Rebuttal of Escapist's "Bethesda Killed Fallout" article

[mannawyadden]

well since the two sidea are by definition at odds... no. people can like nu-fallout all they want. but the second they try to say they're good fallout games they're just flatout wrong.

Some people here actually like Fallout 3 and 4 and have no problems discussing with everyone here. But they know these games are extremely flawed and poorly made and don't try to throw crap at everyone who dislikes these games.

I know the game is flawed but I can't bring myself to say that it's a bad game. In my head, a "good game" is one that I had fun with and a "bad game" is one that I don't enjoy.

The way I view it is that games are art, so there is no such thing as an "objectively bad" game in my head.

 

[R.Graves]

a "good game" is one that I had fun with

1. game's don't necessarily need to be fun if they truly are an art form. see: Pathologic
2. fun/10 =/= 10/10

The way I view it is that games are art, so there is no such thing as an "objectively bad

not this old argument.
compare this:

Spoiler

to this

Spoiler

and i think its clear that one of these works of art is objectively superior to the other.

the "art is subjective" meme needs to die.

its probably only around in the first place because some asshole put a urinal in an art exhibit.

 

[Risewild]

The way I view it is that games are art, so there is no such thing as an "objectively bad" game in my head.

 

[R.Graves]

i looked so hard for that exact picture. had to settle for a cheap comparison between one of the worst covers in comic book history and one of my favorite panels from vinland saga. the artworks i posted were a bit overly dissimilar for proper direct comparison but i still feel i made my point with what i had to work with.

Spoiler: Random meme

 

[mannawyadden]

Art was originally made for human entertainment and expression, which are inherently subjective. That's why I believe art should be judged subjectively; its original purpose and birth are subjective, so it matches.

I know that others believe that art should be judged based on its objective superiority, and that certain corporations judge it based on how much profit it generates for them.

If you judge based on how complex/detailed/realistic/eloquent/well-made it is, Fallout 1 is objectively superior to Fallout 3.

If you judge based on the emotional reaction it causes within a person's mind, how it makes them feel, or what it makes them think, then superiority becomes a subjective matter that can differ from person to person.

If you judge based on how much money it made, then Fallout 3 is the winner.

But without human perception, all human art is equally meaningless.

 

[R.Graves]

If you judge based on how complex/detailed/realistic/eloquent/well-made it is, Fallout 1 is objectively superior to Fallout 3.

obviously this is the only way to properly ascertain quality.

just because a game made someone feel something doesn't make it quality. as literally anyone on the planet will tell you jump scares aren't quality horror despite what it makes audiences feel.

Another example is i feel that Howard the Duck is the best marvel movie and is criminally underrated. however one person's opinion alone cannot and should not change the facts surrounding the art. and the facts are that Howard the Duck is horribly written, flatly shot, and is tonal nightmare. the movie's sense of humor is 90% bad puns and 10% lol ducks are different.

the movie does have Leah Thompson at her absolute cutest tho.

also the ending musical number always leaves me with a warm feeling.



none of this is gonna change the fact that this movie is objectively bad and that literally none of the jokes land as intended.

i own it on bluray because i like it not because its good. its important to understand that liking something doesn't magically transform something from a shitty product to a quality product. Sometimes a person just has bad taste. there's nothing wrong with admitting that.

then superiority becomes a subjective matter that can differ from person to person.

something can't be subjectively superior if its already objectively inferior. its an outright contradiction. at that point the subject just has a wrong opinion.

 

[Risewild]

I remember a while ago, in this same forum, someone posted something about a porn parody of Fallout.
I haven't watched it, but I'm sure it will be a bad movie. Even if it makes me feel something, even if I was in the mood for porn and liked it.
Never have I seen a porn that was a good movie.

Same with fanfictions (in this case I don't mean adult ones, I don't read those), there are tons of fanfiction around, and never have I read a good piece of literary art coming from those.

Art made by animals is also not good art in any way, specially because I doubt animals have a sentiment or feeling they want to convey with their art (like any artist does). But many people still like it, because it was made by an animal and not humans.

There is art and then there is "art". Does a mass produced Mona Lisa Poster has the same artistic value as the real Mona Lisa? Is it good art? I mean, someone just took a photo of a good art piece and printed it, is the print good art too? Or is there more to the whole art thing?

