Zygoptera on 14/11/2008 at 02:30

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Can't say that I've thought that the reactions at NMA (or RPGCodex, for that matter) have been particularly intemperate overall, there's a fair amount of praise at both places, as well as ranting, it just isn't the gushing fellatio most mainstream sites are indulging in. They do make an easy target for those that like shooting fish in a barrel or gaining internet cool points, though.

I do think it should be acknowledged that F3 is one of those games- like at differing extremes, Deus Ex or Oblivion- which has a whole lot of flaws which either add up to a poor game, or can be ignored and the game enjoyed, depending on the person involved and their preferences. I agreed, almost point for point, with Tom Chick's (in)famous Deus Ex review, for example, and acknowledge that those points could add up to a "bad" review score, even if I personally enjoyed DX a lot. OTOH, with Oblivion I agreed with Vault Dweller's (in)famous review and that it was a "bad" game.

And, For The Record, Fallout 3 is a far better game than Oblivion, in my most humble opinion and despite it having a whole lot of problems.

I would also note that PR and marketing are certainly huge factors in F3's success, the advertising costs alone would be greater than the entire cost of developing all the previous titles too, with plenty to spare. I don't think I've seen such saturation coverage for any game, Halos/ GTAIV included, ever.


I think that's largely because there are some barely documented features which make life a whole lot easier but which most people never find. Many criticise the inventory management, for example, but you can use a whole lot of keys to navigate easily, in F2 at least- page down, end, the arrow keys etc and the icons make it easy to recognise what is what. And you still get people saying that combat takes forever because each and every individual takes ages to move who have never even looked at the game options for the combat speed slider.


It isn't.

Phatose on 14/11/2008 at 05:03

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Realistically, a Fallout fan's best approach to Fallout 3 is to forget the entire rest of the series. As it's own game, it's pretty good - has some major issues, and unless the mod tools are really something, it's not gonna have much of a shelf life - but there's enough fun to gloss over most of those.

As a part of the fallout series.....well, it's place is that it doesn't have one. The interface is Oblivions, the underlying mechanics are far, far closer to Oblivion then to any fallout, and the plot is so inconsistent with the rest of the fallout games that it's more or less an alternate universe.

Gaph on 14/11/2008 at 06:43

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Never read his review but I had to track it down:

(http://web.archive.org/web/20001119120000/http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdr.cgi?zones/reviews/pc/jun00/deusex.html)

Funny that he talks about Deus Ex's flaws constantly remind him that it's just a game, preventing immersion. But when I played Deus Ex (or Bloodlines is another good example) I was able to turn a blind eye to any flaws they had and really immerse myself in their worlds. I think maybe they provided just enough framework for my imagination to take over, where modern games seem to be all about showing you everything.

Rogue Keeper on 14/11/2008 at 09:31

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I still have to come across comprehensive and intelligible summary to support this point of view. I think there are two important issues with this opinion :

- I think there is hardly a common consensus in the community, saying what is "truly Fallout" and what is not "Fallout enough". Because if you listen to people who hold this opinion, it all ends in INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCES area.
- Opinions of many old fans in the Fallout community are heavily biased by conservative and to some degree irrational nostalgia.

We all can argue in what aspect it's Fallout and in what aspect it's not. BUT. In what aspect? Is it the portrayal of the Fallout universe and story what is not Fallout enough or is it gameplay system or audiovisual presentation?

I'm afraid after 10 long years it is nearly impossible to make a sequel - a game faithful to the old legacy and at the same time looking modern - which would be generally uncritically embraced as a TRUE sequel. And I dare to say it's not fault of a different developing studio - I presume once Fallout MMORPG will be out, there will be many critical voices about how it interferes with the old canon and how many retrocons have been made, blah blah blah. While others will embrace it as it is and will eat anything, just because one or two original Black Isle gurus were working on it... and they must be right with everything about Falout anyway, no?!

I myself have many issues with the game, but what can I do? Beth was foresighting enough to make the game mod-friendly, so everybody can remedy it's flaws more or less to his individual tastes with mods. I may sound like repetitive old man when I say that the most eye-catching flaws are in inconvenient controls and UI and that's the primary fault of multiplatforming, but we can't blame only one developer of that, it has roots deeper in the industry.

But I tell you, when I walk the wasteland or explore the underground installations, I have feeling I AM THERE. I am in the Fallout universe! When I played original Fallouts I often imagined how would that world look if I was actually there, in first person. Beth made it possible in our age of fast hardware and advanced graphics technologies. For that I'm grateful. Jumping from isometric god perspective, 256 colors and 64x64 pixel NPCs straight to detailed 3D world seen from first person perspective is a serious challenge, and in my opinion Beth has done helluva honest work designing all that.

If you remember reviews for Fallout 2, reviewers often pointed out that very little technological progress has been made since famed Fallout one. But nobody had big issues with it as it worked well for the time being. In fact Black Isle was in a very easy position back then - they just delivered what people expected from them. While Bethesda was in a very ungrateful position years later.

This is the next generation Fallout of 2008. For better or worse. But in my case the glass is half full. Well actually it's 2/3 full. I don't know how other old fans, but I'm enjoying it for what it's worth.

Still I'm interested to hear more opinions backing up the "consensus" I quoted above. So what do you people think, why it's a "spin-off not Fallout enough"?

Matthew on 14/11/2008 at 10:55

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I'm an Ultima VI veteran, so anything less copy-paste than that always seems amazingly varied to me. :p (It felt like entire coastlines were copy-pasted in that game sometimes.)

I must admit that the first time I wandered over to a computer and realised it was a 3D model of the ones I kept bumping into in FO2's Vaults made me grin like an idiot.