Impressions thread for positive impressions

[Sander]

Aaaaand strike for MajorDanger for trolling. People have explained in depth to you how VATS isn't a turn-based system.

And how can you possibly hate LIBERTY PRIME? The game was over the second you returned with the GECK but we had no way of knowing. So to make up for it Bethesda gave us 30 minutes of watching a giant robot shoot lasers out of his eyes, kick Enclave assholes, throw thousand pound bombs like footballs, and recite anti-communism rhetoric worthy of any gritty war movie.

I don't think gritty means what you think it means.

And Liberty Prime is very easy to not like. It's a lame, dumb giant robot that had me laughing for the idiocy of it all. It looks retarded, it doesn't fit, the whole idea is ridiculous. Moreover, it serves absolutely no purpose in the game. They could've left the entire Liberty Prime thingie out, because you never interact with it, you don't have any influence on it, all it does is painlessly remove a bunch of obstacles that were only there to provide Liberty Prime a reason to exist in the first place.
EDIT:

But not being a turn based game lends itself to more surprise, and it actually makes the sneak skill worth a damn.

Sneaking wasn't turn-based in Fallout, so what?

 

[Eyenixon]

Multiple people have already told you what was wrong with your interpretation of Turn Based Combat (including myself, twice) and if you can't figure it out now then you never will.

And I didn't say shit about doing arbitrary or meaningless chores to soak up the meaning of the stories. Can you read? Can you apply context without altering the perceived syntax of a sentence? Because you are clearly showing a distinct lack of ability to do so.

I said that the search for the GECK/Waterchip were arbitrary in the full picture of the story, you could easily ignore them for long periods of time (as I said, the Water Chip time limit is very forgiving) and move on, all it did was provide you with a flexible and investigative goal without throwing you in a random direction, Vault 15 in FO1, crossing Shady Sands could lead you to the Hub.

In Fallout 3 it's just a random interconnection of NPCs that will obviously lead you from one point to the other, there is no sense of exploration because they're all just dandily spread about with helpful compass markers. Simms tells you about Moriarty as soon as you enter the first town (compass marker provided), Moriarty points you to Rivet City, Dr. Li points you to the Jefferson Memorial and so on and so forth, there is no deliberation on your part. It is linear as fuck, no speaking to all the NPCs in a town to scyre all the information you possibly can.
Thus the story provides you with no intro or flexible goal as it's just a linear progression of events that you break out jarringly whenever you feel like it, stupid, every step in FO1/2 felt like you were getting closer to your final goal even if you weren't actively working on the main quest. Exploration.

I have to laugh at your incredibly naive sense of what makes "good dialog" as if speech checks, stat checks and lots of dialog choices somehow makes the writing good. There is little to no exposition in most of FO3, if there is, it's short and unsatisfying. Character lines are poorly written and incredibly short, as are your responses. A character with high Intelligence and Speech in Fallout could at times put out a string of incredibly complex scientific knowledge to an NPC that was so full of elaborate and elevated language that I couldn't even understand it. That was humorous, that was interesting, and it made your character feel like a genius.

In Fallout 3 my high Intelligence allows me to make obvious five word remarks at Three Dog.
Fantastic.

As for FO1/2's writing being "lacking" at some points, this goes for everything, everything in existence, in Ulysses there were some points that Joyce tripped over his prose, but they were few and far in between and everything that mattered was great. The same can be said of FO1/2.

And I did not say the same thing as you did regarding the ending, I said that they give you no clear warning as to what will happen, you merely complained that the game cuts off, there's a big difference between wanting sufficient warning that you won't be able to continue and being pissed that you can't.
If you can't make sense of the sentence "...existence end with the culmination of the main quest...", then I suggest you take basic English classes.

Let me break it down for you.

"...end with the..." as in the completion of the game, it cuts off, per relevance to the topic at hand. AKA context.

"...with the culmination..." oh no, sentence becomes more complex, what's this? Ends with the culmination? That obviously means that it ends at the culmination of a CERTAIN event, not any other, notice the large difference between this and "ends with the culmination of the game".

"...of the main quest..." oooh, I get it, so the game ends with the culmination of the main quest, as in no other quests, right? The culmination of the main quest arrives, in contrast to the culmination of a side quest, and thus the game cuts off with no further playing time for the gamer.
Yes? See this?

 

[ScottXeno]

As mentioned above, VATS isn't turn based.

Chess is turn based. I move, then you move, then I move.

If chess were like VATS, we'd both move at the same time.

See the difference?

