This is an active list, that will be updated as I see fit. If you agree, great. If not, tell me why. Please. I wanna see if my opinions are shared or reviled. Please note, my dates and years will not be perfect, and don't try to argue with me about that point because I'm using memories from the games, not the bible or other 'hard' facts.
Spoiler-laden. Do not read unless you've finished the game or don't care.
1) No economy
Fallout as presented in the past has had fairly logical and obvious economic paths: Water merchants pump water up from underground wells, bottle it, and sell it. Farms produce crops and sell them. People make and sell ammo, guns, clothes. In Fallout 3, none of this infrastructure is obvious, or even exists. There are no farms, supposedly ALL the water is irradiated (another point for later), and everyone supposedly still scavenges for supplies (yet another point). So who makes the guns? Who makes all the ammo? What do people eat aside from the brahmin? Who's distilling all this booze? Bottling the water? Making all the drugs?
2) Persistent radiation
OK, so here's how the radiation works in Fallout, as far as I can tell: most people simply curl up and die, but in rare instances they become ghouls, especially if exposed to some FEV as well. In Fallout 3, people are becoming ghouls from persistent exposure to the food, the water, and the air. Hell, living in Megaton probably has something to do with it. My problem is thus: If these people are becoming exposed to so many sources of radiation, why are only SOME of them becoming ghouls? In background conversation you hear people make comments like "You heard about the idiot who tried to fish?" and "It's drinking all the damn water." in reference to the amount of radiation and its harmful effects. If these people have been here since the war, why isn't everyone a ghoul, or just plain dead?
3) Passage of Time
Fallout 3 takes place some 30 or so years after the climax of the Fallout 1+2 series. In the time-frame of Fallout 1+2, society has climbed back from the brink; people are farming, people are building towns out of non-salvaged materials, Hell, people are rebuilding ruined towns. Sure, it's not the best place to live, but people are making a serious effort to rebuild. By the end of Fallout 2 'Frisco has been repopulated in earnest and is being rebuilt, Vault City is a modern Mecca, Vegas is back to its old self, and there's a bloody Super Mutant sheriff in Redding, a working and operational gold mine. People are bouncing back. Another generation later, on the East coast, and what do we have? Shanty towns. People still barely eking out an existence on stolen or scavenged food. Oh, sure, there's some radio stations, that's loverly when you've got no bloody farming or agriculture, when you've got five traders in the entire DC area selling junk and guns to anyone with the caps. CAPS. There was new-mint COINAGE by Fallout 2 on the west coast, but 30 or so years LATER in DC they're still using caps.
4) Scavenging
Alright, this one is simple and short and easy; no place in the world has enough stuff to last 200 years of salvaging and scavenging. Canned food doesn't keep that long, bottled water doesn't keep nearly that long, AMMO probably doesn't keep that long.
5) The Water Problem
I don't care if I spoil things for people, it's too stupid to not say: Your father is trying to purify the bay from radiation so people can drink the water. THE BAY. THE OCEAN-FED BAY WILL BE DRINKABLE IF ONLY WE COULD GET RID OF THAT PESKY RADIATION.
6) Cars, and to a lesser extent vehicles
Fallout 2 had the Highwayman. Fallout Tactics had numerous vehicles maintained and operated by the Brotherhood. Fallout 3? Nope, cars don't work, even though their nuclear engines are still volatile, somehow, despite being inactive. The Brotherhood got there, how, by walking? They slogged all the way from California, huh? Or maybe Texas? Vertibirds. The Enclave had them in Fallout 2, and the Brotherhood stole the plans before the end of that game. The Enclave have them in droves in Fallout 3, but what about the Brotherhood? None. I don't mind no player-operated vehicles, but the Brotherhood should have at least a handful of HumVees at their disposal.
7) The Brotherhood
The Brotherhood was sent from the West coast (presumably, perhaps they came from Texas) to gather information and technology and return to base to report. This was some years before the game started. The Outcasts believe that the Brotherhood's local leader has gone 'native', and by association AWOL. Nobody can contact home base. This ties in with the above, and leads into a new argument: Are we to believe that after 200 years of steady climb to a nation-wide entity that the Brotherhood just sort of... collapsed in 40 years? Or that they sent their team out with faulty equipment? And no vehicles? They haven't managed to build ONE Vertibird in all that time and send it out to see what the Hell is taking them so long?
8) What are people eating?
Ties into all of the above. If there's no farms, and the only source of sustainable meat is the brahmin, then what are people eating? We're expected to believe that there was that much edible packaged food in 200 years?
