Fallout 3 or New Vegas?

[Triratna]

I seen better Vegas graphical on GTA.San Andreas and on the up coming GTA.V trailer.

 

This is washington DC map.

 

This is the IRL metro on 2008: http://www.joystiq.com/screenshots/fallout-3-metro-ads/1083945/#/6

 

Fallout.3 can very spectacular depends on how you manage their plugins, settings, difficulty, realism, real life brands, music, Navigations, private audio visual user interfacing and the creatures switch. Like Switching all CRRadroaches into Xenomorph Aliens and the Zergling swarm keeps the game interesting.

 

I'm making more hot stuff to F3 world, private stuff this.

[ElvenScoundrel]

I think Fallout 3 is utter shit. From the very beginning I'm FORCED to leave the Vault, because even though it's an RPG, I don't have the choice of choosing another reason to exit the Vault than 'daddy issues lol'. Everything about the game feels forced for the sake of bringing oldies into it: Supermutants in DC, Enclave stomping around, etc. I do really love the Urban Decay vibe of Fallout 3, which is different from the usual DESERT EVERYWHERE feel of FO 1, 2, and NV, but it's just an odd game, really.

 

NV is much better all around. Caesar has some very real motivations, the NCR are not the good guys as most people seem to believe, etc. All of the factions have neat little backgrounds which let you explore them in depth, which is one of the things that drew me towards liking NV. It feels like FO 1 and 2, which is very appreciated.

 

Of course, with Tale of Two Wastelands I can play BOTH games in NV's engine, so it's win/win. I can simply ignore FO3's abysmal story and go around exploring DC and whathaveyou with my Cowboy Repeater and Cass.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

You're forced to leave the Vault in 1 and forced to leave the village in 2. So how is 3 any different?

 

The Enclave makes perfect sense; it would be stupid to assume that they were located ONLY on the west coast. However, I do hate their vertibird and armor designs, something that NV corrected with the armor but seriously failed on the vertibird front.

 

I hated the super mutants being in 3; it may have made some sense that other locations in the US would have the FEV and result in mutations, but something even more stupid than Gen 2's? Fuck that.

 

I'll give NV one other thing; atleast you can join "the bad guys", something that has been seriously lacking in Fallout games to date. Yes, 1 had a special ending in which you joined the Master and helped sack Vault 13... and that was about it. Fallout 2 and 3 really should have given you the option to join the Encalve, especially 3; I mean, you can do the bidding of Eden, poison the water supply and yet, in the end, all you get with Broken Steel is water that's deadly and little else because "We blew up Raven Rock with our big robot while you were in a coma! Huzzah and hurray for all!"

 

The one thing that really bugged the fuck out of me in 3 was the fact that you had to use metros when it comes to DC because all the buildings both survived and were also ruined just enough to act as massive "fuck you" barriers.

[ElvenScoundrel]

Yes, but in FO1 and 2, it was justified. In FO1 there's an emergency and YOU'RE sent to correct this problem, and in FO2 there's also an emergency and you have to embark on this quest to save Arroyo. In FO3, it's pretty much 'UR DAD LEFT GO FOLLOW HIM DONT ASK JST DO IT LOL' which is to be honest fairly idiotic.

 

The Enclave makes more sense if in the beginning they were located in DC, because after all, they're the remnants of the Pre-War Government and the seat of power IS in DC. However, their main base of operations was blown up in FO2, and only stragglers should've survived. I mean, even the President was in the Oil Rig!

 

I don't mind the metros, I just wished it was optional, like actual dungeons instead of obligatory detours. It makes traveling the urban side of DC a goddamn clusterfuck.

 

One of my biggest complaints is that for being the capital of the US, I sort of expected more, but it was fairly... dull. I mean, Vault-tec's HQ is located here, so I sort of expected a really neat Vault you could explore that was inhabited by VT's employees, or the offices themselves to be a bit more interesting, but it was fairly meh.

[Mickster]

Never finished FNV main quest or any of the DLC, not because they are uninteresting but in these games (sandbox titles that let you go anywhere and do anything) I get sidetracked so easily and end up doing a lot of side quests and hitting a very high level way before I'm in the thick of the main quest.

 

I prefer FNV because gameplay and story is better. Exploration felt better in FO3 for me though.

[ChancellorKremlin]

Drunk.. I'm jealous! Later...

 

For a player sure' date=' but not for a character that has no connection to the other characters in FO1 and FO2. Even FO2, as you explain it, had a personal connection in game to FO1. FONV has no such connection to any preceding game. Some of the factions are the same and share motivations, I'll take you at your word, but it's not a sequel the way a book or movie sequel is, where the connections are obvious -- and again, compelling for the character.[/quote']

 

Urgh... and a horrible hangover now.

 

Actually, I don't see how the connections are *not* obvious, it is all there. Damn, Cass is Cassidy's daugther! The only way it could be closer connected is if they made the Chosen One the courier's father or something, which for all we know could well be!

 

I disagree. Having NOT played FO1 or FO2' date=' the factions and their motivations in FO3 made "perfect sense." Their motivations and history were what FO3 said they were, and they were internally consistent for the most part. As a player, they only don't make sense if they're inconsistent with the experiences you had in FO1 and FO2. I had no such experiences, so no inconsistency. [/quote']

 

Pride, I respect your opinion, but even not having the FO1-FO2 experience you have to be hard pressed to say they made sense. So I don't keep repeating myself, here is a concise, exhaustive and detailed summary of what I think is wrong with FO3. It's a review written by me years ago, and posted on both NMA and Bethsoft forums:

 

 

OK, so after having my previous thread pretty much hijacked and locked for trolling, flame baiting and flaming, I am going to have to ask, if you agree with the review, good, if you don't, fair enough, but please, pretty please, either defend it or criticise constructively and most importantly, in a civil manner. No personal attacks or anything that would result in the thread being locked again.

 

So, for a re-cap of what I feel is relevant, the actual review will be my fist post. My second post will include the relavant discussion before the thread was hijacked. I know this is double posting, but its much easier to view this way.

 

 

Notes: Text Wall. Spoilers. Exercise caution. Without protective eye wear, EXTREME eye damage could result.

