The forgotten revolution of Fallout

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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Ian Miles Chong/Sol Invictus/whatever moniker he's using now editorializes over on GameRanx on the forgotten revolution of Fallout.<blockquote>Armed with your companions Ian and Dogmeat by your side, you can kill him in broad daylight and offer the rest of the Khans a similar fate as you fight your way through the camp to rescue Tandi. Through force, you can raid their safes and loot their corpses as you emancipate Aradesh’s lost daughter.

The other option is to proceed alone through the camp at night, and open the cell in which Tandi is kept, freeing her. This provides a whole new subset of choices. Escaping the notice of the sleeping Khans, you can make it back to Shady Sands under the cover of darkness without spilling a single drop of blood. A more brutal approach would have you murdering each and every one of them in their sleep, slashing their throats as they remain unaware of your presence as the grim reaper. An even crueler option still would be to plant cooked grenades on their sleeping bodies, timed perfectly with your escape for an explosive and gory mix.

These choices already yield more options than anything Dragon Age has to offer, without even touching upon how the possible decisions affect the endgame. Interplay designed the Fallout in 1996, and released it in 1997 -- over a decade before Dragon Age saw the light of day.

Against the choices you had as a player a decade ago, RPGs today are miles away from offering the same freedom and lack of narrative restriction as the aforementioned Fallout. Of course, not every game was like this. Fallout was one of two games offering this much freedom. The other was Fallout 2.</blockquote>
 
Well, nice example and comparation, but I believe it could be better. Still a nice article, though.
 
It's good to see how the originals get praised by the journalists after a decade. And for the right reasons. Let's hope Bethesda takes notice of that and improves. I doubt anyone will call FO3 a classic after a decade.

Well, nice example and comparation, but I believe it could be better.
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In what way do you think it could be better I wonder?
I thought the article was very good at representing what FO1 was. "Look, here's a simple sidequest and it has multiple solutions."
 
sea said:
Maybe I'm just jaded, but I'm not sure what point this article has. That RPGs before Dragon Age offered choices and consequences? I don't think anyone is quite that ignorant. Is it that Fallout has been forgotten for its contributions to the world of gaming? While overshadowed by Fallout 3 in the mainstream, I hardly think that's the case. And that discussion of Morrowind and Deus Ex kind of just came out of nowhere.
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I'm assuming the point they were trying to make is people think Dragon Age is the shit but much older games called Fallout 1 & Fallout 2 were better RPGs because there were usually many ways to approach an objective (unlike Dragon Age which really only had one way to do everything besides sneaking).
 
Fallout1FTW said:
Well, nice example and comparation, but I believe it could be better.
Click to expand...
In what way do you think it could be better I wonder?
I thought the article was very good at representing what FO1 was. "Look, here's a simple sidequest and it has multiple solutions."
Click to expand...

Check out what sea and Goweigus have written.
 
I imagine the DA reference is because it's the latest 'true' popular RPG. It is true that the Fallout games had more options, there's no denying that, but Fallout's strength was in the setting and the influence you had in the game world, Dragon Age's (hell, Bioware's) strengths are more in the characters and storytelling, and I believe it that made this brand of RPG more successful, at least commercially.

Not to say that Fallout had bad characters or DA no choices, it was just not their respective fortes.
 
One thing I don't like about the editorial is the way it makes 1997 sound like the ancient past where programmers used rocks and sticks to create games. Graphics have improved immensely and now we can have fully voiced games, but otherwise I don't see what is so different about what could be done then vs. now. Actually the only real difference today is higher ups restricting what can be done in RPGs because of the overwhelming financial pressures that didn't exist back then.
 
I like how the author has apparently double standards concerning what constitutes "multiple outcomes" (as was outlined in the comments to the article on the linked site) -- whichever way you rescue Tandi is different, whichever way you dispose of a guard is not. Because "Tandi is rescued by stealth" and "Tandi is rescued by force" are more vastly different than "Guard intimidated away" and "Guard killed".

And somehow he also leaves out the option that "Tandi is killed in the crossfire, OUCH!".

I mean, sure, his heart is in the right place, but an article with such a (supposedly) lofty goal should be better in picking its instruments of goal-achieving.

Also: no mention of Troika games? Wasteland? Alpha (oh dear god) Protocol? A lot of games of "we can try to be like Fallout"-likes toy with actions and consequences, some better than others, but not all fail as spectacularly as the TES games at providing genuine alternatives. Dragon Age wasn't the worst offender, in fact, until reading this article I didn't even know it WAS an offender at all =)
 
Noelemahc said:
I like how the author has apparently double standards concerning what constitutes "multiple outcomes" (as was outlined in the comments to the article on the linked site) -- whichever way you rescue Tandi is different, whichever way you dispose of a guard is not. Because "Tandi is rescued by stealth" and "Tandi is rescued by force" are more vastly different than "Guard intimidated away" and "Guard killed".

And somehow he also leaves out the option that "Tandi is killed in the crossfire, OUCH!".

I mean, sure, his heart is in the right place, but an article with such a (supposedly) lofty goal should be better in picking its instruments of goal-achieving.

Also: no mention of Troika games? Wasteland? Alpha (oh dear god) Protocol? A lot of games of "we can try to be like Fallout"-likes toy with actions and consequences, some better than others, but not all fail as spectacularly as the TES games at providing genuine alternatives. Dragon Age wasn't the worst offender, in fact, until reading this article I didn't even know it WAS an offender at all =)
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Fallouts based on Wasteland, the latter came out about a decade before it.
 
Well the main point is right. And I do agree with him on all stances.
Today, almost every so called RPG is immediately rated above 90%. What does it offer and do better than Fallout 1? Nothing except the graphics, and it costs more money. And then they ruin the sequel for you because of the infamous "console porting".
 
While I agree, there are of course more ways to make an RPG shine than choice.
It's true that Fallout was very good there. Another element which I like if encountered in RPG's are small riddles, like the bridge one in Dragon Age (Sadly there were none in DA2).

Yes its true someone should pick up the Fallout-torch but I wouldn't count on it.
Other games like System Shock (1) also had some innovation never to be found afterwards (like 4 types of difficulty setting that could be individually adjusted, so you could basically turn the game into a dumb shooter for you or a near-to-none-combat adventure).
 
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