Autoduel76
Look, Ma! Two Heads!
Well, I got the game on Tuesday, but was in the middle of traveling for a Job Interview and to finalize a new home purchase so I didn't get a chance to sit down and play with it until last night.
First of all, it starts on a bad note. I was somebody that was actually very welcoming of the interactive character creation, over the character sheet style creation. I was/am a big fan of the Ultima series, and enjoy that style of character creation.
However, that beginning just doesn't feel very good to play, IMO. Being a baby is just annoying, the growing up segments are too quick to be all that meaningful and, worst of all, its just not enjoyable. Up until you take the GOAT (thereby selecting your tag skills), I was underwhelmed at best.
Part of that was probably the fact that I had to wait 2 days to play the game after I bought it. I was a little impatient, but that opening just left me continually thinking "OK. Lets get to the actual game"
So...Tutorial = Bad.
After you are grown, the escape from the vault part of it isn't bad. Its no longer really the tutorial anymore and there is some fun to be had there, but still it was a pretty mediocre segment. The vault looks nice enough, though again I'm not sure if I neccessarily agree with all of the early reports about it (even from NMA) that kept calling the look of the vault "Spot On", but it was Vault looking enough.
So, after about an hour of playing the game in the vault, my character (Khan Noonian Singh) left the Vault with Perception 7, Int-8, Agility 7, Repair, Small Guns and Sneak tagged, and me very underwhelmed over my hour of gaming.
But things definitlely picked up after that. I took my time, exploring the area just around the vault, wandering in and out of the dilapidated buildings, and slowly made my way to Megaton.
After a disapointed start, once I left the vault I have to say that my opinion of the game has done an almost 180 degree turnaround. I meant to play for only a couple hours, after I put my daughter down to bed, but I ended up playing until almost 1:00 AM last night. I must admit, I was very much sucked into the game at that point.
I've done some of the Megaton quests, kind of touching up on the meain quest slightly, but in no rush (asking about the whereabouts of my father but not following up on all the leads in any kind of timely fashion). I fixed some pipes for the mechanic, and at the very end of the night, I was able to disarm the bomb, after taking some mentats to get my skills high enough.
I have been working on the exploration quest for the general store owner, and went to the Super Mart where I got one of my first pleasan surprises of the game. I died...3 times in fact in total last night. As I came to the super mart, I was stopped by the child whose family had been attacked by fire ants and I decided to head there before I went to the Super Mart. They spit fire pretty quickly if you aren't carefull, and while I was trying to take out one of them, another snuck up behind me and turned me into charcoal.
I decided, at that point, that I'd stick to the super mart quest first and then go back to the other area, as I was only about 50 XP away from level 3 at that point. I fought the raiders in the Super Mart pretty well, but in the back room I unkowingly stepped into a shotgun blast and again got chunked to death.
I may have been playing a little more carelessly than I will as I get used to playing the game more. I'm not sure that I would neccessarily call either of those areas "hard" yet, without seeing how things go from here on out. But, there's no question that I do actually appreciate a game that I'm in danger in, even at the beginning these days, which rarely seems to happen.
The game looks very nice, IMO. I don't think the screenshots, or videos really show off how well the game looks at all. It just feels really nice when you are looking around, panning around from your perspective.
As for its "Fallout-ness"...
Well...its Fallout. Its not Fallout 1 or 2. And its not Tactics or BOS. Its definitely not Black Isle's Fallout...and its definitely not "Oblivion with guns" either. In fact it doesn't feel like playing Oblivion at all.
I actually enjoy the music and the atmosphere a lot. There is some orchestra sounding stuff very occasionally, but for the most part the music really fades into the background and is not oppressive. Not quite the same as Fallout's ambient music, but actually a lot more similar than it seemed from just listening to the tracks they released earlier.
For me, it felt like playing a Fallout game, albeit a changed Fallout game. It feels like what it is, I guess. A modernized Fallout, for better and for worse. And certainly not everything is for better. But I do feel that its a very good game in its own right. Good enough to make me stay up late playing it last night, and be sitting here at work, waiting for the week to be over so that I can play it more.
