Why fallout 3 is different then Fallout 1 and 2

The question I would love to see asked is "What about Fallout 3 isn't different from F1 and F2?" Mutants? Ghouls? BOS? Enclave?

Meh. Fallout 3 is like the retarded stepbrother from the sophisticated cool Fallout 1 older brother and the slightly brain-damaged yet still pretty awesome Fallout 2 middle brother. It's kind of cute, full of fan-service, but like all retarded little brothers doesn't make a whole lot of sense as it goes off into a spastic seizure.
 
DaPinkMadCow said:
But right from begining i knew some things sucked. It was definitly combat, view, lack of realism when it comes to survival stuff, SPECIAL system, the wasteland/travel map, game was unfinished (f2), not very hardcore ect... Damn, lot of problems!
Huh. I seriously think you just described my feelings towards FO3, while thinking of your experiences with the previous games. :wink:
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
Do you feel that the number of occasional quality game have decreased since the 90's?
I'm not sure about that myself but I'm pretty sure that the ratio of good games to crap is much lower.

Trithne said:
Truth be told, I don't like CoH. Well I do, but I really can't get into it properly, because it's too micromanagement based in a real-time game. Great game, but it's practically a real-time Jagged Alliance.
Agreed, I've enjoyed what I've played of them (demos and borrowed copies) but they really need a TB option for those of us who aren't professional RTS gamers.

Thyclaine said:
Just, look at Fallout 3 for what it is. I think it's a great game. Probably the best console game I've ever played. Ever.
You have not played many console games then as it doesn't even show up as a blip on the radar.

Thyclaine said:
The VATS system is pretty cool, though buggy.
Conceptually interesting, maybe, but not cool. It's buggy (someone had previously posted a link to an Oblivion mod which is similiar, predates it, and has all of the same bugs), is overpowered, and cannot be spead up.

Thyclaine said:
The enemies are awe-inspiring and magnificent.
In what way? The only enemy which has any appeal to me are the Murlocks, the rest are stolen from Fallout or stolen from Fallout and morphed into something much more generic looking (super mutants). The AI is crap so that can't possibly be awe-inspiring and magnificent.

Thyclaine said:
If you would simply stop heightening it's bad qualities due to your shattered expectations and start looking at it for what it is, I think you'll at least stop telling those that do like it that it's a horrible piece of shit and to go play Fallout.
Most don't say that the game is a horrible piece of shit, they say that it's a horribly shitty Fallout sequel.

Danilh said:
You do know most of the games played back then(oh i hate to use this vague expression) were the action/arcade games, like mario, 2d shooting, contra, doom , this kind of thing.
Speaking of best console games and genres that have all but disappeared...

DaPinkMadCow said:
Game had to have some of the old problems just to be accepted by the fans.
Examples?
 
Then, there's the fact that Dungeon Keeper 2's first person experience was more intuitive then Fallout 3's combat . . . At least when I hit the bastard Hero, he fights back . . . And doesn't jump off the bridge, or hit the car beside him with a rocket launcher, taking out 3 of his buddies. Good times.

(Espeically the bridge . . . Walking along, all the sudden my compass is red, and something falls past my face! Well, what do you know, a raider.)

But what's magnificiant about the Fallout 3 enemies? . . . Again, i site Dugeon Keeper 2's 3D FPS mode . . . I mean, it's from 1996, isn't it?
 
Well, it seems like OP's idea of a successful game is one that sells millions. So i guess in a way he is kinda right, they wouldn't get a lot of sales because a lot of modern gamers are graphics whores.
 
JayGrey said:
But what's magnificiant about the Fallout 3 enemies? . . . Again, i site Dugeon Keeper 2's 3D FPS mode . . . I mean, it's from 1996, isn't it?
Wolfenstein 3D was quite awesome too. And that was 1992.
 
The argument that turn based combat system games would never sell is false. Final Fantasy and spinoffs is possibly one of the best selling (if not the best selling) JRPG Series of all time and has used a turn based system since the 1st game.



This is speaking strictly from a turn based game point.





In fact, some of the greatest games of all time are actually TB. You know, Civilization, Baldur's Gate Series, Fallout, Final Fantasy 1-6 (I consider 7-8 pretty good, but not on the level of the ones before it), X-Com, etc.





But hey, the OP wouldn't know half of the games I listed, because he's too young to know.
 
Oh deity, I cannot believe I'm about to type this . . .