I do consider some games as art, because some are art, others are not really art. Specially games made by AAA devs, that are just making products to be mass consumed and without any love for their own stuff.
It's been a while since I played a game where the devs love for their own product was noticeable.

It's the same as if I just made a wombat picture on Paint. I don't consider it art, I didn't put any real effort or even love into it, even children can draw better, and I definitely didn't made it to be art. But if someone sees it and goes "Awwww, it's soooo cute. I love it!" does it make it art? Does art become art just because someone says it is?

Is this picture good art?

 

[Norzan]

Yeah, liking something is not the same thing as quality. I love Sonic Adventure 1 but the game is absolutely mediocre with a jumbled plotline, bosses being piss easy and Big the Cat's fishing mechanic being completely contradictory to what the series is about. I can't say the game is good when it has all these crippling flaws.

It's the same as Fallout 3, you can't say you like it and say it's good when the game has huge flaws like poor writing, pointless exploration (exploration is meaningless when there's no sense of danger and everything else scales to your level, effectively removing this), awful world building, most of the quests hardly having any branching paths and the morality of these quests are just black and white for most of them, and many other flaws. You can't just ignore this and call the game good when just the first game in the series did these thing far better. I expect a sequel to improve what the previous games did, not do things worse.

 

[KingArthur]

I love Sonic Adventure 1

(Kidding Norzan, I love you)

 

[Norzan]

Stand by it. You get to love at least one crappy thing in your life and i just irrationally love that game because it was my first Dreamcast game.

 

[Valwin]

Adding to what Graves said here:


Vault 87 timeline doesn't match with the previous lore F.E.V. related timeline.
Vault 87 construction was started on 2066 and finished in 2071, each vault was constructed for a particular objective, and Vault 87 objective was to work on the Pan-Immunity Virion Project in conjunction with Mariposa. But the Pan-Immunity Virion Project was only formed in 2073. So how did they managed to make a vault that had the objective of working on something that was only thought about 8 years after the vault started it's construction and 2 years after the vault was finished?

I don't see the issue here since there are multiple reasons as to why this happen but here a simple one.

They could have easily given the vault its purpose later on. we got this nice little vault in DC that would be perfect for the FEV stuff it was designed to test biological stuff.

stuff like this with easy explanations only take away with the real issues in canon like the whole F76 BOS thing.

 

[Risewild]

I don't see the issue here since there are multiple reasons as to why this happen but here a simple one.

They could have easily given the vault its purpose later on. we got this nice little vault in DC that would be perfect for the FEV stuff it was designed to test biological stuff.

stuff like this with easy explanations only take away with the real issues in canon like the whole F76 BOS thing.

That's a serious hand-wave level.
So, a very specialized vault needs to be built to be able to deal with airborne FEV. And they just take any old vault that was built for a different purpose?

Also every vault was built for a specific Enclave experiment. Why would the Enclave allow Vault-Tec to change the purpose of a vault of theirs, meaning that they would lose one of their specific experiments?

As if the Enclave would allow that, each vault was built to their specifications so each would be a particular experiment for their space travel/colonization. FEV has no part of that plan, specially since the Enclave hates mutants and FEV causes mutants. They would be keeping their distance from FEV and getting data from their experiments and then leave Earth.

Easy explanations only if you hand-wave.

 

[Einhanderc7]

Not to mention the fact that West-Tek was the only corporation that had access to F.E.V. Which is reinforced by the fact in Fallout 2 the Enclave had to literally go dig for the stuff as Mariposa.

Bethesda ended Fallout, I see no reason to defend them or their shit show choices. Instead I suggest we continue to shame Bethesda for just how horrible their influence has been on the IP overall.

 

[Walpknut]

Even if art appreciation is subjective, videogames, paintibgs abd music all have elements to them that are judged objectively. Try going through design school with the "art is subjective" phrase, you won't make it past first semester.

 

[mannawyadden]

Picture two different baking competitions. The goal of one is to make a Halloween themed cake thats visually appealing, and the goal of another is to make a cake that tastes good. The cakes would be judged based on the criteria of the competition.

A pretentious Master Chef can waltz over and say that the Halloween cake that won is an "objectively bad cake" because the baking science behind it is a trainwreck and it consequently tastes horrible. But the baker was never trying to make it taste good in the first place.

