I posted about two days after I got the game:
I really, really hope Bethesda does not get to make Fallout 4.
Wow. I've never felt like such an idiot in my life. This game is such a dropped-the-ball disaster, it's embarrassing. I take back EVERYTHING I said in the above, because this game really doesn't meet anything I wrote.
The opening and Megaton both had me convinced. Personally, Fallout 2 is quite possibly the best video game of all time, and one of the things I love about it is how the play one-ups itself as you go. You start in a small town, work your way to bigger towns, more civilized towns, the quests get more and more complicated...it's as seemingly open-ended and free-willed as you can get, but there's a natural progression to things.
I assumed Megaton was going to be the Arroyo, and if this was the case, I couldn't IMAGINE what the game had in store. If this was the starting level, if these quests, characters, town-design, and so on, were simply the very first noob town you encounter...Christ, I thought we'd be in for the best video game of all time.
And then, after a few more days playing, I realized there is no Megaton x 2, Megaton x 4, and so on. There's a brilliantly rendered world full of nothing, and Megaton is about as good as it's going to get. What you encounter there is the best the game has to offer.
I get that the East Coast is not the West Coast. In the original games, Fallout 1 is a primitive world, Fallout 2 is a world that's more advanced, and far more rich. OK, fine, set the East Coast in that primitive world...but does it have to be so barren? Realism is one thing, but I play games for fun, and there are so many opportunities for fun that Bethesda didn't take up that it just ends up being depressing.
It is mind boggling how far they were from the mark. In the original Fallouts, you encounter towns that have full histories waiting to be discovered. Mutant/human tension, gang warfare, etc. Here, there's none of that. It's just a big empty world with little going on.
There's a glitch early in the game that causes Walter, the Megaton water guy, to fall off his balcony and die. If this happens, you find his body on the ground, and if you search it, you'll find a lead pipe. I got excited - now THIS was a Fallout quest, I thought. Someone killed Walter with a lead pipe ala Clue, now I gotta go to the sheriff, who's going to let me in on the real seedy hidden dealings in the town and hire me to figure out who did it...THAT would be fun. Then I realized it's just a dumb glitch, and I had to reload to a way earlier point when Walter was still alive.
The other thing I've found is that I'm completing quests before I'm given them, which is frustrating. While exploring the way into DC, for example, I found Rock Caverns and shot my way through mirelurk after mirelurk only to find an impassible subway car. What the hell did I do all that for? I think there was a laser rifle on the ground, but the amount of ammo and health I wasted on that had me confused. I must be missing something. A while later, I saved the wastelander from the death claw, only to have him tell me the Caverns location and tell me of treasure that was inside. Yay.
Finally, the glitches. Christ, this game is so glitchy. I just killed the fucking Supermutant Behemoth in quite possibly the most ridiculous battle ever. The thing is so buggy, it had no hope for survival, which is so dumb in that it's basically the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man of mutants and didn't stand a chance.
OK, it's 4:20 and clearly I'm frustrated and ranting. To me, the spirit of Fallout isn't traveling the wastes and randomly finding a shack or two. Fallout is like the Arabian Nights: a story within a story within a story. It's not a big huge open ended world with nearly zero narrative, it's a story you can play in any order you want to. How the fuck did they miss that?
I really, really hope Bethesda does not get to make Fallout 4.
Wow. I've never felt like such an idiot in my life. This game is such a dropped-the-ball disaster, it's embarrassing. I take back EVERYTHING I said in the above, because this game really doesn't meet anything I wrote.
The opening and Megaton both had me convinced. Personally, Fallout 2 is quite possibly the best video game of all time, and one of the things I love about it is how the play one-ups itself as you go. You start in a small town, work your way to bigger towns, more civilized towns, the quests get more and more complicated...it's as seemingly open-ended and free-willed as you can get, but there's a natural progression to things.
I assumed Megaton was going to be the Arroyo, and if this was the case, I couldn't IMAGINE what the game had in store. If this was the starting level, if these quests, characters, town-design, and so on, were simply the very first noob town you encounter...Christ, I thought we'd be in for the best video game of all time.
And then, after a few more days playing, I realized there is no Megaton x 2, Megaton x 4, and so on. There's a brilliantly rendered world full of nothing, and Megaton is about as good as it's going to get. What you encounter there is the best the game has to offer.
I get that the East Coast is not the West Coast. In the original games, Fallout 1 is a primitive world, Fallout 2 is a world that's more advanced, and far more rich. OK, fine, set the East Coast in that primitive world...but does it have to be so barren? Realism is one thing, but I play games for fun, and there are so many opportunities for fun that Bethesda didn't take up that it just ends up being depressing.
It is mind boggling how far they were from the mark. In the original Fallouts, you encounter towns that have full histories waiting to be discovered. Mutant/human tension, gang warfare, etc. Here, there's none of that. It's just a big empty world with little going on.
There's a glitch early in the game that causes Walter, the Megaton water guy, to fall off his balcony and die. If this happens, you find his body on the ground, and if you search it, you'll find a lead pipe. I got excited - now THIS was a Fallout quest, I thought. Someone killed Walter with a lead pipe ala Clue, now I gotta go to the sheriff, who's going to let me in on the real seedy hidden dealings in the town and hire me to figure out who did it...THAT would be fun. Then I realized it's just a dumb glitch, and I had to reload to a way earlier point when Walter was still alive.
The other thing I've found is that I'm completing quests before I'm given them, which is frustrating. While exploring the way into DC, for example, I found Rock Caverns and shot my way through mirelurk after mirelurk only to find an impassible subway car. What the hell did I do all that for? I think there was a laser rifle on the ground, but the amount of ammo and health I wasted on that had me confused. I must be missing something. A while later, I saved the wastelander from the death claw, only to have him tell me the Caverns location and tell me of treasure that was inside. Yay.
Finally, the glitches. Christ, this game is so glitchy. I just killed the fucking Supermutant Behemoth in quite possibly the most ridiculous battle ever. The thing is so buggy, it had no hope for survival, which is so dumb in that it's basically the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man of mutants and didn't stand a chance.
OK, it's 4:20 and clearly I'm frustrated and ranting. To me, the spirit of Fallout isn't traveling the wastes and randomly finding a shack or two. Fallout is like the Arabian Nights: a story within a story within a story. It's not a big huge open ended world with nearly zero narrative, it's a story you can play in any order you want to. How the fuck did they miss that?
