NMA: Fallout 3 review

[UncannyGarlic]

Wow, this is a well known reviewer?

He's well known around NMA, the Codex, D&C, and the folks who have been around awhile at BSGF.

That review was horrible and full of hypocrisy.

Point out where.

I'd really appreciate seeing more fallout fan reviews of Fallout 3, instead of people who play an hour of Fallout to belong to an "exclusive" fanboy club and pirate Fallout 3 so they can tell everyone how they think the original, which they still haven't beat, was so much better.

I'd really appreciate people to actually read some shit on the forum on which they post before making completely wrong complaints and statements. He played the entire game on the retail version.

85 locations huh? There's an achievement that requires going to 100 locations, and after getting that achievement you'll still have half the map left.

There are 146 listed on The Vault and you could cut that down by compressing the single areas that cover multiple squares into a single area (like Falls Church Metro, North, and East) and cutting out areas that are not quest related. I don't know if 85 is right but it's more accurately concise than 200.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s FPP or a bird’s-eye view. Exploration in realistic wasteland sim wouldn’t be a lot of fun. This isn’t really about immersion or any of that crap. It’s a question of how you can make a fun videogame.

Indeed, I meant to correct that but forgot to go back and change it.

There isn’t much merit to the “not realistic” criticism in this case. Realism would suck.

It's about verisimilitude and the wasteland in Fallout 3 really does fail at that given how damn crowded it is. That said, you can make it fun and keep the feeling of general lifelessness (Fallout 1&2 did).

Additionally, I find the exploration in FO3 to be more engaging than the exploration in any of the previous games. I know that kittens can be enthralled by laser pointers, but I’m not really engrossed when watching a red marker move across a map in FO1&2. FO3 gives me much more to negotiate when exploring.

The goal and systems are so different they are pretty much incomparable. What's comparable is the birds-eye view for navigating towns and dungeons. That said, wandering the waste in FPP is more visually stimulating but there is the question of function, does it function better than exploration on the world map with stops for interesting occurrences? Does it compliment a large open world game? I'd say no on both accounts. As has been noted, wandering around with your character requires something to do in order to stay interesting, which is why the wasteland ended up crowded, while a system like the first two games had allows for a truly large world (even if it is something of an illusion)[empty or not] and allows for travel to maximize interest by being fairly quick and having random encounters. As I said in my last post, if you're going to have the player explore the world via the standard navigation screen (be it FPP, TPP, or whatever) then you need a method of speeding it up (ie transport

ese are generally slower than vehicles}, vehicles, super powers, etc.) in order to allow for your world to be spread out and feel right. Is Fallout 3's wander around more visually stimulating than watching a dot move accross a map? Sure. Does it maximize the feeling of a large, empty world with only rare settlements? No. Oblivion had the same problem of feeling over crowded and breaching lore because of it.

As for the overcrowding, I'm lost as to what standard people are measuring this by. Are people upset because there isn't a ticker telling you that several days have passed, even though in reality it took about ten seconds? Back on my 150 MHZ processor it did take a minute or so to travel any great distance, but even then I'd have preferred that I traveled faster. Fallout 3 is also based within a city instead of a state, which is why everything is within a "farts distance of each other". All in all the entire argument is arbitrary because the distance traveled in either game is an illusion. I mean, if we start arguing semantics, if that little ticker said that I'd only been traveling for seventeen seconds instead of several days what I literally saw on screen would've remained the same.

The distance travelled is an illusion as is the time it takes; however, it took days of ingame time to travel between adjacent settlements and areas of interest in the first two games while it only takes a day or less in Fallout 3. Besides which, the area traveled is much smaller in Fallout 3 than in the first two games, it just shows you on a micro scale where you're traveling while the first two games showed you on a macro scale, thus the first two games allowed for faster (for the player) travel over greater distances of greater time (for the character) than Fallout 3 does.

Good review but it's disappointing that there is good in there that keeps this review from being a repeat of the Oblivion review. Still, I'm not convinced that some good quest design and scenery overwrites pretty much every other aspect of the game which is average to bad, especially when much of the gameplay (other than quest design) falls into that category (like combat).

 

[Starseeker]

Interesting review, but it feels a bit jumbled and incoherent. Is it because of the FO3's dialogue? Does playing FO3 do that to you?

It does feel like that he had a lot more to say but he was limited in what he had space for.

 

[Verum]

Point out where.

Actually I wrote an entire post dedicated to it under the comments section when you follow the link. Feel free to read it and tell me what you think.

 

[God is Dog backwards]

I agree with 90 % of this review - he's pretty much has got it right, but I'm finding VATS OK. The thing I dislike is that it's rare to select anything other than a headshot - in Fallout there were other targets (eyes, groin) that could have equally useful results.

