Opinion on Fallout 3

[Gunda]

Yes it does matter, if something similar to halo was released as Fallout 3 I would be seriously disappointed. I enjoyed it to answer your other question, I still enjoy it greatly.

50's style tech, in a post WWIII world. The growing in a Vault experiance, followed by a reason to have to leave and explore the wasteland. Deathclaws, and all the radiated animals. Open ended exploration, Brotherhood of Steel. All things that help create the look and feel of a fallout game. Dogmeat is a great bonus.

[Lady Dragonfly]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SupaCat Does it matter if it really is a fallout game or not? The most important thing is that you enjoyed it, right? What makes a Fallout game anyway?

That's a great question for a "true" Fallout fan.

[Tricky]

• Wastelands, endlessly large and completely empty (ding! fast travel)
• Ambient but desolate music tracks
• Some vague clues that it's possible to get nookie somewhere in the form of porn magazines, rubbers, 'bath houses', etc
• More types of guns and melee weapons than you know how to use
• Too little ammunition to satisfy any of them, though only for the first quarter of the game
• Kicking people in their groin
• Shooting people in their groin
• Stabbing people in their groin
• The last three things for animals, children, monsters and robots as well
• Generally, a hideous fashion sense.
• The odd shotgun wedding

[Zlarm]

First 15 hours of fallout were great. Next fifteen not so much. I haven't played either of the originals so I have no idea how they measure up. My biggest problem with F3 is it gets very repetitive really quickly. I'll admit that there are definitely some interesting side quests, but a lot of the dialogue is rather poor. The main storyline is not very engaging. I didn't connect with any characters in the game (except for maybe three dog, who gets a bit repetitive after awhile as well).

At around the 40 hour mark I got a bit tired of going into a familiar building with familiar enemies and killing them with a familiar weapon. I stopped playing after that.

[SupaCat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tricky Too little ammunition to satisfy any of them, though only for the first quarter of the game

That would then propably be my biggest complaint about Fallout 3, I really missed looking around towns and be so happy just to find a rifle that needs to be reloaded after each shot. They gave you a gun way to quick in FO 3.

About the groin thing, does FO 3 have that? I forgot and already uninstalled the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunda The growing in a Vault experiance,

What about Fallout 2?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunda Open ended exploration

What about Fallout 1?

[Gunda]

Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 are what I base my opinion regarding the new one. You counter with no perspective and no new insight. I got Fallout 3 because of how much I liked the first Fallout game. You're quoting my message as if what I put into the response has nothing to do with previous games and it was what I was basing the answers on. None of my answers had anything to do with Fallout3. You asked what makes a good fallout game I answered.

[quote]That would then propably be my biggest complaint about Fallout 3, I really missed looking around towns and be so happy just to find a rifle that needs to be reloaded after each shot. They gave you a gun way to quick in FO 3.[quote]

Fallout 1 & 2 if you took Small arms as a focused Skill you got a gun w/ ammo.... how is it that they give you a gun too early in Fallout 3? Also I have done quite a bit of exploring and found several weapons, boxes of ammo and other things in the towns.

[Kipi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunda Fallout 1 & 2 if you took Small arms as a focused Skill you got a gun w/ ammo.... how is it that they give you a gun too early in Fallout 3? Also I have done quite a bit of exploring and found several weapons, boxes of ammo and other things in the towns.

Yes, they did that in Fallout 1, but not in 2. You don't get any guns before leaving Arroyo, the first you can find is Pipe Rifle in Vic's house in Klamath, if we don't count possible guns from random encounters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SupaCat About the groin thing, does FO 3 have that? I forgot and already uninstalled the game

No groins in FO3. And besides, you can't even aim different body parts with melee, which is real shame. How I lowed to release some pressure by hitting annoying NPC to groins with Super Sledgehammer

Quote:

What about Fallout 1?

Yes, in FO1 as well. Right after you destroy the Millitary Base, and before returning to Vault. The only part of the game without timelimit.

[SupaCat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunda Fallout 1 & 2 if you took Small arms as a focused Skill you got a gun w/ ammo.... how is it that they give you a gun too early in Fallout 3?

Not in Fallout 2, you really had to search to find a decent gun.
I just hate it to leave the vault in FO 3 with a decent armor and gun.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunda You asked what makes a good fallout game I answered.

No, I didn't ask that. I asked: What makes a fallout game? That's a different question.

And yeah, I also hated that they removed aim at body parts with melee. I remember punching the boxer in the groan and he always fell down after the first beating, but then again, who wouldn't?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kipi Yes, in FO1 as well. Right after you destroy the Millitary Base, and before returning to Vault. The only part of the game without timelimit.

