Hating progress (fallout)

[brainslurper]

So after hearing the constant blabbing about how much better the Interplay Fallouts were then the newer Fallouts, I bought fallout 1,2, and tactics. Fallout 1 and 2 are good, but not enough to consider them to be "superior" to the newer Fallouts, and certainly not enough to consider anyone who has only played Bethesda-published Fallouts to be "not true Fallout fans". Not only that, but Interplay fans should love Bethesda. They took the Fallout franchise and made it economically viable, while staying faithful to the originals. It could have been a lot worse. Speaking of not staying faithful to the originals and being a lot worse, Fallout tactics. What the fuck was that? Would it really be better if Bethesda had never bought the Fallout IP and Van Buren was released to be a total flop? Would that in any way benefit the franchise? Bethesda has exposed fallout to far more people then it ever would have reached.

This sort of thing is not exclusive to Fallout. There are plenty of people saying that Portal 2 is a bad sequel, as is Half life 2, where both are stellar improvements on their originals, minus the originality that the originals had. Can't we all just recognize when something has gotten better, and stop excluding people for the sake of being annoying hipsters?

 

[skywolfblue]

Nostalgia is a powerful force.

As much as I may disagree with curmudgeons hanging on to their Mass Effect 1's, their BioShock 1's, their Halo 1's, they still have a right to their opinions as well.

 

[DustyDrB]

There was just a thread about this...
See? [http://new.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.330957-Why-is-everyone-so-down-on-Fallout-3?page=1]

Old Fallout fan's problems with Fallout 3 (not so much New Vegas) is that it inconsistent in lore and spirit to the original games. It's a good game. But it's a poor sequel to Fallout 1 and 2.

Fallout: New Vegas is given more leeway with fans of the Interplay Fallouts because it is consistent with those games' lore and it very much has the spirit (humor, themes, morality) of them as well.

 

[brainslurper]

Nostalgia is a powerful force.

As much as I may disagree with curmudgeons hanging on to their Mass Effect 1's, their BioShock 1's, their Halo 1's, they still have a right to their opinions as well.

I don't think it is entirely nostalgia that leads people to act like this. I also think it is the "I liked them way before they were cool" attitude. I am still waiting for an apology from bioware about the way they butchered liara's character in ME2, by the way.

 

[Gennadios]

I don't see many people complaining that the actual games were better so much as the writing.

My impression of Fallout 3 was that it was basically a reskin of oblivion that made some really horrible missteps in terms of storytelling. There were particularly good parts, while the BoS differed considerably from the earlier games, they did alot with them in terms of inner conflict and backstory to make it jive with the Fallout universe... then they had that f****** cave with preteens that somehow managed to hold back and active vault that was still producing supermutants and killed the entire game for me. If there was ever a need for a child killing mod that was it. Overall the game was OK, but the Fallout IP wouldn't have been any worse off if that particular game was never released.

Then Bethsoft handed over the rights to people who actually made the originals and a living, breathing, advancing Fallout universe was made. In short, the best thing Bethsoft's purchase of the IP did was allow them to hand over development to the original writers.

 

[Xangi]

So after hearing the constant blabbing about how much better the Interplay Fallouts were then the newer Fallouts, I bought fallout 1,2, and tactics. Fallout 1 and 2 are good, but not enough to consider them to be "superior" to the newer Fallouts, and certainly not enough to consider anyone who has only played Bethesda-published Fallouts to be "not true Fallout fans". Not only that, but Interplay fans should love Bethesda. They took the Fallout franchise and made it economically viable, while staying faithful to the originals. It could have been a lot worse. Speaking of not staying faithful to the originals and being a lot worse, Fallout tactics. What the fuck was that? Would it really be better if Bethesda had never bought the Fallout IP and Van Buren was released to be a total flop? Would that in any way benefit the franchise? Bethesda has exposed fallout to far more people then it ever would have reached.

This sort of thing is not exclusive to Fallout. There are plenty of people saying that Portal 2 is a bad sequel, as is Half life 2, where both are stellar improvements on their originals, minus the originality that the originals had. Can't we all just recognize when something has gotten better, and stop excluding people for the sake of being annoying hipsters?

