shihonage said:
If you just switch animation states to "recoil" then the enemy isn't firing anymore. If you do that for every shot you land, the enemies will become nerfed. Yada yada.
Nerfed?
You're weakened if you get hit by a burst from a chaingun and stop shooting back?
Uh, sorry but there was always a certain realism to fallout I enjoyed and would like to keep. If some looks at me and shrugs when i open a minigun up into his chest he better be Superman.
You don't compensate for that in any shooter by making the enemies ignore bullets. The physics should knock the victim down or away and you should have to work on keeping your bullet hose on them if they actually are supposed to be so tough as to survive the initial spraydown. You balence firing a minigun with heat or charge so continuous nonstop fire isn't an option so people measure their shots or you factor accuracy in like most games do. You point a bullet hose at something you expect it to move and you work on adjusting. Even the original FOs had people reacting when shot and you kinda expected that if you didn't miss something with your minigun then you'd get an impressive death animation and redecorate the desert with fragments of your target.
Hell, Fear and most shooters recognize where a target is shot these days and has them react accordingly. This is not innovation here, it's already been innovated, this is standard stuff. This was somewhat standard 10 years ago and if you really want to look at it since FO had it way back when then they were very innovative and Beth has regressed again by taking it right out of thier game.
taag said:
I don't think it would be possible to have a highly advanced shooter-like AI and RPG gamesystem rules rolled into a single, satisfiable experience. If the enemy was "too smart" you would never get the chance to employ your character's skills, but would instead have to resort to your own skills at FPS combat.
Bull.
Been done quite well.
System Shock 2 probably the first I played that did so. You designed your character by starting out a government enlistment office, you enlisted in a branch of the service (Marines for more Combat Skills, Navy for more Technical Skills, or the PsiOps or something to have a whole different aspect of the game featuring Psychic abilities I never tried but here some quite liked) and chose like 3 tours of duty to build up skills before your 4th where the game happened. And it was a great shooter with useful skills. 80% of that game was probably the best I ever played... once you moved from the civilian ship tot he military escort kinda lost it's stride a bit to me, but Christ was that a good game up to that point that has yet to be truly matched.
Bioshock was sort of a sequel to System Shock and while I dont' think it was quite as good, it did stay consistantly good from beginning to end while System peaked and went a little downhill at the end. They also stripped most of the RPG elements and skills out of the game making it only a slightly more complex shooter, but the retro angle actually gave me a cheap Falloutesque thrill.
Dues Ex was also a good shooter and RPG hybrid where you had combat or technical skills and they suited your style of play. Hell, on a bet I actually played that game using only non-lethal takedowns while still subduing every person on levels and I could do it through skill and finesse. Story got kinda bogged down in fantastic conspiracy theories, but it was well written and good for a laugh at the depth. Had far more definitive and differing endings that FO3 seems to manage years later either.
Lately Mass Effect again combines strong RPG elements with a shooter that is a far more intelligent shooter than most and DOES make frequent use of cover. It's quite amazing and innovative in it's way and is probably the first game I've seen that makes an effective shooter with little to no twitch reflex needed. I also liked how they managed military proffessionalism (which the BOS SHOULD have) without miring it into the dialog from the top ten Vietnam films from the 80s - which is NOT proffessionalism.
Ther were probably more examples I either didn't play or can't remember, but what FO3 caimed to be attempting has been done and done quite successfully in the past. It just was done by people other than Bethesda, who tends to phone in their efforts, and it really doesn't seem to have been managed in FO3 very well at all. I'm reluctant to even pat them on the back and say nice try, cause it just seems like once again they didn't try.
Rorschach said:
And the environment, it seems as if it was bombed to bits yesterday. Berlin 1945 comes to mind.
Quite true.
There's some imagination there, and I like some of the imagery, but this is a post apocalyptic wasteland with people struggling to survive. It should have a lived in and weathered feel. I can't judge on a whole yet, and some places I remember seeing like a school or something did seem to have some of that aspect, but a lot of the setting does not. Now, one, I think DC would be a lot like the frigging Glow or Necropolis and there shouldn't be anyone going on inside one of the placed most likely to have recieved more than it or any other three cities shares of nukage - but ok I'll give Beth license trying to make a cool spot, fine. Still the former cities around Chernobyl are a good example of what happens when no one is around, and even in a wasteland with little green still clawing it's way to the surace and through cement anymore time should rip or enshroud a lot. Scavengers would pick apart areas like DC looking for stuff to help them survive - if they could go near it, and humans who settle in areas tend to have nesting instincts to clean up their own space. In a world where you can control very little, you take particular care with what you CAN control and they'd likely tidy up and organize what they could. Junktown's walls of car wrecks were always a good example, but if you claim a house as your own odds are you're gonna fix they place up a little if only for your own sense of possession. Fallout One and Two had a great lived in feel and you could see them existing with or without you simply on their own, FO3 just seems everyones randomly mashed together.
4rekl said:
As a top-line developer Bethesda should be using the best possible engine for their games. They're not short of money.
Money no, but they're short on talent and more apparently they just seem apathetic. Their's no real love in the games. It's just a business project they get out the door to rake in some more money. And their's really no work ethic behind it. They're proven MO is to release when the game is just complete enough to pass cursory inspeection - and sometimes not even that. It's seems established now that gamers have rather low standards these days, so they will make money. They even release some modding tools for the public so they can work on thier free time to make the game more playable for themselves as well. What's more amusing this time is they 'don't have time' to release modding tools for FO3 so I guess it will be up to the modders to make thier own tools, or simply use the Oblivion ones since the games seem little departed from each other, it order to try to inject some quality into FO3's gameplay - pity it'd take so much work to correct the story which is the true ghastly aspect of the release.
Rarely do truely talented people need to call attention to themselves, that's what their work is for. Beth, however, and Todd in particular feel the need to ride that hype machine like a meth addicted donkey and scream for as much attention as possible. It seems to work quite well with young Americans too lazy to think for themselves and are willing to believe Bethesda great because they tell them often enough they are.
