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

You have plenty of people talking shit about Fallout 3's silliness while ignoring Fallout 2's.

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

Just to point out that perhaps the difference is that talk of F2's silliness is a little talked up, at least from my playthroughs. Yeah there's bits of it here and there, but it is within a world that largely takes itself seriously, poses serious moral questions and fulfils the tenets of what we would consider a great RPG and Fallout game.

Fallout 3 on the other hand is a silly world taking place with attempts to be serious within. When the iconic moral debate of the game you are defending (and I applaud you trying to do so) is the Power of the Atom, with others being purifying or poisoning the water at the end, or..... blow up the people helping you versus blow up the people trying to kill you (the end of Broken Steel.) I could go on and on. Superhuman Gambit springs to mind. These just are not serious decisions to consider. There is no Junktown, Gecko, or Goodsprings, to name examples from each good Fallout pithily.

Fallout 2 is a serious world with silly elements, like F1 and NV with Wild Wasteland. It just dials those up a little, maybe too far depending on taste.

Fallout 3 is a silly world trying to be serious, and it does not succeed.

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

Only in gameplay. They were built using rather different design principles in regards to narrative experience surely?
 
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.
Read the edit. Your daddy is bringing water to a place you called irradiated like the fucking Glowing Sea, one of the most dangerous areas in the series. Think for a second, think really hard. If you believe that's not stupid, then you have no idea what you are talking about.
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.
No, it can't. Also, Bethesda never said it was a retelling, it called it a sequel. So again, factually false. I also love the goalpost moving. First, you got criticized for claiming certain franchises repeat things (like Star Wars) and that was why Fallout 3 repeated things from the previous games. Now you are goalpost moving that is a retelling. Uh, love the mental gymnastics you do to justify Bethesda repeating things.

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.
Literally only gameplay. Absolutely nothing New Vegas does is even done in 3, like good writing, good world building, respect to the lore and so on. The fact you think they are the same game just shows how clueless you are.


Literally my main criticism of Fallout 2 is that it has too many pop cultural references. That is the main criticism for a lot of people. Do you and Pwener live under a rock or something?
 
Just to point out that perhaps the difference is that talk of F2's silliness is a little talked up, at least from my playthroughs. Yeah there's bits of it here and there, but it is within a world that largely takes itself seriously, poses serious moral questions and fulfils the tenets of what we would consider a great RPG and Fallout game.

I love Fallout 2 and I think it blows Fallout 1 out of the water. However, it is a game where you have the option of blowing off your search for your tribe in order to become a Porn Star, Boxing champion, and joining one of the local crime gangs. You can have a Kung Fu Battle with Lo Pan and there's an entire segment devoted to killing Xenomorphs. Either on behalf of a bunch of Chinatown stereotypes or the Church of Scientology. Not to mention your poor wife that you have to leave in Reno after a quickie divorce. Oh and Frank Horrigan a.k.a Darth Vader as voiced by Worf. A man whose chief claim to fame is massacring Sentient Deathclaws who only want to live in peace with humanity. It is a DAMN weird game and that is what makes it awesome.

Fallout 3 on the other hand is a silly world taking place with attempts to be serious within. When the iconic moral debate of the game you are defending (and I applaud you trying to do so) is the Power of the Atom, with others being purifying or poisoning the water at the end, or..... blow up the people helping you versus blow up the people trying to kill you (the end of Broken Steel.) I could go on and on. Superhuman Gambit springs to mind. These just are not serious decisions to consider. There is no Junktown, Gecko, or Goodsprings, to name examples from each good Fallout pithily.

The iconic moral debate of the game to me is actually whether or not you choose to work with Stanilus for the greater good to rescue your father (and torture the locals) or euthanize a bunch of innocents as a way of freeing them. It is a game about rebuilding civilization (good) or being a selfish evil prick (bad) but the game gives you the option of being both. Is nuking a town for a luxury condo a cartoonishly evil act?

Yes, but I'd argue it makes more sense than siding with Caesar.
 
Just to point out that perhaps the difference is that talk of F2's silliness is a little talked up, at least from my playthroughs. Yeah there's bits of it here and there, but it is within a world that largely takes itself seriously, poses serious moral questions and fulfils the tenets of what we would consider a great RPG and Fallout game.

