"Ten minutes, and we’re already deciding whether Megaton will be our new base of operations, full of new friends and allies... or an empty crater on the map."
"You’ve seen the screen shots and videos. If you haven’t, take another look – the violence is truly spectacular."
The children issue... I'd say verisimilitude- but in the state that FINO3 is likely to be in at release well- who cares anymore?
Back to the article... To me, it's excerpts like the two above that help to erode any credibility the Bethesda folks may have once had in my eyes. I've already written off most of the "press".
I watched the videos, read the articles, and saw the pictures on various game sites; places like G4/Tech TV, and youtube for myself. I didn't want another look. All this time since then, I couldn't help but feel that Howard was an idiot man-child begging, no... demanding approval from an audience full of idiot man-children. Every interview- every demo- felt like a grown up version of a child show gone horribly, horribly wrong.(Think: "Douchebag's Secret Fun Dome!" Hosted by Todd-o the Clone.)
Sure, demos are meant to drum up excitement for a title, but do they have to be so aggressively stupid? Go back and watch them. Every single demo he's done, in all the pre-release hype, has featured/showcased the "Bloody Mess" "perk". In the demos He's hit you over the head with this tripe and DARED you to say it wasn't cool.
Well, it isn't cool Todd-o. There, I said it.
It got old after the first time I watched it. Hell, it got old WHILE I watched it. Let's see:
-walk up to the Raider with the Mohawk, blow his head off(and the rest of his body apart) with the sniper rifle.
-meander your way to the outdoor store where you employ a shotgun, grenades, and a sentry turret, to... guess what?... That's right... blow apart more people.
But WAIT!!111one 1eleven!1 It's not over. Todd-o has a special surprise for us- The "Rock-it Launcher"!!!(this is the part where, on cue, the man to the right of the audience bleachers slaps the person nearest to him upside the head and sets off a chain reaction- whereby said audience stops drooling into its laps long enough to emit a chorus of "oooohs" and "ahhhhs" as Todd-o proceeds to explode another Raider into a "Bloody Mess" with a Teddy Bear!!!(OOOOH... EDGY...)
Of course, this is also the part where I almost regain some slight bit of respect/sympathy for said journalists. Almost.
At this point they usually glace sideways at Todd-o(who continues pounding away at raiders with teddy bears- his face fixed in an expression of idiot man-child rapture)with eyebrows raised in alarm. As if for the first time, the blinders have been removed, and they finally see that the man sitting next to them is
certifiably fucking bonkers. You can almost feel the beginnings of a migraine, the likes of which can only be brought on on by a kool-aid hangover, begin to take hold. But it's too late because it's already zero hour, and this dubious masterpiece is what we get after ten years worth of waiting.
This is why I balk each time that I ponder the wisdom of spending money on this game. In the Todd-o-verse- story, consequence, role play, and dialogue all run a distant second to SUPER ACTION VIOLENCE!!! Why?
Because this is what YOU...I...ME...US... want! This is what Fallout is. Forget all of that other happy horseshit! Nobody cares as long as somewhere, someone's head(and body) is exploding like an overripe watermelon that's been hit head-on by a speeding bus. Don't believe him? Tough. Thousands, no millions, no wait BILLIONS of happy players of Oblivion say you're WRONG!
Todd-o bought Fallout fair and square from some seedy guy with a bad mustache who said he owned it... and everything! So no... you're not the boss of him!
CASE CLOSED!
YOU LOSE!
SUCK ON THAT, YOU EVIL NECKBEARDS!!!
Apparently, if you played the first two Fallout titles, it doesn't matter. You see you don't really need to have played them to enjoy FINO3, because everything that made those two games awesome is already going to be in FINO3. In fact... Todd-o is so confident that he's praying(to anyone or anything that might pretend to listen) that you HAVEN'T played them.
As it's been said before, here and elsewhere, FINO3 is a FPS/TPOTS action game. It wasn't hard to guess that there would be an appreciable amount of violence- given the property. Knowing that, couldn't they have instead gone out of their way to show us first all of the OTHER ways that FINO3 measures up to Fallout 1 and 2 besides the violence?
This is why I've written off most of the lock-step zombitron gaming press concerning FINO3(and most other games).
