Many a True Nerd "Fallout 3 is Better than you Think"

Think Norzan has done this a few too many times for that to be the case
 
Think Norzan has done this a few too many times for that to be the case
So the good fight has taken its toll and now he's reduced to this...

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I thought we could have a pleasant back and forth where I knew I would not be able to convince you but still enjoy the stimulating exchange. I guess not.
Pointless. If you expect a conversation where we somehow find good things about Fallout 3, you are shit out of luck. I have tried to find one good thing in this game to praise but i can't. It's just does too much wrong for me to ignore. Even without the baggage of having played the first two games (Fallout 3 is actually my first Fallout), i found it terrible. I just had to compare with its peers that are not part of its franchise to notice how awful it is. And whatever it doesn't do terribly like enviromental design and music are undermined by the all the terrible aspects.

You should not care that i don't like Fallout 3, but neither should you try to convince me that is a "good videogame". Fallout 3 is that game to me, that game i just absolutely hate with every fiber of my being. I hate what it did to the franchise, i hate how it skewed people's perception of what the series is about, and i hate that it was somehow popular.

Also, what is even the argument "it's a good videogame but bad in everything else"? Every video game should achieve to be good, that is their main purpose. You can't detach this from any game and say "it's a good videogame but bad in everything else". That makes no sense.
 
Pointless. I have tried to find one good thing in this game to praise but i can't.
That's acceptable. You don't need to praise anything. Constructive criticism of any kind that isn't just "bad, garbage" and one sentence long is what I was looking for.

It's just does too much wrong for me to ignore. Even without the baggage of having played the first two games (Fallout 3 is actually my first Fallout), i found it terrible. I just had to compare with its peers that are not part of its franchise to notice how awful it is.
If I had played the originals right after initially disliking F3, I'd be in your shoes right now most likely.

You should not care that i don't like Fallout 3, but neither should you try to convince me that is a "good videogame".
I said I wasn't trying to convince you. I just wanted your insight on it.

Also, what is even the argument "it's a good videogame but bad in everything else"? Every video game should achieve to be good, that is their main purpose. You can't detach this from any game and say "it's a good videogame but bad in everything else". That makes no sense.
I just don't see the need to elevate it just because it's a Fallout game and hating it because it falls short of what came before. At the end of the day, it's just a video game. I enjoy playing it and that's good enough for me.

But I didn't know that it was your first Fallout, same as me. I also hated it when I first played it but came back to it for a second chance. But knowing you hated it before playing the others makes me respect your position more. I dislike the mentality of hating something just because it's not as good as the previous work.
 
Honestly, Fallout 3 is okay.
Not a great Fallout game, but it does have some interesting stuff for an open world game.
Simply put, I can see some of the ideas in terms of gameplay and even writing, and can respect them to a certain degree, it's just the execution is rather poor.
 
I do honestly agree with Norzan, and I appreciate him making such stringent attacks on F3. I think Fallout 3 gets a little too much of a free pass here sometimes, cause it got worse from there.
But it is a terrible game, worse than every proper Fallout in every single respect.

You can say you like it, but saying it is objectively good is, well, not so good.
 
I can also criticize the fuck out of Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas if i wanted to. But in those three games, i can find a lot to like and enjoy. Actual good game design that had a lot of thought and logic put into it, writing that goes way beyond the "kill this and i'll get you a reward", characters that had a lot of thought and depth put into them, locations with a lot of background and variety. Good stories that have logical motivations and backgrounds, with a beginning, middle and end that make sense. Good quest variety with several branching paths that make sense and are rewarding to even just see.

When you see the highs a franchise can get, anything that goes way below that is just disgraceful, because you know how good a franchise can get. 3, 4 and 76 unfortunately are way below all of that. And i'm not gonna judge them as standalone games, they have Fallout in their title. They have a set of basic expectations not just for the franchise but also for the RPG genre.
 
