Which do you feel has the bleaker game environment...

[caleb451]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Fallout, specifically FO3? I've been playing through Clear Sky and I always get a get a sort of crushing futility feeling from exploring the landscape and fighting for survival, but I'm not entirely sure why. A sense of "what I'm doing doesn't really matter, a Big Emission could hit again at any second and wipe us all out." Maybe it's because I always imagine it to be pretty cold, even during the day, since it's set in September. Then again, it's Chernobyl, one of the most depressing places on earth, so it could just be that.

Comparatively, I don't get the same feeling from Fallout 3. Sure, having a nuclear blast wipe out a major city and leaving a lot of the survivors skinless outcasts is pretty bad by itself, but maybe it's because the player character has spent most of his life in a sheltered environment, only really learning about the outside through books and vault-approved curricula, but if it's possible for an entire generation to live that don't know what life is like outside the vault, how can they be prepared for the horrible landscape that awaits those that escape? Of course, that assumes that there are people living in the vault that remember entering it with their parents, which may not be the case. In that instance I get more the feeling of "what is there to find, what ruined buildings to explore and loot?"

 

[IBlackKiteI]

Stalker definitely.
Mostly because it feels a whole lot more real than FO3. The majority of locations look like areas that can (and many of them do) exist and weather and lighting is very well implemented. That and the isolation. You can sometimes wander around for 5-10 minutes and not come across a single living person, whereas Fallout throws stuff at you quite a bit.

Awesome as Fallout is, its just way too wacky and unbelievable to be bleak.

 

[IFS]

I haven't played STALKER but from what little I've seen of it I'd say it wins that contest. Fallout has bleakness but its not the major focus, the major focus is (at least in the well written Fallouts) how people are rebuilding after the apocalypse.

Fallout 3 might also do better in this department if the environments made SENSE in the story, things should not be that dead 200 years after the apocalypse (yes I know it was originally going to be only like 20-50, which makes more sense, but they changed it so its irrelevant, besides that doesn't fix all of the other massive plot holes and terrible writing that make up the game).

Don't get me wrong I like FO3, I think its a good game and I put tons of hours into it, its just not a good fallout.

 

[Therumancer]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Fallout, specifically FO3? I've been playing through Clear Sky and I always get a get a sort of crushing futility feeling from exploring the landscape and fighting for survival, but I'm not entirely sure why. A sense of "what I'm doing doesn't really matter, a Big Emission could hit again at any second and wipe us all out." Maybe it's because I always imagine it to be pretty cold, even during the day, since it's set in September. Then again, it's Chernobyl, one of the most depressing places on earth, so it could just be that.

Comparatively, I don't get the same feeling from Fallout 3. Sure, having a nuclear blast wipe out a major city and leaving a lot of the survivors skinless outcasts is pretty bad by itself, but maybe it's because the player character has spent most of his life in a sheltered environment, only really learning about the outside through books and vault-approved curricula, but if it's possible for an entire generation to live that don't know what life is like outside the vault, how can they be prepared for the horrible landscape that awaits those that escape? Of course, that assumes that there are people living in the vault that remember entering it with their parents, which may not be the case. In that instance I get more the feeling of "what is there to find, what ruined buildings to explore and loot?"

Fallout for sure.

The thing about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is that at the end of the day it's all about a group of greedy bastards that are in that enviroment specifically to find radioactive artifacts that they can sell for a bundle. That's the motivating factor behind it all, with some of the factions that get involved having other thoughts on the subject like goverment control of all artifacts to protect the public, or how the wonders of the zone should belong to everyone. Granted your protaganist typically winds up with a higher motive than that, especially in call of Pripyat where your prtty much a goverment soldier/investigator... but otherwise it's pure mercenary fervor. There is a world outside, and as bad as it is, nobody is there because they have no choice in the matter, indeed choosing to become a hunter is not supposed to be an easy thing to do to begin with.

In Fallout things might not be as bleak as The Zone in any one location, but you have to realize there is no real central goverment (though plenty of people who might want to set one up... especially if they happen to be facist conquerors). You can't just decide to give up one day, go home, and kick back in your nice air conditioned house, rev up the internet, and enjoy a big mac while surfing for exotic pornography. Something like Vegas' Strip in Fallout: New Vegas, or Rivet City in Fallout 3, might seem positively upbeat compared to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but only until you realize that this is literally the closest thing to any kind of civilization that atill exists as far as people are concerned. Your desperate guy dying of thirst outside the gates of a town doesn't have the option to "opt out", and the guys searching the wastes and ruins are doing it to genuinely survive, not to fuel expeditions to find that one artifact they can smuggle out and retire rich.

That's my thoughts at any rate. The limited scope of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and it's premise prevents it from being as bleak. Though to be honest I suppose I can understand why some might not think that, to be honest sometimes I feel like this series loses track of it's own premise. Sometimes it tries to come accross as more of a "desperate survival" simulation than it's actually supposed to be, forgetting all about how this is all about treasure hunting. Some guy dies from radiation in Fallout, you can feel sorry about it, he was born into a world that sucks. That happens in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it's hard to be sympathetic the same way because that guy knew the risks, he just figured he could hack it and would get lucky and be one of the guys to get out with some artifacts and be rich.

 

[blindthrall]

Fallout= fantasy, Stalker= realism.
Given eastern europe, the world outside Pripyat might not be any better than the Zone, just more congested. Having said that, if we look at both games as only the environments presented, Stalker hands down. Fallout is just too full of cartoony fun, although that wasn't true of the original, the wacky shit came in 2.

Both pale in comparison to Metro 2033. There are certain conversations you can listen in on that flesh out the world to a bullet-eating extent. You really start to wonder if it isn't better to let the mutants win so at least earth has some sentient life.

 

[Azahul]

Fallout, even 3, is all about coming back from the Apocalypse. As much as Fallout 3 revelled in the aftermath of the war, it was still about the recovery, the return of civilisation. Sure, "War, war never changes" is a bleak as hell way to start off that experience, but the games have always seemed incredibly optimistic for their setting. Yeah, guys, our world is dead, but soon we'll have finished making this new one and we can all get back to killing each other!

So yeah, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (and as blindthrall says, Metro 2033 even more than S.T.A.L.K.E.R.).

 

[lacktheknack]

Fallout 3 has people explode from being hit too hard with teddy bears.

It has people jumping for joy endearingly when they see you (dawwww, Moira).

It has ridiculous quests that bend back on themselves, throw you into quirky and even hilarious situations, and bizarre enemies.

Most importantly, it depicts people with hope (again, dawwww, Moira, as well as a bunch of others).

S.T.A.L.K.E.R., however, has none of those (except the bizarre enemies, but there's a huge difference between a giant fly and a tentacle-face-eater). It's just... bleak.

If you want to compare Fallout to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., try talking about Fallout, the original. THAT one had some epically bleak parts in it, but even it had a weird sense of hope behind most of it.

I agree with the above sentiment that Metro 2033 wins, though. Once you're panicking and firing at a ridiculous horde of mutants chasing the minecart you're in as they drag screaming people out of the cart, THAT'S when you've felt truly desperate and hopeless. And don't even get me started on the moments where your face mask starts to crack.