Something to think about. A few words about Fallout 3 .

[betamonkey]

(...)invisible walls(...)had to load to do it(...)you can walk there in real time(...)every fight involved slowdown

Why do you keep distracting from the graphics?

Those are elements that lend to the overall graphic impression.

Would you compare a high-resolution picture to a render in a game? Obviously not. One has to do so much more to present itself than the other. Anyone can make a small box using hi-rez textures that is the greatest looking thing since sliced bread, but to make it playable and then expand it to a seamless world is a different beast entirely.

Graphics is not always about how many pixels your textures use or how many polygons make up your models. And why are we talking talking about graphics anyway? Is that really the critical element to this type of game? I didn't judge Fallout 1/2 on its graphics, if I had I never would have played them. It was dated by the time it came out. But it had 'style' and that is just as graphical as anything else.

 

[Sander]

There's a difference between artistic quality, ie what you are talking about, and technical graphical quality.

Fallout had great artistic quality, but if you brought it out new its technical graphical quality would still be shit.

Now, I don't particularly agree that Fallout 3 has some brilliant immersive design elements, but that wasn't my point either (and anyway, Assassin's Creed does a better job of creating a believable atmosphere).

This game is being hailed as a great technical graphical accomplishment. Really, it is. And really, it isn't a great accomplishment. There are no outdoor shadows. Some things look decent from a distance, but most things look pretty bad when you get close to them compared to other games out there.

Also, when we're talking about graphical immersion anyway, the animations are horrible as well.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Oblivion had blooming, yeah but I'd argue it also fit the unrealistic world of Oblivion too.

Seriously?

Fallout 3 has no where near as much... but they use it in areas where it fits...

Can't be bothered to search for Fallout 3 screenshots (teh ugly), but last time I checked birthday cakes aren't supposed to glow.

And why are we talking talking about graphics anyway?

Because each and every review claims this is a great looking game with some actually saying it's better looking than everything that came out this year?

It was dated by the time it came out.

This just shows you haven't played them when they were released. Show me a game from 1997 that looked better. *anxiously awaits examples of vomit inducing 3D games*

 

[Ihniwid]

Ehhh... so you name two games...and then say its not on par, pretty weak sander...

Ehm, why is that weak? I didn't even name games that outright smoke Fallout 3 like Crysis or Far Cry 2.
Also, this games is being hailed as really, really good looking. While it obviously isn't, since there are a lot of games out there that look better.

Also, Assassins Creed looked great but it had invisible walls that outlined each region, so sure you could go everywhere but you had to load to do it... Where as Fallout 3 you don't... you see it, you can walk there in real time...

Those 'invisible walls' are not there inside the cities once you unlock each chapter and are largely a gameplay mechanic. And given the fact that you won't spend much time outside of the cities, this isn't exactly a problem.

Also, what do you think Fallout 3 is doing? Do you really think they load the *entire* Wasteland? No, they do the loading in the background.

Oh, unless of course you're going into *any building* then obviously they need to load. Making your point about loading areas rather moot (and yes there was plenty indoors room in Assassin's Creed).

Or, let's try this: the fact that they chose a different technical approach does not detract from or add to the graphical quality of the game. Fact is: Assassin's Creed looks much better than Fallout 3. So does Mass Effect. So does Far Cry 2. So does Crysis. Yet Fallout 3 is still seen as some great graphical accomplishment. How does that make sense?

And Mass Effect looked the same...everywhere... also, on the console version every fight involved slowdown... so it had a serious issue... PC worked better but Bioware had a lot more time to tinker with that version.

I'm comparing PC version here. I don't know nor care about console versions. Especially not when the console versions are a lot older.

You're also pretending as if Bethesda was forced to put this game out there way too quickly and didn't have much time to develop.
Hello? They're their own publisher, added to that they've been developing this game for what, 5 years now? It ought to be polished.

No, Sander. I'm not pretending nor am I trying to see it in some other light or shade. Fallout 3, as a whole, looks amazing. The games you mention are fantastic in their own right but they all go about it differently.

It seems as if you and others are pointing out what paid reviewers are saying about the game and bashing it in your own view to somehow make this Fallout experience a thing of complete abomination. Maybe I'm wrong but... it seems that way to me.

If you feel the games you have mentioned are so far superior to Fallout 3 then fine, and in some cases from what you have explained you are correct. But the level of detail in Bethesda's game is incredible. Crysis was beautiful, yes, with its brilliant colors and swaying trees. Far Cry 2 is bright and bloomy. Assassins Creed was impressive with its large scale cities.

