Why Do You Enjoy Fallout 3

I can't believe the statement in your signature.

 

I'm sorry. That's what you get for posting while half asleep.

 

Yeah, I watch it too, but the fact is that sometimes it is shoddily written (excuse the pun). Watch the Caesar's Legion entry, the guy says "history's mistakes" three times in the span of like two minutes. The people making them also don't seem to be aware of the range of theories concerning ghouls - the whole Wild FEV thing. It also bothers me that even the dodgy parts of the Fallout games they discuss, for instance in their latest entry they mention the ghost in Fallout 2 or how about the fact that they're making a video about the krivkenwhatever, which is little more than a fucking easter egg. I also think they shouldn't have gone into great details about Mothershit Zeta and Old World Blues, which are currently the most canon breaking parts of Fallout lore.

 

- I don't remember well the Caesar's legion entry.
- About ghouls, i was relieved that they mentioned some theories/inconsistencies, without confirming them, putting those in the account of unreliable sources, possible lying ghouls. So they mention things without confirming them.
- About Mothership Zeta & Point Lookout i would have loved to have them skipped anyway, so i am not sure i would have been satisfied by the way they would have treated them no matter how.
- About Old World Blues, the only thing that bothers me is the stripping of the three main organs and i don't remember if they mentioned it in the video...

 

I wouldn't have skipped Point Lookout, but I definitely wouldn't have included the Lovercraft fanboyism of Bethesda. Mothership Zeta should have been skipped entirely.
The only thing wrong with OWB is every fucking thing. The Think Tank were shut down pretty quickly by Mobius, effectively dooming them to exist doing nothing, so it's safe to assume most of the Think Tank tech appearing in the game is pre-war. And they're still a million times more advanced than the Enclave who had more than a century completely left to their own devices.

On another note, ShoddyCast recently released an entry about the Survivalist.

 

The only things that bugged me about OWB technology were the Transportalponder (conveniences don't have to be lore-destroying) and the fucking vendor machines in the Sierra Madre (this is matter transmutation, something that basically makes everything possible = a shitty move).

Only because Mobius shut the Think Tank down to a loop doesn't mean they didn't do anything in the mean time (think of the bazillion new titles Dr Dala mentions). They just did no longer question their goals or the world around them. The fence is post war afaik. As are the lobotomites and thus the artificial organs technology.

And you overlooked one of the frequently brought up themes of Old World Blues, which is how miserably the Think Tank failed. Saturnite? Good, but impractical, since it's too good (Cosmic knives). The Hazmat suit? Susceptible to rust and not even suited for it's main purpose, aside from being extremely uncomfortable to wear. The whole Cazador and Nightstalker fiasco (the gene-splicing was certainly done post-war, fence works only for lobotomites, because tesla coils)? They didn't even get these things could reproduce. The Stealth suit was fine, but couldn't generate the stealth-field the Chinese pre-war scientists applied to their own upgraded version. Most of the facilities lie in ruin. I wouldn't consider any of these technologies too advanced.

Most of the pre-war stuff was prototypes anyway.

Imo Old World Blues was next to the best a setting with advanced wacky Science! could come up with, aside from the mentioned technologies.

I fucking agree. The Pulowski preservation shelters were also a nice addition.

Plus, Fallout 3 did indeed have some interesting characters (like Eden on the radio before you meet him or Scribe Bigsely from BS. Rivet City was also a nice environment with the whole Bannon/Seagrave Holmes arc, Vera Weatherly and Father Clifford and the marriage, Mr Lopez, Harkness [who surprisingly wasn't overshadowed as a character by his ANDROID state - unlike Eden the flashy ZAX], Anna Holt and Tammy Hargrave) that unfortunately didn't get quite the exposition they needed as actual beings less than decoration.

 

I don't know, even if it's true that they still did things after Mobius shut them down I still think that they're a bit too advanced. I mean, look at the Enclave: they got to be super advanced but I don't think they managed to create anything as advanced as the Think Tank has, and they had access to more resources, didn't they? Of course the main problem is with the technologies you mentioned as stupid, like the replicators, the teleporters and I think even the holograms.

But this is not the thread to be discussing this. Let's get back on topic.

Yeah, I almost forgot about them. Those are definitely something that could have been in Fallout 1 too. Also the protectrons fit the Fallout setting pretty well. (they weren't in any of the older games afaik)

 

You can't just throw a bait like this and then say, nah back on topic .

Obsidian devs love Star Trek and wanted to reference it, which resulted in the technologies of Dead Money and thus the Think Tank. I doubt teleportation will make a comeback (it was just a transportation device after all, albeit silly) and neither will the replicators. Still a bad move to introduce such things into the setting imo.

Enclave created a virus that could kill all human life on earth, which is quite 'advanced', along with the respective vaccine. They also created a biomechanical killing machine. They also were not primarily researchers, just a department (ok, the Think Tank were 5 individuals, but they were quite crazy for Mentats, plus they weren't exactly human anymore).

And the Institute of the New England Commonwealth managed to develop life-like androids. Which we'll probably see more of in the future.




