Gamespot UK plays Fallout 3 (again)

[K.C. Cool]

sorry for the snip, but the quote would be too long...

I like K.C.'s idea much better...

No problem for the snip, but just for the record, it was bonustime that came with that quote. I agree, it works with the clear cut 1950's mentality. Come to think of it, if everyone was raised in a very orderly Vault it would probably end up that way.

Though I found the quote amusinly ironic for the Fallout universe.

 

[Goral]

The problem is they've been saying this whole time they made Fallout 3 more serious and avoided excess of nonsense which occurred sometimes in F2, yet we have fire ants, deadly teddy bears, house decorating, mini-nuke launchers, psychic and freezing guns or towns built on the nuclear bomb...

You know what, there was the stuff in Fallout 2, you know, I liked Fallout 1’s more serious treatment, not the Monty Python references, not going overboard with the sexual references, like with the porn star. That wasn’t what I enjoyed most about the first one. The first one I liked, you know, the storytelling and the violence and the combat and that kinda stuff. That, sort of, stuck with me more than the second one.

 

[Claw]

Why didn't they shoot the brat after his little verbal assault? And I would've liked an option were you tell the kids his fathers in the house and he runs all excited there only to be crushed! That's evil, spewing crap that's trying to sound clever isn't.

Kids are immortal, so neither of those options would make sense.

IMO, those dialog options work just well. Fallouts had lot of em like that. And yes, they had some characters, whose every second line was fuck or something as intelligent. Maybe the kid was just one of that kind of characters.

Sure, all the example of cursing we've seen are exceptions. Not that I remember a lot of characters "like that" in the Fallouts. Then again, it's literally been days since I last played either.

My English ain't that good + I'm very tired, so there can be lot o' stupid mistakes.

Only every f***ing thing you f***ing said, a**hole.

 

[Per]

My English ain't that good + I'm very tired, so there can be lot o' stupid mistakes.

Only every f***ing thing you f***ing said, a**hole.

Where the heck did this come from?

 

[13pm]

fire-spewing ants? the fuck?
what next?

 

[Slaughter Manslaught]

I have no problem with the Fire Ants, no wait, I have...

FIRE ANTS!! KILL KILL MURDEEER!!!

Damn, I have a small trauma of Fire Ants... damn pests, I had a terror experience or two involving me an' some friends a long time ago... it was like a horror film, I swear.

Fire Ants ain't the worst, there is much more bad things in Fallout 3 than Fire Ants. Asides, I think both Black Isle and Bethesda have no idea of what to do with Mutant Ants. They should make a kind of ant hive-mind that has total conection between each other (what one saw, all others saw) and which idea of fair fight is "We are legion."

 

[Jesuit]

You guys haven't seen many 50's monster movies have you? Giant radiated whatevers with stupid abilities is pretty much a staple of 50's era atomic paranoia cinema in America. If it's handled appropriately it'll be kind of cool.

 

[ookami]

what next?

Radscorpions that have some kind of radiation magic power like FO3's glowing ghouls apparently do? How about mutated lightning bugs that actually shoot electricity out of their asses? Cockroaches that attack you with their... um, nevermind that.

Fire ants that actually shoot fire. Gee, Bethesda, you're so fucking clever. They probably stayed up all night coming up with that and, in a bout of mental exhaustion, thought they were developing a Xanth game.

It's just retarded. They bag on FO2 for having ridiculous stuff in it and say they want a more serious tone and a darker game more like FO1, then the parts FO2 would have been better off without get used as justification when they cram some stupid shit into FO3. At least with fire geckos in FO2 they weren't making some lameass literal pun.

 

[Zeld]

what's the problem with this game taking the same approach?

You see, it's not the same approach. The previous games rarely, very rarely in fact, used swear words. What Bethesda is doing is just going over the top, even worse than Tactics it seems, and that's not adult anymore.. it's simply childish. And Tactics was annoying enough in this regard, I can only imagine how worse will Fallout 3 be.

Yes, this is true. But in previous games there were many people, who used curse words often.

I mean, this was just one kid. Plus it's fairly usual that kids who live in harsh world usually use harsh language.

About how the unkillable NPC-problem has done: At least with kids, if you shoot them, they will flee and local people are gonna kick your ass.