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Story this, narrative that.
Face it, the only true way to play Fallout 3 is to keep using VATS since the game is a clusterfuck of RPG/FPS combination that, while you can argue about if it did it's narrative ,writing, quests right, it didn't do gameplay to stay in hold. Lack of ironsights, bloated health for difficulty and having specific enemies to deal unblockable damage is not fun gameplay of running and gunning, which is what I would play Fallout for (yes, even isometric ones, but less fast paced).

Can't believe how much New Vegas added to the game by just including QoL things like iron sights, weapon modding and less enemies with bloated health, in addition of world map being compact, so it's easy and entertaining to travel through.
 
I think another problem with Fallout 3 is that its world is messy and underused.
There are a lot of places and props in Fallout 3 that basically only exist to go through to look for stuff or to fight raiders and mutants.

Yes FNV had this as well but Fallout 4 had an overload of this.

Actually saying that Fallout 3 has a lot of filler summarizes it well.
 
His arguments are complete nonsense most of the time and don't think many respect him here. He just decided to stick around even after several arguments where people said he was wrong about Fallout 3.

And a hidey ho to you too, neighbor.
 
Which would be stupid.

Unless you make an atmosphere where humanity is already doomed, it's only a matter of time (the book Metro 2033 is a good example)

Course, there is nothing wrong in desiring this state of despair in future fallouts, but there it is just a matter of pulling back the timeline.

Mostly, I admit it's my punkish nature and contempt for authority to believe that nuclear apocalypse is something you can "recover" from. It comes from a sense of humanocentrism that once you utterly fuck a thing, it can be unfucked. In this case, the environment of the Earth is something that's permanently been altered with the mass extinction of species and half-life of radioactive isotopes that may be measurable in thousands of years.

Humanity has suffered mass extinction events before and barely managed to survive but it comes from a perspective of, "CAN DO!" spirit and nonsense that you can just rebuild what was lost without the infrastructure that required thousands of years to build in the first place. There's also an assumption that you can just dig up the stuff that has since been expended. The steel, lithium, copper, oil, and so on that has been used up by the time of Fallouts Great War so that it no longer exists.

Obviously, part of the issue is the fact that once Fallout is "rebuilt" then it's not Fallout anymore but the issue should be that there's things remaining, not that that there is anything going to take its place.

And good riddance to the Old World.
 
I've seen people here say Many A True Nerd is a shill for Bethesda. I was subbed to him back when he started out and only did NV videos but dropped him ages ago.

Is it because of the video that birthed this thread? I saw his "analysis" on 76 and he didn't come off as a shill. His video came across very similarly to Joseph Anderson's and that video was like his F4 one; it sucks and how it could not have sucked.
 
I thought we could have a pleasant back and forth where I knew I would not be able to convince you but still enjoy the stimulating exchange. I guess not.

Ultimately, I feel like the anger here is directed at the medium rather than the message. The hatred simmering here is due to the fact that it's not an turn-based strategy game and that it is a revival of the property done by a different team than the original artists. There was some nasty behind the scenes business but I don't blame the creators of Fallout 3 for that or the lack of Van Buren.

Fallout 3 is a exploration-based shooter with RPG elements and it is a wonderful game because of that. The seething hatred for it also blinds people to the benefits of the game. What Fallout 3 does is that it immerses you in a post-nuclear war world and the atmosphere of a planet devastated by the conflict. The use of Washington D.C. with its universal familiarity to American gamers, the melancoly ruins, and beauty blows Oblivion out of the water. I consider it a retelling of Fallout 1 and 2 versus a sequel to those games and love how you get to experience living in a Vault as well as wandering around the map trying to see what lays over the next hill.

If people can't appreciate that, screw em. It's still one of my all time favorite games alongside Skyrim, Bloodlines, and New Vegas. You have plenty of people talking shit about Fallout 3's silliness while ignoring Fallout 2's.