To some, the first person perspective is more immerisive. I imagine, espeically for those who grew up on pure 3D graphics, as opposed to sprite-based, isometric third-person perspective.
Surely there is more content in Fallout 3, even if it is of poor, poor quality? Art assets, locations, guns, plates, cans, and burt-out buildings, alone.

As far as it being a role playing game . . . Well, err. There's fetch-quests! An inventory . . . of sorts! And pseudo statistics! You even play a role: The sun of the father of the holy purifier! Oh, my. So, I guess it does . . . do 'role-play things'.

And finally, there is a plot, it's just poorly written (not to meantion conceived). It's kinda like the one in Half-Life . . . You. Go. Kill. Guide scientist. Win. Yay. Plot-ish.

I never played Oblivion, so I can't mock it. I can dream though. Nightmares.
 
Oh yeah, because good stories and fast action are total opposites(Max Payne series disprooves that). And complex strategy must come with a good story(X-com had a great setting, but very little story whatsoever)

Since when has UFO: Enemy Unknown the only X-Com game i will ever acknowledge had little story whatsoever?

Compared to F3 even the characters where deep and well thought out. (The ones who see the Irony have played UFO just like me)
 
to be great a game does not need a complicated and deep story.

Jagged Alliance always wa s a pretty funny game cause of some parts of its story and cause the game had many details. From the enemies to the characters and mercenaries you could hire which had many times their own unique character.

For a tourn based game it was awesome. A story has to fitt the game and support the setting. Something which I cant say about Fallout 3 as there are so many holes and the things you have to do in the story so shallow (Searching for my father, a midle aged guy ... you seen him?) that its embarrasing.
 
random234 said:
Since when has UFO: Enemy Unknown the only X-Com game i will ever acknowledge had little story whatsoever?

Compared to F3 even the characters where deep and well thought out. (The ones who see the Irony have played UFO just like me)
I'm sorry, but i can't see any plot in the game except for what you do and the descriptions of the alien stuff, because the only characteristic any soldier has is its name(changeable) and stats, but the game itself doesn't have any story except yours.
 
I love reading all the discussions on this forum, but I think there are points that no one has yet to make:

1) Fallout 1 and 2 were computer games. They never appeared on any console. Now, almost all games are console games. Fallout 3 was made to be a console game. Why? Because that's what sells. Look at what the economy did to a lot of game publishers: they're out on the street because they had a few failures and maybe took a chance or two.

2) Why did so many people abandon computer games? The same reason I did. I loved the depth of lots of old computer games (Darklands was my favorite), but I eventually tired of wondering if the game I'm putting down dollars for would work on my machine, would have some stupid glitch, or basically be such a pain in the ass that I'd abandon it before even playing it.

3) There's a fad for the FPS right now, just like there have been plenty of other fads (including RPGs) in the past. At some point, the industry will shift to something else and we'll see games with a new face.

4) Look at how much time went by between 2 and 3. The face of gaming changed a couple times over, and people played 1 and 2 for so long with nothing new that they mythologized them. I think everyone here agrees that the games were far from perfect, but over time people began to love even the flaws. No matter what Fallout 3 had been, a majority of the people into the originals wouldn't have been satisfied.

I don't mean to burst people's bubbles; when you love something, you tend to forget logic on some points. If we're all going to discuss 1/2 vs. 3 and the future of it all, you have to factor in costs/profits/economy, current trends, consoles, etc.

I welcome any feedback!
 
@ 1) Of course console sells more, it is the mass market. Does that mean FO3 has to be out for consoles too? No. You see, hamburger and fries sells a lot more than refined foods, and that makes the hamburger-selling establishments the most common food establishment, but it does not mean necessarily that you can't profit with other kinds of food, like Filet Mignon. In essence, it doesn't mean you can't profit without following the mass. And i know entertainment is a whole different thing from food, but some PC independent games can still make lots of profit like Mount and Blade.

@ 2) About working on your pc, you could simply look at the game's specs behind the box :) . About glitches, at least they get fixed by patches on PC.

@ 3) Agreed.