9) Fawkes
Fawkes is an intelligent Super Mutant, who was put in a cell by the other Super Mutants for being different, for being too smart and a threat. He believes he is more human than the rest. If the other mutants are such savages, how could they make the decision to imprison Fawkes instead of killing him, number one, and number two, doesn't that make them just as 'human' as he is? Doesn't this whole scenario imply that all the Super Mutants are as human, and as intelligent, as a regular person? Doesn't this not jive with the storyline, that says that the East Coast mutants are senile berserkers?
10) The use of the GECK
OK, so dad needs a GECK to cannibalize to power his water purifyer. The GECK is designed and developed to clean an area of radiation and make it habitable by insuring that natural resources are usable by humanity. Why not just USE THE GECK?
11) Doctors and Radiation
Alright, so we've developed that radiation is the main cause of the concerns of East coast living. Fine and dandy, except for one major thing; all doctors can cure radiation poisoning for a fee. With caps being so commonplace, and people being so desperate for clean living, why hasn't this miracle cure been stolen and spread, or why doesn't everyone basically 'detox' once a month or year?
12) Slaves and their myriad uses
As the above, there is no economy, so why are the slavers? There's nobody to buy the slaves, they're never put to work, they just lounge about in their cages all day. It seems like a real waste, all those mouths to feed simply to be able to come out and say "I'm a slaver. I pay people to get me slaves. I don't know what to DO with my slaves, but there you have it."
For that matter, I havn't seen a single person except for YOU who actually OWNS a slave, assuming you buy Charon or the woman whos name escapes me. It's almost as if Bethesda wanted to be able to tackle the issue of slavery as a moral quandry without all the messy bits about actually depicting slave life.
13) Cult of the Atom
They worship the bomb, so deactiving it would, as their leader says, be sacralige. However, when you DO deactivate the bomb, they have nothing to say, nothing has changed, and it's not like they don't KNOW you haven't done it, everyone's praising you afterwards. Except them.
That's the end of it for the moment. I started writing this much earlier in the day, and forgot about it until now.
I know, I'm new, I'm an upstart, and I'm probably gonna piss some people off. But these are MAJOR flaws in storytelling, and the game itself. I cannot fathom how anyone can look at a game like this, one that relies on its story, and overlook these seemingly minor and yet influential and telling screw-ups, let alone give it a 10/10.
As far as I can really tell, this isn't Fallout 3, it's more of a reboot of the whole series. It ignores the past and forges its own history, its own future. I would be FINE with it if it didn't have the Fallout name on it. Well, not FINE, because the storytelling would still be terrible, but you get the idea.
Spoiler-laden. Do not read unless you've finished the game or don't care.
1) No economy
Fallout as presented in the past has had fairly logical and obvious economic paths: Water merchants pump water up from underground wells, bottle it, and sell it. Farms produce crops and sell them. People make and sell ammo, guns, clothes. In Fallout 3, none of this infrastructure is obvious, or even exists. There are no farms, supposedly ALL the water is irradiated (another point for later), and everyone supposedly still scavenges for supplies (yet another point). So who makes the guns? Who makes all the ammo? What do people eat aside from the brahmin? Who's distilling all this booze? Bottling the water? Making all the drugs?
2) Persistent radiation
OK, so here's how the radiation works in Fallout, as far as I can tell: most people simply curl up and die, but in rare instances they become ghouls, especially if exposed to some FEV as well. In Fallout 3, people are becoming ghouls from persistent exposure to the food, the water, and the air. Hell, living in Megaton probably has something to do with it. My problem is thus: If these people are becoming exposed to so many sources of radiation, why are only SOME of them becoming ghouls? In background conversation you hear people make comments like "You heard about the idiot who tried to fish?" and "It's drinking all the damn water." in reference to the amount of radiation and its harmful effects. If these people have been here since the war, why isn't everyone a ghoul, or just plain dead?
3) Passage of Time
Fallout 3 takes place some 30 or so years after the climax of the Fallout 1+2 series. In the time-frame of Fallout 1+2, society has climbed back from the brink; people are farming, people are building towns out of non-salvaged materials, Hell, people are rebuilding ruined towns. Sure, it's not the best place to live, but people are making a serious effort to rebuild. By the end of Fallout 2 'Frisco has been repopulated in earnest and is being rebuilt, Vault City is a modern Mecca, Vegas is back to its old self, and there's a bloody Super Mutant sheriff in Redding, a working and operational gold mine. People are bouncing back. Another generation later, on the East coast, and what do we have? Shanty towns. People still barely eking out an existence on stolen or scavenged food. Oh, sure, there's some radio stations, that's loverly when you've got no bloody farming or agriculture, when you've got five traders in the entire DC area selling junk and guns to anyone with the caps. CAPS. There was new-mint COINAGE by Fallout 2 on the west coast, but 30 or so years LATER in DC they're still using caps.
