DeadEye001
First time out of the vault
Re: Just finished...What a waste of time.
I'm new, but I just wanted to respond to this. Look, it's obvious there's a predisposition to disliking Fallout 3. Fair enough. But that doesn't excuse some of the willful ignorance some of you folks are displaying here.
First off, some complaints about how the Enclave's plan was sound and it didn't make sense that it was considered evil. I don't know about you guys, but committing genocide on all mutated peoples across the Wasteland is pretty horrific. I mean, we've played Fallout 2. We know for a fact that it's not just ghouls and super mutants that are going to be wiped out with this virus. The virus was to purify the wastes, to kill everyone tainted by 200 years of an irradiated environment, which included pretty much everyone who wasn't in a Vault for that span of time. This would have been a horrific criminal act, and to handwave it, and to specifically ignore some information that the story provides in order to pretend it's not a bad thing, is not proving any point about how shit you think the game is. It's just being ignorant for the sake of pushing some inaccurate viewpoint.
Secondly, The BoS being 'ghetto'. I mean, how, having finished the game, can you even ask this? This is explained in the game. This is an offshoot of the West Coast Brotherhood, and due to the Elder actually putting the prevention of human suffering as a higher priority than collecting technological trinkets of the past, they've been cut off from resupply and support, and have been fighting a battle of attrition for 20 years. That's why they're ghetto. This stuff is explained in the game. This information isn't hard to come across at all. I mean, the OP supposedly finished the game, yet he asks this question. I don't believe for a second that this information could be entirely skipped over without some major determination on the part of the OP.
Also, the OP claims you never see any build-up of the Enclave. I'd argue that almost the very minute you first step out of the Vault, you'll run into an Enclave Eyebot floating around and spouting Enclave propaganda. You can turn on your radio and hear the Enclave channel with the caricature of all humble apple-pie American Presidents talking about his childhood in rural Kentucky. And you can wonder "what the hell is this, and what are they up to?". I certainly didn't know what their plan was, other than to know that they were the Enclave, so it was probably going to be something nasty. You might even say it was a mystery to me. It wasn't until I was down in the pipes under the Jefferson Memorial and I saw the Vertibirds going over that it dawned on me. But you hear it from GNR, from Nathan in Megaton... their influence is there from the beginning of the game. And after that point, you see them explode into the Wastes with a vengeance.
And finally, this one really annoyed me to read, I must admit. But the OP makes the statement about the finale, asking why we can't clean out the Enclave, take a breath, and ready ourselves for the ending. Um, no. We really can't. The plot doesn't allow for it. It's explained right there and then why that's not a possibility. Doctor Li says it over the intercom, you're standing right there, I refuse to believe you missed this. Sure, I was a little miffed because Fawkes was right there next to me, and I would not count this as being one of my favourite endings. But honestly, OP. You are seriously playing this game with blinkers on, and you're sticking so closely to your preconcieved notions of what you want to think about this game that you're completely ignoring blatantly obvious stuff in order to get across how much you disliked this game.
Look, you can hate the game, that's your prerogative. I understand that people are cut because this was a different team stepping up to the plate and I have no illusions about the fact that they were going to put their own spin on Fallout. Even I think the main quest seemed to be over fast. I know from Vault 87 onwards, I didn't do anything but follow the main plot, and it was not far from there till the end, and that grated on me. But what really grates on me is that people aren't actually bitching about the game.
The OP's post has some really legitimate complaints in it that I do agree with. But he also demonstrates some shocking examples of actual willful ignorance, of instances where some knowledge about the game that is clearly spelled out and not hidden in some skippable spot is ignored for the sake of promoting this viewpoint that the game has "zero plot, zero story, zero substance". I'm sorry, that's utter bullshit. You may not like the plot, the story, or the substance, but it's ridiculous to claim this. It's emotive hyperbole, and it demeans the legitimacy of your arguments. Make a fair point, and I have no problem agreeing with you, but this 'review' or final thoughts or whatever you want to call it is seriously compromised by your desire to twist the truth in order to promote a particular viewpoint.