Then I apologize.

[scousegit]

I've been playing a PS2 for years and recently got a PS3 with MGS4 which was so so. Bought FIFA/Pro Evo which is normally what i spend most of my time playing and the, a couple of weeks ago I bought Fallout 3. Un-bloody-believable. What a game - truly addicitive and stunning to look at... these newbie eyes are truly boggled and my missus is about to finish with me for never coming to bed until daybreak. Superb!
Maybe I'm just not jaded yet!

[Lady Dragonfly]

Well... It is not exactly Fallout.

Good stuff:

1) Exploration - the best part of F3. Amazing wasteland
2) Atmosphere
3) Highly interactive environment
4) Some quests
5) Repair and lockpicking. Hacking is OK but to a lesser degree (at least it's very easy)
6) Enclave Radio
7) VATS
8) Skill checks (although sometimes they don't make much difference)


Not so good stuff:

1) Some side quests
2) Voiceover
3) Repetitive dungeon crawl
4) Animation
5) Combat (neither turn-based nor decent FPS)
6) Some dialogues
7) Abundant loot
8) Henchmen

Bad stuff:

1) Main quest (except for Tranquility Lane)
2) Some dialogues
3) Writing in general
4) No VATS for melee
5) Easy healing
6) Enemy AI
7) Skill-boosting clothes
8) Bugs

[Lacutis]

I loved Fallout, loved Fallout 2 even more. and i'm sure i will love Fallout 3 even more again. Morrowind was probably one of the best games i ever played, it had an awesome story line/main plot plus a huge range of guild related quests not to mention non guild related ones. Both expansion packs i thought were great and Oblivion was even better, as well as its exp packs. Now i see no reason why bethesda would mess up Fallout 3 after their last two installments were so bloody brilliant. it's my birthday today and my GF is getting me F3 this afternoon and i can't wait.
Anyway, that's my opinion.

[UncleScratchy]

Just finished the main quest, and to my surprise, the entire game. I am glad now that I delayed the main quest just before freeing Fawlks from his cage. I spent the next week of gameplay looking for Bobbleheads and new locations. When I was thoroughly bored with it I finally advanced the main plot only to find it a quick and uneventful ending. I liked pretty much every aspect of the game, it captivated me for three weeks of unending play. There were times I was pissed off at finding my way around DC and all the broken quests and glitches caused by exploring outside the main quest. I suspected it was meant to be a short game when the level ups ended at only 20. Everything followed the classic FO game pattern pretty well and I thought they did a good job adapting repair, lockpicking, sneaking, etc. without making it cheesy (like the old FO games). I could have done with more of the wit and humor of the classic FO games - screwing with jerk NPCs, etc.

Good points:

Choice of shooting styles, Oblivion point and shoot vs VATS. Liked that I could pick off someone at a great distance with a head shot without using VATS.

Repair function was refreshing. Who wants to haul around endless tons of crap only to sell it for caps that won't be spent? I liked the idea of making a really good weapon/armor from a bunch of lousy ones. Cheesy at times (like making better sledges or batons, but overall a good implementation.

Great landscape and terrain, fun to wander and explore.

Decent dialog, but to easy to screw up quests by jumping over the linear plots.

Bad points:

Frustrating travel via the metros in DC. Metro maps and actual locations were poorly related. Spent many frustrating hours trying to find places.

Totally baffled by the radio stations (other than the Enclave and Three Dog) and the power stations. What was that all about? Thought I was onto something important only to realize it was an illusion.

Main quest is way to short and abrupt. Really unbalanced gameplay from that perspective. Get really good at doing somethings only to find out that the ends did not justify the effort. I would have liked better if my efforts to sabotage the Enclave had amounted to anything. Just a lot of meaningless dead ends.

I will probably replay it again in the future as a bad karma character. But I'm bummed, burned out and tired, if not a little dissapointed, for now. I'm afraid, that like FO1 and 2, once you know the layout and plot that replay is pretty much a sham.

[Kipi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by UncleScratchy I will probably replay it again in the future as a bad karma character. But I'm bummed, burned out and tired, if not a little dissapointed, for now. I'm afraid, that like FO1 and 2, once you know the layout and plot that replay is pretty much a sham.

That's true, but even after knowing everything you can from FO2, one still returns to it periodically...

How I see the game is that the game is short if you stick to quests and character developing, but if you just find it fun to explore the world without bothering about level caps and quests, the game is very huge.

[UncleScratchy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kipi How I see the game is that the game is short if you stick to quests and character developing, but if you just find it fun to explore the world without bothering about level caps and quests, the game is very huge.