For those people who have posted numerous dialogue options:
Sometimes in Fallout you had many options, usually just couple. But never was there like 6 different things you could say and they all had different effect. Often answers were put like this:

1. Ok, I will accept this quest. (good)
2. Ok, i'll do what you say, as long as it's not too dangerous. (neutral "good")
3. No way Im doing that, are you retarded or something. (bad)
4. Sorry, i wont do it. (neutral "bad")
5. Ok, but it'll cost ya. (greedy)
6. -something funny-

There were sometimes options like lying ("I did it already, now gimme money") or some quest oriented random things, but often there was like 2-3 options(good, bad, neutral, offensive/funny).
For example, in Fallout 2, after killing the Rat God, you could not even tell anybody that you did it. Or when you got the Smiley guest from Ardin, you could not say to him something like: "Yeah, i found smiley, but unfortunately just his leg. Rest was eaten by gecko. Now gimme da money!" Or "Yeah, I found him, he's just behind that door...not!"

Of course it would be great, if there were more options like EgnlishMuffin and Wesdude said, but it would need whole lotta more writing.

To Claw: I started 3 days ago playing the game and yes, often when you are given a quest, you can just say: "-insert some good dialog with sub-meaning yes-" or "-insert some good dialog with sub-meaning no-" I mean, whole basis of Fallout 1 was centered around one mission, and you could not even choose if you wanted to do it because of the time limit. Not much of freedom of choice, eh?

 

[Eyenixon]

what next?

Fire ants that actually shoot fire. Gee, Bethesda, you're so fucking clever. They probably stayed up all night coming up with that and, in a bout of mental exhaustion, thought they were developing a Xanth game.

It's just retarded. They bag on FO2 for having ridiculous stuff in it and say they want a more serious tone and a darker game more like FO1, then the parts FO2 would have been better off without get used as justification when they cram some stupid shit into FO3. At least with fire geckos in FO2 they weren't making some lameass literal pun.

Are you fucking kidding me? Fire ants are exponentially LESS retarded than most things in Fallout 2.

 

[Brother None]

You guys haven't seen many 50's monster movies have you? Giant radiated whatevers with stupid abilities is pretty much a staple of 50's era atomic paranoia cinema in America. If it's handled appropriately it'll be kind of cool.

They didn't breathe fire in Them!, and people light forget that Godzilla is a Japanese concept (Gojira), not an American one. Japanese pulp, as you may well know, usually goes for a kind of wackiness that is hard to take in properly for us wide-eyes.

Anyway, at a certain point it gets to be hard to make this kind of wackiness stick. It's a careful line you walk, since Fallout doesn't utilize its retro-50s nature in a most light-hearted way.

Seems to me Bethesda just likes to hand out unique, "magic" attacks. Bit silly.

 

[Jesuit]

They didn't breathe fire in Them!, and people light forget that Godzilla is a Japanese concept (Gojira), not an American one. Japanese pulp, as you may well know, usually goes for a kind of wackiness that is hard to take in properly for us wide-eyes.

Anyway, at a certain point it gets to be hard to make this kind of wackiness stick. It's a careful line you walk, since Fallout doesn't utilize its retro-50s nature in a most light-hearted way.

Seems to me Bethesda just likes to hand out unique, "magic" attacks. Bit silly.

Fire breathing ants weren't specifically present but many other outlandish things were. Check out some of the movies on the page I linked to they can be a lot of fun.

It doesn't really matter where Godzilla came from, the fact was Godzilla: King of the Monsters, along with Rodan, were both successful and influential in North America.

The level of "wackiness" you're willing to tolerate from your 50's atomic culture references is a personal choice, but I sort of welcome this stuff, provided it's handled correctly, it will really add to that retro 50's feel.

 

[Brother None]

Fire breathing ants weren't specifically present but many other outlandish things were. Check out some of the movies on the page I linked to they can be a lot of fun.

I assure you I am well familiar with 50's pulp, as are many others here. I can think of no direct comparison material to fire-breathing fire ants.

It doesn't really matter where Godzilla came from, the fact was Godzilla: King of the Monsters, along with Rodan, were both successful and influential in North America.

Rodan is also Japanese.

You don't honestly believe it doesn't matter where they came from, do you?

Kaiju eiga may have been popular (in some circles) in 50s culture, but that doesn't mean they can be viewed as a part of American 50s pop culture. If someone makes a retro-00s game someday, would it make sense to include a lot of manga and anime? If you really want to express a consistent view on retro-specialities, you should leave out fringe foreign genres.