 

Notes: Edited. Added some missing points (which will be marked with a * * and rephrased some sentences for greater clarity)

 

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

 

 

Introduction

 

Well then, having completed Fallout 3 today, I felt compelled to write my afterthoughts on it. A lot of what I will say has probably already been said, but some of it I feel is new. Everything I noticed or thought worth mentioning as I progressed throughout the game has been noted, so most of these observations are in chronological order.

 

Also, some background info on myself people may or may not find useful. I'm 20 years old, and I am both an avid PC gamer, and a fan of the original Fallout series. (One and Two, the second being my favourite) I'm also a regular at NMA. To some here, that bit of information is probably enough to label me a Fallout 3 hater. That is not the case. Being a middle aged gamer, being old enough to appreciate content and not be swayed by eye-candy , but not old enough to disregard the mindless, yet fun aspects of games, I think this puts me in an interesting position to judge Fallout 3 as impartially as I hope to. I will leave the final judgement up to you however.

 

The layout of my little review is based on the classic western film, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. As noticed, it has been preceded by an introduction, and will be succeeded by a conclusion. So, without further ado, I give you, my thoughts on Fallout 3.

 

 

The Good

 

Art:

Something that struck me as soon as I started the game, and by that I mean from windows, not actually playing it yet, was the art. The slides on the menu were very very appealing. Some of it was random, some of it was informative, and some of it was mildly humorous. In game, however, this was taken a step further with all the 50's references, with actual vehicles, houses, and a decent '50's atmosphere. Kudos to the art team. They did a good job at immersing me into a 50's world, both graphically, and through writing on random newspapers, billboards and so on.

 

While the radio stations I think were out of place, the 20's-50's music also added to the retro atmosphere. Its nice being immersed in something not purely graphical.

 

Effort:

Its easy to see a lot of effort was put into this game. Having taken four years, I would expect so. For starters, the game is probably bigger than both Fallout 1 and 2 combined, although set in a smaller region. There are many more maps, many more locations, a bigger world to explore, and a bigger diversity of areas. Effort was definitely put into world design, that's for sure.

 

There are also many side quests, some of them pointless, *and by pointless I mean not related to the main story, which I think is nice as there is a lot to do in the wasteland not regarding your own story, which can wait for quite a bit before you even start tackling it* There are many funny sidequest, (Lug-Nut and the Naughty Nightwear comes to mind), but some of them are just boring dungeon crawls. Still, a lot of variety, freedom of exploration and so on. Good score overall. *As explained latter though, all this inspiration and effort which was put into the sidequests seems lacking in the main quest.*

 

Pre-War Organisations and Vaults:

A good direction I think Bethesda took with Fallout 3 was its depiction of pre-war organisations. From RobCo to Nuka-Cola, to Corvega and Lob Enterprises, and not to forget the devious Vault Tec, Fallout 3 expanded on the Fallout world of greedy and immoral corporations, with many of their headquarters based where the game is set. Score for Bethesda.

 

Also, I liked the addition of extra Vaults in Fallout 3. Fallout would not be Fallout without Vaults. Still, I wished there were at least some that survived somehow, either through being a control vault or one where the experiments did not result in the demise of all the vault's population.

 

Combat:

Its not quite an FPS, yet its not an RPG either. VAT's was born through the need to reconcile both of these. For somebody playing on a low end PC, VAT's was definitely a life saver when it came to small crowded spaces with lots of enemies and a particularly annoying FPS (Frames per second) score. I only played from first person perspective, and thought it was a passable shooter experience. VAT's made the game interesting when needing to quickly dispatch dangerous enemies, and unlike many of my NMA counterparts, the exploding heads did not bother me too much, I actually enjoyed seeing it every time. I only wish it happened a little less often. With a luck of two and constantly scoring criticals, it did have me wonder.

 

Weapons:

I liked the variety of weapons in Fallout 3. Many of the original series weapons were replaced or absent altogether, but made up for with Chinese weaponry, custom based weapons (awesome by the way), large variety of grenades and mines and unique weapons. Also, melee characters were well rewarded.

 

Communism and the Chinese:

Another interesting direction Beth took. I liked the large numbers of Chinese spies, remnants, Vault 112 simulation commandos, and so on. Their weaponry also made sense seeing as they had a large presence in the D.C area. I think Communism was well explored in Fallout 3, something I always felt was missing in the original series, giving the paranoia of the 50's and McCartheism. Liberty Prime's taunts were priceless.

 

*Visual Representations*

By this I mean ''One picture is worth a thousand words''. While at the time, the original Fallout's did not have todays graphics for such beautiful environments, they had to do with text and writing to convey certain messages. A good example was exiting the cave in Fallout 1, ''You see some natural light to the far side of the cave. For the first time in your life, you are staring at the outside world'' - or something like that. Given the importance of writing and dialogue, the originals pulled this off very well. Indeed, it was a trademark of the series.

 

Fallout 3, on the other hand, having at its disposal a much more beautiful graphical engine, can afford to use its engine to show us what words cannot (some times anyway). Some perfect examples, where I think Fallout 3 did this very well were:

 

Upon leaving Vault 101 for the first time. The brigthness of the sun, the sprawling and devastated landscape before you, the sign saying ''Scenic Point'' and the music, this added to the atmosphere.

 

The random skeletons scattered throughout the wastes. The one cut in half after trying to jump a car with a motorbike, the two lovers on the car bonnet with whiskey bottles on the ground somewhere on the wasteland, the skeletons of children clutching teddybears in houses, together with their parents remains on the beds, etc.

 

I also thought one particular highlight was the house in DC where you find a working Mr Handy which actually does its usual tasks without realising its masters have long gone. Beth explicitly awknowledged the poem ''There Will Come Soft Rains'', and for this I praise them. My Handy reciting a poem to a long dead child brought chills down my back. Its also good to see some relevant literary work referenced in game. Beth did their homework on this one.

 

For those not aware, here is the poem: http://www.jerrywbrown.com/datafile/datafi...ns_Bradbury.pdf (Definitely worth a read if you are into the whole post-apocalyptic feel)

 

There is also a short film related to the poem (read the poem first, as the short film diverges from the poem in some ways, but it still a good watch)

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=tKJ77w6uQCg

 

Also, another good story, which may have been intentionally (or not) referenced with Dr.Braun in Vault 112. Its about a gigantic artificial intelligence that is self aware and tortures the last remaining humans on the planet for its own pleasure. Its called ''I have no mouth and I must scream'' and can be found here: http://data.antonindanek.cz/Harlan%20Ellis...st%20scream.pdf

 

Anyway, back to the review, and not for the things I think Beth needs improvements.

