There is something 'wrong' with the style of Fallout 4

[Gizmojunk]

All of the menus in Fallout were intended to look like they were machines in [from] the gameworld.

There is even a developer sketch of the device.

The concept art for it exists here on NMA ~somewhere.

- There's also a video of a computer terminal, using green text- just like in Fallout 3. I thought it was when you leave the vault at the start of the game, but I seem to mistaken on that- it's on the tanker ship in Fallout 2. See here You can also watch the beginning of that video and see computer monitors on the ship itself are in black and green.
- The Pipboy interface in both games are monochrome black and green
- The master is 'built' around a monochrome black and green monitor

And they are doubtless cheaper; and easier to replace when damaged; probably less prone to malfunction (being monochrome instead of color), and (most importantly) they seem to suffice for those machines they are attached to. Even a modern Linux machine doesn't need a full color MCGA monitor if it's only used for console output.

In any case, you haven't exactly explained yourself well.

Ask around, I would bet that I have.

I don't follow the line of thought, honestly. You seem to be arguing that because Tim Cain would have done something different with the super mutants, he'd have done everything differently. That's a leap. You also seem to be taking the "no society left" too literally- as in evidence of pre-war society has completely disappeared, which explains the retro in the original Fallout games.

As you haven't explained the links between your points, I have no option but to try and put them together. If I have the above wrong, please feel free to correct me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4XVW6qcuzM&t=3m10s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa5IzHhAdi4

*Both of those are really interesting to watch all the way through.

(Yes I've seen everything in them, I know what he says in them.)

Thank you- that makes sense.

Likewise, all computers are extremely large and bulky. The computer consoles, ZAX, PipBoy etc. The explanation is that the transistor didn't exist until a decade before the Great War. Showing technological advancements that you've used as examples would be contradictory to what has been established in Fallout 1 and 2.

There is a prototype transistor from the late 40's; Bell Labs made it.

I tend to think that their computers are of the size they are as a simple matter of style; and not for lack of miniaturization; (for they can surely do that... The pipboy is a wrist mounted computer).

Choice of components could be down to popularity, or special use requirements; or simply that tube amps sound better... Also in the case of tubes, Fallout's setting had radiation concerns, and vacuum tubes are more resistant to radiation than transistors [afaik].

 

[Atomic Postman]

I also dislike the new art style.

They took the 50's retrofuturism too far. It looks like a Pixar animated version of the Jetsons. It's missing that mix of cyberpunk and art deco with some ancient rust thrown on top.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

I really despise the new music on the radio.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

All of the menus in Fallout were intended to look like they were machines in [from] the gameworld.

This is a lost art in modern video games. Dragon Age: Origins on the PC had an absolutely beautiful inventory/journal menu. They got rid of this in Dragon Age 2 with the Skyrim simple black and white menu. Fallout had a cool dialogue menu as well, and Wasteland 2's menus attempt to do something similar. But Fallout 4 has opted for the same as Fallout 3 and New Vegas. I kind of like the green menu of new Fallout games, but I do miss the older games with their really artistic menus. When a developer spends time on something so simple as designing a cool game menu, it feels like the game was a labor of love rather than a purely money-making venture. Pillars of Eternity really nailed it with their system.

 

[RAKTHEUNDEAD]

I still don't understand why all the computer screens in Fallout 3 and 4 still look like banking computers from the late 1980s. I mean yeah, there was a lot of 50s style thrown in to the earlier game, sure. But I never had the feelings computers and particulary the interfaces have been stuck in the 1980s of computers, at least as far as F1 and F2 goes. It seems the technology was sophisticated enough to me.

Actually, the computers in all of the Fallout games are closer to the late 1960s or early 1970s in terms of sophistication. The interfaces that we see in the first-person Fallout games are glass terminals for interfacing with a mainframe; this is not inconsistent with the original Fallout games either, where reel-to-reel computer storage is actually noted in the descriptions of some computers to be relatively new technology. The massive lack of progression of computers in Fallout compared to reality has been a hallmark of the series ever since the original Fallout.

 

[Gizmojunk]

What makes anyone sure that their computers are in way inferior to our own? (regardless of their retro appearance)

 

[Crni Vuk]

Given the level of technology you see in Fallout, I would assume that their computers are way superior to ours, of course just on what they can do, I am not talking about the details of the technology inside said computers, vacuum tubes for the win!

