fan, from what I have seen i'm not buying it soon. But almost certain when it is in the bargains bin in a year.

Greets Taz

 

[ShatteredJon]

Do what I did, find a friend who didn't like it, and offer half price. I found that was a good enough deal for me, so I could play the game and provide a vaild opinion on it.

 

[UniversalWolf]

Four hours in, and I've already had more laughs and heart-pounding battles out of this game than most in recent memory. If all the reviews are all bought ( which is ridiculous), I was bought too.

Come back again when you played 40-80 hours and still enjoy it. Then explain what you enjoy so much. It is not hard to fill the first 10 hours with great stuff and it is not so important. They have to fill the whole 40-80 hours with great stuff.

Even better, come back in ten years and see if you still enjoy it.