First of all, it starts on a bad note. I was somebody that was actually very welcoming of the interactive character creation, over the character sheet style creation. I was/am a big fan of the Ultima series, and enjoy that style of character creation.
However, that beginning just doesn't feel very good to play, IMO. Being a baby is just annoying, the growing up segments are too quick to be all that meaningful and, worst of all, its just not enjoyable. Up until you take the GOAT (thereby selecting your tag skills), I was underwhelmed at best.
Part of that was probably the fact that I had to wait 2 days to play the game after I bought it. I was a little impatient, but that opening just left me continually thinking "OK. Lets get to the actual game"
So...Tutorial = Bad.
After you are grown, the escape from the vault part of it isn't bad. Its no longer really the tutorial anymore and there is some fun to be had there, but still it was a pretty mediocre segment. The vault looks nice enough, though again I'm not sure if I neccessarily agree with all of the early reports about it (even from NMA) that kept calling the look of the vault "Spot On", but it was Vault looking enough.
So, after about an hour of playing the game in the vault, my character (Khan Noonian Singh) left the Vault with Perception 7, Int-8, Agility 7, Repair, Small Guns and Sneak tagged, and me very underwhelmed over my hour of gaming.
But things definitlely picked up after that. I took my time, exploring the area just around the vault, wandering in and out of the dilapidated buildings, and slowly made my way to Megaton.
After a disapointed start, once I left the vault I have to say that my opinion of the game has done an almost 180 degree turnaround. I meant to play for only a couple hours, after I put my daughter down to bed, but I ended up playing until almost 1:00 AM last night. I must admit, I was very much sucked into the game at that point.
I've done some of the Megaton quests, kind of touching up on the meain quest slightly, but in no rush (asking about the whereabouts of my father but not following up on all the leads in any kind of timely fashion). I fixed some pipes for the mechanic, and at the very end of the night, I was able to disarm the bomb, after taking some mentats to get my skills high enough.
I have been working on the exploration quest for the general store owner, and went to the Super Mart where I got one of my first pleasan surprises of the game. I died...3 times in fact in total last night. As I came to the super mart, I was stopped by the child whose family had been attacked by fire ants and I decided to head there before I went to the Super Mart. They spit fire pretty quickly if you aren't carefull, and while I was trying to take out one of them, another snuck up behind me and turned me into charcoal.
I decided, at that point, that I'd stick to the super mart quest first and then go back to the other area, as I was only about 50 XP away from level 3 at that point. I fought the raiders in the Super Mart pretty well, but in the back room I unkowingly stepped into a shotgun blast and again got chunked to death.
I may have been playing a little more carelessly than I will as I get used to playing the game more. I'm not sure that I would neccessarily call either of those areas "hard" yet, without seeing how things go from here on out. But, there's no question that I do actually appreciate a game that I'm in danger in, even at the beginning these days, which rarely seems to happen.
The game looks very nice, IMO. I don't think the screenshots, or videos really show off how well the game looks at all. It just feels really nice when you are looking around, panning around from your perspective.
As for its "Fallout-ness"...
Well...its Fallout. Its not Fallout 1 or 2. And its not Tactics or BOS. Its definitely not Black Isle's Fallout...and its definitely not "Oblivion with guns" either. In fact it doesn't feel like playing Oblivion at all.
I actually enjoy the music and the atmosphere a lot. There is some orchestra sounding stuff very occasionally, but for the most part the music really fades into the background and is not oppressive. Not quite the same as Fallout's ambient music, but actually a lot more similar than it seemed from just listening to the tracks they released earlier.
For me, it felt like playing a Fallout game, albeit a changed Fallout game. It feels like what it is, I guess. A modernized Fallout, for better and for worse. And certainly not everything is for better. But I do feel that its a very good game in its own right. Good enough to make me stay up late playing it last night, and be sitting here at work, waiting for the week to be over so that I can play it more.