A porn parody probably isnt trying to be well written or well made. It's probably trying to be funny and get people off. You can objectively judge its quality, but why bother?

Same goes for the stick figure drawing. Is it trying to be a complex photorealistic masterpiece or is it trying to make someone smile?

In 25 years, out of all the games I've played, or movies and shows I've watched, at no point have I ever cared about where it ranks objectively. I only ask myself how it makes me feel and what I personally think about it.

That's because art is made to make people feel and think things, not to be objectively judged.

 

[Norzan]

That's because art is made to make people feel and think things, not to be objectively judged.

Yes, it is. Some design choices in video games are factually better than others because they just work better. That's how it is.

An example of a mechanic that is better in one game compared to another is Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 2 healing mechanic. In Dark Souls 1 you had a limit of Estus Flasks, which is your primary source of healing. This is basically the amount of mistakes you can make before you die. You have to ration and strategize when to use them. Dark Souls 2 on the other hand has lifegems along with Estsus Flasks. Lifegems are super cheap and because you can carry so many, the player no longer needs to ration them and strategize when to use them. An example i have seen is someone running in a small area with 5 or 6 enemies, getting hitting nearly constantly and just spamming lifegems because you can carry so many. This person never died during the entire demonstration.

And by your logic, Sonic 06 isn't a bad game. Superman 64 is not a bad game. Virtual Hydlide is not a bad game. Except they are broken, poorly designed messes and there's no counter argument for any of these claims. You can't just blatantly ignore major flaws with the game to just claim the game is good in the end. Feeling things is subjective, talking about its quality is objective.

 

[SquidWard]

I agree with art being a subjective thing but I don't think that you cannot reasonably back up why you like what you like and have a mostly consistent record of it.
If I told you I love these movies, X, Y, Z, and so on and they all shared sci-fi elements, horror, tension, great camera angles, etc. and I turned around and said Alien is a shit movie. You'd be thinking what the fuck?! How'd you get there?! It has everything you like!

So if I tell you I hate 2D platformers, you'd expect that I don't like 2D platformers but when I play a 2D platformer and love it, it must have been something else that pulled me in. Something that was done differently.

I think art can be seen through your own objective lens if that makes sense. You can like what you like, you can call it a 10/10 if you'd want but you have to be able to back up what you find of value in that work. Tell us why you gave the game or art work a 10/10. Just because Transformers is fun to watch doesn't mean everyone who watches it thinks it's anything above a 8/10. They asked people if they thought they were good movies and a lot of people that said they weren't also said they were excited to go see the next movie coming out. I also like bad movies because I know what I value on an artistic aspect and I know what I value on a fun aspect. I enjoy both things but do not directly always see them the same.

If anyone ever told me that Cars, Transformers, <insert recent action movie that's just like every other action movie> was just as artistic as Apocalypse Now or Сталкер, I'd honestly laugh at the statement. If they always think like that, fine I guess but I won't hold their artistic judging on the same wavelength as mine. We're not looking for the same thing in art, that's for sure.

 

[mannawyadden]

Well said, Squadcar.

 

[Walpknut]

The Subjective vs Objective judgement of art is a complex discussion.... One that Fallout 76 doesn't warrant because it's just a product made to sell in game currency, because it's a product it has to be judged as a product and as a product it is a badly designed trainwreck with several issues both in the graphics engine and the optimization and stability.
Neither are Bethesda's other Fallout games, I wouldn't even call New Vegas art and it's my favorite of the series. I wouldn't call Fallout 1 and 2 art and they are the genesis of the series.
Calling ssomething art as a way out of having a discussion of it's merits and flaws is just the most cynical cop out I've ever seen, I don't even think Bethesda has resorted to that themselves. Are you Pete Hines?

Even then, things that trascend the medium and are considered "ART" usually had that because people could and did measure up their objective merits and flaws. Design, Programming, Drawing, directing, acting, all of those can be critically judged.

 

[SquidWard]

I'd call Fallout 1 and New Vegas art myself. I do understand your stance on 76. I've tried to explain this to people before. Sometimes it's just entertainment products and other times it's art. But that's up to what you consider a product and what you call art. You reserve the right to call 76 art, I reserve the right to say you're wrong.

I just can't consider things I don't see the passion and messages in it to be an art. Also as my current signature says, this is another way I view art and it's a Bukowski quote. "Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing. To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it. To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art"