But not being a turn based game lends itself to more surprise, and it actually makes the sneak skill worth a damn. If you're not careful you could get killed in a really dumb fashion. Fallout 1 and 2 you could actually see around corners and into other rooms, see 6 supermutants standing around with their dicks in their hands and plan accordingly.

Which also defeats the purpose of this chess analogy you keep mentioning, because at least in chess I don't know what you're thinking.

I guess I should say I appreciate VATS because it lets you do the same thing the turn based system in Fallout did by targeting body parts, which could let you make up for inferior firepower or lackluster skills, while not actually being predictable turn based gameplay.

Whoa, you are all over the place man. It lets you do the same thing? It let's you do nothing of the same thing. It's entirely different, at most it's RTwP, but even that's a stretch in my opinion. It lets you pause the game for a second, choose a few actions, fire them off, and then go back to FPSing. What the hell? It's like the game that couldn't make up it's mind what it wanted to be. they are trying to be innovative, and instead it comes off like a half-assed attempt to reach out to all these new players of Fallout, but appease the fans of the first two games at the same time by keeping Action Points in the game somehow. It's a completely arbitrary system that does nothing more than sugar coat the fact that the game is still a FIRST PERSON ACTION SHOOTER GAME WITH SOME ELEMENTS OF AN RPG IN IT. Oblivion with guns.

 

[rcorporon]

I'll concede, Fallout 3 isn't turn based, but not being a turn based game lends itself to more surprise, and it actually makes the sneak skill worth a damn. If you're not careful you could get killed in a really dumb fashion. Fallout 1 and 2 you could actually see around corners and into other rooms, see 6 supermutants standing around with their dicks in their hands and plan accordingly.

Which also defeats the purpose of this chess analogy you keep mentioning, because at least in chess I don't know what you're thinking.

I guess I should say I appreciate VATS because it lets you do the same thing the turn based system in Fallout did by targeting body parts, which could let you make up for inferior firepower or lackluster skills, while not actually being predictable turn based gameplay.

I guess you haven't had the "I can target an enemy with VATS from over 2 km away and get a 95% chane to shoot his balls off" moments, making the point you point pretty much moot.

 

[MajorDanger]

I'll concede, Fallout 3 isn't turn based, but not being a turn based game lends itself to more surprise, and it actually makes the sneak skill worth a damn. If you're not careful you could get killed in a really dumb fashion. Fallout 1 and 2 you could actually see around corners and into other rooms, see 6 supermutants standing around with their dicks in their hands and plan accordingly.

Which also defeats the purpose of this chess analogy you keep mentioning, because at least in chess I don't know what you're thinking.

I guess I should say I appreciate VATS because it lets you do the same thing the turn based system in Fallout did by targeting body parts, which could let you make up for inferior firepower or lackluster skills, while not actually being predictable turn based gameplay.

I guess you haven't had the "I can target an enemy with VATS from over 2 km away and get a 95% chane to shoot his balls off" moments, making the point you point pretty much moot.

No, but I had those moments in Fallout 1 and 2 to death. I could target someone from across the viewable playing screen and shoot them in the eyes with my gauss rifle WITH a 95% chance.

Does that render both points 'moot'? I think it does

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Unfortunately, you can't shoot balls in VATS. But the good thing is that VATS led me to appreciate the quality of RT combat in FO:T =))

 

[MajorDanger]

Aaaaand strike for MajorDanger for trolling. People have explained in depth to you how VATS isn't a turn-based system.

And how can you possibly hate LIBERTY PRIME? The game was over the second you returned with the GECK but we had no way of knowing. So to make up for it Bethesda gave us 30 minutes of watching a giant robot shoot lasers out of his eyes, kick Enclave assholes, throw thousand pound bombs like footballs, and recite anti-communism rhetoric worthy of any gritty war movie.

I don't think gritty means what you think it means.

And Liberty Prime is very easy to not like. It's a lame, dumb giant robot that had me laughing for the idiocy of it all. It looks retarded, it doesn't fit, the whole idea is ridiculous. Moreover, it serves absolutely no purpose in the game. They could've left the entire Liberty Prime thingie out, because you never interact with it, you don't have any influence on it, all it does is painlessly remove a bunch of obstacles that were only there to provide Liberty Prime a reason to exist in the first place.
EDIT:

But not being a turn based game lends itself to more surprise, and it actually makes the sneak skill worth a damn.

Sneaking wasn't turn-based in Fallout, so what?

Oh yes, I disagree with you on a few points so I must be trolling Internet newbies.

Pretty sure gritty means what I think it means. Liberty Prime is a 300 year old robot that was salvaged by the BoS. Of course it doesn't fit in because it's THREE HUNDRED YEARS OLD by now, and no you can't interact with it because what would be the point? Rig it to turn on everyone?

