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Margenal In reply to DeadBilly27 [2011-08-13 16:51:49 +0000 UTC]

Sure you could have seen how New Vegas is a big improvment towards bethesda's work, fallout 3 was a messy sandbox adventure with a plain main quest, New Vegas was a politic war themed wastekland adventure in a completely logic universe.

But sure you could feel the soul of the past fallouts with the crazy wasteland perk, completing what fallout 1/2 were, a perfect balance between violence and dark humour...

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Margenal In reply to devilmaymeow [2011-03-07 23:12:34 +0000 UTC]

depends but.. why not?

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Margenal In reply to Ghoulified [2010-12-12 14:44:00 +0000 UTC]

Well considering the fact you could'nt have the point'n click interface because of the fallout 3 game engine, you miss a lot of roleplay features you could have in fallout1/2 it's true NV could'nt be as great as its ancestors. However the whole universe and quests setting obsidian has created is just enough to prove it's a true RPG, it's unperfect of course, but at least we had teh feeling we were back in time, in the late 90's, in the western wasteland

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Margenal In reply to martym [2010-11-21 15:07:57 +0000 UTC]

Well fallout 1 was a hell of a creepy game because you got all the wasteland horrors in your face, and man the glow music was hell scary, by the way i'm an uterly fan of the Master.
as fallout 1 was about a growing wasteland, fallout 2 was more about its rebirth and expansion so automatically less creepy but far more "humanly disgusting", that's a good evolution, first the struggle for survival then the mankind worst sides come back to life.
The problem is bethesda have'nt made a fallout game, they have made THEIR fallout game with THEIR way of writting and THEIR way of making dead serious games, exit all the background, we make ours. Well as fallout 3 was sold as a sequel, that was a total failure, as terrible as if Kratos has been sent in india for a new god of war game. The proble is Mark Mogan soundtrack was a hell of brillant, but alas does'nt suit with a 3d game as it inclued some ambiant sounds. I think if we want to make a perfect soundtrack for a 3d fallout it has to be a erfect mix between music and ambiant sounds.

A good thing obsidian has shown what is it to make a true RPG, but it's a pity they (as usual) made it buggy with a crappy engine. Bugs and engine, two things casual gamers put as more important than plot and gameplay... what a sad world we live in

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Margenal In reply to anomoo [2010-11-18 14:24:45 +0000 UTC]

Hmhm i get your point and don't want to criticize you if you got pleasure with fallout 3, of course i'm an 25years old "old timer" and i wear this badge with no shame, it's not a matter of old games, it's a matter of quality.

Honnestly when i told fallout 3 was soulless i was a bit harsh, but it's what a rant is about. However let me explain shortly the reasons who let me qualifying fallout 3 in this way.

First of all fallout 3 Washington was cutted from any part of the wasteland, no information, no factions, no people from the neighborhoods, nothing, justsmall settlements with no link between them. Most of all i did'nt felt any kind of logic in them, i mean even if we are in a warzone why don't people gather in big places? Why don't they make militias, try to expand, I have'nt seen any kind of culture, no sign of governement or anything looking like this, any settlement or faction are purely isolated between them. So yeah it's easy to feel alone, especially when you're "artificially" isolated like bethesda has done.

Most of all my actions apart from the main quest have no consequences, i can slay, kill maim anyone, i'll see nothing different in people's behaviour towards me, even if i wear a bloody raider armour, woohoo. I mostly had the impression to live in a bland universe with no choice than looking for my father and fix the purity project. And talk about this project: a bible inspired desire to give pure water (well that's nice) where you save the only universe you can see under the look of thomas jefferson. Well when i think in fallout 2 i had to kill the president of USA in person to save the world, this evangelical plot is kinda different. Not i despise religion, but as fallout is more the kind to say "god is dead, man is as evil as always, you're screwed but have to save us..." Well the spirit gap is kinda huge.