 

 

The Bad

 

Megaton Crater and Bomb:

One of the first things that struck me as I entered this strange settlement; the story of its creation. People think its located on a crater because of the bomb dropping, (which is strange, seeing as unexploded bombs do not create craters) but it was actually because of a plane crash there. (Parts of aircraft are indeed used to make the walls of the settlement.

 

Well, I have news for the level designer. Plane crashes DO NOT result in massive craters. Level design is still something I am going to expand on here, so bear with me. More to come.

 

Vaults:

For me, the eeriest vault was vault 92. No survivors, an interesting love story, deserted yet monster infested place, eery (may have something to do with the fact I have seen White Noise) and ironic as I re-entered it to find the music book for Agatha whilst listening to her playing the violin over the radio, just as the original vault-dwellers would have when they were being subjected to white-noise.

 

It worked for me because it was believable. The other vaults record experimentation beginning almost immediately after the vaults were closed, and then the immediate failures that followed. While I was scared [censored]less in Vault 106 due to the hallucinations, having survivors there broke the spell for me. Same applies to all other vaults. How the hell does Gary reproduce? How did the survivors survive in all those vaults seeing as the people to maintain them were either mutated/insane/dead, for a good 200 years? Assuming the only ones left were the test subjects and all the technicians, overseers, scientists and technics were all dead, how did food, water and heat production continue? Their continued existence just doen't make much sense, as eery as their presence may be.

 

Size of settlements:

OK, so I was quite pleased with the sheer number of settlements in Fallout 3, far greater than in the other series. However, one important caveat, cities of 3-8 inhabitants are NOT settlements. They are at best isolated groups of dwellings, tribes or neighbourhoods. Rivet City is the closest we have to a city, and Megaton the closest to a town. The rest of these 'towns' cannot be called such. How they defend themselves, with their populations of 5-6 against the hundreds of raiders and super mutants that roam the capital wasteland is beyond me. Frankly, Beth dropped the ball with the civilian population of this wasteland. Creating some true ''cities'' would not have been much to ask for, giving the towns and cities in the original Fallout series. Not to mention the state of these 'settlements' is rather dilapidated for places that have existed for almost 200 years. Ever think of cleaning your street buddy? Get some of those rocks out of the way....

 

Watered down factions, or nonsensical ones:

OK, now this one is important. Firstly, why did Beth feel the need to recycle the original Fallout factions, giving the distance between where the original Fallout's are set and where Fallout 3 is? The Brotherhood have been reduced to a generical 'good guys' faction, while the Enclave to the stereotypical 'bad guys'. The ''Good Fight'' - really? Do we have to have this little epic battle between monsters and knights? Why is there always an epic battle between clearly defined 'Good' and clearly defined 'Evil'. Why not a choice between the lesser of two evils? In Fallout one, the Brotherhood of Steel were no heroes, they were just a military cult selfishly devoted to preserving technology without any thought towards others. The fact their aim of destroying the mutants coincided with yours was a coincidence at best.

 

I am very happy Beth had the decency to create the Outcasts as at least a nod to the original Brotherhood and their selfish intentions. The raiders are another nonsensical faction. They make sense insofar as they [censored], pillage and plunder, but not in that they are psychotic ruthless maniacs with a fetish for rotten flesh and senseless gore.

 

Seriously, raiders in the original Fallout's had reasons. They terrorised, pillaged, exerted pressure for NCR, and so on. In Fallout 3 they just seem like they were added in there as the 'medium class' enemies to occupy the wastelands and buildings. Also, who the hell likes being around rotting corpses? Are they also satanists by any chance? Their whole attitude to bodies, torture, decomposition and so on makes no sense whatsoever.

 

Vampires and Zombies. I will expand on this later, but the whole Vampire theme just sounds like an attempt to broaden the target demographic, and feral ghouls (read zombies) were a cheap shot to add yet another filler enemy, this time to the many dungeonesque metro tunnels in the capital, not to mention to make the game a little more ''survivor-horror'' style. Not cool Beth, not cool.

 

Level Cap/Forced Ending:

Seriously, what the hell? This was one of my biggest gripes with Fallout 1, I was exhilarated with Fallout 2 for doing away with both, and then Fallout 3 comes and reinstates them? I was having fun exploring the wasteland and avoiding the main quest till I hit this brick wall called level 20, and then having to finish the game and not being able to play afterwards.

 

I should be able to get all perks and experience point and play God after the main quest is finished if I want to. I should not be limited, when it would be so easy to make it continue. An official Beth statement to this is that ''All games end''. Well, yes, games do end. But if you notice, some allow you to play after you end them, the predecessor being one of them. The ones that allow freeform play afterwards tend to be the good ones too. Bad move.

 

Dubious morals/priorities/hypocrisy:

Right, this one is not directly pointed at Beth, more towards the United States and its ridiculous rating system. But Beth also has some blame for not having the balls to do what its forebears did, and for creating the publicity that would have made it impossible to do otherwise.

 

Firstly, we have exploding heads, gore, albeit in a cartoon fashion, tortured victims hanging from walls, organs splattered on the floors, quartered and mutilated people, drugs (under different names), drug use, alcohol, slavery, basically all that is wrong and bad and all that as seen by mainstream society, and ONE person in the entire wasteland to have 'sex' with?

 

What the hell? You are telling me that its okay to have violence, swearing (including by children!), horror, torture, alcohol and drug use, but not sex in a game? The most natural act of the above, but that is not allowed? What kind of society do we live in? The prostitute in Megaton was the only one you can 'sleep' with, and I mean that in a literal sense as all you do is go to the same bed she does and sleep, not 'sleep', but click sleep and sleep. No special fade out, just the same sleep fade out as usual. I spoke to many NPC's in the game where it was alluded you would get some, only for a dead-end response. It was almost as if these were originally women you could sleep with and at the last moment Beth decided to pull the plug on it. Seriously, giving the depravity of the previous games, I'm not impressed with Beth on this one.