 

[Leon]

I could target someone from across the viewable playing screen and shoot them in the eyes with my gauss rifle WITH a 95% chance.

Stop using FALCHE.

 

[CStalin]

Re: This section is disheartening

Blah Blah Blah nostalgia.

Movies did not replace books

 

[MajorDanger]

Multiple people have already told you what was wrong with your interpretation of Turn Based Combat (including myself, twice) and if you can't figure it out now then you never will.

And I didn't say shit about doing arbitrary or meaningless chores to soak up the meaning of the stories. Can you read? Can you apply context without altering the perceived syntax of a sentence? Because you are clearly showing a distinct lack of ability to do so.

I said that the search for the GECK/Waterchip were arbitrary in the full picture of the story, you could easily ignore them for long periods of time (as I said, the Water Chip time limit is very forgiving) and move on, all it did was provide you with a flexible and investigative goal without throwing you in a random direction, Vault 15 in FO1, crossing Shady Sands could lead you to the Hub.

In Fallout 3 it's just a random interconnection of NPCs that will obviously lead you from one point to the other, there is no sense of exploration because they're all just dandily spread about with helpful compass markers. Simms tells you about Moriarty as soon as you enter the first town (compass marker provided), Moriarty points you to Rivet City, Dr. Li points you to the Jefferson Memorial and so on and so forth, there is no deliberation on your part. It is linear as fuck, no speaking to all the NPCs in a town to scyre all the information you possibly can.
Thus the story provides you with no intro or flexible goal as it's just a linear progression of events that you break out jarringly whenever you feel like it, stupid, every step in FO1/2 felt like you were getting closer to your final goal even if you weren't actively working on the main quest. Exploration.

I have to laugh at your incredibly naive sense of what makes "good dialog" as if speech checks, stat checks and lots of dialog choices somehow makes the writing good. There is little to no exposition in most of FO3, if there is, it's short and unsatisfying. Character lines are poorly written and incredibly short, as are your responses. A character with high Intelligence and Speech in Fallout could at times put out a string of incredibly complex scientific knowledge to an NPC that was so full of elaborate and elevated language that I couldn't even understand it. That was humorous, that was interesting, and it made your character feel like a genius.

In Fallout 3 my high Intelligence allows me to make obvious five word remarks at Three Dog.
Fantastic.

As for FO1/2's writing being "lacking" at some points, this goes for everything, everything in existence, in Ulysses there were some points that Joyce tripped over his prose, but they were few and far in between and everything that mattered was great. The same can be said of FO1/2.

And I did not say the same thing as you did regarding the ending, I said that they give you no clear warning as to what will happen, you merely complained that the game cuts off, there's a big difference between wanting sufficient warning that you won't be able to continue and being pissed that you can't.
If you can't make sense of the sentence "...existence end with the culmination of the main quest...", then I suggest you take basic English classes.

Let me break it down for you.

"...end with the..." as in the completion of the game, it cuts off, per relevance to the topic at hand. AKA context.

"...with the culmination..." oh no, sentence becomes more complex, what's this? Ends with the culmination? That obviously means that it ends at the culmination of a CERTAIN event, not any other, notice the large difference between this and "ends with the culmination of the game".

"...of the main quest..." oooh, I get it, so the game ends with the culmination of the main quest, as in no other quests, right? The culmination of the main quest arrives, in contrast to the culmination of a side quest, and thus the game cuts off with no further playing time for the gamer.
Yes? See this?

Long winded, full of fluff and personal attacks. And people call ME the troll.

I submit to your internet forums prowess, as I am completely beneath your English P.hD. Do your not so common word choices make you feel like a genius?

Can you read? Can you apply context without altering the perceived syntax of a sentence? Because you are clearly showing a distinct lack of ability to do so.

Haha, so you're saying that I have a hard time perceiving the way you string sentences together. To be honest, I haven't read any of your posts because they all look like you trying to sound intelligent, but you come off as pompous and without much to say.

YES, I GET IT THE GAME JUST ENDS. LIKE ALL GAMES DO. What did you want, a message to flash across the screen saying !!! WARNING! THE GAME IS ABOUT TO END. PLEASE DIVERT TO SIDE QUESTS IF YOU DO NOT WANT A "CULMINATION OF THE MAIN QUEST".

We both said the same thing, only you did it in a condescending, passive aggresive, vitriolic fashion. I was pissed the game abruptly cuts off after you complete the main quest, and you are pissed because there wasn't "any warning." To think you called me naive, what did you think would happen when you finished the main quest?

