Shamus Young "The Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3"

Those glittering gems of hatred surely do have some rough edges, haven't they? No wonder that unaware folks get cut so easily.
 
Who said anything about "nice"? I said abrasive, like obnoxious and annoying. Meanness isn't annoying, being obnoxious is.
Well, TIL "nice" is an antonym to "mean", but specific enough that it is not so for "annoying", "obnoxious" or "abrasive".
 
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Most of these don't bother me a whole lot. Well, the fucking terrible storyline and it's railroading choices does, but the biggest issue to me is how apathetic everyone was. None of the settlements made any kind of logical sense, maybe except for Rivet City which you could make an argument for. Though, The Republic of Dave really tickled me and still tickles me. It has the same kind of hair-brained silliness Fallout 2 often had so I give it a pass.

Honestly, my temperament in Fallout is fairly light, so I just roll with the craziness because the series has always had that strain of pulpy nonsense to it. So, odd world building and "Oh, look! It's cool, right? Right...?" moments I can live with. Poor plots and paper-thin character characters like "Dad", a character so thin that he amounts to little more than a constant dialogue option so monotonous it resembles Ryu from Shenmue asking about his subject of the day, however, really chaps my willy.

"Have you seen any sailors?" "Have you seen any sailors?" "Have you seen any sailors?" "Have you seen any sailors?""Have you seen a middle-aged man?" "Have you seen any sailors?" Please...kid...just shut the fuck up about your shitty dad who skipped out on you and destroyed your entire life. Actually, come to think of it, Ryu and the Lone Wanderer have a lot in common. Mostly terrible dialogue and a dead dad.
 
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Someone makes a fun comment asking where did the leather jackets even come from, and rather than everyone just happily laughing about it, a pointless argument starts.

People really need to take things less seriously here.
 
Someone makes a fun comment asking where did the leather jackets even come from, and rather than everyone just happily laughing about it, a pointless argument starts.

People really need to take things less seriously here.

I agree with the fact that arguing about the jacket is kind of pointless. I like the cross examining of Fallout 3 but it's not like we can ever run out of material of Fallout 3 mistakes. Why not argue about the continuity errors such as jet. That one bugs me A LOT. Jet is a unique drug from Fallout 2. Yet apparently it's in Fallout 3 with no reasons.
 
I just think that it wouldn't hurt the site to be less argumentative about things. It really doesn't help that people constantly throw insults at anyone who disagrees with their opinion. It's childish, and unbecoming of some of the intelligent posts I've seen on this site.

Joking about the jackets is fun. Arguing about them is pointless.

I agree, jet in Fallout 3 is really annoying. It's there simply for brand recognition, like Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness. It's pointless and only raises questions. Fans of the series will say: what's the point of that? and newcomers will say: what is jet? Really, it wouldn't have been hard AT ALL, for Bethesda to come up with another drug name.
 
It is not just jet, it is almost every reference in Fallout. The Brotherhood of Steel? They are in DC now. Super Mutants? There is a complete different population here unrelated to the West Coast ones. Harold? He made the journey to the Capital Wasteland.
All this is basically put in because it was in the previous games, not because it made any damn sense.

If Bethesda so much wanted to use these factions and people, why not set the game on the West Coast?
Oh yeah, DC is so iconic, people will just love seeing that.
Well I would have if Fallout 3 had been made in the same spirit as Fallout 1 and 2, but even then I know most of DC would probably be glassed craters like the Glow, it was after all the capitol of the United States.
Even if the Chinese knew before they launched the missiles and send the bombers that probably all the important people had already been evacuated to secure places, the destruction of Washington DC is not just done as a strategic loss but also a moral loss "Hey we wiped out your capitol, the city that represented the leadership in your country, and you were powerless to stop it"

Ugh, I currently can not describe in words in how many ways Fallout 3 is lore wise such a disappointment and an affront to the Fallout saga.
 
The sad thing is, it happened, and we can't really do much about it. We can complain, but Bethesda (and their (somehow still) loyal fans) don't care. It's just a never-ending circle of frustration. An itch that'll never really be scratched.

All we can really do is make our points, as people on this site have done constantly since 2008, explain the reasons for our points (and seriously guys, try to be less condescending when speaking to Bethesda fans. They annoy me as well, but it just makes for a rather snarky miserable atmosphere here. Honestly, at this point, if any of them start acting like assholes (as they usually do) just ignore them. Make the point, make the argument, and if you have the fatigue, wait for the next person and rinse/repeat).

