NMA: Capital Wasteland: Revelation review

[God is Dog backwards]

Good review and probably the best way for a hardcore FO fan to review it. I'm pretty far in the game now and I imagine I'll finish it, but I agree that the FO name is unnecessary. It's unfortunate that if we want a FO sequel that remains more consistent with the originals it's going to have to come as a spiritual successor rather than anything else, and that in itself means it won't really continue the stories established in Fallout. This is pretty much it for the licence and games that spawned fansites such as these. This is genuinely sad.

On the other hand, use of the name appears to have raised Bethsoft's game substantially after Oblivion: as you say, there's much to praise in this game. Was the sacrifice worth it?

Which sidequest do you think is the best? The Replicated Man was pretty fun.

PS. I genuinely think that the game could have been enhanced considerably by having Mark Morgan compose the score. He contributes a great deal to my memories of Fallout - the place and its music. Inon Zur's soundtrack is shit.

 

[EnglishMuffin]

It's still a 7/10 in my book.

 

[SuAside]

if you take the game as a standalone, i suppose BN's review is fair overall.

that said, i played through it once and i'm not exactly looking forward to do it again (thus not rating as a good game in my book). i can't really distance myself enough from it, to see it as anything but a FO sequel.
anyhow, maybe i'll try again in 6 months, in the hope that the modding community has made great strides in modding the SUCK out of it.

PS. I genuinely think that the game could have been enhanced considerably by having Mark Morgan compose the score. He contributes a great deal to my memories of Fallout - the place and its music. Inon Zur's soundtrack is shit.

Inon Zur's music aint bad at all, but it just doesn't fit the game. a shame.

 

[Paul_cz]

Great review.Regarding Zur's music - i think its great and even fitting to the game, but with one big exception - combat music. I look forward to some mod that will completely remove it.

 

[Serge 13]

The most important thing that has annoyed me so far is the fucking music !
It doesn't fit the game very well just like SuAside said and it ain't very good either.
I would LOVE to a mod which replaces the Fallout 3 music with the original fallout 1 & 2 soundtrack !
pleeeeeaaaaaseeeee !
will someone do this ?
i usually turn the music off and play the original fallout soundtrack with winamp while i play the game.

 

[Paul_cz]

There are several mods replacing the music with Morgan's work already. Try fallout3nexus.com.

 

[Kindo]

Great review.Regarding Zur's music - i think its great and even fitting to the game, but with one big exception - combat music. I look forward to some mod that will completely remove it.

If you're playing on Windows, you can probably just simply remove the music files you don't want to hear from their respective folders. Or add your own.

 

[Paul_cz]

I thought of it, but if I remember correctly, it works badly - whenever there is combat, the ambient music stops and starts playing from beginning after the combat ends. I would like some mod that would remove it and make it so that the ambient stuff would not stop in combat.

 

[alec]

I will now show you my reaction when I read the title of your review, BN. And I will use emoticons to do so, because words would just fall short (as they usually do).

"Capital Wasteland: Revelation"





























All in all: it's a very well written review, but I expected that you would be more harsh than that. I don't really give a damn if it's a good game in itself. That isn't the point. It's called Fallout 3, isn't it? Is it worthy of carrying that title or is it not? If it isn't, it should get its ass whooped no matter what, no matter whether it plays reasonably well or whatever. We've discussed this before. Countless times.

IMO this Fallout sequel which I have yet to experience myself deserves something between 1/10 and 4/10. No hallelujahs or whatever for being quasi enjoyable nonetheless. Be firm. Bethesda has been, so they should expect others to treat them likewise.

 

[Kindo]

I thought of it, but if I remember correctly, it works badly - whenever there is combat, the ambient music stops and starts playing from beginning after the combat ends. I would like some mod that would remove it and make it so that the ambient stuff would not stop in combat.

Ah, that makes sense. Yeah, you'd need some modding then. We'll just have to be patient - Fallout 3 could be quite fantastic with the right changes (as is always the case with Bethesda - the fans make the game good).

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

I think you're misunderstanding what I said. Fallout 3 isn't garbage. Some parts of it are garbage, like the main questline, a lot of the dialogue and other bits like the character animations. But other parts of it are really good, and some bits are really great, the basic design of some of these quests are good enough to stand amongst that of great RPGs.

But if the way those quests are delivered (the dialogue, the voice acting) are crap, the combat you have to go through is a twitchy mess with bad AI and animation, all the while trudging through redundant dungeo...err subways. I'm wondering how you can strip all that away to still enjoy the essence of the quest design? That's a lot to overlook IMO.

 

[samrbrts]

Wait a second. I remember that on more then one ocassion Brother None stated that no way in hell he is playing this game. What happened?

 

[Per]

Wait a second. I remember that on more then one ocassion Brother None stated that no way in hell he is playing this game. What happened?