Exploring the world was fun while I was under the impression that turning on the power to radio towers and such had some point to it but, alas, nothing happens. Just static and maybe a barely intelligible, cryptic and vague SOS signal - but mostly static. I thought I'd at least have a BOS quest to help them fix the giant robot. Stumbling upon random buildings like Chryslus or the Abraxo soap or the packaged food place quickly made me realize that there was nothing special there. I even used the noclip mode to go thru some locked gates and such only to find nothing beyond them - nothing more than red herrings. I feel like the game is only half finished and quite empty inside.

[deadsanta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Dragonfly That's a great question for a "true" Fallout fan.

OK that would be me, I've already posted early in this thread, but I'll give a go as to what makes a "Fallout" title for me.

-RPG. First and foremost it has to be this. To me an RPG means that I have a character that interacts with the world and the world reacts to my choices, I really don't feel there's enough of this in FO3 with a "good" path and a "bad" path that just lead you to the same conclusion. Also, RPG's rely on your characters' statistics to determine what you can and cannot do, something which is fairly absent from this Fallout (FO3 barely notices your stats, checks them, or limits them, especially when it comes to combat).

-Limitations. FO1-2 has them, in the form of restricting your choices based on your initial character creation. You just aren't effective in FO 1-2 as a brawler if you "roll" your character to be expert in guns, and vice-versa. Taking a low intelligence in FO1-2 had an entirely different dialogue throughout the entire game as a character with high Int, ditto Speech skill and Charisma. There were a few things you could do to change this, late in the game, but for the most part, your character felt like a SPECIALized wasteland wanderer, not so much in FO3 where you can have 20 perks and +27 Attribute points by mid-game.

-Difficulty. While I hated getting killed by ants for an hour in the starter dungeon in FO2, the whole game felt balanced towards the difficult in FO1-2, and struggling along with a sharpened spear or a pipegun for the first few hours made you respect the wasteland. Whereas FO3 lets you get a laser pistol almost instantly... for 20 caps :P FO3 also has a much faster levelling curve and the addition of perks every level (as opposed to every 3 levels in the originals) makes your character seem overpowered quickly. FO3 might have a level cap, but you hit it halfway through the game, with the perks that a level 60 character wouldn't have in FO1-2, and I think I never won FO1-2 with a character being more than level 24 anyway (8 perks).

Dialogue depth. FO1-2 had it, FO3 doesn't. It's not just more dialogue either (it was), but it's better dialogue: Discovering your NPC's motivations and backstory, finding hidden plot twists through skill checks, having characters realistically respond to actions and dialogue you choose not just with them but with other NPCs are all hallmarks of the Fallout series that I think FO3 just drops the ball on.

A good plot. FO1-2 both had similar "save the village" plots, but they both felt engaging to me in a way that FO3 just doesn't. I just don't care about vault 101, or my "father" in the same way I cared about Arroyo or Vault 13, probably because of the inane way the main storyline is written in FO3, with terrible plot holes and recycled material from the previous 2 Fallouts: Fallout 3 has water, mutants, brotherhood and enclave in some sort of mashup of the plots of the first two fallouts in what I consider to be not just lazy writing, but boring writing.

Aethetics. This is a toughie, since it tends to be subjective, and it's one place that FO3 actually approaches the previous titles. For me, what makes a Fallout is not just that it is set in a post-apocalyptic milieu, which FO3 pulls off in spades, but that it is a retro-futuristic vision of that landscape, which FO3 is clearly not, or not consistently. One example: FO3 gets the robots right, they look like retro-50's futuristic robots from Lost In Space... but the landscape looks like actual 1950's clapboard houses, and that's just wrong. You need Buckminster Fuller homes of the future there, you need Frank Lloyd Wright taken to the nth degree, or pulp fiction rocket sci-fi accoutrements and it's just missing. There are Popular Science issues from the 1950's that "predict" what this future should look like, and they do a better job explaining what's wrong here than I can, go check em out on google.

Finally, there was much more humor in the Fallout series, sometimes too much according to the diehards, but it was always there and always lively, and that's not here anymore, not enough of it anyway. FO3 is too bleak and trying too hard to be "edgy", it misses the mordant black humor of wasteland life that FO fans came to love, and which you cannot replace by having NPCs just say "**** You!" as every other dialogue option.

I hope that clears it up for you, there's plenty more about Fallout I could say as a fan, but those are the main points for me, you notice I don't care so much about GUI, isometric view or Turn-based, I think you can have an RPG that changes those and still keeps the fallout flavor, I just don't think Beth pulls that off.