Fallout 3 reviews round-up #30

Per

Per

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GayGamer, 9/10.<blockquote>There are natural expectations that one would have of any artistic team, in the same way that we'd expect a Bioware game to offer, say, black and white moral choices, or expect a turn-based Atlus RPG to feature animated sprites standing on squares. Fallout 3 is Bethesda's best effort, and that effort looks nothing like Interplay's best effort, never mind the decade that's elapsed in between.

What's important here is how excellently the game stands up on its own and how it compares in spirit to its distant predecessors. On that count, Fallout 3 lives up to - and exceeds - expectations.</blockquote>HDO blog.<blockquote>Overall, it seems that Bethesda does know how to listen. Many of the gaping problems present in Oblivion were fixed in Fallout 3: They dumped the dumb skill/leveling system, made the world map not boring, and hired more than 3 voice actors. It still though could have used more polish, the engine quirks are still present (glitchy physics, awkward animations, pop-in). TL;DR: It's fun, buy it as long as you have time to suck away entire evenings at the computer.</blockquote>A.V. Club, A.<blockquote>The result is a clever blend of role-playing and first-person action. Sadly missing is much of Fallout's pervasive humor; better omissions are Oblivion's silly adaptive difficulty (your enemies were always as powerful as you were) and too-generous character progression.</blockquote>LoadingReality, 9.0.<blockquote>Overall this game is fantastic. It has a lot to offer and should be fun over many playthroughs. There are so many different endings depending on what you do in the game. So I recommend this game to anyone that owns a system that can handle it (sorry Wii). It's a gorgeous game and it could be a contender for Game of the Year.</blockquote>YouGamers, 90.<blockquote>Stealthy movement and surprise attacks also have some issues. Whenever you crouch, it is assumed that you are sneaking around. A simple indicator will show if you are hidden from any nearby enemies and attacks made while hidden get major bonuses. The problem is that enemies stay completely unware of you even if you kill one of them. This is somewhat logical if you stealth behind a robot and disable it using a special perk ability while others have their backs turned at you. It's quite illogical when you blow off a head of a Super Mutant with one shot of a big gun from "hidden" status - the other two standing next to him will completely ignore the fact that the head of their buddy just flew across the room unless they actually see you. So it can get a bit easy to kill piles of enemies - just sneak around and kill them one by one, abusing the bonuses given by killing from stealth. It should be noted that this flaw happens only when moving stealthily - if you shoot someone from standing up, everyone around him will notice it and attack you normally.

Most importantly Fallout 3 captures the old Fallout setting and feel very well and the storyline is great. Naturally some old purists with their 2D-bitmap tinted Old Skool goggles have been whining loudly for various reasons - some of them valid, some not - but the truth is that Fallout 3 is a real Fallout game and the shift to modern engine dictated most of the notable changes, and the vast majority of the changes work out just fine.</blockquote>The Gaming Planet, 9.8.<blockquote>The Graphics are top notch and incredibly good, Bethesda took their time to make Washington D.C. look gritty and really depressing, also the characters looks amazingly good although there are the occasional pop-ins and technical glitches, but even though all those are there it won’t stop you from looking at the amazing scenery in the game as well as stoping for a moment to just soak in the depressed and bleak future of tomorrow. Other than the graphics, the diolauge is on the ball which characters responding to every question you ask them or to every jerk answer you give them, you can either be a good person or be a jerk like I said before and either be neautral or evil, but know this whatever you do, you decisions will determine the outcome of your ending and for me we’ll let’s just say I was very nice and got a good ending in order for me to complete this game.</blockquote>
 
Ahhhh... so-called "gaming journalism".

I have to wonder, is this where people like Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf get their training before they become someones political mouthpiece ?

I mean IT MUST be more than just self-interest and low standards right ?

Right ?
 
tkobo said:
I mean IT MUST be more than just self-interest and low standards right ?
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It could be simply that the game just is that good to many people. Nah, Bethesda paid them all off. I'm quite sure they would stake their entire corporate future on a scandal involving paying "GayGamers" a few grand for a favorable review.
 
I would assume people like the game. Why would Bethesda bother paying some of these places since many probably have about 5 people who read their weird pages?

Phil
 
When even many harcore Fallout 1 and 2 fanatics like me like Fallout 3, its not hard to believe that most mainstream gamers and reviewers like the game also.

Or, they could be all paid by Bethesda, including me. Tough choice, who to believe....hmm...
 
tkobo said:
Ahhhh... so-called "gaming journalism".

I have to wonder, is this where people like Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf get their training before they become someones political mouthpiece ?

I mean IT MUST be more than just self-interest and low standards right ?

Right ?
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Nah. I'm pretty sure that FO3 is a very decent game by today's standards and truly deserves these scores and reviews.
As many a member here has pointed out, though, it's not a worthy FO sequel, but no one but hardcore fans like us seem to care about that.