The only way I can see Fallout's (true) legacy surviving is to keep making content true to it. By doing this, we can win people over. Win the argument. And every newcomer is a small victory against Bethesda's infantilisation of the series. Then in the future, when games are being analysed as something more than just entertainment, maybe then NMA will have it's own small victory as the mainstream itself starts judging Fallout 3 (and hopefully Fallout 4) more critically.

To return to the thread quickly: I think the White Knight Brotherhood of Steel bother me the most. You can have The BoS in DC for whatever bullshit reason you want, but making them the heroes of the story just ruins the game for me.
 
The sad thing is, it happened, and we can't really do much about it. We can complain, but Bethesda (and their (somehow still) loyal fans) don't care. It's just a never-ending circle of frustration. An itch that'll never really be scratched.

All we can really do is make our points, as people on this site have done constantly since 2008, explain the reasons for our points (and seriously guys, try to be less condescending when speaking to Bethesda fans. They annoy me as well, but it just makes for a rather snarky miserable atmosphere here. Honestly, at this point, if any of them start acting like assholes (as they usually do) just ignore them. Make the point, make the argument, and if you have the fatigue, wait for the next person and rinse/repeat).

The only way I can see Fallout's (true) legacy surviving is to keep making content true to it. By doing this, we can win people over. Win the argument. And every newcomer is a small victory against Bethesda's infantilisation of the series. Then in the future, when games are being analysed as something more than just entertainment, maybe then NMA will have it's own small victory as the mainstream itself starts judging Fallout 3 (and hopefully Fallout 4) more critically.

To return to the thread quickly: I think the White Knight Brotherhood of Steel bother me the most. You can have The BoS in DC for whatever bullshit reason you want, but making them the heroes of the story just ruins the game for me.

Well the BOS in DC were probably the most explained mistake. It's entirely possible they would have deviated from their path, because that happens in any idea and belief.
 
Deviating from the path is fine. It's the fact that they deviate so poorly is the problem. The story of Elder Lyons trying to hold together a fractured Brotherhood of Steel with many characters deviating in opinion is more interesting than, "We are the good BoS. All of us are happy with our Elder's decision to ignore a Codex we slavishly adhere to. We got rid of the bad BoS people ages ago, who are renegades even though they're the ones actually carrying out our original mission." You can have the BoS become more humanitarian, but making them white knights of the round table? It's just taking a fleshed out concept and boiling it down to a cartoon.

I guess my issue is that I find Good Power Armoured People VS. Bad Power Armoured People boring. If The BoS were more fleshed out, more ambiguous, then fighting the Enclave would have been a little more interesting. I'm also annoyed that we never got to join the Enclave in FO3. That would've at least somewhat deviated from FO2.
 
Someone makes a fun comment asking where did the leather jackets even come from, and rather than everyone just happily laughing about it, a pointless argument starts.

People really need to take things less seriously here.

I believe there is a bigger problem behind this. I am pretty sure that Fallout 2 and even Fallout 1 contained its flaws and inconstiencies here and there, which game doesn't? But that is when you're looking at it with a lense, which is what has been done with both F1 and even more so F2. And you would be surprised how often New Reno and many other places have been discussed to death here, particularly the pop culture references of which F2 had quite more than F1. Already F2 started to loose and change some of the humor that F1 was famous and known for. But I digress.

The Kings and the Tunnel Snakes are very great examples of how something is done right and wrong. The Tunnel Snakes are not even a bad Idea to say that. Actaully I like it. The issue is just that we all more or less believe they have been there just ... to be there, you know for the same reason as why everyone or almost everyone has a 50s hair cut and follows the 50s culture rather than a 50s vision of the future blown to pieces - and yes, there are differences. In that sense it's not even so important that you don't have any real explanation for the Tunnel Snake leather jackets. I am sure most of us would gladly forget those if the Snakes had actually a meaningfull purpose, good writing and some role in the game. Which is what you will find with the Kings. The Kings do not only make sense they actually add something to the game. Dialog, quests, good writing and they give the game world depth. Imagine if they actually followed the west-side story with the Tunnel Snakes and Amatta, where Butch and Amatta had actually a relationship, but they kept it hidden from everyone, more or less. In turn, giving the characters more depth.