I'm sure I read you saying somewhere that you wouldn't be playing the game, BN. Change of heart?

Someone donated to NMA and PMd me expressing that this donation was meant for me or another staffer (Per, but his computer is too old) to play the game and produce content for NMA. Since that makes it a free game for me, I wasn't about to refuse.

Not really a change of heart, just a change of circumstances. Can't say I greatly regret it, the game has its moments.

 

[SuAside]

Wait a second. I remember that on more then one ocassion Brother None stated that no way in hell he is playing this game. What happened?

someone gave him a free copy. the stingy bastard...

 

[Serge 13]

I will now show you my reaction when I read the title of your review, BN. And I will use emoticons to do so, because words would just fall short (as they usually do).

"Capital Wasteland: Revelation"





























All in all: it's a very well written review, but I expected that you would be more harsh than that. I don't really give a damn if it's a good game in itself. That isn't the point. It's called Fallout 3, isn't it? Is it worthy of carrying that title or is it not? If it isn't, it should get its ass whooped no matter what, no matter whether it plays reasonably well or whatever. We've discussed this before. Countless times.

IMO this Fallout sequel which I have yet to experience myself deserves something between 1/10 and 4/10. No hallelujahs or whatever for being quasi enjoyable nonetheless. Be firm. Bethesda has been, so they should expect others to treat them likewise.

hahaha .... i would have siged that if it wasn't too big !

 

[Black]

Wow, I come here to read news about Fallout and what do I get? News about some fpsrpg games. I am cancelling my subscription, good day.

 

[Seelix]

Nicely written review.

I played this game without even trying to make any comparisons to real Fallout games because I think it's pointless and it's better to play it just as another game from 'Bethesda' [I have a bit more fun this way].

I generally got one of impressions you have described - it's a game for one, maybe two times and then it'll go into Oblivion.

If Bethesda make some tools for modders available it's possible I'll come back to Fallout 3 for some time to check what interesting stuff modders' community will create.

 

[samrbrts]

2 Per, SuAside:

Ok, cool. I just thought money was really never an issue. Thought he wouldn't play it on principal.

 

[Brother None]

It's still a 7/10 in my book.

Yip, 7/10. It might be 8/10 if it had more technical polish.

On the other hand, use of the name appears to have raised Bethsoft's game substantially after Oblivion: as you say, there's much to praise in this game. Was the sacrifice worth it?

It might have been if the game was more consistently good; if the story, dialogue and world design were good rather than just mediocre-to-bad.

Which sidequest do you think is the best? The Replicated Man was pretty fun.

The Replicated Man is good in how you can finish it without really knowing what's going on, or uncover the mystery further. The actual idea of the Replicated Man is retarded, but in structure the quest is good.

That seems to be the case overal: the Wasteland Guide is also a retarded quest with some retarded subpoints (get irradiated please), but it has an impressive array of options: do the quests and fulfill the extras or not, lie to her instead of doing the job, talk her out of the idea wholesale. A great array of options there.

I would LOVE to a mod which replaces the Fallout 3 music with the original fallout 1 & 2 soundtrack !

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/dload.php?action=file&file_id=1201

It's called Fallout 3, isn't it?

Kind of the point of this review that I'm not judging it as Fallout 3. It fails so badly at being Fallout that I would find it impossible not to rant on that in a Fallout 3 review.

I expect Vince's Fallout 3 review to cover that point duly as well. Since this is not NMA's Fallout 3 review, I don't have to.

But if the way those quests are delivered (the dialogue, the voice acting) are crap, the combat you have to go through is a twitchy mess with bad AI and animation, all the while trudging through redundant dungeo...err subways. I'm wondering how you can strip all that away to still enjoy the essence of the quest design? That's a lot to overlook IMO.

I'd call most of the dialogue solidly mediocre. Some of the dialogue is actually well-written, for instance I enjoyed a lot of the stuff in Underworld and Rivet City, even if voice acting ruins it. I didn't love combat but I didn't hate it either, as RPG combat goes it was ok - nothing like the RPGFPS of Deus Ex but you can't win 'em all.

Besides, I'm a structuralist, that's my heritage. I'm pretty good at overlooking flaws if the underlying structure is really good, and equally I have no problem looking past greatness if the structure sucks (Planescape: Torment). Like I said in the review, for a lot of people the flaws will be so bad that they never get through it to enjoy the goodness underneath. And I can't blame 'em for that. But for me, it was doable, and for some (of low standards, I'd guess), the flaws don't matter at all.

 

[Kilus]

The Replicated Man is good in how you can finish it without really knowing what's going on, or uncover the mystery further. The actual idea of the Replicated Man is retarded, but in structure the quest is good.

Bad thing in the structure is you can pick up some random holodisk never actually go and see it and yet get quest dialogue options for it. Looking it up in pipboy should of started the quest.