The level of "wackiness" you're willing to tolerate from your 50's atomic culture references is a personal choice.

Everything is, so that point - as always - is moot.

 

[Simeon]

Hmm... how best to describe this..
When black isle selected something to place in the fallout setting, it seemed carefully considered and meaningful.
When bethesda selects something to place in the failout setting, it seems a lot to me like they just pull it out of their ass.
Someone earlier made a comment about it being like a xanth novel and that's about the level of effort it seems was put into it.
Like there was a boardmeeting full of bethesda lummoxes, oafs and numbskulls and they're like "fire ants should shoot fire DUUUHHH
hay zmobies shuuld shoot green rays PEWPEW!!!1"
It just doesn't seem like a labor of love anymore. ($)

It began with bethesda's total failure to respect fallout's lore, failure to respect the gravity of nuclear weapons in the setting, and now it's trickled down to these little annoyances so I'm sure if you look at it from that perspective you can see where people are coming from on this.

 

[Jesuit]

I assure you I am well familiar with 50's pulp, as are many others here. I can think of no direct comparison material to fire-breathing fire ants.

Really? I am to understand that your position here is that nothing you've seen in from alternative American culture in the 50's even hints at the possibility of fire breathing ants?

You don't honestly believe it doesn't matter where they came from, do you?

This makes me think you don't understand American culture at all.

Godzilla wasn't merely "popular (in some circles)". Today he probably beats out King Kong for the position of most recognizable monster in American culture... his impact was huge and is a large part of how Americans view of the 50's today, just like Sputnik and pizza, which also didn't come from here. So in short, no, in America least, it doesn't matter where it came from. Other foreign things that are huge deal to American culture: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kung Fu, Sushi, Kanji, Fedoras, the Mafia, St. Patrick's Day, and so on.

 

[Brother None]

I am to understand that your position here is that nothing you've seen in from alternative American culture in the 50's even hints at the possibility of fire breathing ants?

If that is what you so wish to understand. But it isn't what I said, is it?

This makes me think you don't understand American culture at all.

"You just don't get it, man" has never been a strong argument. It certainly isn't here.

Today he probably beats out King Kong for the position of most recognizable monster in American culture... his impact was huge and is a large part of how Americans view of the 50's today, just like Sputnik and pizza, which also didn't come from here.

That doesn't really address what I said though, does it? My point was clear, when working with retro-50's culture you can not simply adopt everything that was popular at the time, and you must consider something's origin as well as anything else.

You remind me of Chuck Cuevas justifying tongs by pointing to the existence of calender girls in the 50's. Your dubious claim that Godzilla is a part of the American discourse on their own 50's culture is very similar to that, wouldn't you say?

 

[Jesuit]

If that is what you so wish to understand. But it isn't what I said, is it?

Well, the other argument you might have been making was so ridiculous I didn't want to assume you were making it. But it appears you were so I'll just leave it there.

"You just don't get it, man" has never been a strong argument. It certainly isn't here.

When someone says something that betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the topic they're talking about it isn't relevant to the conversation? I think it is.

You remind me of Chuck Cuevas justifying tongs by pointing to the existence of calender girls in the 50's. Your dubious claim that Godzilla is a part of the American discourse on their own 50's culture is very similar to that, wouldn't you say?

American culture in most serious areas of study is viewed through the lens of multiculturalism. Our entire discourse of our "own" culture deals with the way we co-opt and reconcile various cultural influences. If you're trying to imply that Godzilla isn't part of that discourse then you aren't going to find a single American historian who won't laugh at you.

The concept of ripping foreign influences out of our view of our own culture is so laughable that the very suggestion of it will be an unmistakable cue to others that you don't know what you're talking about.

If you are trying to make a game that inhabits an retro 50's trope then you might be able to get away with leaving out godzilla, but fallout certainly didn't want to try.

 

[Brother None]

Well, the other argument you might have been making was so ridiculous I didn't want to assume you were making it. But it appears you were so I'll just leave it there.

What other argument? You seem intent on filling in my meaning for me, when it is so much easier to simply ask.