I have essentially the same opinion, but I will concede to the haters that FO3, unmodded, wasn't really all that great. FONV was better, but still needed a bit of tweaking IMO. With a few little changes to make the combat more smooth and to fix some little plot issues, both are great.

FO1 was pretty damned awesome the first time I played it (After FO3 and NV). It was nothing like what I'd experienced so far in 3 and NV, but it was great nonetheless. FO2 was... odd. It looked like 1, played like 1, but it seemed... off. In the beginning it felt like it was railroading you into melee because of the lack of available ammo. Then it seemed to drag on a bit in the middle. Still good, but nothing to have an epiphany over.

tl;dr

FONV(modded)=FO3(modded)>FO1>FO2>FONV>FO3

 

[brainslurper]

There was just a thread about this...
See? [http://new.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.330957-Why-is-everyone-so-down-on-Fallout-3?page=1]

Old Fallout fan's problems with Fallout 3 (not so much New Vegas) is that it inconsistent in lore and spirit to the original games. It's a good game. But it's a poor sequel to Fallout 1 and 2.

Fallout: New Vegas is given more leeway with fans of the Interplay Fallouts because it is consistent with those games' lore and it very much has the spirit (humor, themes) of them as well.

I think bethesda distancing Fallout 3 from the main narrative was intentional, but as far as I can tell there aren't any major inconsistencies with the universe itself. New Vegas feels so much like the original because obsidian has more people that worked on the first two fallouts then interplay.

 

[Freaky Lou]

I haven't played the first two Fallouts yet, but I was introduced to the series via New Vegas and I don't like 3's wildly different tone, terrible writing, and screwed-up lore either. There's also some problems with balancing and a serious lack of variety in the weapons, but that doesn't matter so much; the gameplay's fun and so is exploring the DC wastes. But everything else is pretty awful, which is why a longtime fan of the franchise would dislike it: 3 is especially weak in all the areas where the first two were especially strong.

 

[Deadyawn]

Fallout 3 simply had bad writing. It was not up to the standard that Fallout 1 set. To be fair a lot of the lore disparities that people complain about had already happened in Fallout 2 when black isle(obsidian) got ahold of the franchise. That said the writing in Fallout 2 was still good.

Fallout 3 also had a lot of the issues of a bethesda engine game like NPC's that stare at you when adressing you, broken stealth, stilted animations, three voice actors, etc.
I don't think Fallout 3 was a bad game, just that it didn't live up to the precedent set by the previous installments. Simply, the things that were good about fallout 1 were not good about 3 and the things that 3 did well had nothing to do with 1, with the possible exception of the setting which was very strong in both.

 

[brainslurper]

I don't see many people complaining that the actual games were better so much as the writing.

My impression of Fallout 3 was that it was basically a reskin of oblivion that made some really horrible missteps in terms of storytelling. There were particularly good parts, while the BoS differed considerably from the earlier games, they did alot with them in terms of inner conflict and backstory to make it jive with the Fallout universe... then they had that f****** cave with preteens that somehow managed to hold back and active vault that was still producing supermutants and killed the entire game for me. If there was ever a need for a child killing mod that was it. Overall the game was OK, but the Fallout IP wouldn't have been any worse off if that particular game was never released.

Then Bethsoft handed over the rights to people who actually made the originals and a living, breathing, advancing Fallout universe was made. In short, the best thing Bethsoft's purchase of the IP did was allow them to hand over development to the original writers.

Little lamplight was a bit rediculous. So was the kid running around vegas with a target designation gun for a space laser.

 

[Freaky Lou]

I think bethesda distancing Fallout 3 from the main narrative was intentional, but as far as I can tell there aren't any major inconsistencies with the universe itself.

Yes, there are.

1. The Enclave shouldn't exist anymore. They were wiped out in Fallout 2.
2. The Brotherhood Of Steel are pre-war technology-hoarding misanthropes, not the gallant knights of the wasteland.
3. Super Mutants are a (botched) enhancement of humans. They are not ogres or orcs.
4. Harold is now a tree. That really bothered some people, but I personally just think it's kind of dumb. At least the quest involving him has a choice involved (one of the rare ones where it's up to you to decide the right thing to do, and not a choice of whether you want to be "good" or "evil".