Elric said:
I'm new, but I just wanted to respond to this. Look, it's obvious there's a predisposition to disliking Fallout 3. Fair enough. But that doesn't excuse some of the willful ignorance some of you folks are displaying here.
First off, some complaints about how the Enclave's plan was sound and it didn't make sense that it was considered evil. I don't know about you guys, but committing genocide on all mutated peoples across the Wasteland is pretty horrific. I mean, we've played Fallout 2. We know for a fact that it's not just ghouls and super mutants that are going to be wiped out with this virus. The virus was to purify the wastes, to kill everyone tainted by 200 years of an irradiated environment, which included pretty much everyone who wasn't in a Vault for that span of time. This would have been a horrific criminal act, and to handwave it, and to specifically ignore some information that the story provides in order to pretend it's not a bad thing, is not proving any point about how shit you think the game is. It's just being ignorant for the sake of pushing some inaccurate viewpoint.
Secondly, The BoS being 'ghetto'. I mean, how, having finished the game, can you even ask this? This is explained in the game. This is an offshoot of the West Coast Brotherhood, and due to the Elder actually putting the prevention of human suffering as a higher priority than collecting technological trinkets of the past, they've been cut off from resupply and support, and have been fighting a battle of attrition for 20 years. That's why they're ghetto. This stuff is explained in the game. This information isn't hard to come across at all. I mean, the OP supposedly finished the game, yet he asks this question. I don't believe for a second that this information could be entirely skipped over without some major determination on the part of the OP.
Also, the OP claims you never see any build-up of the Enclave. I'd argue that almost the very minute you first step out of the Vault, you'll run into an Enclave Eyebot floating around and spouting Enclave propaganda. You can turn on your radio and hear the Enclave channel with the caricature of all humble apple-pie American Presidents talking about his childhood in rural Kentucky. And you can wonder "what the hell is this, and what are they up to?". I certainly didn't know what their plan was, other than to know that they were the Enclave, so it was probably going to be something nasty. You might even say it was a mystery to me. It wasn't until I was down in the pipes under the Jefferson Memorial and I saw the Vertibirds going over that it dawned on me. But you hear it from GNR, from Nathan in Megaton... their influence is there from the beginning of the game. And after that point, you see them explode into the Wastes with a vengeance.
And finally, this one really annoyed me to read, I must admit. But the OP makes the statement about the finale, asking why we can't clean out the Enclave, take a breath, and ready ourselves for the ending. Um, no. We really can't. The plot doesn't allow for it. It's explained right there and then why that's not a possibility. Doctor Li says it over the intercom, you're standing right there, I refuse to believe you missed this. Sure, I was a little miffed because Fawkes was right there next to me, and I would not count this as being one of my favourite endings. But honestly, OP. You are seriously playing this game with blinkers on, and you're sticking so closely to your preconcieved notions of what you want to think about this game that you're completely ignoring blatantly obvious stuff in order to get across how much you disliked this game.
Look, you can hate the game, that's your prerogative. I understand that people are cut because this was a different team stepping up to the plate and I have no illusions about the fact that they were going to put their own spin on Fallout. Even I think the main quest seemed to be over fast. I know from Vault 87 onwards, I didn't do anything but follow the main plot, and it was not far from there till the end, and that grated on me. But what really grates on me is that people aren't actually bitching about the game.
The OP's post has some really legitimate complaints in it that I do agree with. But he also demonstrates some shocking examples of actual willful ignorance, of instances where some knowledge about the game that is clearly spelled out and not hidden in some skippable spot is ignored for the sake of promoting this viewpoint that the game has "zero plot, zero story, zero substance". I'm sorry, that's utter bullshit. You may not like the plot, the story, or the substance, but it's ridiculous to claim this. It's emotive hyperbole, and it demeans the legitimacy of your arguments. Make a fair point, and I have no problem agreeing with you, but this 'review' or final thoughts or whatever you want to call it is seriously compromised by your desire to twist the truth in order to promote a particular viewpoint.
Who cares about that?