 

Also, a strange thing I noticed in Little Lamplight. Princess has a crush on McCready because he punched her in the face? Is that even possible amongst children? It seems to me like an adult emotion of submission, humiliation with sexual undertones that is somehow present in a a child. Strange.

 

Missed Opportunities:

To be specific, vehicles. The original Fallout's had me bugged on this one, with Fallout 2 partially correcting it with the Car you can get, although even then its pretty rare. I was happy with Fallout Tactics for introducing vehicles on a scale imaginable for a post-apocalyptic wasteland, only to have Fallout 3 revert to the pedestrian only wasteland.

 

Seriously, its been 200 years, and not one mechanic can fix a car or a motorbike? You are telling me the Enclave can devise power armour and keep vertibirds repaired and in flight, but not have one single jeep or hummer? Brotherhood of Steel can get a 30 meter robot back in action, but not fix a car? Hmmn...

 

Level Design:

While most of the levels designed in Fallout 3 were of good standard, one particular location stood out to me like a sore thumb. Raven Rock. Seriously, who the hell came up with that?

 

Its the most disjointed, non-sensical layout for a continuity of government bunker I have ever seen. Had the enclave built it themselves maybe I would be more willing to believe it, but it was a pre-war location to which the Enclave migrated to. Where are all the barracks, mess halls, broadcasting rooms, control facilities, relaxation areas and so on expected of such a building? Cell blocks, a very very very simple and ugly 'war room', living quarters and strange corridor layouts do not characterise military bunkers. I suggest they look up what fallout and nuclear bunkers actually look like.

 

Prologue � Epilogue � Narration

OK, so the intro was mediocre, with a very cheesy ending. It was longer than Fallout's one and two, but shorter than tactics, which while good, went on for too long. I also felt Fallout 3's ending went on for too long, and that the narration was a bit forced. But what particularly annoyed me was the ''Because in vault 101, no one ever enters. And NO ONE, EVER LEAVES!''

 

I mean, c'mon, how cheesy is that? The little music crescendo with the narration also didn't help. The fact that clearly your father entered the vault and then left, followed by you, makes this rather pointless.

 

The epilogue is even worse. A slideshow that screams 'rushed through development' comes through, and you are left none the wiser about how your actions affected the wasteland. I abolished slavery, gave the Union the memorial, disbanded the raiders, wrote a book, destroyed the enclave, disarmed a bomb, not to mention countless other feats, and the game doesn't even acknowledge any of that? What was the point? I wanted to see how these actions affected the world in the long run!

 

C'mon.... Fallout 1 and 2 had between 2-5 different endings for each city and faction, and Fallout 3 ignores all that and concentrates solely on the main quest, which even then is already pretty limited? Seems like laziness to me Beth...

 

 

The Ugly

 

Inconsistencies:

OK, this is probably the main problem with Fallout 3, and its a pretty big problem. Unlike Fallout 1 and 2 that relied on verisimilitude to make the world believable, Fallout 3 really does require suspension of belief to make the plot understandable or acceptable.

 

Firstly, Little Lamplight. This is a town located right next to the super mutant main base, and has been for the past 200 years, and some how they magically hold back the hordes? I mean, REALLY? You are telling me the BoS are having a hard time fighting the ''Good Fight'' (Don't get me started on that one) with power armour, laser weapons, Gatling guns and so on, getting their asses handed to them pretty bad, and a handful of kids with rifles, pistols and a flimsy gate, walking distance away from the main base of the mutant horror, cannot be conquered? You're kidding right? All the more ironic about Little Lamplight is that its the only town with a belieavable system of food and water production, almost like a vault. Yet, the proximity to the mutant base totally nuls that.

 

Secondly, while I think the nod to Lord of the Flies nice, and the story of how all the kids were left behind is particularly interesting, it still doesn't explain how this has been happening for the past 200 years... how are these kids reproducing? Assuming they have children as soon as they are of biological age, which can be as early as 12, then that gives max 4-6 years before the parents are expelled and the babies are cared for by the community. Fallout 3 completely overlooks this discrepancy, I mean, if sex is bad, then imagine under-age sex among children.

 

Radio Stations. A strange idea in a world where people are preoccupied with survival, water, food, and so on, a dispensable luxury. Still, I must admit I enjoy listening to the good old tracks while walking the land. What annoys me is people saying Enclave Radio, and this includes Sara Lyons, is a pre-war recording, when clearly Eden mentions the holocaust, current events, mutants, ghouls, the BoS and so on.

 

Another inconsistency is that of Slavers. As mentioned before, watered down faction? Where are all these slaves? Who buys them? I see no ''cities'' in Fallout 3 employing slaves, they are almost non-existent throughout the game. And somehow there you have it, Paradise Falls, a big slaver central shipping of slaves to imaginary buyers. If you want to include slavery in a game then put the effort to include the nitty gritty aspects of it too, not just the superficial elements.

 

And again. The setting. Does anybody else get the feeling all this is happening like 20 years after the bombs fell? I mean seriously, there is one tree yet to grow back from the ashes, grass is non-existent (bringing into question a plethora of problems which will be addressed further), wooden houses are still intact, shanty towns, not cities, shanty towns, dot the landscape, and people have yet to discover how to get cars to work.

 

I mean, really, 200 years have passed? Previous Fallouts had cities, not burnt out settlements in the middle of rubble, but cities, with clean streets, electricity, newly built housing, walls, plumbing and so on, and the east coast somehow has none of that. How computers in the middle of the wasteland function for 200 years is beyond me. Or that buildings and supermarkets are still stocked despite being in an area where survival is primarily through scavenging (more on this later).

 

Really, this world does not make sense. The roads are great, I really can believe they have been there 200 years. They disappear into the sand, are broken up, they feel like they have been baking under the sun for centuries. Yet, wooden houses do not. They would not last that long. Neither would computers left unattended, with inexplicable power sources. I suspect towns would start to develop and reconstruction would have taken its course. Not to mention farming. All this was present in the previous games. I would have no problem if this was set 10-20 years after the holocaust, but 200, its asking me to believe a little too much.

