Fallout 3 not a 'proper' Fallout game?

[Jennacide]

There is a perfectly fine reason given why the Mutants are more yellow in FO3. And the ghouls are done almost exactly like they were in the previous titles. Ghoul colonies existed, and feral ghouls were always around, just under different names. (Mindless Ghoul in FO, Ghoul Crazies in FO2) As for Harold, I don't mind what they did. I like the concept of Bob growing into a full blown tree around Harold.

I don't care what color the mutants are, what bothers me is that they're all idiots, without exception. I'd say maybe 3/5 of the mutants from the original game are dumb-dumbs, and some are smarter than normals. Why are DC mutants dumb? Never explained! What is their purpose in the city? Who knows! Just lazy writing resulting in another generic RPG monster race.

As far as ferals, in 1+2 that was a random encounter you might not even see. In 3, 75% of the ghouls in the game are feral. Ghouls are supposed to make you feel pity or disgust, not just be random shotgun fodder. As far as Harold, at least tell us what he's doing on the other side of the country.

You're wrong about the dumb-dumbs never being explained. It's in the holodisks in Vault 87 discussing how the variant of FEV they had also led to severe mental degradation. Then in New Vegas it's further explained that the mutants that were simply virus induced were grossly inferior to the vat dipped mutants.

As for the feral ghouls, I won't have any explaination you'd accept. Who knows, maybe because it's further on the timeline more ghouls went feral. Or conditions in the Capital waste were different, much like with the mutants. I'm not about to say FO3 is perfect. But it is a proper Fallout in theme and application.

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Fallout 3 is still a proper Fallout game.....

No, it is not. They completely destroyed the character and skill system. There is a video where someone makes the worst unarmed combat fighter that is possible in Fallout 3 and then beats up 3 raiders on hard difficulty. Chance to hit? Over 80% as shown in VATS!!! Good luck trying that on any of the proper fallout games.

The character system is a very important part of a RPG.

Well clearly it must be, because you say so. Your word is God, and differing opinions are VERBOTEN. Get off your high horse. Fallout was never hard, and yes, you COULD beat the game in the worst armor possible. How do I know? Because I've actually done it. Start to finish, wearing nothing but Vault suit.

Oh, and simply mentioning VATS to prove your point proves nothing. Pretty much everyone will agree the damage immunity in VATS was an awful idea, which is why New Vegas removed it.

 

[Kashrlyyk]

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Fallout 3 is still a proper Fallout game.....

No, it is not. They completely destroyed the character and skill system. There is a video where someone makes the worst unarmed combat fighter that is possible in Fallout 3 and then beats up 3 raiders on hard difficulty. Chance to hit? Over 80% as shown in VATS!!! Good luck trying that on any of the proper fallout games.

The character system is a very important part of a RPG.

Well clearly it must be, because you say so. Your word is God, and differing opinions are VERBOTEN. Get off your high horse. Fallout was never hard, and yes, you COULD beat the game in the worst armor possible. How do I know? Because I've actually done it. Start to finish, wearing nothing but Vault suit.

Oh, and simply mentioning VATS to prove your point proves nothing. Pretty much everyone will agree the damage immunity in VATS was an awful idea, which is why New Vegas removed it.

1) I never use the word "armor" in my reply at all. That was probably the worst attempt at a strawman argument I've have seen in my life.

2) I never talked about the "damage immunity" in VATS at all, too.

What I talked about is this: The mentioned character used a weapon he was terrible at. In fact you can not make a character that would be worse at using that particular weapon. On top of that he is the physically weakest possible character you can make, which means he will deal the lowest amount of damage each hit, he will miss with most of his attacks and he will die as fast as it is possible in Fallout 3.

Just to summarize: Strength AND Endurance at 1!!! No skill points in melee fighting at all, he had a skill level of 8 in unarmed combat, I think. Hardest difficulty setting the game allows and obviously the character fights unarmed.