I also was ambivalent about Fallout 4 and hated Fallout 76.
 
part of the issue is the fact that once Fallout is "rebuilt" then it's not Fallout anymore
It's not a fact though. Fallout is so much more beyond the wasteland setting. The characters, politics and humanity seemingly repeating the same mistakes it did prior to the Great War are part of the franchise just as much, if not more than just the setting. They could literally do a humanity rebuilt game with Fallout and if it had all these things, it would still be Fallout.

What Fallout 3 does is that it immerses you in a post-nuclear war world and the atmosphere of a planet devastated by the conflict.
Except it doesn't make sense given the context of the franchise. They could have done the "explore a devastated wasteland" if it was like 20 years later after the bombs. But the fact that Fallout 1 somehow looks better than Fallout 3 completely shatters and destroys any suspension of disbelief. There's no seething hatred with this, there's cold and hard calculated truth behind this criticism.

The major issue with the exploration of Fallout 3 is that it fails to have the element of danger. At no point can the player run into something so much stronger than them that they win through an ardous fight or have to flee or come back later. Without this element, exploration becomes a theme park. You just go around unopposed, with nothing being able to stop you. The reason exploration worked on Morrowind is because not everything scales to you, you can run into enemies so much stronger than you and it added excitement. The inevitability of you knowing that you will survive anything at anytime defeats the point of exploration.

And you thinking it's a retelling of Fallout 1 and 2 doesn't make it so. You are objectively wrong. The only way Fallout 3 can even exist is if Fallout 1 and 2 exist. Fallout 3 can't be a retelling.

You have plenty of people talking shit about Fallout 3's silliness while ignoring Fallout 2's.
Literally the main criticism of Fallout 2 people throw at it is the over reliance of pop cultural references. No one has denied otherwise that it's at the detriment of the game. Fallout 3 on the other hand is somehow even more stupid than 2 could ever hope to be, and that makes it so much worse.

You are still objectively and factually wrong about Fallout 3. ;-)
 
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It's not a fact though. Fallout is so much more beyond the wasteland setting. The characters, politics and humanity seemingly repeating the same mistakes it did prior to the Great War are part of the franchise just as much, if not more than just the setting. They could literally do a humanity rebuilt game with Fallout and if it had all these things, it would still be Fallout.

I think that would be a mistake because the appeal of Fallout is the same as the Walking Dead. It is seeing how humanity has savagely regressed and how holding onto that little bit of goodness in you is difficult. You know, when it's not about B-movie references and humor.

Except it doesn't make sense given the context of the franchise. They could have done the "explore a devastated wasteland" if it was like 20 years later after the bombs. But the fact that Fallout 1 somehow looks better than Fallout 3 completely shatters and destroys any suspension of disbelief. There's no seething hatred with this, there's cold and hard calculated truth behind this criticism.

Washington D.C. is permanently irradiated and an environmental disaster zone like the Glowing Sea. That is the major plot of the game that you need to fix this in order for rebuilding to be possible. You can't build NCR on toxic land. Again, it also presumes humanity will rebuild.

And you thinking it's a retelling of Fallout 1 and 2 doesn't make it so. You are objectively wrong. The only way Fallout 3 can even exist is if Fallout 1 and 2 exist. Fallout 3 can't be a retelling.

You are still objectively and factually wrong about Fallout 3. ;-)

It's a retelling that is set in the same world. The plots are basically all the same from Water Chip, GECK, Super Mutants, and Enclave. "Canon" is a nebulous concept when dealing with rebooting of franchises.

And if that makes you feel better to say otherwise, good for you.
 
Washington D.C. is permanently irradiated and an environmental disaster zone like the Glowing Sea. That is the major plot of the game that you need to fix this in order for rebuilding to be possible. You can't build NCR on toxic land. Again, it also presumes humanity will rebuild.
Except people can somehow survive there for 200 years. If it's so irradiated, then no one would live there, but they do. To make matters worse, your daddy wants clear water so that people can live in the Capital Wasteland with fresh water. Why would you decide to give an irradiated place clear water? That makes no sense. Capital Wasteland is no more irradiated than god damn Shady Sands. Fallout 3's setting just doesn't work within the context of the franchise.