 

My next point is the economy and survival of these 'settlements' in Fallout 3. Firstly, you cannot tell me they have been living off pre-war packaged food. Food doesn't keep that long, and even if it did, from all that scavenging it would have vanished long ago. Yet they are all still present in shelves on stores throughout the wasteland. Strike one. Then you get no grass, vegetation, or anything of the sort. So there is basically no farming whatsoever in Fallout 3. The hydroponics thing in Rivet City is the closest we have, and I'm somehow supposed to believe it feeds the entire wasteland with vegetables? Strike two. Also, with no vegetation, what do Brahmin live on? Cows eat grass. Mutated cows with two heads and 8 stomachs should supposedly also consume grass. Where is the water? I do not see one purifier or clean river in that wasteland. Heck, would a well have been much to ask for? Yet people inexplicably exist in a desolate world. Strike three. I'm all out of strikes, and yet, there is more.

 

Lets take Fallout 2. You had a settlement that trade medical technology, one that traded gold, one that traded uranium, one that traded electricity, and one that traded fruit, vegetables, and so on. You can see how each of these would link, and how there is a dynamic economy here. Yet, Fallout 3 lacks any of this. There are like 3-5 traders in the whole wasteland, with one guard each, when there are raiders, mutants and god knows what around. Fallout 2, as you approached larger cities with larger caravans, guards had combat armour, laser rifles, mini guns, etc. It was feasible they defend themselves from large threats. Yet the caravans in Fallout 3 seem to do perfectly fine without them in an equally hostile environment. Go figure.

 

Then we have Fort Constantine, with a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, and some random Sat-Com Dish, with micro nuclear launching capabilities, and not one single interested faction other than Talon Company? Where are the Brotherhood Outcasts all over these places? Why doesn't the enclave care about the awesome power of destruction contained within these places? Or the BoS in general? Strange.

 

Dialogue:

Moving on, this is massive problem number two for Fallout 3, dialogue. I can understand people who have not played the previous games, as today's standards for dialogue is generally not high in games, but when you compare Fallout 3's dialogues, they are truly laughable.

 

I will start with a quote from Emil that to me says it all: ''Dialogue was not a battle we wanted to pitch''. That pretty much says it all for me regarding Beth's priorities within the game.

 

Investing in intelligence, charisma and speech have almost no noticeable effect within the game. All you get are chances in dialogue to pass or fail, and some extra lines. For somebody with speech 100 and intelligence 10, I still find myself communicating with others with all the skill and charm of a door knob.

 

A good comparison here is Fallout 2's ending on the oil rig with the biologist, or fallout 1's debate with the master, to Fallout 3's conversation with Eden. The first two involve detailed, logical, rational and intelligent points, based on evidence (sterility for Fallout 1, humanity's ability to evold and adapt in Fallout 2), to discredit your nemesis. Fallout 3's goes more or less like this: ''I will not install the FEV, you know you are right because you know you are right, circular logic, that does not compute, destroy yourself, OK then, buh bye''

 

Voice-Acting is mediocre at best, with only a few exceptions. That is not much Beth's fault, but more the problem of voice-acting every NPC in the game. Fallout 1 and 2 reserved voice-acting for special characters, while Fallout 3, voicing every character, makes them all sound similar, boring, and cheap to be fair. With all the money invested in marketing it does not surprise me voice acting wasn't a strength of the game. Add that to stiff and unimaginative facial expressions by all characters and you have lifeless NPC's. There are very few memorable NPC's in Fallout 3 compared to previous games.

 

Main Quest:

And now for the icing of the cake, the main quest.

 

I will begin at the end, where I think we can all agree it was the worst possible ending in a computer game I have seen for a while. Seriously, you have to sacrifice yourself? Its not bad enough you have been outcast from your vault and have no family or friends, but now you also have to die? A bit too far maybe?

 

Not even that, but the fact Fawkes is perfectly capable of going in there and doing it himself, yet says 'I would not take away your destiny from you''. What the hell? I just saved your ass from captivity for like 200 years and you will now not take away my 'destiny!' ???? Yeah, sure man, I could totally go in there right not and press those buttons, but becaise I DEEM IT YOUR DESTINY TO DIE, im going to let you do it instead. Hmmn, okay.

 

Beth responded to this by claiming NPC's were added after the main plot, so they had to tweak Fawkes by letting you die instead. Ha! I mean, would it not have been easier to just toggle radiation off in the GECK room , which, presumably, is why Fawkes is radiation resistant to begin with? To aid you in that quest? Incompetence? Hmmn... mark my words. I will not surprise me one bit if the next Fallout game, be it a DLC or Fallout 4, has the Lone Wanderer waking up on a bed or medical table after being somehow resuscitated from his radiation induced death, a realization that Fallout 3's ending was truly horrible by its own writers.

 

I actually liked the Giant Robot. I felt it was quite 50's style and reminded me of the Iron Man. However, his 10 minute killing spree in the city was kind of ... cool, but disjointed from the main story. Its like they had big plans for the robot at the beginning of the game and then had to end up be content with a little battle at the end. I don't know. I think there could have been more potential for liberty prime.

 

One thing that annoys me in particular is the recycling of the Fallout 1 and 2 plot. Fallout 2 had already gone some way recycling the plot of Fallout, so when Fallout 3 comes and does it again it kind of is annoying. I mean, by all means, continuity of the franchise ftw, but please, do come up with something that has not already been tried previously.

 

Lastly, Eden's plan is pretty stupid to begin with. He wants to infect the water supply right? To kill off all mutants. Well then, firstly, what is the point of his radio broadcasts? He does realise all its listeners will be dead as soon as they drink the water right?

 

Not to mention, unlike Fallout 2, where the virus was not optional, you inhaled it and died, in Fallout 3 people have to go to the river to drink the water to die. I mean, surely people would see people dying by drinking from the river and refrain from doing so right?

 

I mean it was radiated to start off with, then got clean, then people drink, and once more people die. What is the difference? People have survived thus far without that river, they can continue to do so without the Enclave diseased river.

 

Conclusion

 

Anyway, after a long long review of what feels more like a rant than anything else, I come to conclude this little 'article'. By all standards, this is a good game. Its probably one of the best to have come out in 2008, seeing as each year there are typically 3-6 good games out. So Beth has done pretty well with Fallout 3, as sales clearly indicate. While I enjoyed playing the game, I did not enjoy it as a Fallout sequel. I think this is where mainstream Fallout 3 fans and hardcore fallout fans go their separate ways.