@ 4) No, not actually, i found Fallout 1 by 2007 because of the massive hype wave created by the Bethesda PR, and i can assure you that Fallout 1 is a better game than fallout 3. And I'm probably not the only one in this forum that only discovered Fallout this way. Also, could you point out a thread/post/whatever in which a NMA forumer is "mythologizing" the originals so we can debate over facts instead of random conjectures?
 
skinkrawl said:
2) Why did so many people abandon computer games? The same reason I did. I loved the depth of lots of old computer games (Darklands was my favorite), but I eventually tired of wondering if the game I'm putting down dollars for would work on my machine, would have some stupid glitch, or basically be such a pain in the ass that I'd abandon it before even playing it.
Well, that's because there's no morality for publishers and game developers in computer gaming - only form morality that gets promoted by gaming magazines is for gamers (that piracy is bad).
They don't fight against releasing betas as finished products and other frauds committed by game publishers.

How can such industry function normally?

skinkrawl said:
4) Look at how much time went by between 2 and 3. The face of gaming changed a couple times over, and people played 1 and 2 for so long with nothing new that they mythologized them. I think everyone here agrees that the games were far from perfect, but over time people began to love even the flaws.
Not really. I play Fallout a lot and a lot of things that annoyed me before (the game being a bit unfinished, game mechanics being much more unrealistic and random than the original GURPS: Fallout concept, opponents with cheated stats, etc.) still annoy me.

skinkrawl said:
No matter what Fallout 3 had been, a majority of the people into the originals wouldn't have been satisfied.
Frankly, I think that it's quite possible (but more like people not being orgasmic about Fallout 3), but not because people have mythologised Fallout.
The main problem, is that Fallout had very solid story design.

Whole game was interconnected. Mariposa Base, West Tek Research Facility, Powered Armor, Brotherhood of Steel, FEV, Mutants, The Hub, Harold, The Master, Vaults, Atomic Bombs...
It was all connected a part of the greater story and to the major events from the war and from before the war.

I think it would be very hard to achieve such effect again in the same world. Personally, I would prefer a game that would have similar concept as Fallout (isometric view, turn-based, like a PnP game with a competent GM, based on vastly improved SPECIAL) but would happen in a fresh new world.
 
As for your fast food vs filet mignon comparison, I'll grant it, as long as you answer this: Would you pay ten times the price for a different, more niche Fallout 3 than for the console version you got? Because a good filet mignon meal at a restaurant will cost about $40, versus four bucks for a fast food meal. So would you pay $600 for a single game? And would enough other people out there pay that much each to cover a company's costs?

If you also really want to bring computer-based games back into the forefront, make the publishers be more willing to update games easier. I own a mac, and when my registered software has an update available, the computer tells me and downloads it for me. That's the age we now live in, where very few people are going to go find a patch and plug it into a game.

And there were several games I bought where my machine exceeded the specs on the box, but when the game got into my machine, it had terrible lag or wouldn't even load. I know many, many people who experienced something similar and swore off games for their computer.

I think you are also taking a game being mythologized as a derogatory term, but I think it's great. Everyone on here has a passion for the first two games. That passion allows them to overlook some faults because their love of the story and overall sense of the game is so great. There's nothing wrong with being passionate about something; it just means that inevitably, you're going to be disappointed by a future version. If you had only felt so-so about the first two games, you wouldn't really care what F3 was like.

As I said, if you're going to discuss what could be done to make future versions of Fallout a success, you've gotta factor in many elements.
 
skinkrawl said:
As for your fast food vs filet mignon comparison, I'll grant it, as long as you answer this: Would you pay ten times the price for a different, more niche Fallout 3 than for the console version you got? Because a good filet mignon meal at a restaurant will cost about $40, versus four bucks for a fast food meal. So would you pay $600 for a single game? And would enough other people out there pay that much each to cover a company's costs?
Looking at the world of niche strategic games, it would rather be 50-60$ (upper class - very advanced wargames and professional military simulators), not 600$.

skinkrawl said:
I think you are also taking a game being mythologized as a derogatory term, but I think it's great. Everyone on here has a passion for the first two games. That passion allows them to overlook some faults because their love of the story and overall sense of the game is so great. There's nothing wrong with being passionate about something; it just means that inevitably, you're going to be disappointed by a future version. If you had only felt so-so about the first two games, you wouldn't really care what F3 was like.
Why inevitably? So, for example Harry Potter fans were disappointed with every Harry Potter book after the Philosopher's Stone?

That said, I'd prefer if Fallout series would end on Fallout 1, because adding next games is like restarting Harry Potter after the events of Deathly Hallows.
I'd prefer if there was a SPECIAL game with a brand new world instead of Fallout 2.
 
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