Is Fallout 3 really not a proper Fallout game?

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thehorror2

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Fallout 3 was an excellent game, but was excellent for a lot of reasons that had nothing to do with why Fallout 1 and 2 were great, and its weak points (Story, characterization, and basic plot coherence) were some of the strongest elements in those games. I enjoyed it for what it was, but once I got F:NV, I never had a reason to play it again.
 

Bonecrusher

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Aah, is it that issue again? Ooh, great.

First of all, I probably can say I am a Fallout 2 fan, however I love Planescape Torment much more.

Fallout 3, is a Fallout game.
It occurs in Postapocalyptic ruined zones.
It has many retrofuturistic aspects.
You can choose different kind of dialogs while talking to NPCs, including skill based choices.
You can complete quests in different ways.
You have the opportunitiy to become very evil and kill people, destroy cities, enslave them etc, or to become a good guy that everybody adores.
There are caves in the game, there are many vaults to be explored.
Radio stations add more fun to the game.
Skills are better balanced than the previous Fallout games.
There is Dogmeat.

So, this is a Fallout game, alright.

However, you can not satisfy NoMutantsAllowed community in any means.
I hate those kind of users.
They were already prejudiced and biased towards the game even before screenshots of the game released.
When the game published, they were already ready to banish the game.

I defended the Fallout 3 game.
But was it a Perfect game?
Err, no.
It was not a perfect game but there is no relation between being a Perfect game and being a Fallout game.
A few things bothered me in Fallout 3:
- Shooting without VATS was very hard. I am a gamer which played lots and lots of FPS games, but this game had bad shooting controls. New Vegas improved that and allowed players a better gameplay.
- I wished to use cars or at least motorcycle in the game. Non-working cars have still fuel in them (when you shoot, they explode), so they could put a feature to loot those cars or make your own from the garbage.
- Radio channels were repetitive.
- They could add some factions that can be joined and increased in ranks.
etc...

It was not a perfect game, but an awesome Fallout game.

Still, I prefer playing Fallout 2, because of its cyberpunk-ish atmosphere.
 

Entraboard

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Jul 9, 2011
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Is FO3 really not a proper FO game?

I wouldn't know, having never play 1, 2 or Tactics. I've been gaming for years and the ads/reviews just never struck my fancy.

But FO3 sucked me into it (and F:NV too). So, as a new fan of the series, FO3 is the foundation for my entry into this universe and therefore it is absolutely a proper FO game (at least for me).
 

x-machina

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Fallout 3 has none of the charm or character that the originals had. It's terribly written and lacks the atmosphere. In the original Fallouts (especially 2) you actually felt like a scavenger, you would encounter a group of slavers/raiders attacking innocents and not interfere. Because you might die, or ammo is precious.

In Fallout 3 you can get into a fistfight with a super mutant at level 1 and win. I recognize New Vegas corrected a lot of these problems. And,I am not bashing New Vegas here, only Bethesda.
 

New York Patrick

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Alright, there are two thinks that should probably be brought up right now:

1. Fallout New Vegas (DLC included..) is LITERALLY the plot and concept for Van Buren + New Vegas, with some minor tweaking.

2. Any of the engine issues/bugs from New Vegas are less of a "Bethesda" issue as they are an "Obsidian makes really disorganized and buggy sequels for other companies, but with good storylines."

Now... while we're at it... could some people please specify HOW the writing in Fallout 3 was weak or bad? Because basically, all of the arguements I've heard are boiling down to "it isn't 1 or 2, therefore = terrible writing."
 

New York Patrick

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x-machina said:
In Fallout 3 you can get into a fistfight with a super mutant at level 1 and win.
Fan of console commands, are we? Because otherwise, I'm going to have to call bullshit on that claim...
 

AlternatePFG

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New York Patrick said:
Alright, there are two thinks that should probably be brought up right now:

1. Fallout New Vegas (DLC included..) is LITERALLY the plot and concept for Van Buren + New Vegas, with some minor tweaking.
Not really. Van Buren had a very different main plotline, but New Vegas did lift Caesar's Legion and the Hoover Dam from Van Buren. Lonesome Road's ending was similar to VB's intended ending but on a much smaller scale, and Joshua Graham was also in Van Buren, albeit with a very different role.
 

ACman

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I liked Fallout 3 but it didn't feel like a fallout game.

Too many dumb plotholes. Too many quests where the options were normal person/completely irrational person.

The capital wasteland was a fun place to fuck around in but it did feel like they had just designed a sandpit and then left the quest writing till the night before.

