Jimme John
First time out of the vault
Do you think that Van Buren (Interplay's Fallout 3) would have been good if they managed to fully realize it?
Would Van Buren have been good had it been fully developed and released?
- Thread starter Jimme John
- Start date
First time out of the vault
PossibleCabbage
Vault 22 Survivor
There was a Podcast recently with Avellone where he talked about some of the ideas and plot twists that Van Buren was supposed to have, and based on that alone I would have to say it would have likely been amazing. Like there was stuff in there I want to steal for tabletop campaigns.
Here's hoping that stuff eventually makes its way into a game InXile makes.
Here's hoping that stuff eventually makes its way into a game InXile makes.
The 3d graphics probably would look horribly outdated by now, unlike the 2d Fo1/2 art, which still looks really good. Story- and quest-wise, I think it would have been at least as good as Fo2, if not better due to more experience with the Fallout setting and tweaks to the existing system.
The Courier
Blain is a pain.
From what was there, it'd likely been pretty good. Though the real-time combat (Which was optional, I think.) was about as functional and fun as Tactics' was-which is not very. Could be remembering that wrong, though. Been a while. I think the 3D visuals were a bit too clean looking for a Fallout game, but that was early stuff, so who knows how the finished product would have looked. Would have been interesting to see Joshua Graham in full villain mode, though.
Real-time combat and this series just does not get along, does it?
Real-time combat and this series just does not get along, does it?
_Antithesis_
First time out of the vault
I think it would've been pretty damned good, though I feel the story, from what I've read, would've been more F2 than F1 in tone, which isn't a good thing, IMO.
Battlecross
Banned
Not if the story remained the same, it sounded pretty terrible to be honest. It had some good elements but Presper wasn't interesting at all nor was his quest to get to the orbital station.
SnapSlav
NMA's local DotA fanatic
What a question... OF COURSE it would've been good!
From all the things I'd read, the tech demo I played, and all the released source code that came out after the entire project was scrapped, I can say without a shadow of a doubt, Van Buren FO3 would have been UTTERLY AMAZING. As for the combat, if it had been JUST the same as what FOT presented, then it would ALSO have been fantastic. The combat in FOT had some issues, but patches worked most of those out, and left it in a state that rivals the best in its turn-based variant, with an exceptional pseudo-real-time mode that most stick to by default that works just as well if not much better, depending on the combat scenario. I always wished for and fantasized about FO2 content and gameplay to be lifted and transplanted into FOT's engine, so the mere thought of FO3 being like that means it would have been truly great.
The story, likewise, had a much more grandiose scale than the resulting FO3 or FONV titles could ever dream of. Sure, Ulysses' aims and objectives would have major repercussions for the region the game inhabits, and indirectly affect much of the rest of the country as a result, but Presper's goals, like the Master and Enclave before him, had global consequences. Stopping Presper was, like the previous games, tantamount to saving the world, unlike FO3's endgame saving a city, or FONV's saving a post-war nation.
Furthermore, I can't imagine that the 3D graphics would have grown any more dated than the 2D graphics of the originals. After all, Quake doesn't look worse than Duke Nukem 3D, and Doom doesn't looks better than the former in any way, despite all of them clearly looking dated by today's standards. Conversely, it's much easier to update polygons for higher resolution than is it to do so with pixels.
So, in short, yes, Van Buren would have been WONDERFUL had it been finished and released.
From all the things I'd read, the tech demo I played, and all the released source code that came out after the entire project was scrapped, I can say without a shadow of a doubt, Van Buren FO3 would have been UTTERLY AMAZING. As for the combat, if it had been JUST the same as what FOT presented, then it would ALSO have been fantastic. The combat in FOT had some issues, but patches worked most of those out, and left it in a state that rivals the best in its turn-based variant, with an exceptional pseudo-real-time mode that most stick to by default that works just as well if not much better, depending on the combat scenario. I always wished for and fantasized about FO2 content and gameplay to be lifted and transplanted into FOT's engine, so the mere thought of FO3 being like that means it would have been truly great.
The story, likewise, had a much more grandiose scale than the resulting FO3 or FONV titles could ever dream of. Sure, Ulysses' aims and objectives would have major repercussions for the region the game inhabits, and indirectly affect much of the rest of the country as a result, but Presper's goals, like the Master and Enclave before him, had global consequences. Stopping Presper was, like the previous games, tantamount to saving the world, unlike FO3's endgame saving a city, or FONV's saving a post-war nation.
Furthermore, I can't imagine that the 3D graphics would have grown any more dated than the 2D graphics of the originals. After all, Quake doesn't look worse than Duke Nukem 3D, and Doom doesn't looks better than the former in any way, despite all of them clearly looking dated by today's standards. Conversely, it's much easier to update polygons for higher resolution than is it to do so with pixels.
So, in short, yes, Van Buren would have been WONDERFUL had it been finished and released.