 

[ComeAndBlowMyMind]

I like the new style
A good example is the T51-b Power armor (my Favorite in the Power armor line) it looks more akin to fallout 1
and then there is the Nuka cola machine which also looks a lot more like the originals, In fact it looks like Bethesda took a lot of inspiration from FO1/FO2
At least aesthetically in some aspects

 

[SidFwuff]

Does no one recall that the very dialog interface was a color monitor?

Yes, which was part of the menu. I don't think my character pulled out a television every time he wanted to talk someone face to face. Much like how I don't think my character actually hit a bit red button whenever he wanted to use an innate skill.

The Pipboy interface, quest list and map however were clearly monochrome in game.

@SidFwuff About your post.... You must realize that you are recounting these 3rd hand details to people that have been here for years, with some that spilled over from the BlackIsle Forums. So you are telling this stuff to people that know it, and know it like it was tattooed on the inside of their eyelids with glowing ink.

In another thread a few days ago, someone asked if the vault experiments were even an idea of Black Isle's. The games are 15 years old, and between that, Tactics (Vault 0, need I say more?) and the Bibles... shit gets confusing. Look at how much they had to cut from Fallout 2 in the Bibles just to make things work.

I myself didn't think of the video conversation between the Enclave and Gecko in Fallout 2- that was colour. So it looks like the Enclave had access to such tech. Pre-war or post war development isn't clear. It certainly wasn't wide spread though.

Also, the original Fallout lacked modern weapons.
Fallout had miniguns.

(Also Desert Eagle hand guns; also micro-fusion powered ripper knives; and power-fist gauntlets; and plasma casters/pistols/and laser weapons. It also had the Hero Blaster from Blade Runner; implemented as a .233 rifle modified for use as a pistol.)

The minigun was developed in the late 1950s, and the .223 isn't an actual modern brand gun. The Desert Eagle was criticized at the time for its inclusion.

There were many different people that developed the original games, and many more since. They don't all agree (let alone the fans)- the "retro" look was intentional and consistent. There's a quote I can dig up from Tim Cain where he explains that Fallout 1 looks like it's set in 1950 because...they thought the 1950s look was cool.

I've got to run, and unlikely to be around much the next couple of days.

You can bash Bethesda for adding new things, not adding new things, not looking like Fallout, looking too much like Fallout all you want.

They added the Fat Man and people here hated it.
They added a jet pack to Power Armour and people here hated it.
They added synths and people here hated it.
They added teleportation, which I assume, people will hate here.

Not everyone of course, but many did. You can claim that Bethesda screwed up because they made the tech look 1950-ish, and they didn't add new futuristic tech. Others won't agree. Some will, just because it's Bethesda. I certainly don't agree that they somehow 'prohibited' tech advancement by showing a few minutes of pre-war life.

My opinion is that if they got anything right, it was the retro look. I can't shake the feeling that this whole discussion has been nothing more than "Someone said something kind of decent about Bethesda- that can't be right!"

 

[Gizmojunk]

Does no one recall that the very dialog interface was a color monitor?

Yes, which was part of the menu. I don't think my character pulled out a television every time he wanted to talk someone face to face. Much like how I don't think my character actually hit a bit red button whenever he wanted to use an innate skill.

The Pipboy interface, quest list and map however were clearly monochrome in game.

Relevance? It hardly matters what your character did; the design of the game was not depicting the PC's point of view. It was depicting the PCs actions, and in the case of the game UI, menus styled like in-world technology; of which the dialog screen was a color monitor.

I myself didn't think of the video conversation between the Enclave and Gecko in Fallout 2- that was colour. So it looks like the Enclave had access to such tech. Pre-war or post war development isn't clear. It certainly wasn't wide spread though.

... And this leads back to the point about what was popular or practical being principally used.

...the "retro" look was intentional and consistent.

It seemed to Boyarski like it would be fun to draw.

You can bash Bethesda for adding new things, not adding new things, not looking like Fallout, looking too much like Fallout all you want.

They added the Fat Man and people here hated it.
They added a jet pack to Power Armour and people here hated it.
They added synths and people here hated it.
They added teleportation, which I assume, people will hate here.

• of course
• of course
• one can assume that it is seen as un-50's, but I certainly don't share that view; or think that everything has to be.
  (And it's funny to me that people act like it was not a 50's idea, when there are Twilight Zone episodes that depict androids, and even mind transfer to robotic bodies.)
• of course

Not everyone of course, but many did.

• of course

You can claim that Bethesda screwed up because they didn't made the tech look 1950-ish,

I don't.

I must apologize, I did not at first take your posts as being deliberately antagonistic; if you like, I will interpret them that way hence forth.

 

[Dr Fallout]

Wait teleportation?