4) Scavenging
Alright, this one is simple and short and easy; no place in the world has enough stuff to last 200 years of salvaging and scavenging. Canned food doesn't keep that long, bottled water doesn't keep nearly that long, AMMO probably doesn't keep that long.
5) The Water Problem
I don't care if I spoil things for people, it's too stupid to not say: Your father is trying to purify the bay from radiation so people can drink the water. THE BAY. THE OCEAN-FED BAY WILL BE DRINKABLE IF ONLY WE COULD GET RID OF THAT PESKY RADIATION.
6) Cars, and to a lesser extent vehicles
Fallout 2 had the Highwayman. Fallout Tactics had numerous vehicles maintained and operated by the Brotherhood. Fallout 3? Nope, cars don't work, even though their nuclear engines are still volatile, somehow, despite being inactive. The Brotherhood got there, how, by walking? They slogged all the way from California, huh? Or maybe Texas? Vertibirds. The Enclave had them in Fallout 2, and the Brotherhood stole the plans before the end of that game. The Enclave have them in droves in Fallout 3, but what about the Brotherhood? None. I don't mind no player-operated vehicles, but the Brotherhood should have at least a handful of HumVees at their disposal.
7) The Brotherhood
The Brotherhood was sent from the West coast (presumably, perhaps they came from Texas) to gather information and technology and return to base to report. This was some years before the game started. The Outcasts believe that the Brotherhood's local leader has gone 'native', and by association AWOL. Nobody can contact home base. This ties in with the above, and leads into a new argument: Are we to believe that after 200 years of steady climb to a nation-wide entity that the Brotherhood just sort of... collapsed in 40 years? Or that they sent their team out with faulty equipment? And no vehicles? They haven't managed to build ONE Vertibird in all that time and send it out to see what the Hell is taking them so long?
8) What are people eating?
Ties into all of the above. If there's no farms, and the only source of sustainable meat is the brahmin, then what are people eating? We're expected to believe that there was that much edible packaged food in 200 years?
9) Fawkes
Fawkes is an intelligent Super Mutant, who was put in a cell by the other Super Mutants for being different, for being too smart and a threat. He believes he is more human than the rest. If the other mutants are such savages, how could they make the decision to imprison Fawkes instead of killing him, number one, and number two, doesn't that make them just as 'human' as he is? Doesn't this whole scenario imply that all the Super Mutants are as human, and as intelligent, as a regular person? Doesn't this not jive with the storyline, that says that the East Coast mutants are senile berserkers?
10) The use of the GECK
OK, so dad needs a GECK to cannibalize to power his water purifyer. The GECK is designed and developed to clean an area of radiation and make it habitable by insuring that natural resources are usable by humanity. Why not just USE THE GECK?
11) Doctors and Radiation
Alright, so we've developed that radiation is the main cause of the concerns of East coast living. Fine and dandy, except for one major thing; all doctors can cure radiation poisoning for a fee. With caps being so commonplace, and people being so desperate for clean living, why hasn't this miracle cure been stolen and spread, or why doesn't everyone basically 'detox' once a month or year?
12) Slaves and their myriad uses
As the above, there is no economy, so why are the slavers? There's nobody to buy the slaves, they're never put to work, they just lounge about in their cages all day. It seems like a real waste, all those mouths to feed simply to be able to come out and say "I'm a slaver. I pay people to get me slaves. I don't know what to DO with my slaves, but there you have it."
For that matter, I havn't seen a single person except for YOU who actually OWNS a slave, assuming you buy Charon or the woman whos name escapes me. It's almost as if Bethesda wanted to be able to tackle the issue of slavery as a moral quandry without all the messy bits about actually depicting slave life.
13) Cult of the Atom
They worship the bomb, so deactiving it would, as their leader says, be sacralige. However, when you DO deactivate the bomb, they have nothing to say, nothing has changed, and it's not like they don't KNOW you haven't done it, everyone's praising you afterwards. Except them.
That's the end of it for the moment. I started writing this much earlier in the day, and forgot about it until now.
I know, I'm new, I'm an upstart, and I'm probably gonna piss some people off. But these are MAJOR flaws in storytelling, and the game itself. I cannot fathom how anyone can look at a game like this, one that relies on its story, and overlook these seemingly minor and yet influential and telling screw-ups, let alone give it a 10/10.
As far as I can really tell, this isn't Fallout 3, it's more of a reboot of the whole series. It ignores the past and forges its own history, its own future. I would be FINE with it if it didn't have the Fallout name on it. Well, not FINE, because the storytelling would still be terrible, but you get the idea.