Fallout 3 on the other hand is a silly world taking place with attempts to be serious within. When the iconic moral debate of the game you are defending (and I applaud you trying to do so) is the Power of the Atom, with others being purifying or poisoning the water at the end, or..... blow up the people helping you versus blow up the people trying to kill you (the end of Broken Steel.) I could go on and on. Superhuman Gambit springs to mind. These just are not serious decisions to consider. There is no Junktown, Gecko, or Goodsprings, to name examples from each good Fallout pithily.

Fallout 2 is a serious world with silly elements, like F1 and NV with Wild Wasteland. It just dials those up a little, maybe too far depending on taste.

Fallout 3 is a silly world trying to be serious, and it does not succeed.



Only in gameplay. They were built using rather different design principles in regards to narrative experience surely?
I do find myself agreeing with you here in everything you've said. Fallout 3 is not a serious game. It tries to have a serious tone but goes back wacky wasteland hijinks at the drop of a hat.

But to me there's appeal there nontheless. It's not a perfect game, but it does have its own groove.
 
Read the edit. Your daddy is bringing water to a place you called irradiated like the fucking Glowing Sea, one of the most dangerous areas in the series. Think for a second, think really hard. If you believe that's not stupid, then you have no idea what you are talking about.

Except it purifies the land and gives the locals a valuable resource.

No, it can't. Also, Bethesda never said it was a retelling, it called it a sequel. So again, factually false. I also love the goalpost moving. First, you got criticized for claiming certain franchises repeat things (like Star Wars) and that was why Fallout 3 repeated things from the previous games. Now you are goalpost moving that is a retelling. Uh, love the mental gymnastics you do to justify Bethesda repeating things.

You can be both.

Literally only gameplay. Absolutely nothing New Vegas does is even done in 3, like good writing, good world building, respect to the lore and so on. The fact you think they are the same game just shows how clueless you are.

*hears Charlie Brown teacher voice* Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa wa. Fallout 3 bad and all bad and nothing good. Wa Wa Wa Wa.

Literally my main criticism of Fallout 2 is that it has too many pop cultural references. That is the main criticism for a lot of people. Do you and Pwener live under a rock or something?

It's not the pop culture referenecs that make it silly.
 
Except it purifies the land and gives the locals a valuable resource.
No, it doesn't. It literally only purifies water and water only. You claimed irradiated, as in, the entirety of the Capital Wasteland, not just the water. Dude, follow the logic of your arguments, you are losing it here.

You can be both.
No, you can't.

*hears Charlie Brown teacher voice* Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa wa. Fallout 3 bad and all bad and nothing good. Wa Wa Wa Wa.
Nice counter argument. Still see you are the same person with trash arguments. But please, do continue to live being wrong when you think Fallout 3 and New Vegas are the same game. Damn, if they are the same, that means i love both. Oh, wait.

It's not the pop culture referenecs that make it silly.
Yes, it is.
 
Except it purifies the land and gives the locals a valuable resource.
Sorry, but Norzan is right about this point. Project Purity is pretty retarded. I think that may have been intentional actually. The only reason it purifies is because of the GECK which wasn't originally part of its construction.

Literally my main criticism of Fallout 2 is that it has too many pop cultural references. That is the main criticism for a lot of people. Do you and Pwener live under a rock or something?
Talking deathclaws. That is all.
 
Talking deathclaws. That is all.
Sounds more plausible than the majority of bullshit in Fallout 3 honestly. Far fetched, but plausible.

Reminder that Fallout 3 is the game that gave Vault-Tec the FEV, when West-Tek made it themselves and had to hand them over to the military after they found its effects. Vault Tec could have never had access to FEV. A mutated beast learning to talk is much less stupid than this.
 
Sounds more plausible than the majority of bullshit in Fallout 3 honestly. Far fetched, but plausible.

Reminder that Fallout 3 is the game that gave Vault-Tec the FEV, when West-Tek made it themselves and had to hand them over to the military after they found its effects. Vault Tec could have never had access to FEV. A mutated beast learning to talk is much less stupid than this.

Almost like Vault-Tec was a puppet for the Enclave and was used for human experimentation on their behalf. You know, what is explicitly canonical in the classic era.

* West-Tek gives military FEV
* Military gives Enclave
* Enclave gives Vault-Tec
* Vault-Tec uses FEV on controlled airtight environment
 
Sounds more plausible than the majority of bullshit in Fallout 3 honestly. Far fetched, but plausible.
This, right here, proves your bias.