"Oh shit! The game's due! Quick. Ummm.... People living on a bridge beset by vampires, little kids running a town, township living around a unexploded nuclear device, ten story tall super-mtutant.... That'll do! These suckers will play anything!!!!"

Later:

"Miss I've finished."

"that very pretty Jimmy. You get a gold star."

"Thanks miss."

Later Later:

"So. you fail you project?"

"Nope she didn't read it."

"Lucky you."
 

New York Patrick

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AlternatePFG said:
New York Patrick said:
Alright, there are two thinks that should probably be brought up right now:

1. Fallout New Vegas (DLC included..) is LITERALLY the plot and concept for Van Buren + New Vegas, with some minor tweaking.
Not really. Van Buren had a very different main plotline, but New Vegas did lift Caesar's Legion and the Hoover Dam from Van Buren. Lonesome Road's ending was similar to VB's intended ending but on a much smaller scale, and Joshua Graham was also in Van Buren, albeit with a very different role.
Hence "DLC included"...

And really, the further developed Joshua Graham into more of a badass, and filled in his old role... So I think it worked out really nicely.
 

Spencer Petersen

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The Fallout series has always been about deconstructing human nature and behavioral patterns to provide compelling moral and ethical (and sometimes physical) quandaries that the player can impact on in meaningful ways that suit the characters play-styles. And while I will say FO3 lets you have quite a big impact on the game, it also seems hamstrung by the requirements of modern game making.

The prototypical problem faced within a Fallout game in the likes of 1 and 2 is usually when you come across a settlement or cluster of settlements and are forced to choice an allegiance depending on which faction you predominately agree with. At which point you can perform quests for them to change the game world according to your allegiance. The sheer number of way each town can end up as is the true test of a Fallout game, with as many as 13 separate endings for the town of New Reno in FO2.

The problem is that FO3 took the route of providing an unambiguously good entity that we are forced to work with even if we wholeheartedly disagree with their theology and/or methodology. The Brotherhood in the first game was mostly a shadow entity that left wastelanders to die to raiders/super mutants and only took an interest in the enclave in the second game because they were threatened directly by them. The order is painfully antiquated, barely functional, self-destructive and enormously greedy, but because the quest system in FO3 was so inflexible and railroaded you couldn't make an enemy out of the Brotherhood except at the very end of Broken Steel, which didn't make any sense because up to that point there was no way to characterize yourself as an enemy of the Brotherhood beforehand.

The reason 1 and 2 and even now NV have a much more compelling narrative is because it allows you to impact your own philosophical principals on a real world in motion. Choosing to let NCR absorb Vault City using underhanded tactics was a pragmatic move that may result in more deaths for the near future but allowed a more functional society to emerge from its ashes. FO3 had the Fable problem of choosing between stupidly heroic or stupidly dickish, with the impacts of each town having nothing to do with any other town or settlement.

The setting was also very un-Fallout-y, with the entire wasteland looking completely devoid of life except for tiny unsustainable pockets. One and two had clear farming communities and methods of survival and focused on the aspects of government and power in a wasteland scenario proving the Fallout mantra, "War never changes" as the biggest enemy to humanity is humanity itself. Fallout 3 doesn't have the war of power going on, and it makes the environment less compelling, as it seems to imply that the only thing stopping civilization from rising again are mundane things like radiation and mutants. The biggest thing holding back humanity is our self destructive tendencies, and if you omit that from Fallout than you are omitting the very soul of the series.
 

CannibalCorpses

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I think they are all great games, 2 and 3 especially and tactics aswell. 2 was just pure comedy from start to finish. 3 had plenty of moments but it still had absolutely shit loads of random messing about you could do. The named weapons and the vats system, it was really fun just dicking around the wastes. Tactics was good aswell but it focused more on skill progression rather than story.