 

[Skynet 2.0]

What. Is. The. Difference. In all 3 games you stopped time to make decisions on what to do. Now comes Fallout 3 and you can either NOT stop time (what is this, Max Payne?) and FPS your way to victory -OR- use VATS to acheive the *exact* same ends. Why are we complaining about being able to play one way or another? Just because Fallout 3 incorporates a more realistic sense of you know, time not actually stopping so you can fuddle around doesn't make it terrible, it's just not what we expected. That doesn't make it stupid.

So... you're arguing it's exactly the same as turn-based because the enemies end up dead either way? By that definition, the combat system in Command & Conquer is exactly the same as that of Doom. In fact, if all that matters is the end result, then every game that is at all possible to win is *exactly* the same.

Thats great. Waste our time with a completely arbitrary set of chores so we can soak up the 'meat of the story.' Here's an idea, make the meat of the story made evident as you actually play the story. GASP! What a contrived and deplorable disembarkment from the good ol' glory days of... oh yea, 'arbitrary' plot fillers.

The writing? Eh, some of it was lacking. No one is arguing that it wasn't. But what would you throw down your big rubber stamp of 'acceptable' on as far as dialogue choices? 25 minutes of speech options that just wasted time and drove the production time several months and millions of dollars overdue? Fallout 1 and 2 you clicked on speech options that were made available to you based on your previous actions and some of your stat points and it's the EXACT same in FO 3.

Again, your argument is that, because the dialogue systems in all 3 games involve clicking on speech options, the dialogue in Fallout 3 must be just as good as in Fallout. Also, why is being shorter somehow a virtue? I like long, descriptive dialogue options. I prefer reading a good book to watching the movie version. One of my favorite parts of Fallout was that people reacted realistically to you, dialogue-wise, and had interesting speech options that I enjoyed reading. I went into every conversation in Fallout wanting to see how it could turn out, whereas in Fallout 3, the NPCs just say "Hi, I'm the leader around here. Please do this here quest for us, and I will reward you." Also, how are Fallout's quests a 'completely arbitrary set of chores' and not Fallout 3's? What makes the quests in Fallout 3 somehow inherently better than those of Fallout? Does FPP somehow make all the 'recover item X' and 'kill enemy Y' quests more fun than a trimetric viewpoint?

And how can you possibly hate LIBERTY PRIME? The game was over the second you returned with the GECK but we had no way of knowing. So to make up for it Bethesda gave us 30 minutes of watching a giant robot shoot lasers out of his eyes, kick Enclave assholes, throw thousand pound bombs like footballs, and recite anti-communism rhetoric worthy of any gritty war movie.

Yes, it's all right to put in a leviathan robot, because it looks cool. It doesn't matter that it fits Fallout lore like a square peg in a round hole, it's all fine because the robot 'shoots lasers out of his eyes'. In fact, let's make Fallout 4 nothing but giant robots shooting stuff. It's all right because that would make an awesome game. Also: have you even played Fallout 2? The game did NOT end when you got the GECK. In fact, as soon as you returned with it was when the game started to get really interesting. You didn't even need the GECK to finish, you just had to wait a few months, then come back and find the village had been raided by the Enclave. You could get another GECK from the Enclave Oil Platform if you wanted, as a bonus, but it was in no way necessary to win.

EDIT: Aah... took too much time structuring my counterarguments and the better part of a page has been posted before me.

 

[BarackSays]

Wow. This thread is seeping with uncontrollable amounts of rage.

 

[midshipman01]

You know, most of you probably right in your own way. Except the snarky ones of course, you're all wrong. But, I did probably step overboard. It really doesn't matter so much to me if you agree with all, or even most, of my opinion. I wouldn't expect that.

However, my general theme stands. This is a very good game. It doesn't have to be your favorite game, you don't even have to like it, but you should recognize the ol college try here. You weren't slighted in the least by Bethesda. Rather, I'd say they did your little withering franchise a service by reviving it in such a thorough way. Didn't look like that was going to happen again.

It's these complaints like "can't kill children" or "bottles don't break when dropped" that are the core issue, and it's not just a matter of opinion. That kind of ridiculousness is unsettling to me, and definitely is not helping the case for a "true" Fallout 3. Those critiques just smack of spiteful nostalgia that isn't doing anything but proving how far up your ass one could find your head.

 

[Skynet 2.0]

So Bethesda did us a service by sending over all these people to complain about how we don't like Fallout 3?

 

[MajorDanger]

Some people missed the part where I conceded and declared FO 3 is NOT turn based, or they choose not to because they don't have any more credible bits to complain about short of personal attacks, but that doesn't make it bad or less enjoyable.