Fallout 3 is impressive in its bleak, vapid world. Its draw distance is nothing short of amazing...

The package as a whole...thats where Fallout 3 shines.

 

[betamonkey]

This just shows you haven't played them when they were released. Show me a game from 1997 that looked better. *anxiously awaits examples of vomit inducing 3D games*

Why would I bother when you have obviously already formed your response before even given an example?

I'm not fresh off the turnip truck.

And yeah, I did play them when they first came out.. considering it was my job to.

 

[caniac1026]

I'm not sure why people are surprised at links between DEV's and reviewing web sites. Big money there, boys & girls. Resorts do it all the time - pay magazines to write positive articles about their resort. The resort I work at does this.

As for FO3 Fail or FTW I was wanting a change of pace after a 7+ years wait and the current format is very satisfying for me. I know I'm going to get way more than 100 hours out of it, and that makes it easily worth the money.

 

[Buxbaum666]

Call me Blacky.


Uhm... yeah.


I'll look into that.
Notice the black outlines of the "stuff" on the ground.


Look, there's a floating metal tube with parts of a boy sticking out of it next to a floating... wall or something that has green shattered glass with white edges. Awesome. Oh, wait. It's not floating, it just looks like that becaus objects in Fallout 3 defy physics and have no shadows. My bad.


Drawing distance is good, I give you that. But the closer you get to stuff the uglier it gets.

 

[Per]

The argument that Fallout 3 has less moral ambiguity is nonsense. Both the original Fallout games had the same amount. Especiallly the second one. The master and mutants from the first Fallout game are basic evil. You can argue that they had good intentions, but most evil probably does. And then you have the Enclave and vault experiment from Fallout 2. It doesn't get more blatantly evil than that. If you want real moral ambiguity, then try Witcher or Planescape. None of the Fallouts really have it.

The Fallouts were just as much about conflict within and between groups and settlements as the Main Big Threat to the Wurlde. I haven't played Fo3 myself but reports say this is a bit lacking.

Also please trim your quotes peoples, I saw some huge brown blocks on page 4.

 

[Ihniwid]

Look, there's a floating metal tube with parts of a boy sticking out of it next to a floating... wall or something that has green shattered glass with white edges. Awesome. Oh, wait. It's not floating, it just looks like that becaus objects in Fallout 3 defy physics and have no shadows. My bad.


Drawing distance is good, I give you that. But the closer you get to stuff the uglier it gets.

So the game is subpar and the graphics are trash because there are no shadow effects? And there glitches? Making a world that large without glitches... you guys give no room for any sort of error. Its amazing.

 

[TheLastOutlaw]

Not that I'm defending the clipping problems but I wouldn't lump them in with graphics issues. It's a result of bad collision detection which is a programming issue.

 

[Buxbaum666]

I thought we were discussing graphics. Look at those screenshots and tell me it looks "great" or even "amazing". I don't even talk about the awful animations. And yes, objects without shadows look like they are floating in the air. That's a fact.
All in all it boils down to what Sander said: Fallout 3 is graphically not on par with modern contemporary games.

 

[Ihniwid]

I thought we were discussing graphics. Look at those screenshots and tell me it looks "great" or even "amazing". I don't even talk about the awful animations. And yes, objects without shadows look like they are floating in the air. That's a fact.
All in all it boils down to what Sander said: Fallout 3 is graphically not on par with modern contemporary games.

Nah I disagree, it may not be onpar with certain games, in certain ways, but to say its not onpar with modern games in gernal is rediculous.

Your screenshots dont tell me anything. Sorry.

 

[Hroesvelgr]

I love the original Fallouts as much as the next poster, but I think you are letting the feeling of nostalgia for them to get in the way. The voice acting in Fallout 3 isn't perfect, but the originals featured hardly any voice acting at all, and what little there was, it was way overdramatic. Didn't bother me, but neither does the voice acting in F3. The dialogue tree didn't really differ much in the originals either, you mostly had the good, neutral and bad options. I think you're referring to the Hub with the "bad or worse" thing? F3 certainly has few similar quests too. I agree that the originals were more intelligent and complex in some parts, but the quests are not that much different in the third game when you think of it, nor is the dialogue. I think you should play the original ones again and try to make an objective comparison.

I actually wrote that the moment after I had stopped playing the original one again. And I feel that it's true. There is nothing in Fallout 3 compared to the originals as far as moral complexity goes. As I've said, the mere fact that all of your actions are rewarded with "You've gained/lost karma" makes it obvious that there is no moral grey area. You can either do things that are clearly bad or clearly good, or alternate bewtween them to simulate nuetrality. Nothing like "Which crime family should I help run New Reno," or "This person may be a scumbag, but if I kill them it will generally have a very poor effect on those around him."

