Will Fallout 3 be remembered?

Will Fallout 3 be remembered in 10 years' time?


  • Total voters
    896
I originally had a very optimistic and intelligent response here. I changed my mind, so here it is: No, bad games just mysteriously disappear and that's the end of it. So all you are left with is this void, kind of like stubbing your toe really hard only the sensation is in your stomach. It will never really go away since the thing that caused it never existed in the first place. Just call it "Fallout 3" from now on.
 
Can good marketing create long lasting impressions.

Strong marketing can make good sales. Doesnt gurantee long term nostalgia. :P

The nostalgia associated with games cannot be created by marketing. Like in previous posts....only time will tell. And only time can wear out the marketing associated with its sucesses.

:P
 
No, it doesn't make for nostalgia. Although, as I had stated before, nostalgia sort of implies that the memory is positive by proxy. Don't you remember really bad things that happen too? My father just died this week, and I am going through a nasty divorce (which probably explains why I befriended Wooz so damn fast, that and I got so drunk that I don't remember the last week or so) so I am sure I will remember those occurrences. Well, I have no trouble imagining people who just watched their favorite franchise get butchered before their eyes remembering the experience. Look back and smile? Most likely not. Keep it on the front of their mind? Absolutely not. Mention the game though, and watch them shudder, so it is still there.
 
I think it will be remembered, but for the wrong reasons by the wrong people... and anyway everyone of us has a game she/he fondly remembers and it's not easy to explain why to somebody else, it's like art: not only a matter of technique or genius but of inner resonance. For instance I loved Morrowind also for the books I found with their reference to existing books, and I can't possibly hate Bethesda even if they botched a bit: suspension of disbelief is always nice. :wink:
 
Disbelief is not necessarily a word I would use to describe it. I know for a fact that Bethsoft can and has made some solid material, I loved Morrowind too so I am with you there as well. I have followed the company since two days after "Arena" came out, they have made some fascinating progression over the years.

There was an element of criticism that would have happened no matter what (if Black Isle had taken over the Elder Scrolls series you'd hear an equal or greater share of venom from some hard cores there as well), as companies take some or all of their ideals and impose them upon what they do. Well, I like to think that the more reasonable majority on this site (the regulars, not the flamers mind you) are in that boat only on the flipside. It was pretty much two very foreign worlds colliding. There was a lack of continuity in terms of what people here saw as being crucial to Fallout and it's successors in the past. This series holds a very dear place for it's fans and that is always sensitive territory.

Bethesda seems to have changed priorities when they took on this colossal project. When I say "seems", I mean they have flatly admitted it in several interviews. Their comments were plain that they opted more for the visual aspect of this game (which history attests that they did very well on) rather than dialogue and immersion. It has been referred to as a battle they'd rather not fight. Take that however you wish, as that was pretty much as far as they wanted to elaborate. With an RPG, solid story is the foremost priority, lest the whole thing collapse. So their comments genuinely shocked me! It is, however, unfortunately an inevitability that every successful company will one day reach a point of critical mass. Part of me seriously wonders if Bethesda has or will hit that mark VERY soon.

I am one of whatever percentage here who happens to adore their previous work in this genre, and when I look at Fallout 3 I see a lot of potential and initial buildup, but almost every one of those great ideas appear to have just been either stopped abruptly or given a slack finish (great examples being the lackluster treatment of Eden, Autumn and Amata). Not to mention two old favorites: Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel. Two factions who form the cohesion for every game to date deserve the most work. There really was a lot they had to work with, so disappointment was more the word I have found suitable for it. I was actually pretty enthusiastic about the upcoming "Broken Steel" DLC due out in March, but it is disdainful to find that they want to charge for a cog left out by the mechanic (Deliberately?) in the first place.

They pissed on a hornet's nest from the moment they took this project on, and that is how the game will be remembered by a fairly decent sized group of people (I won't make the foolish blunder of saying "majority" or "minority" since I not only do not have figures to back that up, but also the fact that quantity means nothing when discussing quality). In summation for me, I will not claim to hate Bethesda. There are some people who will, however, say otherwise, though most probably already did. So I speak for myself and none other.

By the way, "SHE-FLIES-AWAY", I see you are new too. Welcome!
 
Fallout 3 is dead to me. Gone. Out of my possession, never to be seen again.

Will it have the same diverse and rabid cult fanbase as it's predecessors? I don't think so.
 
Rabid? Yes. But only in the regard one sees exhibited by the HALO fans on Xbox Live voice chat.

I think that we in the community will mostly remember it the way we remember Tictacs, only less so. Personally, I already remember it exactly as I do Oblivion: vaguely, as something meandering and pointless I derived a mild amount of enjoyment from once. Kind of a glossy stand-in for Minesweeper, if you will.