That really is the main problem, and not just for the Tunnel Snakes, but the game as whole. Please don't get the idea people SOLELY concentrate on just the leather jackets of the Snakes. Seriously, all the shitty parts of F3 have been discussed to death here. Like Eden, Lamplight, Harrold, your companions and the purifier and much more.
 
You make good points. I was just saying that there's really no need for people to swear and insult each other over leather jackets in vaults.
 
uhmmm no.... How can the Ocean be irradiated?

You irradiate something by exposing it to radiation, so the ocean was likely irradiated. It is however, unlikely to be itself radioactive. It's likely that in the event of a large scale nuclear exchange, radioactive isotopes deposited in the ocean would be absorbed into phytoplankton, and thereby work its way up the food chain. So going swimming is going to be safe modulo mutated shark attacks and the like, but eating seafood is probably a bad idea.

But still, the ocean is going to be slightly more dangerous in terms of exposure to radiation than rivers like the Potomac. A river will carry radioactive isotopes and deposit them in the ocean, and then when ocean water evaporates and enters the rain cycle those isotopes will be left in the ocean. The ocean's really big though.
 
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I just think that it wouldn't hurt the site to be less argumentative about things. It really doesn't help that people constantly throw insults at anyone who disagrees with their opinion. It's childish, and unbecoming of some of the intelligent posts I've seen on this site.

Joking about the jackets is fun. Arguing about them is pointless.

I agree, jet in Fallout 3 is really annoying. It's there simply for brand recognition, like Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness. It's pointless and only raises questions. Fans of the series will say: what's the point of that? and newcomers will say: what is jet? Really, it wouldn't have been hard AT ALL, for Bethesda to come up with another drug name.

They tried from what I read, they were going to use real drug names and got shot down.
 
I just think that it wouldn't hurt the site to be less argumentative about things. It really doesn't help that people constantly throw insults at anyone who disagrees with their opinion. It's childish, and unbecoming of some of the intelligent posts I've seen on this site.

Joking about the jackets is fun. Arguing about them is pointless.

I agree, jet in Fallout 3 is really annoying. It's there simply for brand recognition, like Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness. It's pointless and only raises questions. Fans of the series will say: what's the point of that? and newcomers will say: what is jet? Really, it wouldn't have been hard AT ALL, for Bethesda to come up with another drug name.

They tried from what I read, they were going to use real drug names and got shot down.

That was "Med-X" which was initially named "morphine", and is still in the game. So, no need for Jet still. They could have continued, and simply made up more drugs, there's nothing stopping them.. :D
 
I just think that it wouldn't hurt the site to be less argumentative about things. It really doesn't help that people constantly throw insults at anyone who disagrees with their opinion. It's childish, and unbecoming of some of the intelligent posts I've seen on this site.

Joking about the jackets is fun. Arguing about them is pointless.

I agree, jet in Fallout 3 is really annoying. It's there simply for brand recognition, like Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness. It's pointless and only raises questions. Fans of the series will say: what's the point of that? and newcomers will say: what is jet? Really, it wouldn't have been hard AT ALL, for Bethesda to come up with another drug name.

They tried from what I read, they were going to use real drug names and got shot down.


That was "Med-X" which was initially named "morphine", and is still in the game. So, no need for Jet still. They could have continued, and simply made up more drugs, there's nothing stopping them.. :D

Perhaps but drugs making their way across the country isn't really unrealistic.
 
Sensationalist knitpicking. For one thing, he makes out like fallout 3's aesthetic is out of place in particular due to the time gap when fallout 2 got away with it being set a few decades before.

All of the inconsistencies with the plot that he points out hardly put a dent In the experience.

As an avid reader and occasional writer, when I was researching fo3 before playing it, I was intrigued by how most people either revered the story or despised it so much that it ruined the game.

When I first played the game completely, I could easily pick up on the plot holes as I do when reading or watching a movie or show, but I was easily able to shrug them off. People who mock fallout 3 for these reasons show a lack of ability to suspend disbelief, and honestly, I thought of Fallout 3 as an excellent Fallout title and an excellent game in general.

If people held all works to the standards they hold to Fallout 3, everything would suck.
 
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