I said I have never seen fire-breathing insects in American 50's pulp, and this is so. Nor do I recall any fire-breathing monsters outside of Japanese pulp (note: Japanese pulp, not American pulp, how clear these differences delineated by borders are). But I do admit with pain in my heart that I have not read every 50's pulp comic or book or seen every pulp film. Oh what outrage, oh what shame, I am verily undone.

When someone says something that betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the topic they're talking about it isn't relevant to the conversation? I think it is.

If you believe the other person's understanding is fundamentally flawed then most likely there is no basis for dialogue. However, "You just don't get it" is a useless statement to make. It is not an argument, it doesn't prove anything and it will never, ever convince anyone of anything.

American culture in most serious areas of study is viewed through the lens of multiculturalism. Our entire discourse of our "own" culture deals with the way we co-opt and reconcile various cultural influences. If you're trying to imply that Godzilla isn't part of that discourse then you aren't going to find a single American historian who won't laugh at you.

I am sorry, but you do realise American history is in fact something I study at my university?

Yet my professors - be they guests from les États-Unis or of the local foliage - fail to laugh at me. Forthwith, we must make haste and remind them that my understanding is skewered, for verily I have been told so, and on the internet no less!

The concept of ripping foreign influences out of our view of our own culture is so laughable that the very suggestion of it will be an unmistakable cue to others that you don't know what you're talking about.

Ah, "you don't get it" did not work for you so now you try "you do not get it so badly that people laugh at you"?

Dance, little puppet, dance, the strings have the veneer of purple opiate, and yet you dodge and jump to avoid touching them. Are they so scary, these things called "arguments", that you constantly fall back on such trite homilies as argumentum ad hominem? Ooh, ooh, let me try, "Your laughable lack of understanding that such fallacies will get you nowhere here shows like a worm's skin gleaming in the dirt". Oooh, how delicious.

Oh, how I wish this were a forum were such ad hominems had any meaning. Yet this is not - as one would say - the streets of LA. If any here sees such a statement as "You simply fail to understand anything" or "You are so illogical there is no talking to you", all we can do is cover our mouths and smile our internal smiles as we think "Ah, such simple minds to dance on the strings of heavenly harps, little do they realise that all they are achieving to lower themselves in the eye of hoi polloi." And that you do, that you do, as every ad hominem proves not how wrong The Other is, it only proves how much your grasp on the tightrope is slipping.

Slip. Slip. Slip.

If you are trying to make a game that inhabits an retro 50's trope then you might be able to get away with leaving out godzilla, but fallout certainly didn't want to try.

Citing random encounters as a sign of the way to treat the lore. Tsssk tsssk, you have been around long enough to understand this is not the way we approach things, no?

Let us see, Fallout also has the TARDIS. Yet I would say that time travel would be most unfitting for the Fallout setting - wacky experiments at it notwithstanding. You see how you can not co-opt easter eggs into lore, yes? Good Lord, man, the reference is even to something that isn't even from the 50's, yet you cite it in an argument of retro-50s nature? I slap my head in disparagement, thunderously thus

 

[Jesuit]

What other argument? I said I have never seen fire-breathing insects in American 50's pulp, and this is so.

Yep, that's the one. You really need a specific example of a fire breathing insect to suggest that such a thing is well within the realm of 50's monster movies?

If you believe the other person's understanding is fundamentally flawed then most likely there is no basis for dialogue. However, "You just don't get it" is a useless statement to make. It is not an argument, it doesn't prove anything and it will never, ever convince anyone of anything.

It calls your authority on the matter into question, it should also serve as a cue to you that you're making a fool of yourself.

I am sorry, but you do realise American history is in fact something I study at my university?

You're going to have to explain to me what that has to do with how Americans talk about their own history. I hope you aren't expecting that to somehow trump the fact that I've lived here my entire life, and went to an American university to study American history. Especially inasmuch as you're talking about an American discourse, which by definition is a discussion between Americans, of which you obviously aren't one.

Ah, "you don't get it" did not work for you so now you try "you do not get it so badly that people laugh at you"?

Or you could take it as a warning to not make that argument when talking to Americans about Americans because it will, in fact, make you seem ridiculous to them. Also, if you're talking to a "hyphenated American" that argument will really piss them off.

Citing random encounters as a sign of the way to treat the lore. Tsssk tsssk, you have been around long enough to understand this is not the way we approach things, no?