 

[lewis]

i simply dont like the doors when you enter a dungeon.

Dont know how to remove them tough.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Nah I disagree, it may not be onpar with certain games, in certain ways, but to say its not onpar with modern games in gernal is rediculous.

Your screenshots dont tell me anything. Sorry.

Not on par with any major games released in 2008 that I know of.

 

[Sander]

No, Sander. I'm not pretending nor am I trying to see it in some other light or shade. Fallout 3, as a whole, looks amazing. The games you mention are fantastic in their own right but they all go about it differently.

It seems as if you and others are pointing out what paid reviewers are saying about the game and bashing it in your own view to somehow make this Fallout experience a thing of complete abomination. Maybe I'm wrong but... it seems that way to me.

If you feel the games you have mentioned are so far superior to Fallout 3 then fine, and in some cases from what you have explained you are correct. But the level of detail in Bethesda's game is incredible. Crysis was beautiful, yes, with its brilliant colors and swaying trees. Far Cry 2 is bright and bloomy. Assassins Creed was impressive with its large scale cities.

Fallout 3 is impressive in its bleak, vapid world. Its draw distance is nothing short of amazing...

The package as a whole...thats where Fallout 3 shines.

I disagree.
Look, you can think that Fallout 3's atmosphere is great and that's fine. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about graphical quality. It's impossible to name an area where Fallout 3 outshines one of its contemporary competitors graphically. Whether or not you think Fallout 3's atmosphere or artistic quality is better than other games doesn't matter to whether or not it is better when it comes to graphical detail. And it isn't.

Graphically, it is not as good as people make it out to be. This isn't a game-breaking quality, nor does it make the gameplay worse, but it is something worth pointing out given that many game magazines make a big deal out of it.

i simply dont like the doors when you enter a dungeon.

Dont know how to remove them tough.

It isn't feasible to remove the seperation between outdoors and indoors.

 

[lewis]

i simply dont like the doors when you enter a dungeon.

Dont know how to remove them tough.

It isn't feasible to remove the seperation between outdoors and indoors.

open cities its a mod that put the oblivion cities like part of the enviroment, so they are not threated like indoors, if that can be done with a city why not with a dungeon, their waaayy more smaller

 

[Ihniwid]

I disagree.
Look, you can think that Fallout 3's atmosphere is great and that's fine. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about graphical quality. It's impossible to name an area where Fallout 3 outshines one of its contemporary competitors graphically. Whether or not you think Fallout 3's atmosphere or artistic quality is better than other games doesn't matter to whether or not it is better when it comes to graphical detail. And it isn't.

Graphically, it is not as good as people make it out to be. This isn't a game-breaking quality, nor does it make the gameplay worse, but it is something worth pointing out given that many game magazines make a big deal out of it.

So, in your view since you find the graphical quality to be lackluster or at least not what reviewers say it is...what does that tell you? In all seriousness... I'm curious...

Maybe console players like myself (used to be a PC player but it got too hard to keep up with the tech, but I've played FO1/2 and other ISO games) see graphics differently or my TV makes it appear better than it is...I dont know...

 

[Pope Viper]

As far as the graphics.

The textures aren't really up to par with what recent games are doing (Far Cry 2). If you look into the modding section, you've already got new textures coming out that look 10 times better then what was released.

One of the features I liked about Oblivion, was the dynamic weather system, which they removed for Fallout, which doesn't make sense. Weather in a PA environment, should be incredibly altered, (read any of James Axler's Deathland series for examples).

As far as the reviewers lauding the graphics. What do you expect? They're trying to keep the ad revenue. I don't believe for a second they're non-biased.

 

[Sander]

So, in your view since you find the graphical quality to be lackluster or at least not what reviewers say it is...what does that tell you? In all seriousness... I'm curious...

It tells me that reviewers even get hyped up by the most base elements of a game that aren't even there.

Maybe console players like myself (used to be a PC player but it got too hard to keep up with the tech, but I've played FO1/2 and other ISO games) see graphics differently or my TV makes it appear better than it is...I dont know...

Because a PC game usually has a much higher resolution than the console equivalent, a lack of details and graphical quality dropoff is much more easily noticed on the PC.
Added to that, it's possible that Fallout 3 does look like other top-of-the-line games on the XBox360, because those games simply look worse than PC equivalents.