I see why the OP has disappeared, because there isn't any reasoning with any of you. You all still want long, text-based dialouge options and just can't settle for voice acting because of your head-up-your-ass nostalgia. If you want text-based bullshit to stimulate your huge genius minds then i suggest you find and pick a game at www.themudconnection.com. The rest of us mouth-breathers will take Fallout 3.

One of you even went so far as to reference the high-science skill dialouge option you get with Myron when you try and convince him to make a cure for Jet as complex and wonderful, to the point where that player felt smart. (so yes, I have played through Fallout 2 many times, you jerk)

I suppose the only satisfaction I'll get out of this is knowing that the vast, sweeping majority of you bitter gems of hatred are still chapped because of how much you hate Fallout 3.

Meanwhile, on my Xbox version, I've already played through half the game as an asshole this time and I've only advanced the plot far enough to wear power armor. So far I've found TONS of points of interest and found a little over half of the bobbleheads.

So the game is fun for me at least

I could target someone from across the viewable playing screen and shoot them in the eyes with my gauss rifle WITH a 95% chance.

Stop using FALCHE.

Stop sucking at Fallout 2 and take the Sniper perk already. Easy mode in a can.

 

[midshipman01]

So Bethesda did us a service by sending over all these people to complain about how we don't like Fallout 3?

I guess I'm not viewing the same board as you. Over here, it looks like a whiny fanboy circle jerk with one or two open-minded individuals poking their head in from time to time.

 

[flyme]

...
Liberty Prime is a 300 year old robot that was salvaged by the BoS. Of course it doesn't fit in because it's THREE HUNDRED YEARS OLD by now
...

the war was in 2077, FO3 is in 2277. i've seen many posts lately that FO3 is 300 years later.. well maybe it is close to 300 years from our reality universe time, but for the game, the right way to put the devastation into context would be 200 years after the bombs.

but in fact liberty prime was built before the bombs, to deal with the commies in alaska, so he's closer to 210ish years old. i thought i read a terminal explaining him but the specifics about it elude me atm

 

[DeadEye001]

so basically, nah, nah,nah,nah,nah.
thing is, tell me in what why fallout 3 is more tactical than fallout 2?
When player skill takes hold over main gameplay mechanics, the fault is not in the player being too powerful but the game allowing him to be so. Point being, Fallout 3 has a very clunky and has a very easy to abuse combat system. I can abuse vats by going in close range and using a combat shotgun, over and over again. Sometimes switching out of vats I can actually do more damage blindly shooting at a enemy, and yes, 2-4 seconds of slow motion deaths are so exciting when repeated every fucking time a death animation occurs in vats. Realtime does not equal=more tactical.

I'm sorry, this bit out of your post is dumb. You can abuse VATS by going in close range and using a combat shotgun? Um, newsflash, that's how the combat shotgun works. You get close, you shoot people with it. How is this in any way considered an 'abuse' of the VATS system? I was doing exactly the same thing in Doom 2, and that was nearly 15 years ago. Frankly, I'm not sure what people are talking about when they say the combat system in this game is 'clunky'.

I like playing sneaky characters. It turns out that in this game, I can sneak up on an encounter and snipe the hell out of bad guys, and I don't need to wait for them to all take turns meandering up to me if I can avoid it by actually shooting well and killing them all. When I think back to the original games, and how a combat with multiple bad guys used to make me just beg for some sort of speed-up option, the argument that FO3's combat is clunky just makes me laugh. Try hitting some bad guys in this game from long range with 0 small guns and a POS damaged hunting rifle. It's hard, like it should be. Amp up your small guns and fix your weapon so it does decent damage, you can plow through bad guys, like you should be able to. And when you finally grab Vengeance? Stick a fork in me, I'm done. That's awesome.

I prefer FO3's combat so very much. I prefer combats that are over in 10 frantic seconds rather than two boring minutes. I love being able to shoot some guy down without having to listen to *zzzzzt* *bleep* *bleep* *bang* *zzzzzt*. If that means I get to actually be better at, I don't know, sniping, because I'm naturally better at it, I'm all for that. Bitching about the combat in this game is a fools argument.

 

[midshipman01]

pure win

I like this guy. He gets it.

 

[Ulysses]

So Bethesda did us a service by sending over all these people to complain about how we don't like Fallout 3?

I guess I'm not viewing the same board as you. Over here, it looks like a whiny fanboy circle jerk with one or two open-minded individuals poking their head in from time to time.

Funny how the open-minded people always agree with the observer.

Anyway, I don't get an overpowering sense of negativity from reading this forum - even if I did, I doubt it'd upset me so much to post a stern refutal.