Reminder that Fallout 3 is the game that gave Vault-Tec the FEV, when West-Tek made it themselves and had to hand them over to the military after they found its effects. Vault Tec could have never had access to FEV. A mutated beast learning to talk is much less stupid than this.
Super corrupt company getting their hands on something they shouldn't in the world of Fallout. More "stupid" than mutated beasts achieving sentience. Okey dokey then.
 
No, it doesn't. It literally only purifies water and water only. You claimed irradiated, as in, the entirety of the Capital Wasteland, not just the water. Dude, follow the logic of your arguments, you are losing it here.

Yes and now they have water they can use to clean out the land, air, and sky. Because that's what will happen with the basin fixed.

No, you can't.

If you only assume a retelling is a canonical replacement of a previous game you do not understand English.

Nice counter argument. Still see you are the same person with trash arguments. But please, do continue to live being wrong when you think Fallout 3 and New Vegas are the same game. Damn, if they are the same, that means i love both. Oh, wait.

Just bashing a game isn't an argument. Sorry. You can discuss points but just saying its crap gets you nothing from me.
 
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.
There is a concept for Fallout or else Fallout wouldn't be Fallout. The problem with Fallout 3 is that it fails at that concept. I have no issue boxing anything, i have an issue of people making terrible arguments for a game that failed on everything that is related to Fallout.
Almost like Vault-Tec was a puppet for the Enclave and was used for human experimentation.

* West-Tek gives military FEV
* Military gives Enclave
* Enclave gives Vault-Tec
* Vault-Tec uses FEV on controlled airtight environment
The same Enclave that was destroyed in Fallout 2 and it couldn't have given the FEV to Vault Tec because they were dead. Again, FEV was confiscated by the government and Vault Tec couldn't have had access to it. Military never gave the Enclave FEV, the Enclave found it in the ruins of the Master's place. And the Enclave found it way later after the bombs, Vault Tect apparently started working on it BEFORE the Enclave could have give it to them.

And the Vault 87 experiment was done by Vault Tec and the fucking goverment. The same governement that told the FEV research team to move ALL of the FEV to Mariposa. There was no Enclave involved.

You don't even know the fucking lore of the series.
This, right here, proves your bias.
No, it doesn't, but if you say so.

You also just used the "bias" bullshit argument that Bethestards love to use. You and CTPhipps haven't presented any actual counter argument and instead are resorting to the same bullshit the Bethesda fans are using.
Super corrupt company getting their hands on something they shouldn't in the world of Fallout. More impossible than mutated beats achieving sentience. Okey dokey then.
Super corrupt company has access to something that they couldn't have access to because the governement confiscated.

And it's really far fetched for a MUTATED beast to reach sentience? For starters, they have base sentience or else they wouldn't function. Then you have ghouls that go feral, they act in the same way as Deathclaws. Feral ghouls are fine along with normal ghouls that talk, but talking Deathclaws is so much out there that it couldn't happen? Gotta love the selective way to pick which things get sentience or not.
Yes and now they have water they can use to clean out the land, air, and sky. Because that's what will happen with the basin fixed.
No, it only cleans the water. You are giving it powers it doesn't have.
If you only assume a retelling is a canonical replacement of a previous game you do not understand English.
Pretty sure that's what retelling is. It replaces the thing it's retelling. And if it's a retelling, it's a terrible one that mishmash two plots that had no business being combined.
Just bashing a game isn't an argument. Sorry. You can discuss points but just saying its crap gets you nothing from me.
You call well founded arguments as bashing now? Just shows that you have an extreme bias towards Fallout 3 more than me having a bias against it. You have terrible arguments based on nothing with no logic behind them. Even just taking two seconds to think about them just shows how ridiculous they are.

I'm bored now, so i'm done with this argument. You haven't proven anything about Fallout 3 except empty platitudes, arguments lacking any logic or basically "exploration is good, therefore game good". But please, do continue living thinking Fallout 3 and New Vegas are the same. That's not completely wrong or anything.

Edit:
Of couse he also hates the music and controls
I said the music was forgettable, not that it was bad. But i'm starting to see your true agenda, deep down you are still a fanboy of Fallout 3 like you were when you first joined the forum. Don't deny it, you are a mindless fanboy of this game, hence why you and CTPhipps seem to have become buddies with trading likes with each other, even though CTPhipps is spouting nonsense with no logic behind it.