I'm pretty sure that gaming at large (and the sham that game journalism has degenerated into) are going to keep the memory simmering on the back burner for years, first by paying the requisite lip service to the game whenever someone brings it up, and later by coming out of their collective fog and focusing on the flaws. Again, we could draw parallels to a certain other BethSoft property here...
 
Precisely. Every single scrap of something has a rabid fanbase. Remembering, as I explained before, is not tied by exclusivity to "good" or "bad".

I'm glad you brought up HALO, speaking of shitty games that live on forever. See now, I almost did forget that one, but simply because I was spending years deliberately blocking it out. :P It does bring back one fond memory though, I actually threw my copy on the barbecue rather than just throwing it out or trading it.
 
Oh it will be remembered but for different reasons. It will be remembered by myself as a cheap imitation that tried to wow you with pretty pictures and shiny explosions, it will be remembered by others as a groundbreaking "in-depth" role-playing game that exceeded all expectations and blew away its predecessors. When it rains it pours my friend.
 
Romulus' 2nd post above pretty well summed-up exactly how I feel about FO3, even down to being a Morrowind fan.

I do think that honestly, his point regarding the quality of gamer you ask about FO3 is spot-on.
There might be some console gamers here, but for the most part, NMA isn't the hang-out for LiVE nutters, and you'll probably find that that's where the line is by-and-large drawn (the line, that is, between fanatically liking and fanatically disliking FO3).

In my case, FO3 has become something to do when I want a FPS, since the weapons mods add quite a bit to the game in this respect.

I would say that in the long run, even among console gamers (since the modern console gamer's favorite games change very quickly), FO3 will largely be forgotten. It certainly won't be remembered as the great continuation of the FO franchise.
 
Loner

I don't want to be a loner for the sake of being different, but I'm somewhat disappointed in the general disapproval of Fo3. I've played it's predecessors (except tactics) and toyed with several mods after I played these games out. Problem is Fallout 3 is not Fallout, or Fallout 2, it's a completely different game. Do I think Fallout 3 is better? No of course not. But I can honestly say (as an example) I've spent hundreds of hours playing UO on the edge of my seat and loving every min of it. I've also invested hundreds of dollars to play EQ2, WOW, Guild Wars, and other 3D based RPG games without ANY of the suspenseful enjoyment I got from a free UO Shard. This however does not make UO a better game because I know I'd be left alone on the street if I were to make that statement to anyone younger than me (if they even knew what I was talking about). So my elongated point would be, Fallout 3 in my opinion is a wonderful game. I loved Morrowind and Oblivion, and personally I love Fallout 3 more because post-apocalyptic games are simply more interesting to me. I do not however think that it could come close to beating either Fallout or Fallout 2 for simple game play enjoyment. Maybe I'm showing my age, but a painful fact is that we as an older generation will not win a battle to have a game produced to meet our expectations. Personally I would love a fallout2 remake that could incorporate todays PC and console capabilities simply for depth. Leave the gameplay alone! I like god-view! Gimmie a bigger map, more NPCs, more weapons, and different gore and I'll be set for another 6 months. But I know this will not happen via a software company. Perhaps a unified congregation of disgruntled programmers will grant me my wish but it will never make it past being a 3rd party "mod". This being said, I will not forget Fallout 3, I will not refer to it as a disappointment, and I will recommend it to anyone looking for an enjoyable game to play. We can't be caught weezing and ranting that a game is worse than it's 10 year old predecessor because from a technical standpoint we would all be discredited as out of touch with modern gameplay and because we're comparing apples to oranges. I cried when I found out BlackIsle turned it's leaf and I'm a firm believer some of the very BEST simple "enjoyalbe gameplay" died on that day to make way for graphics.

And yes I'm also a DLC sucker and I'll be pre-ordering any other Fallout sequels anyone wishes to produce.
 
Re: Loner

theuglycamel said:
I'm somewhat disappointed in the general disapproval of Fo3.

Do you mean you'd have liked the game to be different so that more people here would have liked it? Or that you'd have liked people to just like it regardless? The first sentiment I think is shared by most here. The other is not useful.
 
Per said:
theuglycamel said:
I'm somewhat disappointed in the general disapproval of Fo3.

Do you mean you'd have liked the game to be different so that more people here would have liked it? Or that you'd have liked people to just like it regardless? The first sentiment I think is shared by most here. The other is not useful.
I don't think people should just like it regardless. Just like no one should like Worms 3d or SFC 3 regardless. But like these two games, I cannot simply say that Fallout 3 is a bad game because it's not as good as previous versions. My opinion is that it is an enjoyable game, not as good as 2 or 1 but I've spent WAY more cash for WAY worse games too. I guess the direction I was trying to go was that software developers are creating games to be sold. They're not checking our forums to find the REAL reason fallout was such a success in the past because, right or wrong, they're not going to "backtrack" to appease us. What made fallout great was the depraved geniuses who created it. Sadly those great minds aren't behind the wheel anymore. Perhaps, just a long shot, but perhaps someone WILL hear our cries. Someone who has the resources to push further fallout development in the "proper" direction. But I don't believe that someone will be Bethesda.
 