In other ways the game was really politically correct, no sex, a few drugs, and few rock'n roll because except moira brown, the bottle of whisky in a church and the naughty underwear, tell me what was funny? Also the game was easy as hell, no big threat, i could slaughter a mutie in very hard with a crappy hunting rifle, an man, fat guy... it's a "press a to win" weapon, honnestly having it at the begining of the game? And as far as i remember, bad guys were human after all, the Master wanted to give peace, muties believed in his dream or went in peace in small cities with hman and ghouls, raiders also were human with fears (the one in the vault 15 with his dog) and what do we have? Dumb man eaters who fight for no reason and mercenaries who hunt you fo no reason (maybe tenpenny, but what's the point?) There is no grey, no shade, only "good fight" with epic music in my ears.

So yes some points were cruel and harsh, the vaults were terrific some situations were disturbing, but that's all, no couterpart, you can solve some of course but without consequences at the end, what's the point? We have the enclave, oh yes the enclave, you immediately know at the beginning of the game they will come it like a gigantic spoiler with "BAD GUYS WILL COME TO KEEL YOU" when you come out from the vault, and for what? Excuse me but the threat was nothing but a parody, contaminating the tidal basin? Man they outnumber the brotherhood, have vertipters, top notch technology, have a satellite canon and the only thing they have done was getting killed by a one man army in their base (i slaughtered them in a leather armor, please...) and taking a last stand against a goldorak... ahem

To introduce New Vegas, yes you are a bloke with two bullet holes in the head, and why not? Fallout was'nt made to be epic, in any fallout game you start naked in desert with only a gun (it was a spear in fallout 2) and a quest. You're only another bloke in a sh*t hole and it's up to you to change, and changing what...
New Vegas universe is clearer yes, more colorful with blue sky and deathclaws or shelled radscorpions to welcome you when you don't listen people's advices. To your west the NCR an expanding millitary democracy (let's call that a disguised dictacture) wanting to unify the western wasteland, to you east the Legion of Caesar, a ruthless slaver faction wanting to civilisating the wasteland into a new "pax romana" by war and slavery, in the middle mr. House the master of New Vegas, planning to make his city the new centre of a new world. And the hoover dam, the meeting point, the one who takes it will expand. Three main factions, three dreams of a better world, an incoming clash.

and what do we have here? Context, western wasteland, grey factions, consequences.

Your world is linked to the wasteland, as anyone you could meet, as any place you visit, anybody has its story and most of all, their existence has a meaning. Killing one of them will make you hated in the community, helping will maybe grant you with a smile. You're an unknown guy after all noone will care if you disappear.
Do i complain about no moral ambiguity? Human kind is ambiguous if New Vegas is less gritty than Fallout 3 it's only in appearance, any faction has its wrong sides, civilisation slowly come back but barbarism is never far away: slavery, hidden cannibalism, hypocrisy, plots for power, paranoïa, it's less "in your face" than fallout 3 but more realist, insiduous. Where there is a future ther is no despair, but what kind of future would you want to offer? Agressive democracy? Slavery? Robotic autocracy? Each choice has its consequences, it's up to you to make the less bad. So yes, the main quest was short by itself, and the consequences more enjoying than the whole ending, but the secondary quests curiously are as much as important because in your mind you know if you don't do a thing something bad will occur.

Most of all, the fallout 3 engine was ever old when it came out, so New vegas had a terrible challenge to sell a game with a such old engine. New Vegas is different from Fallout 3 because this one was different from Fallout 1/2. Bethesda has almost cutted all the ties with Black Isle vision to make their own fallout, but where fallout 3 was for adventure, New Vegas is for Roleplay...

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anomoo In reply to Margenal [2010-11-18 23:09:20 +0000 UTC]

I understand, and i actually did play the older fallout's as well aha, I'm 19 not that much younger but it certainly wasn't my age.

To me the sort of lack of connection made a bit of sense, i understand where your coming from though, the People of the Capital wasteland were very, very much out for themselves but thus is human nature so that's why i don't find it exactly unusual. Because the Capital wasteland was so much harder hit then the west there are a lot of places which are over-run with radiation and super mutants that's why i think you don't see a lot of smaller settlements, for Example places like Big Town, there's no government because people are struggling just enough as it is trying to survive, in those conditions isolation isn't abnormal, but you do have factions like Talon Company and Reily's Rangers.

