Please explain to me the appeal of Fallout 3

[BlumiereBleck]

You can play F3 for 300 hours and still not find everything.

Did it all in less then 100 hours...

 

[Nifty]

It's about as immersive as you can get from a game. If you're someone who can let themselves get sucked into games like this, there's a LOT to glean out of it.

The immersion is basically the big appeal of the game for a lot of folk (I presume). Properly role playing and sticking to a set of your own rules and exploring the numerous solemn, abandoned houses and buildings was enough for me to waste many an hour on it.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

You can play F3 for 300 hours and still not find everything.

Did it all in less then 100 hours...

I really doubt that.

Did you find the couple on the car hand in hand watching the nuke filled sky?

Or the sniper rifle on a chair by some tents over a cliff?

Or a giant Yau Guai with a giant bouncing ball?

Or a robot in a wig?

Or a Super Mutant locked in a cage by some wastelanders?

Come on, there's far too much to find in that game for 100 hours.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

You can play F3 for 300 hours and still not find everything.

Did it all in less then 100 hours...

I really doubt that.

Did you find the couple on the car hand in hand watching the nuke filled sky?

Or the sniper rifle on a chair by some tents over a cliff?

Or a giant Yau Guai with a giant bouncing ball?

Or a robot in a wig?

Or a Super Mutant locked in a cage by some wastelanders?

Come on, there's far too much to find in that game for 100 hours.

No, yes, no, yes, yes

 

[daftnoize]

I think the whole good karma is harder to gain than bad karma is an important part of the game. It's much harder to be pious in real life than to be a self centered tool. I think this is one of the ares where Bioshock (1) actually fails as it is more rewarding to be good.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

No, yes, no, yes, yes

Yowza, you must've rushed through the game pretty fast... which is fair enough but not how I would personally play Bethesda games

 

[MadMikeo14]

but everything felt brown and green and grungy.

What were you expecting? =P It's set post-Apocalypse, the colour palette is hardly going to be astounding... The brown-grey-green set-up is to give the impression of almost complete destruction and utter desolation! =D

Also, you get the opportunity to nuke a city! =) What could be more fun?

 

[GonzoGamer]

For me. I like the amount of detail that went into making the wasteland a realistic place. I like the fact that while going along the main quest I got pulled into side quests and random events that were both distracting and rewarding.
What it did for me was make me feel like I was really crafting my own story which was completely different from the story my wife experienced while playing. You can be a slaver, scientist, a merc, a soldier, or whatever. It's what you make of it. It's definitely a game for the Role Playing crowd (and feel free to use that term "Role Play" literally) who want to feel like they're playing around a real world. It's not a game for the FPS crowd who are looking for fast paced shootouts in varying settings.
It's not for everyone but for my wife and I, it's our favorite this gen.

EDIT: I just realized what it is. I've always liked RPGs but they never felt like the same thing as playing an old fashioned analog RPG with a competent and witty dungeon/game master. Fallout 3 is probably the closest thing to playing one of those. Things are random but relevant and you're pretty much free to do what you want.

 

[Dexiro]

First off it's an rpg, not an fps. It emphasizes stats over skill, with a little strategy.

The appeal is in the exploration. You set off aimlessly to mark off all the locations on your world map and find tons of awesome stuff on the way. It's pretty damn rewarding walking into a random location and finding some new quirky enemies or a crazy weapon like a mini-nuke launcher. Then once you've found your first interesting location you know you have an absolute ton more to find.

Noone cares about the quests that much, they just give you cool rewards sometimes.

It is a hard game to get into for a lot of people. It took my almost a year of giving up and starting new games before i finally got some enjoyment out of it. It's really not that hard to find the fun in it, you just need a little guidance through for first hour or so of gameplay.

 

[Geekosaurus]

I recently got Fallout 3, but it's not my sort of game. It felt like the game was against you, giving you literately nothing and expecting you to hold your own. I know some people like that, but I'm not a fan.

 

[zhemis]

The first time I played Fallout 3 I put it down in less than an hour and didn't play again for another year or so. Mind you mods were scarce and back then I didn't have the machine to handle high settings. So the second time I picked it up I found a plethora of mods, good ones, available and went to town with them. By the time I was done I had a game that I've spent over 500 hours on with my main character alone. So, idk, I understand someone getting in and thinking nothing of turning it off and leaving it for good. At the same time, I'm very happy that I decided to give it another chance. With most Bethesda games, a few mods can make the difference.

 

[Talon_Skywarp]

I love it and all its lovely little bugs. In fact, the gliches make it even better at times. Some of the things I've seen happen break the mind. I have no clue how that deathclaw flew up there...

I killed a Super Mutant Behemoth with a Teddy Bear and a lump of my own brain.
This alone validates my purchase of Fallout 3.

Its also a Great game (In my opinion).

This also.

 

[Meggiepants]

Now, the appeal for me, is the setting. Immersive post apocalyptic games are few and far between. This is one of the best ones on the market. The story is the world, not just the narrative. It's the blown out buildings, the skeletons clinging to each other in bed, the corpses in a bathtub full of whiskey bottles, the crazed mutated animals, the twisted cities... all of it is part of the story. If you don't really care for the setting, then I wouldn't recommend this game to you.

But I really like this type of setting and story, so despite all its flaws, Fallout 3 works for me.

Thanks. You just inspired me to boot up Fallout 3 and keep on digging. It was so compelling that I could 'track/trace' people's lives and how they might have died because of their corpses, items around and their location. It was 100% better than the narrative. Fallout 3 is meant for exploration and discovery, questing is a small part of it that connects to it.

Once more, thanks!

That's what I'm here for! Spreading the Fallout love, one corpse at a time.

 

[tlozoot]

Oblivion had more variety in its combat.

Combat option 1: Spam Melee weapons
Combat option 2: Spam Destruction spells
Combat option 3: 1-hit kill with Bow & Arrow, collect Arrow, repeat.
Varied? Yes.
Fun? No.

Combat option 1: Spam VATs with light weapon
Combat option 2: Spam VATs with heavy weapon
Combat option 3: Spam VATs with energy weapon

You get the picture. VATs looked cool, that's for sure, but that's all it did. What we have here though is a gross oversimplifying of both games combat. In Oblivion you'd often be mixing a variety of spells into the combat to help out. Every character would use aspects of magic to buff/debuff, not just spamming their weapon, and indeed on higher difficulties this would be crucial to survive.

Fallout just seemed to sacrifice many gameplay aspects just to fit in with the theme. In Oblivion there was alchemy and enchanting, as well as many types of magic to use alongside your physical attacks. In Fallout there was just...VATs.

Like I said, I don't dislike the game, I just didn't find nearly as much depth as Oblivion.