For someone who's been around since, whatever, Knights Lore and Head Over Heels and Day Of The Tentacle and moved onto JA and AoE and Fallout and Arcanum and loved all those games because they were truly revolutionary in one way or another, seeing a piece of shiny crap like FO3 being heralded as the greatest thing since sliced bread is not a nice experience/thought/idea. But that's how it is nowadays. They make this shit for teenagers, for people who never even heard of the original Fallout and just wanna have some meaningless fun. And they are good at it. Applying cosmetics to basically hollow crap is an art nowadays. You can sell thin air if you have the right advertising campaign.

The good ol' days are over. Gone. Forever. Be thankful that you were part of it and that you can still play the golden oldies on new systems. It's original Fallouts that reach up to $200 on eBay. In less than half a year, you'll be able to purchase FO3 for €10 or less.

10 years from now, no one will know what FO3 was like.

Trust me.
 
I myself am more looking forwards to the day that developers actually leave this generation of gamers behind for the next generation; aiming popular franchises instead at them.

"You can't do this.", "That is not what [insert game] is like" etc.

It is going to happen, it is inevitable, and it couldn't happen to nicer people.
 
Fallout 3 is a legitimately good game.

One can argue the merits of its correlation, or lack thereof, to Fallout 1 or 2.

One could argue about the decline of the quality, and quantity, of RPGs, in general, over the years.

But, other than those factors, I've put in about 30 hours into Fallout 3 now and its the most fun I've had with an RPG(or any video game) in a very long time.

Its a mainstream game, and a good one. The reviews are legit.

I'm not surpised that there are many here that don't like it, it doesn't make the reviewers paid off or incompetent. The Fallout 3 reviews are perfectly in line with its quality as compared to other games that are its contemporaries.

In my opinion, Fallout 3 is better than Mass Effect, Morrowind, The Witcher, KOTOR, Neverwinter, certainly any J-RPG or MMORPG that's come out in the last handful of years.

That's just my opinion, but I'm not the least bit surprised to see Fallout 3 reviewing very well. And yes, as I said above you can certainly make an argument about the lack of contemporary quality RPGs as a whole, though much of that depends on personal taste.
 
alec said:
.

10 years from now, no one will know what FO3 was like.

Trust me.
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I think you underestimate Bethesda and Elder Scrolls fans. People still remember Arena after 15 years, and 10 years from now, Fallout 5 will probably be here, or about to be.

Bethesda's take on Fallout isn't going to be forgotten that soon.

We didn't forget Wasteland when Fallout came out.

Hell, I still remember Oddysey, the Compleat Apventure fondly...

Things will certainly change and people will always look back on "their era" of gaming as the best one...such is life. But make no mistake there are those for whom this era of gaming is "their era" that will be looked back on with the same fondness you have for Fallout and Arcanum.
 
Autoduel76 said:
Things will certainly change and people will always look back on "their era" of gaming as the best one...such is life.
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Or in some cases, looking back on "the era when the type of game I like was being made at all". Except for indie developers etc.

Also, don't double post.
 
Autoduel76 said:
In my opinion, Fallout 3 is better than Mass Effect, Morrowind, The Witcher, KOTOR, Neverwinter, certainly any J-RPG or MMORPG that's come out in the last handful of years.

That's just my opinion, but I'm not the least bit surprised to see Fallout 3 reviewing very well. And yes, as I said above you can certainly make an argument about the lack of contemporary quality RPGs as a whole, though much of that depends on personal taste.
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I personally though that Witcher beat any of the recent RPGs by a mile. It also was much more polished than others. Granted, it's not a PS:T or BG2 though. As for JRPGs, some of the best ones never get translated to English, and we only get pop-culture stuff like FF series. One can't judge a whole gaming market by just a handful of games.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
I personally though that Witcher beat any of the recent RPGs by a mile. It also was much more polished than others. Granted, it's not a PS:T or BG2 though. As for JRPGs, some of the best ones never get translated to English, and we only get pop-culture stuff like FF series. One can't judge a whole gaming market by just a handful of games.
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I'm somebody that travels outside of the mainstream for JRPGs. Shin Megami Tensei, Etrian Odyssey, Shadow Hearts, Suikoden. No question you can find better offerings than the pop-culture fare if you look for it, but it doesn't change the fact that I'll take Fallout 3 over any of them in a heartbeat.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
I personally though that Witcher beat any of the recent RPGs by a mile. It also was much more polished than others.
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\

Yes, it was so polished that we only had to wait a year post-release for them to revamp it and make it what they admit is release-worthy.
 
betamonkey said:
Yes, it was so polished that we only had to wait a year post-release for them to revamp it and make it what they admit is release-worthy.
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I was talking about the EE. TBH though, i went through vanilla Witcher up through Chapter III and then switched to EE, I didn't see much difference other than further engine optimization and some conveniency tweaks. It took them almost a year because they decided to rewrite and re-voice all of the dialogue in the game, in all the languages. If this was bethesda, they'd call it "Special Edition" and sell it for lots of money. The guys were just nice enough to offer it for free.