Glowing Sea actually did this correctly by literally have no living creatures there besides beings immune to radiation.
It's a retelling that is set in the same world. The plots are basically all the same from Water Chip, GECK, Super Mutants, and Enclave. "Canon" is a nebulous concept when dealing with rebooting of franchises.
It can't be a retelling because it alludes to events that happened in 1 and 2. Do you even what a retelling is? Fallout 3 isn't one and it will never be. Also, a retelling that happens after Fallout 1 and 2, makes mention of characters, stories and other things from those two games.

And Fallout 3 isn't a fucking reboot. It can't be a reboot if it's alluding to events that happened in the first two games.
 
There was some nasty behind the scenes business but I don't blame the creators of Fallout 3 for that or the lack of Van Buren.
Now here's a game many here believe they would have wanted over F3 but the truth is, Van Buren would have been scorned even more. That one was going to take silly to a whole new level.

You have a giant robot hounding you through the course of the game like some Robo-Nemesis. You have ghoul hippies in their cult compound that want to procreate naturally and take over the world and in one ending they manage it. You have a plague that's going to kill mankind like the Enclave wanted.

Hell, the game was even planned to end in space aboard a station that fires nukes because the evil scientist bad guy wants to 'begin again' by nuking the world all over again. How original.

You have plenty of people talking shit about Fallout 3's silliness while ignoring Fallout 2's.
This does indeed piss me off.
 
Except people can somehow survive there for 200 years. If it's so irradiated, then no one would live there, but they do. To make matters worse, your daddy wants clear water so that people can live in the Capital Wasteland with fresh water. Why would you decide to give an irradiated place clear water? That makes no sense. Capital Wasteland is no more irradiated than god damn Shady Sands. Fallout 3's setting just doesn't work within the context of the franchise.

Ah yes, the logic that because 2 exists and 4 exist that 3 can't possibly exist. There's enough clean water and land in the Capital Wasteland so people can live a subsistence level existence while barely scraping by. Your goal is to make it so they can live a much easier non-subsistence existence.

It's not that hard.

Let me throw this at you, "Is building a clean water reservoir good in a desert?"

Yes.

Glowing Sea actually did this correctly by literally have no living creatures there besides beings immune to radiation.

Uh huh.

It can't be a retelling because it alludes to events that happened in 1 and 2. Do you even what a retelling is? Fallout 3 isn't one and it will never be. Also, a retelling that happens after Fallout 1 and 2, makes mention of characters, stories and other things.

And Fallout 3 isn't a fucking reboot. It can't be a reboot if it's alluding to events that happened in the first two games.

It can be a retelling because they use the same basic story while keeping the previous one canon. It's like the fact that Star Trek: The Movie is a retelling of the original serie episode THE CHANGELING.
 
The issue I think Norzan has is that he has boxed the concept of what "Fallout" is in his mind and if it doesn't agree with that concept it's automatically bad.

I'm certain he will disagree, but that's what it seems to be. I'm not saying he is wrong for thinking this way, but it does seem to be what's happening. Of couse he also hates the music and controls, but New Vegas has similar ambient tracks that were made brand new for it and I've yet to see anyone criticize them, and the controls are literally the same but IRON SIGHTS.

Maybe it's the F2 effect; ignoring the silly there but hating it in F3.
 
The issue I think Norzan has is that he has boxed the concept of what "Fallout" is in his mind and if it doesn't agree with that concept it's automatically bad.

I'm certain he will disagree, but that's what it seems to be. I'm not saying he is wrong for thinking this way, but it does seem to be what's happening. Of couse he also hates the music and controls, but New Vegas has similar ambient tracks that were made brand new for it and I've yet to see anyone criticize them, and the controls are literally the same but IRON SIGHTS.

Maybe it's the F2 effect; ignoring the silly there but hating it in F3.

The love of New Vegas and hate of Fallout 3 is especially amusing because they're the same game.

Yes, Vegas is better but it's built on the bones of F3.
 
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