In the three real Fallout games, Fallout 1, 2 and even Tactics, he would be killed by the first pistol using human enemy he encounters, probably earlier. Why? Because the character is the shittiest unarmed fighter in the world and you expect someone like that to NOT WIN against other fighters.

But in what Bethesda called Fallout 3 that character wins against 3(!!!!!) pistol using human fighters! Even though he is the worst unarmed fighter in the world he still has a chance to hit of over 80%! If the worst fighter has an 80% chance to hit (the chance to hit would be around or lower than 30% in the 3 real Fallout games), what's the chance to hit for a slightly less shitty unarmed fighter? 95%??? The character system in Fallout 3 is completely a joke. And it gets worse.

There are 25 skill books for EVERY SKILL, another +10% to every skill from "bobbleheads", +1 to all attributes again through "bobbleheads". Now remember all skills are capped at 100%! So you can raise every skill by 35 to 60% (if you have a certain perk) without spending a single skill point. On average the skills start at around 19%! So on average you can have every skill at 79% without spending a single skill point! I think in total you can max out around 7 of the 13 skills and the rest is really close to 100% too.

If a character system doesn't allow the player to create a character that is really shit at something it is a bad character system.

 

[5t3v0]

The one thing I hated about Fallout 3's underworld was how cliche it felt. Just a random place where all the ghouls live and don't interact with the outside world. Didn't Necropolis in Fallout 1 already do this and better? Actually Fallout 3 altogether felt like a rehash of Fallout 1, just with less substance.

Hell, even the Literary Allusion that Tulip gave was wrong. She said that paradise lost was about a man going through hell. The actual literary work that featured that was Dante's inferno.

Bethesda DO insult our intelligence!

 

[LordRoyal]

The one thing I hated about Fallout 3's underworld was how cliche it felt. Just a random place where all the ghouls live and don't interact with the outside world. Didn't Necropolis in Fallout 1 already do this and better? Actually Fallout 3 altogether felt like a rehash of Fallout 1, just with less substance.

Hell, even the Literary Allusion that Tulip gave was wrong. She said that paradise lost was about a man going through hell. The actual literary work that featured that was Dante's inferno.

Bethesda DO insult our intelligence!

Paradise Lost: detailed account of Satan being cast down to hell

Dante's Inferno: One of the books that chronicles Dante's journey, this time through hell.

Yeah I doubt Bethesda's writers read either works.

 

[Vault101]

I get why people think fallout 3 wasnt funny...it had its moments

 

[Xaositect]

Its nothing to do with "themes", or "engine" or first person "perspectives" to me. Fallout 3 to me just felt like "Bethesdas attempt at a Fallout game". There is nothing wrong with that, it just didnt feel like "true" Fallout.

Playing New Vegas, that felt more like Fallout to me.

Its not a slight against Fallout 3 (well not much), it has certain things going better for it than NV, and vice versa.

Ultimately though, now whenever I get that "Fallout" craving, I go to New Vegas. Not just for the great updates, and things like Hardcore mode. Just because its more "Fallout" to me.

Plus the main story of Fallout 3 is shit, and in a series with crappy stories like Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, thats saying something. (I saw too many parallels between 3's plot and the first two games, large parts of which ultimately boiled down to overarching fetch quests in the form of the water chip/GECK).

However, Fallout 1 & 2 offered that great "wasteland character" and lore that I love. Fallout 3 just offers a nice square shaped wasteland to explore which, typical of Bethesda is well crafted.

But Id much rather get lost in the Mojave and tangle with New Vegas' factions and actually *survive* in its wastes rather than just avoid getting killed in combat in the "capital wasteland".

Edit: Oh and from a storytelling point of view, New Vegas is the greatest thing ever to happen to the Fallout series. After 1, 2 and "3" I was sick to death of the "Forced Evolutionary Plot Device" (and that fucking GECK isnt much better). Glad to see it was kept to nothing but minor references in New Vegas.

 

[Fensfield]

I had fun with Fallout 3 and all.. but..

I'd be inclined to agree it wasn't a 'proper' Fallout game, arguably. It just didn't have that whole 'post apocalyptic roadtrip' feel the others had.