 

While Fallout 3 is a good game, it comes short in all areas that made the fallout series special, such as compelling main quest, intricate and thought out dialogue, re playability value, and believability, or in this case verisimilitude. These were indispensable factors in Fallout's success and cult following, and something Fallout 3 has done away with in the eyes of many NMA'ers. It has, however, concentrated on many areas with were not as essential to the original games, and which perhaps these days has a better return for money. I suspect the target demographic, console gamers, also has something to do with the inevitable watering down of the game. Still, the original Fallouts represent the pinnacle of gaming in some respects, so a watered down version is still bound to be good, just not as good.

 

All in all, its a good game. A very good game. I think we can all agree on that. But I suspect it will be forgotten by its legions of captivated fans long before its predecessors ever will be by those glittering gems of hatred.

 

================================================================================

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[/b]So hows that, am I in the ball park?

 

 

The original article can be found here:

 

http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/955425-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-v2/page__p__13801973#entry13801973

 

Same here. Not only that' date=' I avoided uninteresting sidequests, as I did in FO3. You know what this left for me as a player?

 

Next to nothing.

 

Which is why I've never completed it.[/quote']

 

I suppose if you have no interest whatsoever in the actual main quest, then there is little left to do. For me it was the opposite, I loved doing the sidequests in FO3, hated the main quest, and finished only to say I did so. Never played the game again, didn't even bother with the DLC's.

 

That doesn't make it a good standalone game from a character development standpoint' date=' it just makes it an interesting "meta-game" to a player who's experienced those things.. know what I mean? When I play an RPG, which all of these games claim to be, I am looking to "play a role", meaning, the character should already have wants, needs, desires, motivation, etc. The courier has none of these, beyond revenge. No motivation at all to get involved in the conflict.

[/quote']

 

But isn't that good? The game doesn't force you to be something you don't necessarily want to. After all, roleplaying is about making up a role. I don't see why not having everything handed to you is a bad thing. With the ambiguity left, you can pretty much make your own backstory, as your whim demands. Some days, I'm a nice guy working for the NCR, when I completed the game originally, I was a courier who loved the NCR, what it stood for, and opposed the legion. My next playthrough, I was a tough, sadistic slaver by the name of Crassus Wayne, who is actually a frumentarii by the Legion, and uses the courier system as a spy. Bets are on for who I supported in the end. My current playthrough, I am a whore. I even have a perk and everything. I'm not a courier, I wasn't shot in the end, it was just a trick gone wrong involving some messed up fantasies of being buried alive by the John, and having a gun put in my mouth. It all went horribly wrong, the Johns fled, and I was left for dead in what was supposed to have been a highly sexual encounter with what I was told was a good pay-off.

 

I can do all this precisely BECAUSE I haven't had my past shoved into my face by the developers, but rather I can role play to whatever I want. I don't see that as a bad thing. At all.

 

I see where you're going with this Pride. A few comments from my own experience based on this statement.

 

Yes' date=' at the start of NV you are a blank slate with no motivation but getting Benny back for shooting you, getting the platinum chip back, and completing your delivery. End of list.

 

But there's a catch. In your quest to complete these goals you meet the people of the Mojave. You see and hear about their travails at the hands of the NCR and Legion. You see atrocities the Legion has committed in places like Nipton, Camp Searchlight, Nelson, and other places. Sure, you're given no real reason to support the NCR if you aren't a legacy player. But you are given plenty of reason to oppose the Legion. After all, the courier is a resident of the Mojave so they have in-game motivation to care who ends up in control. Once you kill Benny and deliver the chip to House, you now have to go on with your life. In the Mojave. With the situation between the NCR and Legion all around you.

 

So yeah, the courier DOES have motivation to care about the larger conflict.

[/quote']

 

Indeed. The world is there for you to interact with it and take sides, not just wander around and be like "meh" whatever.

 

The motivation is there' date=' a little, but it's very weak. By comparison, the motivation you're given at the start of FO3 (love it or hate it) is with you throughout almost the entire game. As standalone stories, the FONV story might be better told/written, but the FO3 story itself is much more compelling.

[/quote']

 

It would be, if it weren't so full of plot holes and idiotic inconsistencies. See spoiler above.

 

I will forever maintain that the story of New Vegas is shit and every faction that's not the Brotherhood of Steel can munch on my pale' date=' white ass. The radio is also the most bland, boring shit I have ever heard.

 

Fallout 3 wins in story and motivation.[/quote']

 

Are you on crack or something lol?

 

Fallout 3 wins on story and motivation? Are you for real? It was a horrible, random mish mash of random crap put together, with elements pulled out from the previous series, heavily recycled, they came up with none of their own ideas, the main story is ridiculously stupid. If the damn river is irradiated to begin with and nobody drinks from it, then WHY would they drink from it AFTER Eden poisons it? Again?

 

I haven't made it past 7 in months' date=' and have made it no farther than primm without first TGMing and then cheating the map open -- just to go test some sexout bug somewhere like the cove or strip.. hah.

[/quote']

 

Yeah, these days with all the mods I don't play the whole game again either. My current character is level 6, and I have cheated to get Sunny, Veronica and Cass as followers, without even doing the related quests, just because I want them with me.

 

I must be one of those rare people who actually play NV well past level 20. My current main file is atleast level 30' date=' I'm trying to get to 50 while avoiding the story as best as I can.

 

Which didn't work well since I nuked the Long 15 and Dry Wells and needed a reputation reset with both the NCR and Legion. But I'm not going beyond that.

 

Unless I do another hardcore run because I'm nuts, I don't think I'll ever finish the game again; I did all four paths and one hardcore run, I think that's more than anybody else here. Or anybody else that considers themselves to be somewhat sane.

[/quote']

 

Yeah, I am at level 40 or 50, I can't remember what the cap is. I hate the level cap, so so much. It was a massive gripe for me in FO3. I've played both for Legion and NCR. Never did independent. Played all the DLC's, loved them (except for Dead Money, loved the story, hated the levels) and nuked Legion. Then I got a mod that unlocks both locations (I always wanted to visit both places)

 

FNV is a better game from an artistic and loreminded point of view.