Autoduel76 said:
I'm somebody that travels outside of the mainstream for JRPGs. Shin Megami Tensei, Etrian Odyssey, Shadow Hearts, Suikoden. No question you can find better offerings than the pop-culture fare if you look for it, but it doesn't change the fact that I'll take Fallout 3 over any of them in a heartbeat.
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Matter of preference then, I guess. I found myself enjoying Japanese games lately more than American, not the least because of good voice-acting and story. I don't find FOO being able to keep me up all night like Seinarukana could.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
Matter of preference then, I guess. I found myself enjoying Japanese games lately more than American, not the least because of good voice-acting and story. I don't find FOO being able to keep me up all night like Seinarukana could.
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I've actually found myself staying up way too late playing Fallout this past week, and sufferring for it at work the next days.

Its definitely a matter of preference. I don't find the voice acting to be much superior in JRPGs, if at all, but even so those aren't usually things I care that much about in games.

JRPGs generally lack the depth of customization, and detail, that I like. Even the good ones. I'm not a fan of walking into an area and only having a couple objects, if that, to interact with. I find some of them enjoyable and unique. The Digital Devil Saga series was a lot of fun for its unique setting and world. And I like that many JRPGs have stuck with turn based combat. But the JRPG turn based combat has never evolved much past rock-paper-scissors, with a few exceptions. Some of the strategy/RPGs have what I consider some pretty fun combat, but most are beyond light on the RPG part.

I like to be able to create my own character, or party. I like to be able to customize him/them. I like to micromanage. I don't like to have restricted boundaries. I like exploration. I like a lot of side quests. For the most part JRPGs don't have the options in these areas for me to consider them as more than fun diversions.

There are exceptions, and every now and then I just crave the serenity of playing through one, but I consider Fallout 3 superior to any that I have played in a very long time.

PS. It also doesn't help that the Anime look is one that I find very unappealing. Its hard to find good JRPGs that stray from Anime. Even the ones that try to often fail to get very far away from it. The Anime look is just something that breaks suspesion of disbelief for me, making me less immersed in the game.
 
Hey Autoduel, did you enjoy Oblivion? As someone who attempted to play Oblivion several times before becoming utterly bored within the first couple of hours, I'm just trying to gauge how many fans of Fallout 3 were also fans of Bethesda's previous effort.

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to really enjoy FO3, because for me the combat system of the old games was one of the best things about them.
 
Forhekset said:
Hey Autoduel, did you enjoy Oblivion? As someone who attempted to play Oblivion several times before becoming utterly bored within the first couple of hours, I'm just trying to gauge how many fans of Fallout 3 were also fans of Bethesda's previous effort.

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to really enjoy FO3, because for me the combat system of the old games was one of the best things about them.
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I think the combat system of Fallout 1 & 2 was one of the best things about it too, and its for that reason that I'm also one of the Fallout fans that liked Tactics, as well.

I will say that I think VATS is a lot more fun than I expected.

But as for Oblivion. I did like Oblivion, but I had very different expectations for it than for Fallout 3. I can't say that if you didn't like Oblivion that you won't like Fallout 3, but again it really depends what it was about Oblivion that you didn't like.

I will say that I found the beginning of Fallout 3 boring myself. If you are somebody that is going to get bored with a game and not advance it past the beginning, like you say happened with Oblivion, the same thing might happen for Fallout 3 as well.

I thought it was strange, since there was a lot of talk from people about the Vault 101 segments being fun and the vault looking "spot on", even from some people that generally trashed the game, but I found that part exceptionally boring and I was getting very impatient to "get on with the game".

Once I left the vault, I found the game very engaging, though, and the deeper I get into it the more I like it. I'm about 35 hours in now, though still not very far on the main quest.

But, I am somebody that is generally more interested in side quests, expoloration and character advancement in RPGs than I am with main storylines (which is probably why I find most JRPGs lacking, as I stated above, since they are all heavy handed straightforward story games). Since I'm not very far on the main story, if that's what draws you into games, I can't speak much for that yet.
 
I'm also one of those Fallout fans who enjoyed Tactics, if for nothing else than the combat. I'm a big fan of turn-based RPGs/strategy games. In fact, one of the main reasons I enjoy JRPGs is that so many of them still stubbornly stick with TB combat, even though so many modern gamers and journalists despise it.

I can't say that I disliked one particular thing about Oblivion except that the game failed to suck me in. Each time I tried to play it, I would make it to the first main city that you come to after the tutorial, tool around for a bit, pick up some quests, talk to some NPCs...and just stop playing. I found it completely uninteresting and I had no incentive to keep playing. I also didn't care much for the combat, but I could get over that if I found the storyline engrossing.

So I'm wondering if Bethesda managed to make a boring Fallout game, meaning I just don't like Bethesda's way of designing games, or if I just don't like the Elder Scrolls world. I don't want to pay $50-60 to find out.
 
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