Really? I found i did a lot of actions apart from the main quest that affected a lot of things, and the karma system did make peoples reactions to you vary greatly. Say if you blew Megaton sky high you'll get refugees attacking you, if you decided to let Tenpenny tower get over-run with ghouls people generally disapprove.
I didn't find it bland myself but each person is different, and yeah i know it was a bible passage and I'm not spiritual either xP but i think the bible was sort of symbolic as an old world value of hope, that your mother in game was inspired by a book that probably no one cared about anymore, and i find that interesting.
But the bible is only a very small part of it, it's not like anyone else cares enough to ask they just want to get the purifier online, which is a big deal to everyone because unlike in the west the water here is very irradiated.
Haha, so, you can technically kill the president in this game also! : D

You want me to list everything that i found funny? xD one example would have to be Dukov, also the dialog had me giggling a lot of the time. Tunnel Snakes? C'mon that's golden Butch's dialog is some of the best in game, What raiders scream at you when attacking is incredibly hilarious and the same goes for super mutants, if you listen to their dialog while hiding. The Robots especially Mister Gutsys have awesome lines, and there was one time i ran across a skeleton in a bathtub with a toaster. now that was funny.
i didn't say the game was hard, but the old fallout's were hard to an obnoxious point i think fallout 3 could have been a bit harder but at least most creatures level capped with you unlike in the older games.

I thought your enemies were very human, President Eden wanted too restore old American values and get rid of all the rampant radiation, when i talked to him i found him very personable and i still feel bad about making him blow himself up, he was a charismatic character, but even then Cournal Autumn had doubts in him even if he followed his orders he wasn't sure if what they were doing was for the best.
And i realize a lot of people got angry because there were more stupid Super Muties then smart ones but that's pretty easily explained, The Mutants of the Capital Wasteland were all mistakes and weren't pure humans so when they mutated they didn't retain their intelligence and they didn't have someone like The Master to watch over them and help them grow, they are barbaric.
also not everyone attacks you, Slavers don't and you can even work with them which is a large moral grey area, Hunters wont attack you either neither will brotherhood or outcasts. But yeah Talon Company does attack on sight and that's because well, they are Talon Company they are meant to be ruthless. and the Good Fight is a big part of it, again its old world values trying to make itself present in a day and age where there are no values and no hope.

Yes it's kind of obvious the Enclave are the bad guys, and for a while they actually do kick the brotherhoods arse for a good while, but of course we had Liberty Prime who was mind bogglingly awesome :'D and yes you can kill everyone in Raven Rock if you go about it the right way. and President Eden as i stated before was a great character.

Frankly as i stated before it was the sense of it actually being epic and trying to take itself seriously that made me love the game, the other Fallout's do not take themselves seriously at all and it just made me feel like i was dicking around with no real purpose, sure they had nice stories and all but it felt sort of silly and pointless like nukes never even dropped at all.
you have these big factions who are just caught up in territory disputes and its not like its going to make a huge difference with whoever wins people just continue to go about their lives not really caring in Fallout 3 i felt that project purity would have an ever-lasting effect.

There is context in fallout 3, there are consequences the only thing it doesn't have as i said is moral ambiguity. but it pretty much makes up for that.

New Vegas is like that because it has factions, and still i could get away with killing people in droves and then doing one nice thing and they would leave me alone the only thing i had to do was make sure i wasn't dressed as a certain faction around another.
Fallout 3's factions were just as faulted as these ones, the East Coast Brotherhood while preaching they would protect everyone shot down non-feral ghouls and generally treated most wastelanders like shit while hiding behind the Citadel, saying you want more grey areas is saying you want more moral ambiguity so yes I'd say so.
Most of that stuff was way in the background in New Vegas and Fallout 3 had pretty much the same things just not as subtle :I and I've done so many things in New Vegas that didn't affect the ending at all, and that kind of pissed me off.

also that's just it
I'm not buying a game for side-quests, I'm buying it for an engaging main story line, which was not to be had, it might as well have been an add-on to fallout 3 most of the side-quests were boring and repetitive. go drop this off, go help this person get this, go make people like you. I'm not playing harvest moon here, i dont expect to be doing this stuff I'd rather be shooting the faces off raiders.

