This is an endgame location so heavy spoilers, obviously. Fuck spoiler tags. They're for fags. You've been warned.
Now I already noticed with my ultrasharp gamer sense (being an ubertrained game journo and everything) that this game lacks anything but the most sporadic attention to detail. Basically, wherever the hell Bethesda felt like it they pumped in a lot of love and detail, and the rest if half-baked half-assed uninterestingland. The fact that you can stand in fire in this game and not get hurt may not mean that much on the outside, but it sets alarm bells ringing with anyone who has seen this kind of nonsense before.
Apropos, there I was, about 25-30 hours in and bored to tears with wastelands (the POI compass system kills the fun of explorations, the wasteland is too crowded with uninteresting locations anyway) so I decided to round up the main quest.
Big mistake, because the very focal point where Bethesda doesn't just drop the ball but murders it in an alley and dumps it in the sewers is the main quest-line. I'm not even talking about the fact that you can't fast-travel your immortal father across the wasteland or that His Immortality still dies inexplicably some time later (I shot him in the head enough times, that never bothered him - tip in storytelling, Bethesda yokels: death doesn't work as a dramatic moment if it's set up like that), heck I'm not even complaining about the stupid German Nazi Enclave colonel (I literally laughed out loud when I first saw him), heck I won't even complain about the fact that Bethesda felt the need to actually taunt the player with children's immortality by making a town of annoying children.
Buuuut...
Then I bumped into Raven Rock.
Hooooley shit...I have rarely, oh so rarely, seen such an unfinished, crappy, ill-designed and badly-thought-through major location in an RPG, let alone an ending location of such low quality. Let me explain...no there's too much, let me sum up.
1. Conceptually, the whole thing is a linear traipse and a sludge-fest. Not scoring points there, and the predictably un-Fallout design doesn't help (Enclave doesn't really have a tradition of fitting in well with the Fallout setting, granted, but the "omfg look bodies floating in tanks!"-angle doesn't help, the faux-horror thing Bethesda tried leveraging into the game got old fast anyway)
2. After Eden gives the command not to kill you and before Colonel Faux-Nazi (I mean "Autumn") comes in with his astoundingly bad voice acting to countermand the order, you can just shoot anyone and everyone. Nobody cares, or even reacts. Amazing ineptitude.
3. Speaking of Eden, the whole sequence of him kidnapping you makes zero sense. Ok, so Faux-Nazi Colonel just wants the code from you and that makes sense (roughly up until the point where he suddenly commands his men to shoot you...he doesn't care about the code anymore? Ran out of frazzle-bombs to fry your nerves?), but what the hell is up with Eden? The best explanation can be "no, no, I can't trust Colonel Nazi-Guy anymore". What, are you kidding me? So you're going to hand the job to a random stranger you picked off the street who - gee I dunno - has helped a bunch of ghouls slaughter ghoul-haters to take over their tower and was travelling with a ghoul when you found him? Yeah, you sure know how to pic 'em.
I know he doesn't speak face-to-face to anyone except Colonel Nazi-Overcoat, so ok he doesn't have his pick of soldiers he knows well. And after its clear Autumn and he can't work together it makes sense he goes with the PC because that's his last hope, but something is wonky in between. Why go with the PC at all? Why not solicit the services of a mercenary, or invite some soldiers into the office to talk to (or heck, just page 'em privately...what, the dude holds sway over the entire building be he can't reach a private soldier?)
Plot. Broken.
4. And yes, you knew it was coming, the suicide talk. That is some of the most astoundingly bad writing I have ever seen. It's as bad as Harold going "well, hmmm, I never considered that" over an insignificant remark, suddenly all his suicide tendencies fade away. It's like that but in reverse with Eden, and it's just as jarring and unconvincing.
So, ok, possibilities: somehow this dialogue is a cut-out of dialogue that is bigger in reality? No, fuck you. Somehow it makes sense that Eden, when confronted with a new idea, will commit suicide. Fair enough, though I doubt it's so easy to trick a 200-year old machine, but here's the thing: there's still set sci fi ways of expressing these kind of "shock into realisation" moments for machines. Y'know, "teach me about love, hu-man", that kind of shit.
It should never, ever go like this:
PC: "[speech] This has to end, Eden. You need to destroy yourself and your base"
E: "And why would I do that, when I am clearly the best hope for the people of the Wasteland?"
PC: "You can't just decide to take over, and force everyone to follow you."
E: "What alternative would you suggest? Without the Enclave, what would the world do?"
PC: "If you don't stop it now, where will it end? It's up to you to do what's right."
E: "Yes, I suppose it is. Very well, you shall have your wish. Once you have left, I will put an end to the Enclave."
What. The. Fuck.
That's not even a dialogue, it's a bunch of disjointed sentences thrown together. It's like they were both high and just talking to whatever the hell they were seeing. I honestly could not believe the horrible low level of writing shown in that bit, and Fallout 3 had set me up with some pretty bad writing before that.
Seriously, "if you don't stop it now, where will it end?" What the FUCK is this guy talking about?
