Was Fallout 3 a good spiritual successor to Fallout/Fallout 2?

Was Fallout 3 a good spiritual successor to Fallout/Fallout 2?

  • For what it's worth, sure.

  • Yeah, I loved Fallout 3 and the old Fallout games, it lived up to my expectations.

  • No, it was a huge critical disappointment.

  • No, they should've taken Van Buren and finished that.

  • No, but I enjoyed it for what it was.

  • Fallout: New Vegas was the spiritual successor. Dafuq?

Results are only viewable after voting.
YeeCop

YeeCop

Just a Sweet Irradiated Transvestite
In a lot of ways, yes.
In a lot of ways, no.

What I think Bethesda tried doing with Fallout 3 (cause they scrapped Van Buren, understandably) was make
it appeal to their Oblivion/Morrowwind fans, but keep the anticipated Fallout/Fallout 2 audience hooked on it as well. Undeniably it worked for their ES fans, cause Bethesda fans have nothing but praise for Fallout 3. Not so much for you classic Fallout old-timers.
As someone whose favorite Fallout is probably Fallout 2 (in neck with New Vegas), I like to think Fo3 as a pretty good passing of the torch to Bethesda. IIRC Tim Cain and Chris Avellone actually liked Fo3 (except the writing, which I'll get to soon)

For what it's worth, Bethesda did a good job with Fallout 3. An open world RPG with the same classic formula: your karma and choices ingame ultimately affect the gameplay around you; certain crowds will exalt you or vilify you based on your moral stance. You can take your time exploring the Capital Wasteland, no need to rush for the water chip or for the GECK. Quests like the Superhuman Gambit and Tenpenny Tower, they sound like they're right up Fallout's alley.
I don't wanna ramble (too late, YeeCop) but playing Fallout 3 feels like a 3D Fallout game, overall.

The worse part of Fallout 3 honestly was the writing. NPCS and factions were poorly fleshed out and that detracts a lot from the game. If you wanna play an antisocial route or something in Fo3, it won't be too much of an issue. But if you're chatting up with people in settlements, they're boring!! What I loved about Fo:NV was that even minor characters like Chomp Lewis had a backstory, however small it was. You felt like you could understand the struggles of wastelanders in the Mojave Wasteland, and connect with them in a way.
Talking to NPCs in Fallout 3 is awkward. The worse part about Fallout 3's writing is that there's certain characters in Fo3 that are just begging to have a great backstory. "Oh, Billy Creel. This dude has an eyepatch and has an adoptive daughter. Weird... I wonder what his backstory is." Nope. "I don't wanna talk about my life, man."
"Daaaaaamn, a fuckin actual pre-war Texan cowboy in a Fallout game, and not some post-war Vegas dude wearing a ten-gallon. What's your story, Paulson?" "Uhhhh we're fighting aliens right now, I don't wanna talk about my wife and kid." Like what the fuck?

I'm interested in the details of why Tenpenny sent Dukov (already an interesting person), Crowley, Strayer, and Dave to Fort Constantine. I wanna know about the Kingdom of Tom that was around before the Republic of Dave. What's Colonel Autumn's story about the Navarro Enclave? What's the story about Reilly's Rangers?
None of the details are there. Fallout 3 just leaves you wanting more. They give you the bare bones basis, and expect you to use your imagination to figure out the rest. That's bullshit.

The premise and ambience of Fallout is there, the writing just ain't.
 
Fourth option is a bit wrong, Interplay should've let BIS finished Van Buren first before handling the rights to Bethesda, at least. It's not a game I'd like to have and have associated with Fallout, but that would be more honest option for Fallout fans.
 
Fallout 3 had pretty much all the obvious things that made the Fallout games so great, the problem is it only had them superficially.

The devs realised people liked the Brotherhood of Steel as Power Armoured techno-knights, but not that part of what defined them was the nuance. That they were generally loved because while ultimately the heroes of the story, they are kinda arseholes who send those who wish to make contact with them on suicide missions, in hopes of being isolationist and holier-than-thou.

The devs realised that Supermutants were these large dumb monsters, but at the same time didn't realise that in both Fallout 1 and 2 they are not presented as straight up evil savages, but rather in Fallout 1 as brainwashed members of a mutant army, and in Fallout 2 as a group of miners who were enslaved by the Enclave, and were defending themselves. Presenting something which has always had some reasoning behind why you fight them as instead being dumb savages is always decline.