Let us see, Fallout also has the Tardis. Yet I would say that time travel would be most unfitting for the Fallout setting - wacky experiments at it nonwithstanding. You see how you can not coopt easter eggs into lore, yes?

I don't care how you define Fallout's flavor for your own personal needs. The article says this:

allout contains numerous Easter eggs referencing 1950s and 1960s pop-culture. Many of these can be found in random encounters

I'm sorry, we are talking about 50s pop culture aren't we? Please explain to me what the hell you think it's doing there if it isn't a deliberate throwback to the 50's.

 

[Brother None]

You really need a specific example of a fire breathing insect to suggest that such a thing is well within the realm of 50's monster movies?

Where did I say I did?

It calls your authority on the matter into question, it should also serve as a cue to you that you're making a fool of yourself.

Owtch. The irony here is like peanut butter on a thin spread.

You're going to have to explain to me how that cues into how Americans talk about their own history.

How could that possible not be a part of my learning?

I think you misunderstand, I was merely pointing out it is unlikely that I have such levels of ignorance as you claim I do and to falsify your claim that I am an automatic laughing stock of American historians. It was not my intention to claim I'm an expert on American cultural science. But the thing is, your authority as such an expert is also irrelevant, since here we're on the internet, and I have no way of knowing or caring about what you studied (I do not believe you, let that be clear - for a university-educated person not to understand that discourse means discursive formation (more Habermas than Foucault, if you're wondering) and not colloquia is not something I'm buying). If you are an expert, you should be able to construct a proper argument, not simply go "I know this better than you, so I am right".

This is NMA. If you wish to make a point, you will need to bring strong arguments, not adhominems or appeals to authority.

Or you could take it as a warning to not make that argument when talking to Americans about Americans because it will, in fact, make you seem ridiculous to them.

Oh wow. Do you not see how "I am an American so I must know better than you" does not actually work as a replacement for actual arguments?

Ok, let me shift my repeating into an actual warning: drop this nonsense and return to actual arguments, or this thread will be split and a strike will be given for, shall we say, bad behaviour. You need to learn that hopping on one foot and shouting "you look ridiculous" is no way to conduct an argument. Not by our book.

I don't care how you define Fallout's flavor for your own personal needs.

"That's just your opinion" is not an argument here, either.

The article says this

It is a Wikipedia article. It is not an authority.

I'm sorry, we are talking about 50s pop culture aren't we? Please explain to me what the hell you think it's doing there if it isn't a deliberate throwback to the 50's.

In my last-ditch attempt to rally this to the flag, I will now attempt to drag this thread by its hairs out of the idiocy it has been demeaned to.

We are discussing retro-50s specifically as it refers to Fallout lore. Now, the Fallout world is constructed to give a world of the future as American 50s pop culture represents it. Leonard Boyarsky states that the artists "set out to make a future science that looked like what the Golden Era of science fiction thought that future science would look like." Tim Cain noted it is "based on the horrors that 1950's science had predicted for a future apocalyptic world." Neither definition allows for the inclusion of foreign pop culture, kaiju eiga or otherwise.

Now, the primary point this revolved around is that fire ants breathing fire is stretching the limits of said setting a bit. You can bob to and fro on the point, I suppose, but one thing you can not do is prove its validity by referring to kaiju eiga films - for reasons cited above.

Two arguments are peripheral to this. One is the reference to an easter egg in the original game. This is easily refuted, as easter eggs in both games referred to materials regardless of their origin - Blade Runner, Wargames, are those 50s pulp? Clearly, the function of easter eggs was not to represent a consistent part of Fallout's approach to 50s pulp, and as such they are void to any argument.

The other is the game mechanical one. As I mentioned, I find Bethesda's approach to science fiction design slightly farcical. They appear to be having some trouble letting go of fantasy/Oblivion design, not the least shown in their tendency towards dungeons, but also in this monster design. There is a reason people keep referring to fire-breathing monsters or radiation-blowing ghouls as "magic", it is because in the core mechanics they come very close to the way magical monsters are treated in fantasy cRPGs. I find the similarity disturbing, but am not drawing conclusions based on it as of yet.

Now, your arguments, please. Think well. Any attempt to discount my arguments by ad hominem (in its technical meaning: making reference to my personal knowledge or understanding rather than my actual arguments) or by appeals to authority (least of all your own authority or that of Wikipedia), shall be dealt with forthwith!