 

[DustyDrB]

There was just a thread about this...
See? [http://new.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.330957-Why-is-everyone-so-down-on-Fallout-3?page=1]

Old Fallout fan's problems with Fallout 3 (not so much New Vegas) is that it inconsistent in lore and spirit to the original games. It's a good game. But it's a poor sequel to Fallout 1 and 2.

Fallout: New Vegas is given more leeway with fans of the Interplay Fallouts because it is consistent with those games' lore and it very much has the spirit (humor, themes) of them as well.

I think bethesda distancing Fallout 3 from the main narrative was intentional, but as far as I can tell there aren't any major inconsistencies with the universe itself. New Vegas feels so much like the original because obsidian has more people that worked on the first two fallouts then interplay.

There are, actually. Some people can hit on those points way better than I can (Ultratwinkie probably being the one who could write the book on this), but some major ones are both the nature of the GECK and the Brotherhood.

The tone is the bigger difference to me. Fallout 3 is rather bleak. Yeah, it's a post-apocalypse. But that's the case in Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas but they all manage to have a great deal of humor. I know this really hit me when I played Fallout 3. The relentless melancholy was just too overbearing and sucked the fun out of it. The only memorable break from it was Liberty Prime (who did have some good lines, to be fair).

But really, all I want to get across is that people do have honest reasons to dislike the game and favor its predecessors. It's not at all fair to write them off as being hipsters or nostalgia-blinded.

 

[Gennadios]

Little lamplight was a bit rediculous. So was the kid running around vegas with a target designation gun for a space laser.

People scavenge, and without Helios I powering Archimedes II one would surmise that a scavenger would mistake it for a defunct or broken laser gun and give it to a child as a toy. At least he wasn't using it to single handedly keep the Legion at bay.

 

[brainslurper]

I think bethesda distancing Fallout 3 from the main narrative was intentional, but as far as I can tell there aren't any major inconsistencies with the universe itself.

Yes, there are.

1. The Enclave shouldn't exist anymore. They were wiped out in Fallout 2.
2. The Brotherhood Of Steel are pre-war technology-hoarding misanthropes, not the gallant knights of the wasteland.
3. Super Mutants are a (botched) enhancement of humans. They are not ogres or orcs.
4. Harold is now a tree. That really bothered some people, but I personally just think it's kind of dumb. At least the quest involving him has a choice involved (one of the rare ones where it's up to you to decide the right thing to do, and not a choice of whether you want to be "good" or "evil".

1. Not sure about that one, but is it really impossible for some of them to exist outside of the oil rig?
2. That was entirely explained, and even had an entire faction war (outcasts) over the brotherhood's purpose.
3. A large portion of fallout 3's main story was dedicated to exploring a vault where super mutants were capturing humans and irradiating them to make more super mutants. I'm not sure where you got that.
4. I'm not sure how you can consider that to be an inconsistency.

 

[Xangi]

I think bethesda distancing Fallout 3 from the main narrative was intentional, but as far as I can tell there aren't any major inconsistencies with the universe itself.

Yes, there are.

1. The Enclave shouldn't exist anymore. They were wiped out in Fallout 2.
2. The Brotherhood Of Steel are pre-war technology-hoarding misanthropes, not the gallant knights of the wasteland.
3. Super Mutants are a (botched) enhancement of humans. They are not ogres or orcs.
4. Harold is now a tree. That really bothered some people, but I personally just think it's kind of dumb. At least the quest involving him has a choice involved (one of the rare ones where it's up to you to decide the right thing to do, and not a choice of whether you want to be "good" or "evil".

1. Not sure about that one, but is it really impossible for some of them to exist outside of the oil rig?
2. That was entirely explained, and even had an entire faction war (outcasts) over the brotherhood's purpose.
3. A large portion of fallout 3's main story was dedicated to exploring a vault where super mutants were capturing humans and irradiating them to make more super mutants. I'm not sure where you got that.
4. I'm not sure how you can consider that to be an inconsistency.

3 is from FO1. The Master tried to forcibly evolve humanity using the FEV, and created the Super Mutants. But then something happened (can't remember, or be asked to look it up) that caused the FEV to become airborne, which inoculated a lot of the population against it. Then that somehow led it to creating mutants with less and less intelligence or something.

Basically FO3 said "Well, to hell with that" And made the Mutants into orcs who eat and kidnap people and can barely even for 2 words into a coherent idea. I suppose they did try to handwave it a bit, but it still would come off as completely against canon if you played FO1 and 2 first.