I think it will,, I don't think the vast majority of gamers remember, or had heard of Fallout before Fallout 3. Of course hardcore pc gamers had. But that's a small number nowadays.

I thought Fallout 3 could have been better yes, but it wasn't as bad as I was fearing. And playing through it with user mods (which is how Bethesda games post daggerfall should be played), is a fun experience, Wastelander Edition mostly.

Bethesda to me seems just not up to the tasks for their games scope, throw a whole lot of stuff in, but polish nothing. Scripting glitches, awful animation, "interesting" writing, meh voice acting, its like they need at least 5 years per game instead of 2 or 3. And it just comes off half finished. I'm sure Elder Scrolls 5 and Fallout 4 will be the same unfortunately.
 
Mikael Grizzly said:
Simple question, tough answer.

Fallout is famous. It's remembered. It's hailed as a great RPG.

Now, will the third game be remembered? It's my one, personal thought, that keeps me from succumbing to cynism, that it will be forgotten, unlike Fallout 1.

That this mediocre FPS/RPG hybrid will be lost to the sands of time, while the original cRPG remains in memory of gamers world-wide.
If Fallout 1 is so famous how come no magazines or websites ever mention it. I'm pretty sure hardly anyone knew anything about Fallout until Bethesda made the third one.
 
Uh-huh, because the magazines are geared towards 18 year olds with the attention span of a 5 year old.

Even before F3 came out, there were a few lists that had Fallout in their top 10 games of all time, and on IGN both F1 and F2 are on their top 100 list.

Research goes a long way, especially when the gaming industry moves the way it does.
 
Re: Loner

theuglycamel said:
I don't want to be a loner for the sake of being different, but I'm somewhat disappointed in the general disapproval of Fo3. I've played it's predecessors (except tactics) and toyed with several mods after I played these games out. Problem is Fallout 3 is not Fallout, or Fallout 2, it's a completely different game. Do I think Fallout 3 is better? No of course not. But I can honestly say (as an example) I've spent hundreds of hours playing UO on the edge of my seat and loving every min of it. I've also invested hundreds of dollars to play EQ2, WOW, Guild Wars, and other 3D based RPG games without ANY of the suspenseful enjoyment I got from a free UO Shard. This however does not make UO a better game because I know I'd be left alone on the street if I were to make that statement to anyone younger than me (if they even knew what I was talking about). So my elongated point would be, Fallout 3 in my opinion is a wonderful game. I loved Morrowind and Oblivion, and personally I love Fallout 3 more because post-apocalyptic games are simply more interesting to me. I do not however think that it could come close to beating either Fallout or Fallout 2 for simple game play enjoyment. Maybe I'm showing my age, but a painful fact is that we as an older generation will not win a battle to have a game produced to meet our expectations. Personally I would love a fallout2 remake that could incorporate todays PC and console capabilities simply for depth. Leave the gameplay alone! I like god-view! Gimmie a bigger map, more NPCs, more weapons, and different gore and I'll be set for another 6 months. But I know this will not happen via a software company. Perhaps a unified congregation of disgruntled programmers will grant me my wish but it will never make it past being a 3rd party "mod". This being said, I will not forget Fallout 3, I will not refer to it as a disappointment, and I will recommend it to anyone looking for an enjoyable game to play. We can't be caught weezing and ranting that a game is worse than it's 10 year old predecessor because from a technical standpoint we would all be discredited as out of touch with modern gameplay and because we're comparing apples to oranges. I cried when I found out BlackIsle turned it's leaf and I'm a firm believer some of the very BEST simple "enjoyalbe gameplay" died on that day to make way for graphics.

And yes I'm also a DLC sucker and I'll be pre-ordering any other Fallout sequels anyone wishes to produce.

I completely agree with that whole post, after playing Fallout 2 none stop for the past 24 hours I can say without out a doubt Fallout 3 does not really feel like Fallout 1 or 2 (my apologies to anyone I may have offended in past comments), but I can also say Fallout 2 doesn't exactly feel like Fallout 1, the tribal theme gives it a different feeling from the Vault theme from Fallout 1 and 3, but I still think it's the superior game in the franchise. but I still really like Fallout 3 for what it is, a great FPS/RPG game set within one of my favorite settings, A Post Apocalyptic Nuclear Wasteland.

I live in the middle of nowhere and the internet companies are finally getting high speed internet out here so that means I'm gonna spend too much fucking money on DLC, that's another strike against Bethesda . :P
 
I think so. It will by me anyway.

It was my intro to the Fallout universe and one of my favorite games.
It saddens me that so many people around here trash it.
 
Mikael Grizzly said:
We're a Fallout fansite, not Fallout 3 fanboysite.

What, we are not? : o

:>

To the topic: I even can't remember what I have done all the hours long besides that I was walking around from one corner to the other corner.
 
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