All the fallout games are good, even the shit ones!
 

bastardman25

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FO 1 & 2 are still my favourite games evar, tactics was a massive disappointment that might as well not have bothered calling itself fallout (and it was buggy).

the only thing i really hated about fallout 3 was having to talk to any of the blankfaced NPCs with awful voice acting(megaton sheriff can shit right off for starters), also the way the story line points you directly at your objectives totally didn?t tally up with either of the first 2 games....Also the guns were horrible, and i was really disappointed that setting off megatons bomb didn?t kill that annoying squeaky ***** in the shop. The radio stations all seem to consist of about 3 songs in a loop with that COCKRACKET "three-dog" repeating the same unfunny shite over and over and over, don't ripoff the GTA radio stations unless you understand the concept of humour.
Oh yeah and that big walking robot at the end seemed 0% appropriate and stopped me having any fun in the supposedly climactic end game sequence.
id say new vegas was a massive improvement but lets face it, the oblivion engine is shitty,
everything in the distance looks alluring and interesting but when you actually get there there isn?t anything to do, the textures are all rubbish, the scale seems a bit off and you?re more than likely going to get stuck on the stupid side of some big canyon in the terrain.

i think in the 2D games your imagination is forced to step in, even though most locations in FO1 & 2 only have about 20 people in, most of whom are identical sprites with identical conversation options, the isometric perspective let you suspend your disbelief more easily than in a first person perspective (especially rivet "city" which seemed to have about 12 boring dead eyed gimps walking about getting in my way for no reason)

They probably shouldn?t try reviving franchises as dead as fallout, hardcore fanboys (me) are still able to play the originals and will only feel disappointment and contempt for the new pretender in all its HDR shit voice acting glory doing a godawful impression of something we actually enjoyed like a crap comedian reciting material written 13 years ago by someone much better and making it worse by omitting things like irony and self awareness.

if you want a dark gritty 3D post apocalypse game go play stalker clear sky, it's defiantly still flawed but it doesn't suffer from mind niggling franchise rape or oblivion engine syndrome.
 

Terminate421

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Fallout 3 is my #4 game of all time.

I don't care for haters. It seemed what I expected from a fallout game, despite being my first.
 

genericusername64

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Fallout 3's story was a mess that didn't connect to the first games other than superficial ways.
The humor was non-existent and the entire story was bland. It's saving grace was that it encouraged exploration, and atmospherically it's unparalleled. If it switched out the names I would love it, but it isn't a fallout game, you know what was a fallout game? New Vegas, it failed where fallout 3 succeeded, and continued the actual canon of the first 2 games. Fallout 3 was a spinoff, New vegas is a sequel.
 

Chiasm

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Honestly, Fallout 3 was just ok but in no way was it a Fallout game. To make a long subject simple I feel sorry for all these newcomers who wont know the joy of selling their characters for money, becoming a porn star, or even just seducing a mob boss's wife so you can infiltrate their hideout. Or even how you could force someone to dig their own grave; or maybe the kung fu fight, or maybe the best part was the New Reno boxing match where your character could get their ear bitten off making you lose -1 cha and finding a ear in your inventory.

Also.


Terminate421 said:
Fallout 3 is my #4 game of all time.

I don't care for haters. It seemed what I expected from a fallout game, despite being my first.
How can Fallout 3 be what you expected in Fallout; when you just admitted it was your first?
 

Eggbert

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Bluntman1138 said:
number2301 said:
Read up on the story of FO1, 2 and Van Buren. Then compare that to 3.

Well, since "Van Buren" was never made, than that point is moot. And considering ALL of 1,2, and VB takes place in California, and 3 In D.C then there will be differences.

Just how are they to "Sync up" story wise. Two different places seperated by 100 years and 3000 miles (some people forget to remember that fallout 1 and 2 have a time span gap of decades in between.)
I believe he's referring to quality of writing there, along with general continuity. They don't need to sync up, but the main story for 3 was atrocious (the side quests, on the other hand, were great), while 1 and 2 featured consistently solid writing.
 

Hollock

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Of course it is! They totally pay respect to the original, and fits in fine. It doesn't matter what kind of game it is.
 

Da Orky Man

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Apr 24, 2011
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Staehrminator said:
I think what people misinterpret as a "Fallout game" is in fact a Black Isle game. Bethesda are good at creating atmosphere and (barring Oblivion) making fun gameplay, but truly awful at building characters and writing dialogue. I can't remember one single memorable conversation or person from Morrowind, Oblivion or Fallout 3. They were all cut out of cardboard, and they all disappeared from my mind as soon as I was done getting items from them. That is what broke all of their games for me, no matter how many bump maps and shaders they used.
Completely agree. Which is why I REALLY ant Bethesda and Bioware to do a game together. Imagine it, Bethesda's atmosphere and open-world philosophy, combined with Bioware's excellent dialogue and character design. So perfect... *starts drooling*.
 

C95J

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Fallout 3 is a great game. I have played a bit of Fallout as well, still a good game, but I much prefer Fallout 3 really. I wouldn't say Fallout 3 isn't part of the series, although it is like a different game.