The engine may be old but it's kind of hypocritical to jab at it when the older games ran on such shitty graphics/engines. also Black Isle could have made it so much better, half the map is empty there are system walls everywhere which is basically a step backwards the bulk of the game is side quests which half the time do not affect the main story line, you can make a great game on an old engine but they failed to deliver in my book. New Vegas was just a drive back to the old fallout's back to something familiar to older fans and that's why they like it, Fallout 3 was stepping into new territory it was painting a bigger pictures of what happened to America and that's why older fans do not like it.
also Bethesda doesn't have to take Black Isle into consideration anymore because they own Fallout now, i know it sucks to older fans but I'm not complaining, New Vegas may have more role-play options which is nice but i loved 3 a lot more :3

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Margenal In reply to anomoo [2010-12-12 15:24:02 +0000 UTC]

Well it's not because fallout 3 detailed what happened to america we did'nt liked it, the whole historic part was of course enjoyable but...

To be honnest i will maybe be rude, but the story of fallout 3 is made to not think: seek your dad, kill the baddies, save the wasteland in an epic mothereffing final battle. So sure you have your heart overwhelmed as if you were in the coliseum but... i still have the feeling it's a fallout made for kids, more sraight forward with only ONE walkthrough, simpler minded and focusing on basic feelings.
Reality is more biaised and less caring. In fallout 1 you save the whole western America (and maybe the whole continent) and what you get: exile. In fallout 2 you blow up the Enclave plot and prevent them to release the FEV in the jet stream (in few words, genocide in the whole continent, maye the northern hemisphere) and get a happy life in your little village. World does'nt care about heroes, they are just legend but their action will remain in the memories. If you survive good deal, if you die your body will be devoured in the desert.

Fallout 1/2 were'nt made to handle the user's hand by telling here GO THERE. The player is nothing special, just another poor living soul in an inhuman wasteland. So yes you mostly wander in desrts, but hell who could lnow a sh*t about a water chip or a geck where almost no people would be able to read. You don't realise the falloutverse is chaotic and almost feral, where technology is a myth and survival is your only aim. You have to take any glimpse of clue you could have and move on. Side quests are side quests, it's ASIDE from the main one so no wonder it does'nt affect it but we are in a RPG after all, if you only focus about the obvious good fight, seeking your dad and killing baddies i'm sorry it's almost like playing an action game. Side quests are made to add epht to the game, making you feeling you are in a living universe, no less no more.

After about the game engine, my rant was about the actual game market. I don't care about it, i stil enjoy good old ones with pixel and sprites, as long as the gameplay and story are good it's fine. But not today no, cosmetics ARE now the rulers, people don't want to think, people don't want to struggle no, it's now the dictact of the "press a to win" shiny game and nowadays mainstream reviewers and people are merciless when a game has a poor engine and bugs, so new vegas had a hell of a handicap. I'm an old fart player, i assume this choice, i still think games have to bear a spirit rather than a pretty appearance and wont move.

Black isle has created a legend as George Miller did with Mad Max: even if you are a hero, even if you are a savior and people would love you for this, you're bound to be forgotten under the weight of your legend, and humanity will still remain the same. It's negative? Yes it is but that's how History made its steps from the birth of mankind...

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anomoo In reply to Margenal [2010-12-13 00:30:10 +0000 UTC]

Really? your trying to going with an argument like that a walkthrough is what makes a game complex? Really? Fallout wasn't a game for a children, if anything New Vegas is incredibly linear and simple in plot, it was made to be easy and straight forward unlike fallout 3 which while somewhat straight forward has vast array of characters and dialogs and different outcomes while New Vegas dialogs dont tend to differentiate much from each other.

Fallout 3 is even more steeped into reality, just as much as New Vegas if not more, you give purified water to everyone in the wasteland and all you get are complaints and hate, no one thanks you in fact a lot of people dislike you for it because it just creates new problems, caravans get attacked, people embezzle etc. etc.

See thats the problem with the old ones, while some people may enjoy the challenge of walking into a nest of deathclaws right from the start town most people do not games these days have to provide you with a form of outline the fact that the game just let you dangle there and fuck everything up so easy was kind of terrible and irritating to most everyone who played it, while as i said i played 1/2 i enjoyed them, but that just annoyed me.

A good game can have depth with a main plot friend, in fact that's what makes an amazing game, having side quests that feed into the main one making it even bigger and better thats why i liked Fallout 3, it wasn't all about the good fight you could purposely obliterate everything if you really wanted too, Fallout 3 is even more feral in nature because of how decrepit and irradiated DC is, while New Vegas felt very civilized in comparison.