The robot design in Fallout 3 was good. Something that didn't make it into the game unfortunately was the giant, rideable molerat.

Btw Van Buren had this concept, which sadly also was scrapped. Would have been nice to see in New Vegas.


Other scrapped designs that I think would've been worth it for Fallout 3:


Abominations: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Abomination_(Fallout_3) Would've preferred these over super mutants in DC any time.

Mutant Dad: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/6877201005/in/set-72157629320774861 , https://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/6877201489/in/set-72157629320774861/

Explosive Plants: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/6877250921/in/set-72157629320774861


The Talon Company Symbol is also fantastic.

 

I was actually thinking we could start another thread.
Loving another franchise and actually referencing it in the universe, not just in an easter egg, is a bad move, and part of the reason why Fallout canon is as shitty as it is.

Is the Curling virus really advanced? I thought it was pretty straightforward, just modifying an existing virus. Also the biomechanical killing machine was half an accident. I guess only being partly focused on research is a good excuse, but then again there were probably a lot of people in that department and also had acces to any resource in post-war US. Well, in theory, anyway.

How lifelike they are is very much up to question. Not even Bethesda would create androids that can eat, shit and fuck and actually reproduce that way. Why would they even want to create androids like that anyway? Isn't genetic engineering practically the same thing - achieves the same results I mean - and probably easier to boot? Of course, I'm no scientist, so why do I even speculate, right.

I'm glad the ridable molerat didn't make it. Seems a bit silly.
The abominations would have had something to do with the DC FEV, I'm quite certain of that. They do look freaky enough, maybe they should have been there instead of feral ghouls.

Anyhow, what the fuck's a mutant dad? Does that mean originally James would have turned into a mutant or something?

 

I started a thread in the general section.

The sillyness is why I like it. As long as sillyness doesn't contradict lore or introduces elements that fuck the lore up, it can be quite nice imo. I'd draw the line with the S'Lanters though. It also would have been a local phenomenon, which we definitely needed more of.

I took the mere existence of FEV for granted. Of course it's a silly concept in itself already. But it would've been nice if these FEV mutants would have been even more apparently failed, a flawed experiment, backfired through the hands of maniacal freak-scientists who couldn't manage what the military managed.

The Dad thing was probably an idea they played around with. He searched a GECK, Vault 87 had a GECK. Maybe he would've come into contact with FEV and the drip somehow suspended the mutation process. Would've liked to see James like that.

 

Maybe I'm not too picky and maybe I'm not an expert but I really don't see ANY reasons to hate fallout 3. I love its atmosphere it's a little bit different from fo1 and fo2 but I still like it. And the world is just so big that you can spend so much time exploring it and finding new quests which makes it really awesome. Some people complain that there's not enough weapons but it was more than enough for me plus there are thousands of weapon mods you can install. They also say that it's too easy, well I don't really like playing games on a hard mode because I play games for relaxation and enjoying storyline and action and fallout 3 fully fulfilled my needs in that.

 

Maybe if you actually read people's cirticisms of Fo3 you would understand. Criticism towards it are: Bad writing everywhere specially on the Main quest, an overly linear main quest with no real branching on it or in side quests, a world that makes no internal sense, it breaks FO1 and 2 Lore, unbalanced combat and leveling, boring perks, lack of variety in weapons for each skill.

 

To be fair Fallout 1 had some pretty poor weapon variety for guns if you intended to use anything other than a pistol.

 

True, but Fallout 2 solved that. One would think a sequel would actually continue improving it....

 

Well I don't know, I don't think writing was that bad still there were other side quests apart from the main quest, right? Doesn't it replace branching of the main quest?

 

No, it doesn't. Because sidequests in the other Fallout games also had branching and different endings.

 

Also, Fo1-Fo2-FoNV had much more side quests than Fo3, not even mentioning the branching.

But that doesn't mean you should disregard your love for Fo3. People put different value on different things.

 

Exploration, and storytelling through terminal entries and setpieces was actually quite well done. And I for one actually enjoyed its quirky sense of humor.

 

It's one of my top 10 games of all time. Great atmosphere, great exploration and just an all around fun game I played over and over. More than any game since Civilization 2 and Starcraft and Warcraft 1/2/3.

 

I love Fallout 3 largely because the setting is so close to home for me -- I live in southeastern Pennsylvania, which isn't all that far from Washington DC. I also love the rich backstory of the Fallout setting and unlike many here, I just can't seem to wrap my head around the concept of Fallout 3's story "sucking." Honestly I think it's about the same quality as New Vegas, just a bit less fleshed-out... but this was Bethesda's first Fallout game, and as I'm playing Fallout 1 at the moment I can see where there was room for improvement there, too.

I pretty much enjoy the Fallout series as a whole, but the two most recent titles are my favorites because of the free-roaming, open-world aspect as well as the gameplay. New Vegas was definitely better than 3 in the gameplay department, not gonna lie, but 3 was passable IMO. From the stuff shown off at E3, it's looking like despite some misgivings I might have about the new dialogue system, Fallout 4 will be my new favorite game in the series.