 

However' date=' it is [i']fucking boring[/i]. Aside from Sexout.

 

As a game, FO3 is just more fun, and the atmosphere (as little sense as it makes in the "grand scheme") is much more enjoyable.

 

If I want to play, I play FO3. If I want to fap, I play FNV.

 

I'll give you that. FO3 was a lot more interesting to explore.

 

I think Fallout 3 is utter shit. From the very beginning I'm FORCED to leave the Vault' date=' because even though it's an RPG, I don't have the choice of choosing another reason to exit the Vault than 'daddy issues lol'. Everything about the game feels forced for the sake of bringing oldies into it: Supermutants in DC, Enclave stomping around, etc. I do really love the Urban Decay vibe of Fallout 3, which is different from the usual DESERT EVERYWHERE feel of FO 1, 2, and NV, but it's just an odd game, really.

 

NV is much better all around. Caesar has some very real motivations, the NCR are not the good guys as most people seem to believe, etc. All of the factions have neat little backgrounds which let you explore them in depth, which is one of the things that drew me towards liking NV. It feels like FO 1 and 2, which is very appreciated.

 

Of course, with Tale of Two Wastelands I can play BOTH games in NV's engine, so it's win/win. I can simply ignore FO3's abysmal story and go around exploring DC and whathaveyou with my Cowboy Repeater and Cass.

[/quote']

 

I concur whole heartedly with these statements.

 

You're forced to leave the Vault in 1 and forced to leave the village in 2. So how is 3 any different?

 

The Enclave makes perfect sense; it would be stupid to assume that they were located ONLY on the west coast.

 

The reasoning is slightly better as to WHY you have to do it though. FNV probably has one of the most laissez-faire approaches to a beginning ever. Revenge' date=' plain and simple. Its to the point and elegant. Maybe that'y why a lot of people have trouble following it up.

 

As for the Enclave, it was always the case that their only base of operation was the oil rig, which is why it was paramount to blow it up in FO2. Bethesda just re-used them and then retconned the whole thing. Lazy lazy lazy.

 

I'll give NV one other thing; atleast you can join "the bad guys", something that has been seriously lacking in Fallout games to date. Yes, 1 had a special ending in which you joined the Master and helped sack Vault 13... and that was about it. Fallout 2 and 3 really should have given you the option to join the Encalve, especially 3; I mean, you can do the bidding of Eden, poison the water supply and yet, in the end, all you get with Broken Steel is water that's deadly and little else because "We blew up Raven Rock with our big robot while you were in a coma! Huzzah and hurray for all!"

 

Yeah, I loved that too. Why shouldn't we be allowed to join the bad guys? I think that was inspired, even if the Legion is sadly very under explored. I would really like a legion DLC where you visit their area of control and so forth. It also saddens me a lot that Bethesda has said they will make FO4, because I know for a fact they will ruin it.

[prideslayer]

Actually' date=' I don't see how the connections are *not* obvious, it is all there. Damn, Cass is Cassidy's daugther! The only way it could be closer connected is if they made the Chosen One the courier's father or something, which for all we know could well be!

[/quote']

 

Fair enough. I don't know who Cassidy is.

 

Pride' date=' I respect your opinion, but even not having the FO1-FO2 experience you have to be hard pressed to say they made sense. So I don't keep repeating myself, here is a concise, exhaustive and detailed summary of what I think is wrong with FO3. It's a review written by me years ago, and posted on both NMA and Bethsoft forums:

[/quote']

 

I've read it.. we've had this discussion several times. There were a lot of criticisms there, some I agree with, but almost none actually related to the main plot/story. Many of the criticisms in the other areas are equally true in FONV.

 

But isn't that good? The game doesn't force you to be something you don't necessarily want to. After all' date=' roleplaying is about making up a role.

[/quote']

 

We'll have to disagree here. Role playing is much more about playing a role that's been given to you, not about making it up entirely yourself. In a pen and paper RPG, the newbies "design" their characters. More experienced players let the DM/GM make up characters for them or roll them randomly, because after a while, you learn just how much more fun playing that way is. Your motivations are always your own, and the story is crafted around them.

 

The story is *set* in FONV, so the motivation to see it through must be there for it to be compelling.

 

I don't see why not having everything handed to you is a bad thing. With the ambiguity left, you can pretty much make your own backstory,

 

Of course. The creative freedom the game gives you is great. The story/plot blows.

 

I can do all this precisely BECAUSE I haven't had my past shoved into my face by the developers, but rather I can role play to whatever I want. I don't see that as a bad thing. At all.

 

It's a good thing so long as the game is giving you a reason to move the story forward, no matter what your background (within limits). FONVs story just doesn't do it.

 

If the damn river is irradiated to begin with and nobody drinks from it' date=' then WHY would they drink from it AFTER Eden poisons it? Again?

[/quote']

 

They would drink from it because project purity was a success. The poison is added along with the radiation purification. There's also a big difference between a poison and a virus. People aren't going to take a sip, get the virus, and just fall over DRT as a warning to everyone else. It may take days, weeks, or months to kill you after being infected.

[ChancellorKremlin]

Fair enough. I don't know who Cassidy is.

 

You have no idea what you're missing.

 

I've read it.. we've had this discussion several times. There were a lot of criticisms there' date=' some I agree with, but almost none actually related to the main plot/story. Many of the criticisms in the other areas are equally true in FONV.[/quote']

 

Sorry, I forget. Clearly we have differing views and I will leave it at that, as for the main story thing, see PM. I don't necessarily agree that the criticisms are transferable to FNV, but then again today we have not agreed on much anyways lol.

 

They would drink from it because project purity was a success. The poison is added along with the radiation purification. There's also a big difference between a poison and a virus. People aren't going to take a sip' date=' get the virus, and just fall over DRT as a warning to everyone else. It may take days, weeks, or months to kill you after being infected.

[/quote']

 

And yet, people have thus far existed without the damned river, so there is no reason they would suddenly flock in droves to get to it, especially when people start dying. The'll just be "Oh, great, we can't drink from the river now. Again. I'll just go back to my old well then (which by the way, Bethesda forgot to include. How people get water in the capital wasteland is a mystery to me)

 

Its also very blatantly the exact same plot of FO2, with a different execution.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

It takes something like four or five drinks by the player character to die from the FEV infected water in Broken Steel, so yes, it doesn't kill you outright, or even very quickly. So any deaths caused by it would likely be out in the wasteland away from the water supply or in cities.