The devs realised that the ending slideshow was an important part of Fallout, but didn't realise it's because people wanted to know how there actions changed the world around them, not to recap everything that happened.

Overall, Fallout 3 is a game that comes across as being made by a developer who didn't understand Fallout, but wanted to appeal to the audience. It is in no way a spiritual successor, it is far more like a bad fanfiction.
 
Jogre said:
The devs realised that Supermutants were these large dumb monsters, but at the same time didn't realise that in both Fallout 1 and 2 they are not presented as straight up evil savages, but rather in Fallout 1 as brainwashed members of a mutant army, and in Fallout 2 as a group of miners who were enslaved by the Enclave, and were defending themselves. Presenting something which has always had some reasoning behind why you fight them as instead being dumb savages is always decline.
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In Fallout 3's defense, the super mutants had the motive of hauling away innocent wastelanders to Vault 87, so they could dip them in the FEV vats and turn them into super mutants.
Why, who knows? None of the muties explain it, really. And there isn't a head honcho who can give an explanation anyways.
 
YeeCop said:
In Fallout 3's defense, the super mutants had the motive of hauling away innocent wastelanders to Vault 87, so they could dip them in the FEV vats and turn them into super mutants.
Why, who knows? None of the muties explain it, really. And there isn't a head honcho who can give an explanation anyways.
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They quite literally talk about killing and eating humans in almost every piece of dialogue.

It doesn't matter if they have a reason for hauling away people, point still remains that they are unambigously evil orcs, instead of people who have genuine reasons to be fighting you.
 
Don't you see soldier??? The muties will always end up hauling you away and eating you no matter what! So now how do you feel about blowing up our oil rig which was UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PROPERTY!!! And trespassing Jefferson memorial which is UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PROPERTY!!! I have a feeling soldier that you have a way of disrespecting government property! Government property that is maintained out of your PAY! And that means that you will serve in this man's army until you are FIIIIVVVVVEEEE HUNDRED AND TEN THOUSAND YEARS OLD! SO LISTEN CLOSELY! You will stand guard at the hangar. This is your duty post. You will go there now and stay on guard until told otherwise. NOW MOVE IT, SOLDIER!
 
Sgt. Dornan said:
Don't you see soldier??? The muties will always end up hauling you away and eating you no matter what! So now how do you feel about blowing up our oil rig which was UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PROPERTY!!! And trespassing Jefferson memorial which is UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PROPERTY!!! I have a feeling soldier that you have a way of disrespecting government property! Government property that is maintained out of your PAY! And that means that you will serve in this man's army until you are FIIIIVVVVVEEEE HUNDRED AND TEN THOUSAND YEARS OLD! SO LISTEN CLOSELY! You will stand guard at the hangar. This is your duty post. You will go there now and stay on guard until told otherwise. NOW MOVE IT, SOLDIER!
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Sir, yes sir!!
 
While I did greatly enjoy Fallout 3 as a game, I did not remotely enjoy it as a Fallout game. the reason for this is because none of it made any sense. Granted the originals were a bit loose with direction at times, but with Fallout 3 they just didn't care about keeping it relatively cohesive with the story arcs.

Game play was an enjoyable middle ground for me, minus the bullet sponginess of enemies, and the not so in depth vats game mechanics.

The choice of location still to this day makes no sense to me, considering if there was a nuclear war then that would mean that DC is going to be nothing more than a smoldering crater since it is a location of the main government body. Come on people strategy 101.

The factions... why, oh why were the Brotherhood of Steel in DC if they didn't come from the Tactics faction? At no point in time do you see any viable mode of transportation that could have supported such a move let alone an indication that they ever did, other than some dialog shrugs to the subject.

The Enclave were by far one of the most insulting factions of the entire game, just because of how they failed to actually portray them. The devs completely forgot that the Enclave is still very much staffed by people. While they may or may not be brainwashed or super patriotic, I sincerely doubt that they would be so abundant or tactically dumb.

And my last comment is they should have canned their writers, the abysmal story reminds me of the last red faction game where the player had the means to complete the end task from the end of the game at the very beginning.
 
I had fun playing fallout 3... BUT it was a horrible fallout game. They Were honestly giving the original 2 games the finger. I like Bethesda but they fuck the lore up.
 
I think it was awesome but I think of it as a retelling of the first two games versus an original game itself.
 
Fallout 3 is like looking at two amazingly complex and deep games and going "Hey, how can we turn this into a mediocre at best generic FPS?"
 
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