Now I already noticed with my ultrasharp gamer sense (being an ubertrained game journo and everything) that this game lacks anything but the most sporadic attention to detail. Basically, wherever the hell Bethesda felt like it they pumped in a lot of love and detail, and the rest if half-baked half-assed uninterestingland. The fact that you can stand in fire in this game and not get hurt may not mean that much on the outside, but it sets alarm bells ringing with anyone who has seen this kind of nonsense before.
Apropos, there I was, about 25-30 hours in and bored to tears with wastelands (the POI compass system kills the fun of explorations, the wasteland is too crowded with uninteresting locations anyway) so I decided to round up the main quest.
Big mistake, because the very focal point where Bethesda doesn't just drop the ball but murders it in an alley and dumps it in the sewers is the main quest-line. I'm not even talking about the fact that you can't fast-travel your immortal father across the wasteland or that His Immortality still dies inexplicably some time later (I shot him in the head enough times, that never bothered him - tip in storytelling, Bethesda yokels: death doesn't work as a dramatic moment if it's set up like that), heck I'm not even complaining about the stupid German Nazi Enclave colonel (I literally laughed out loud when I first saw him), heck I won't even complain about the fact that Bethesda felt the need to actually taunt the player with children's immortality by making a town of annoying children.
Buuuut...
Then I bumped into Raven Rock.
Hooooley shit...I have rarely, oh so rarely, seen such an unfinished, crappy, ill-designed and badly-thought-through major location in an RPG, let alone an ending location of such low quality. Let me explain...no there's too much, let me sum up.
1. Conceptually, the whole thing is a linear traipse and a sludge-fest. Not scoring points there, and the predictably un-Fallout design doesn't help (Enclave doesn't really have a tradition of fitting in well with the Fallout setting, granted, but the "omfg look bodies floating in tanks!"-angle doesn't help, the faux-horror thing Bethesda tried leveraging into the game got old fast anyway)
2. After Eden gives the command not to kill you and before Colonel Faux-Nazi (I mean "Autumn") comes in with his astoundingly bad voice acting to countermand the order, you can just shoot anyone and everyone. Nobody cares, or even reacts. Amazing ineptitude.
3. Speaking of Eden, the whole sequence of him kidnapping you makes zero sense. Ok, so Faux-Nazi Colonel just wants the code from you and that makes sense (roughly up until the point where he suddenly commands his men to shoot you...he doesn't care about the code anymore? Ran out of frazzle-bombs to fry your nerves?), but what the hell is up with Eden? The best explanation can be "no, no, I can't trust Colonel Nazi-Guy anymore". What, are you kidding me? So you're going to hand the job to a random stranger you picked off the street who - gee I dunno - has helped a bunch of ghouls slaughter ghoul-haters to take over their tower and was travelling with a ghoul when you found him? Yeah, you sure know how to pic 'em.
I know he doesn't speak face-to-face to anyone except Colonel Nazi-Overcoat, so ok he doesn't have his pick of soldiers he knows well. And after its clear Autumn and he can't work together it makes sense he goes with the PC because that's his last hope, but something is wonky in between. Why go with the PC at all? Why not solicit the services of a mercenary, or invite some soldiers into the office to talk to (or heck, just page 'em privately...what, the dude holds sway over the entire building be he can't reach a private soldier?)
Plot. Broken.
4. And yes, you knew it was coming, the suicide talk. That is some of the most astoundingly bad writing I have ever seen. It's as bad as Harold going "well, hmmm, I never considered that" over an insignificant remark, suddenly all his suicide tendencies fade away. It's like that but in reverse with Eden, and it's just as jarring and unconvincing.
So, ok, possibilities: somehow this dialogue is a cut-out of dialogue that is bigger in reality? No, fuck you. Somehow it makes sense that Eden, when confronted with a new idea, will commit suicide. Fair enough, though I doubt it's so easy to trick a 200-year old machine, but here's the thing: there's still set sci fi ways of expressing these kind of "shock into realisation" moments for machines. Y'know, "teach me about love, hu-man", that kind of shit.
It should never, ever go like this:
PC: "[speech] This has to end, Eden. You need to destroy yourself and your base"
E: "And why would I do that, when I am clearly the best hope for the people of the Wasteland?"
PC: "You can't just decide to take over, and force everyone to follow you."
E: "What alternative would you suggest? Without the Enclave, what would the world do?"
PC: "If you don't stop it now, where will it end? It's up to you to do what's right."
E: "Yes, I suppose it is. Very well, you shall have your wish. Once you have left, I will put an end to the Enclave."
What. The. Fuck.
That's not even a dialogue, it's a bunch of disjointed sentences thrown together. It's like they were both high and just talking to whatever the hell they were seeing. I honestly could not believe the horrible low level of writing shown in that bit, and Fallout 3 had set me up with some pretty bad writing before that.
Seriously, "if you don't stop it now, where will it end?" What the FUCK is this guy talking about?
too. It's just too painfully obvious they're only there to give the stupid robot a reason to be in the game. Most pointless sequence ever.[/spoiler:9ae70048c8]