 

Most people would either attribute it to the wasteland being a shithole or some kind of communally transferred disease. Nobody would actually suspect the water until it was too late and the Enclave had stormed the wasteland proper, killing off who was left.

 

And really, exactly where is it written in stone that the Enclave were ONLY located on the oil rig in the west coast? Because the leaders fled there when the war happened? That was over a century ago; who says they didn't expand after that, or there were other groups in safe houses located elsewhere? The oil rig may have been their only known base of operations by the Brotherhood (who seemed to have fucking vanished between 1 and 2) and the powers that be on the coast, but that doesn't mean that they were truly the only ones.

 

I don't think it was laziness on Bethesda's part to bring them back, rather it showed that the Enclave was a far bigger force and threat than anybody could have imagined. And even NV is "guilty" of more Enclave, considering that ED-E was sent to Chicago for repairs before heading out to the west coast

[TheoryoftheDead]

Personally(Emphasis!!) I did like Fallout 3 better than new vegas. Reason? Because Fallout 3 had ruins. It just felt a lot more post-Nuclear-Holocaust-ish, if you catch my meaning. I do agree that NV had a better story, but to be perfectly honest, once I've played through a game two or three times, I completely stop caring about the story.

 

Something I love in post-apocalyptic games is to tread around the ruins of civilization, to go from building and building, scavanging and picking up whatever I might find useful.

Doing it in a hole of sand - not so much.

[ElvenScoundrel]

Fallout has always been a different kinda post-apoc scenario: it isn't about trying to survive after bombs have fallen, but living in a world where civilization is rebuilding and getting back to its feet after the catastrophe struck. I don't think I'll ever feel that hardcore post-apoc vibe in Fallout games, since there's a structure to the world. There's gun manufacturers, farmers, brahmin herders, couriers, services like hotels and restaurants, etc. Life in FO is as close to normalcy as it can get for the moment.

 

I do agree that FO3's Wasteland is very beautiful in that eerie yet comfortable urban decay kinda way. The only reason I go back to FO3 is the actual downtown DC, going around the debris and the streets gives me a sense of nostalgia.

[astymma]

I think I may be the only person who loves the "nothing but desert" feel of FONV over the "decayed urban sprawl" of FO3... but, then again, I grew up in Las Vegas. I enjoy exploring the wide open desert spaces under the moonlight more than the rubble strewn streets and alleys of DC. The main thing I didn't like about FONV that I *did* like about FO3 is that New Vegas was a seriously underwhelming representation of Las Vegas while the DC Wasteland was very reminiscent of DC. Heck, you could make a point that there's more content in just the Washington Monument cell than in the whole of the "city" part of New Vegas in both quality and size. FO3 was more immersive out of the box I'd say but modding has made FONV a far better experience for me.

 

I also wanted to address the FONV not being connected to previous Fallout games. That's just incorrect. There's Cass being related to Cassidy. There's the Mean SonofaBitch/Klamath Bob story. Marcus at Jacobstown. Papa Khan being a former disciple of Darion of the New Khans. Jas Wilkins in Sloan whose great-aunt was Rose in Modoc. When you ask No-Bark Noonan about Benny he says he saw a man in a checkered suit running from wanamingos. Bruce Isaac having fled Mr Bishop from New Reno. Heck, I'm sure there are a lot more... like the Classic Pack adding the Vault 13 Canteen (Water Flask).

 

If you haven't played Fallout 1 and 2, you really do not know what you're missing. Excellent RPG's with actual dilemmas leading to actual consequences.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

What I want to know is... WHY THE FUCK AREN'T WANAMINGOS IN THE GAME AS PROPER ENEMIES?!

 

I don't give a shit if they're in mods, they should have been in the game from the start. Instead they bring back the incredibly stupid fire ants, which were a one off mutation in FO3 and even the Yao Guai return in DLC, yet the fucking Wanamingo, one of the more unique enemies in FO2, are shafted.

 

And yes, I'm STILL pissed that the Centaurs don't have two heads and that the Floaters are also AWOL.

[ElvenScoundrel]

Wanamingos were almost extinct by the end of FO2. IIRC, their main next was in the Wanamingo Mine, which you buy in FO2 and wipe clean of Wanamingos. Plus, they were pretty slow, so I don't think they'd spread so far if they were only localized in California. Not much about Wanamingos is known to make an accurate statement though.

[Halstrom]

What I want to know is... WHY THE FUCK AREN'T WANAMINGOS IN THE GAME AS PROPER ENEMIES?!

I killed them all in the summer of 96

[ElvenScoundrel]

What I want to know is... WHY THE FUCK AREN'T WANAMINGOS IN THE GAME AS PROPER ENEMIES?!

I killed them all in the summer of 96

 

What a great summer that was! Wanamingo slayin', Zombie Elvis came back...

[ChancellorKremlin]

Prideslayer and I are in the middle of an epic debate via PM, its quite entertaining, its a shame you aren't all privy to it. Perhaps the two of us will co-author a book sometime and publish it?

 

So far, we've spent hours discussing the pros and cons of FO3 vs FNV, covering such a range of topics as verisimilitude, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the notion that 2+2 = 5 is closer to any real objective truth than 2+2 = popcorn, The Witcher, Mass Effect (1,2 and 3) paedophiles, why bethesda sucks, Halo, lord of the rings, that the FEV is not in fact, as is currently believed, a virus. That morgan freeman makes a better narrator than a six year old, but a six year old comes up with better stories... and a host of other stuff.

 

In fact, the FEV thing is pretty much all we have agreed on all night.

[KainsChylde]

That...is pretty damn awesome.

[prideslayer]

I am so tired. You forgot phased array radars.

[ChancellorKremlin]

Don't you sleep lol? Yes, how could I forget. The list is by no means exhaustive.

[ElvenScoundrel]

EXPOSE THIS DIALOGUE TO US NOW.

 

...Or make a thread and let everyone chime on. Something good can come out of such a clusterfuck.

[ChancellorKremlin]

Uwe Boll got a mention in there too I might add.