I didn't even get to blow up a toilet!

 

[Rawne1980]

The gameplay was great and the story was okay. The voice acting left a lot to be desirted (oh come on, how many people wanted to reach through their monitor and choke Moira Brown ... her voice bugged the crap out of me) and some of the side quest dialogues were .... strange .... but not in a good way.

However it had Liam Neeson (who died in quite possibly the worst scene ever for a major character death) so that makes it okay in my book.

 

[5t3v0]

Fallout 3 kept the series from falling into obscurity.


It's a Fallout game. Time to stop hating it for silly reasons and find a legit one. Like, say, the game engine, which is a buggy pile of ass.

I dunno, I still think the story is a good reason to have some form of contempt for it. gameplay wise it was solid, but story wise it was a damp piece of soggy bread.

 

[hazabaza1]

It feels different to the other Fallouts because there was no bullshit RNG that constantly screwed you over.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Fallout 3 kept the series from falling into obscurity.


It's a Fallout game. Time to stop hating it for silly reasons and find a legit one. Like, say, the game engine, which is a buggy pile of ass.

So having a crappy story, bad ending, boring characters, nonsensical explanations and crappy RPG elements aren't "legit" reasons?

Edit: Oh and from a storytelling point of view, New Vegas is the greatest thing ever to happen to the Fallout series. After 1, 2 and "3" I was sick to death of the "Forced Evolutionary Plot Device" (and that fucking GECK isnt much better). Glad to see it was kept to nothing but minor references in New Vegas.

I loved the whole political story of New Vegas, very rarely do games feature politics and society as a main focus and New Vegas did a great job in my opinion by giving us many factions all with different views and objectives.

The gameplay was great and the story was okay. The voice acting left a lot to be desirted (oh come on, how many people wanted to reach through their monitor and choke Moira Brown ... her voice bugged the crap out of me) and some of the side quest dialogues were .... strange .... but not in a good way.

At ;east you could kill her, but that would mean losing a lot of useful stuff. Oh well, at least I could kill Three Dog without losing much, and therefore listen to the radio without some guy howling into my ear.

However it had Liam Neeson (who died in quite possibly the worst scene ever for a major character death) so that makes it okay in my book.

Yeah, but being Bethesda they have a rule that the best voice actor they hire must die or at least have small screen time *cough*the emperor*cough*.

 

[geier]

How about the opposite ?
I played Fallout 1 and 2 after 3 and i think the first two where rubbish.
Oh great, you can be a prostitute, o wow, someone makes omlettes out of deathclaw eggs wohooo soooo funny.

To be honest, f### the first games.

 

[Imbechile]

but if I wanted a comedy, I'd watch Two and a Half Men or something

Yes, and I can also say that i didn't want F3 to be like this. If I wanted a gritty post-apocalyptic survivial game, I would play STALKER or something.

 

[ChupathingyX]

How about the opposite ?
I played Fallout 1 and 2 after 3 and i think the first two where rubbish.
Oh great, you can be a prostitute, o wow, someone makes omlettes out of deathclaw eggs wohooo soooo funny.

To be honest, f### the first games.

So Fallout 2 is a bad game because it gives you the opportunity to role-play your character and give you options?

 

[AlternatePFG]

Btw. to all the people calling on "rose-tinted glasses" (I haven't read the thread but I bet there is a few), I didn't ever play the first Fallout before Fallout 3 came out. I played a demo when I was still in my early teens and didn't "get it" e.g. the combat system and what you have to do... maybe it was just a bad demo cause I randomly attacked people in a settlement and ended up getting killed and I ended up playing it after Fallout 3 and it is still miles fucking above that game in about every way. It's actually one of my favorite games by now, and I also enjoy it more than Fallout 2.

Yeah, I played the originals after 3 and I ended liking them much, much more. The amount of ways to play those games are ridiculous.

 

[Norris IV]

Yeahh its nothing like the originals because its a hell load more fun and has a better story that 1&2