Hey I'm just as pleased with old games as i am with new ones, it doesn't have to be pretty, hell i still play my old N64 and i have emulators for old games galore the fact of the matter is that New Vegas just failed to impress me.

Exactly and each game has carried this on with itself, your just as forgotten in FO3 :I

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Margenal In reply to Dualmask [2010-11-17 18:30:11 +0000 UTC]

Well fallout 3 is by itself a rather good game, but it's a sequel wich does'nt follow the fallout mentality by not including it in any kind of continuity with the two other opuses and lacking the "spirit" which made the charm of them.
If the post apocalyptic Washington visuallt looked good, it was'nt well rendered at all, i had the impression to visit a linear land, impossible to use cross pathes and most of all i had the feeling the cities were just placed like this, bam. There is almost no logic, it looks like purely random, and even with mutants we could have big human settlements in the ruins, brotherhood outposts, something telling me there are people living in a war zone and doing things to make the things change. In fact i did'nt had the impression i could change a damn thing: why is it impossible to try to link back the two brotherhood factions why is'nt there a plan to stop mutant invasion? Rivet city has old technology in it, why don't i see any brother here? And why is there so much sparses small human settlements and almost no cities? You see what i mean?
Bethesda gave us a big but closed and illogic playground with almost no B plan and cliché factions: brothers are good future paladins when the cassic brotherhood was more like the neutral outcasts (alas the game consider them as "evil", take that neutrality!) mutants are big evil future trolls, when in fallout 1/2 they were talking and sometimes making pacifists places, ahem) raiders spawn from nowhere and are just moving targets...

So yes bethesda made efforts bygiving birth to their vision of fallout, and some places (rivet city, lamplight) and moments were very good (the virtual village by example) but they fell in theyr own cliché of making epic and simple minded games with good guy fighting evil, so that means one walkthrough and one choice to do at the end, you can feel it's a bit absurd don't you?

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Dualmask In reply to Margenal [2010-11-17 19:02:00 +0000 UTC]

I definitely see what you're saying, but I guess I can't really identify because I never played any other FO games. I guess it felt like that's the way it was meant to be. To me, Fo3 was just another game to add to the pile that got decent reviews. I figure if I played the games in the past, I would have felt differently.

I can kind of identify because I feel the Final Fantasy series (while not being handed off to different developers) has veered off of the course that I used to love about it. It started out with a rich world with lots of customization and an eagerness to explore, and de-evolved into a linear journey where you're basically just holding up on the analog stick and pressing X every now and then while watching the developers try to impress you with their "beautiful cinematic vision". The battles are almost totally automatic with little thought required, but they sure are pretty and the camera movements are all sweeping and epic. One thing I loved about FF7, 8 and 9 was that you could actually fly around the world; the whole game planet was modeled and you could explore it like a globe once you had the flying machine. Then came 10 and beyond and we had "click to go there" maps and you practically start out with the airship (as opposed to getting it after a major event)...and then in 13 you have to play for 20 some-odd hours before you have any freedom to explore at all. I just can't take it anymore.

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Margenal In reply to Dualmask [2010-11-18 15:18:30 +0000 UTC]

Quality is'nt a valor anymore when it comes facing market ruels...
alas...

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Margenal In reply to LemonyMolotov [2010-11-17 10:46:23 +0000 UTC]

Well knowing this action game has been programmed after Black Isle (the ones who created fallout 1/2) many don't consider this game as canon, in the same way the license belongs to the publisher and not the developpers, like it's happening with bethesda.
I respect your opinions, fallout 3 had good ideas and concepts, but the writting and game design were really poor. So yes following the actual standards Fallout 3 is a good game, but compared to its elders it should have been far better than the final result, especially considering it was possible to create good first person RPG with Deus Ex or Vampire Bloodlines (even if this second was buggy as hell)

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Margenal In reply to Doctor-Orgasmo [2010-11-17 11:49:54 +0000 UTC]

Thanks, sometimes it has to come out and new vegas is a good proof

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Doctor-Orgasmo In reply to Margenal [2010-11-17 14:20:25 +0000 UTC]

A diamond made from crap.

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