Anyway, great review.

 

[Sytxferryman]

I just noticed, I think one poster at least joined the forum's just to reply to this specific article. Nothing wrong with this at all, but out of curiosity.... Would you mind elaborating on what made you join specifically? And are you going to stay or just post on this topic?


Damn the add's in this f*n website! Jack-in-the-Box new HOMESTYLE RANCH Chicken Club add giving me the f*n munchies!!!! Now I have to drive out to get one

IT HAD A COUPON ALSO!!! How can you resist clogging your arteries? For those that have a different add...
http://www.jackinthebox.com/homestylechicken/index.php?Campaign=HC-UGO

 

[zioburosky13]

The main quest is one of the game's biggest weaknesses. It doesn't make sense. The water contains radiation and thus isn't safe to drink. Maybe if people stopped playing with nuclear catapults and blowing up nuclear cars, the situation would improve…

Pass some drinking water around and you are a saint again. Another potentially good, but butchered idea, that hopefully will be fixed by mods.

Flaw game design is not suppose to be fixed by mod.

 

[pNk]

I dont like Fallout 3...

 

[Mutoes]

A genuine question as im confused... is megaton built on a crater of unexploded bomb or not? As there is is this old lady in megaton (one of founding citicens IIRC) that said its just what people (some other megaton citicens) believe it is, when in reality the crater wasnt really there because of the bomb.

 

[Public]

A genuine question as im confused... is megaton built on a crater of unexploded bomb or not? As there is is this old lady in megaton (one of founding citicens IIRC) that said its just what people (some other megaton citicens) believe it is, when in reality the crater wasnt really there because of the bomb.

The only imformation I have found about this whole Megaton, was that they decided to build a town here, because of the trading routes.

I couldn't find anything else about it...

 

[CloudlessDruid]

as far as I know, megaton was a settlement of some people trying to get shelter in Vault 101. And then, they just gave up, and don't ask me why they built a town around the bomb near the vault (?)

 

[aenemic]

they're running Fallout 3 ads on TV here in Sweden. dubbed to swedish, of course. it just feels sooo strange... and sooo wrong...

 

[jfreund]

as far as I know, megaton was a settlement of some people trying to get shelter in Vault 101. And then, they just gave up, and don't ask me why they built a town around the bomb near the vault (?)

'Cos itz nu-cu-lar immurzhun.

 

[Szeder]

A great review, however, the ending somewhat weakens the sharpness and critical approach of the read.

I find it frightening that even those people who are able to come up with quality reviews like this mention the possibility or treating Fallout 3 as a non-Fallout or even more as a non-sequel game.

The developers knew what they risk with the number 3 and knew what they would gain. It was their decision and as long as the number 3 is there, this game is a Fallout sequel and cannot be looked at as anything else.

 

[ArmorB]

I feel that this is a pretty fair review as long as people read the whole thing. They would certainly get a different impression if they only read the first page.

And "not really Fallout 3 but a fairly good game" is good enough for me.

 

[Lagarto]

Fallout 3 isnt a bad game per se, it has its weakness and strengths, i think the reviewer pointed out the essential ideas of both.

In a more cynical way i just wished Beth putted some sort of a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault in it for more laughs.

Another great encounter in the wasteland the reviewer didnt mentioned was the Oasis location, was quite a surprise seeing Harold in that unfortunate way.

 

[Sicblades]

Fallout 3 isnt a bad game per se, it has its weakness and strengths, i think the reviewer pointed out the essential ideas of both.

In a more cynical way i just wished Beth putted some sort of a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault in it for more laughs.

Another great encounter in the wasteland the reviewer didnt mentioned was the Oasis location, was quite a surprise seeing Harold in that unfortunate way.

You mean bastardized in a horrible way, right?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Good review. I think VD ran out of space, he has elaborated on ITS-forums on several other points.

There's actually some good comments around Bethsofts-forums as well about the review.

Too bad that Bethsoft devs most likely won't ever see the review or any of the comment-threads.

 

[Puuk]

That's one of the most complete and well thought out reviews of F3 I've read so far. Great job!

 

[Tagaziel]

The developers knew what they risk with the number 3 and knew what they would gain. It was their decision and as long as the number 3 is there, this game is a Fallout sequel and cannot be looked at as anything else.

Yes it can. I'm doing this right now.

Fo3 is not a Fallout sequel.

See? Simple.

 

[Lagarto]

You mean bastardized in a horrible way, right?

At worst, bastardized in a creative way, not the quests associated after you met him, but the whole ideia of making him a God among humans, its a twisted way of how ghouls were perceived by other humans.