EDIT: Oh and the mutants have no gender, which is why they need the FEV to reproduce. You can convince the master that this is also a major flaw (as they'd still need "inferior" humans to survive) and get him to... well, that's spoilers and I'd rather not even put in a spoiler tag. Play FO1 if you want to know.

 

[Freaky Lou]

1. Not sure about that one, but is it really impossible for some of them to exist outside of the oil rig?
2. That was entirely explained, and even had an entire faction war (outcasts) over the brotherhood's purpose.
3. A large portion of fallout 3's main story was dedicated to exploring a vault where super mutants were capturing humans and irradiating them to make more super mutants. I'm not sure where you got that.
4. I'm not sure how you can consider that to be an inconsistency.

1. Yes. The oil rig WAS the Enclave. Beyond that was just some little stations that were wiped out by BoS. Tiny fragments escaped out into who-knows-where. You could argue that those refugees reformed the Enclave, but that doesn't explain why they have such numbers and so much equipment (So many helicopters! This is a post-apocalyptic world! Where are they getting and how are they fueling all these helicopters?), and it really makes their imprisonment of Nathan (the one guy on their side) baffling.

2. Yes, but old Fallout fans coming to see the Brotherhood of Steel would have been sorely disappointed. That's not the BoS.

3. You misunderstand. They kept the FEV (questionable, since that was a top-secret product being made on the west coast) and the old explanation for how Super Mutants came to be that way, but they act like mindless ogres now. Super Mutants are supposed to be intelligent, they just believe that they're the future of humanity now and thus ordinary people are obsolete.

4. There's just no reason for him to be a tree. He wasn't one before and there was no indication he would ever become one. It's one of those "wat" moments found all over FO3, like how Dukov is getting all this food and booze (valuable, precious resources) without leaving his hotel room, and why, when every day is a struggle to survive, people are concerned with collecting Nuka-Cola memorabilia, robot emancipation and super-hero cosplay.

 

[VladG]

Fans don't hate fallout 3 for being a bad game, simply a not very good sequel. It fails to capture the spirit and humor of the original fallout games, but it's still a damn good game. New Vegas on the other hand is much closer.

And yes, I do agree with you on Bethesda's revival of the series. As for Tactics, that was a big flop in it's day, not sure why you brought it up?

 

[Gennadios]

And yes, I do agree with you on Bethesda's revival of the series. As for Tactics, that was a big flop in it's day, not sure why you brought it up?

I believe one of OP's points that the Fallout franchise wouldn't have been any better off if it stayed in Interplay's hands, they did start tanking in quality towards the end and alot of the original Fallout's writers had left by then (although the design docs for Tactics 2 looked interesting at least.)

I dont even want to think of the disaster that is the current "Interplay."

Yeah, it's definitely 'better' for the franchise that it's in Bethsoft's hands, but their writers only really qualify as average.

 

[VladG]

And yes, I do agree with you on Bethesda's revival of the series. As for Tactics, that was a big flop in it's day, not sure why you brought it up?

I believe one of OP's points that the Fallout franchise wouldn't have been any better off if it stayed in Interplay's hands, they did start tanking in quality towards the end and alot of the original Fallout's writers had left by then (although the design docs for Tactics 2 looked interesting at least.)

I dont even want to think of the disaster that is the current "Interplay."

Yeah, it's definitely 'better' for the franchise that it's in Bethsoft's hands, but their writers only really qualify as average.

Fair point. And you know, I might even have enjoyed Tactics if it was just a little more balanced...

 

[DustyDrB]

And yes, I do agree with you on Bethesda's revival of the series. As for Tactics, that was a big flop in it's day, not sure why you brought it up?

I believe one of OP's points that the Fallout franchise wouldn't have been any better off if it stayed in Interplay's hands, they did start tanking in quality towards the end and alot of the original Fallout's writers had left by then (although the design docs for Tactics 2 looked interesting at least.)

I dont even want to think of the disaster that is the current "Interplay."

Yeah, it's definitely 'better' for the franchise that it's in Bethsoft's hands, but their writers only really qualify as average.

To be fair, Interplay also put out Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. That game is exhibit A for developers dumbing down a franchise for consoles (and I'm a console gamer primarily).