The controls are shit in 3 and also shit in New Vegas. Me criticizing 3 doesn't suddenly mean i won't criticize New Vegas for having similar issues that that game has.
 
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A lot of that Enclave/Vault-Tec/West-Tec stuff makes no sense.

The Enclave was the US government prior to the nukes falling and had access to FEV.

They lost access to FEV because the nukes fell.

So they had to recover it from Mariposa. They didn't take a sample with them to the oil rig.
 
Ah, crap... what have I done?
Because the point can be that the USA's policies and ideology lead to the Great War in the first place, or at least the effective nightmare state it had become by 2077. Simply rebuilding it again can lead to the same mistakes, and thus it is not desirable.
I know others have address this quote already, but let me chime in a bit. There is true in your statement — the Enclave and NCR are prime examples of this. Respectively, one of them is a faction of remnants of the Pre-War government, while the other is a complete resurrection of the California Republic. Both are not relatively portrayed in a positive light — from a meta or a in-game perspective.

I think it's a bit too late in Fallout 3's case to be having any doubts of progression, because the Capital Wasteland wouldn't be the state that it's in almost two centuries before the War. The people would've have to adapt and grow in the environment, or die.


I think Fallout 3 gets a little too much of a free pass here sometimes, cause it got worse from there.
I'm gonna have to agree with this, because while I have a complete disregard for both games as Fallout games, or even RPGs, I don't know why many people consider Fallout 4 to be the worst of the two. Part of me thinks people are simply forgetting just how terrible the writing truly was in FO3. They're both on par of having sub-par writing at best, but at least FO4 didn't "pretend" to be RPG (I know it sounds paradoxically idiotic, but just stay with me), and focused on being a glorified FPS game with a main focus of just shooting the hell out of everything. You can just about apply the same exact description in Fallout 3, but it's slightly subdue, because BethSoft desperately wanted people to believe they weren't playing an FPS with tack-on gimmicks common to RPGs.

To put simply: they're both mostly just mindless shooters, but since FO4 has better FPS gameplay; why would it be worse when it makes the best at what it's best at?
 
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I'm gonna have to agree with this, because while I have a complete disregard for both games as Fallout games, or even RPGs, I don't know why many people consider Fallout 4 to be the worse of the two. Part of me thinks people are simply forgetting just how terrible the writing truly was in FO3. They're both on par of having sub-par writing at best, but at least FO4 didn't "pretend" to be RPG (I know it sounds paradoxically idiotic, but just stay with me), and focused on being a glorified FPS game with a main focus of just shooting the Hell out of everything. You can just about apply the same exact description in Fallout 3, but it's slightly subdue, because BethSoft desperately wanted people to believe they weren't playing an FPS with tack-on gimmicks common to RPGs.

To put simply: they're both mostly just mindless shooters, but since FO4 has FPS gameplay, why would it be worse when it makes the best at what it's best at?
Because some people seem to think that badly pretending to be something in an attempt to trick people into thinking it has depth by throwing smoke and mirrors is better than something just dropping that pretense and focus on what it truly wants to do.

Fallout 3 and 4 are bad on the same level for different reasons. The former terribly tries to trick people into thinking it has some deep RPG elements when they are shallow and meaningless and the latter just drops the RPG elements and just focuses on the shooting. Both should be trying to have deep RPG elements, but one is failing at it and the other isn't even trying but it's doing something else completely unrelated instead.
 
Fallout 3 and 4 are bad on the same level for different reasons. The former terribly tries to trick people into thinking it has some deep RPG elements when they are shallow and meaningless and the latter just drops the RPG elements and just focuses on the shooting. Both should be trying to have deep RPG elements, but one is failing at it and the other isn't even trying but it's doing something else completely unrelated instead.
You're right on the money. However, if I had to chose which one was worse, it'd be the former. If you don't know how to properly implement nuanced mechanics into your "RPG", stop marketing it as one.
 
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I've enjoyed every Fallout game, barring Brotherhood of Steel and 76, which I've not played and don't plan to. I never had a very big problem with 3.

It's not as good as the others in its line, no, but I don't particularly hate it. It has its own strengths, and Bethesda does do a few things well. It isn't a 100% terrible, horrible game in every way, unlike, well, 76.

Even 4, as awful as it is overall, had enjoyable moments for me, albeit few and far between.
 
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