prisoner_24601 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
prisoner_24601) wrote2008-11-19 11:05 am
prisoner_24601) wrote2008-11-19 11:05 am
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Fallout 3
So I finished Fallout 3 today, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised.
I have to admit that I was worried that I was not going to like this game. Fallout 1 and 2 are two of my favorite games of all freaking time, but I'd played Morrowind which I hated so much that I never got around to playing Oblivion, and I was afraid that Bethseda would screw up the Fallout franchise. Turns out that they fixed a lot of the issues that I had with Morrowind, and created out a pretty fun game.
What I loved:
The overall game atmosphere.
Fallout 3 manages to find it's own groove that's reminiscent of the old games, but still it's own creation. The game designers did a good job capturing the bleakness, brutality and crazyness of a post apocalyptic future coupled with the perky fifties vibe that was the signature of the first two games. While it's true that a lot of the humor of Fallout 1 and 2 is missing, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, just different. While I miss having some of the spectacularly hilarious dialogue options from the first two games (you know... the ones that you had to choose, but just knew that the whole town was going to end up attacking your ass for), I don't miss the tons and tons of pop culture references that were kind of annoying and jarring.
The atmosphere is so hardcore and bleak that I just couldn't bring myself to play a bad character. You see these people, who have just been totally shat on by life, which really made it difficult for me to do anything too bad. But even this bleakness can be a seriously cool thing. For me, some of the most sublime moments of this game came from just creeping around bombed out ruins at dawn with my Pip Boy radio playing music like "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" softly in the background.
The combat/character creation system.
Bethseda was smart and kept the fun parts of the combat and character creation system while also trimming a lot of the fat (useless perks, skills and turned based combat) from the first game. I also appreciate how easy the keyboard interface is to use. As a computer gamer, one of my pet peeves is playing a game that's clearly designed for a console controller and having the controls sloppily mapped onto the keyboard as an afterthought (Bioware - I'm looking at you.).
The DC ruins.
This is definitely one area that I thought was a vast improvement from the first game. It's so cool to walk around ruins that you can actually recognize. There would be times where I'd just stop and stare when I realized that holy shit, yes, I am actually looking at the Jefferson Memorial in the distance. Even better, you get to go into them. I also loved the use of the subway system as a means to get around downtown. While I'm sure that there was a lot of creative liberty taken with this area, I think that Bethseda deserves a ton of credit for designing a game with recognizable landmarks, while still allowing enough flexibility for them to be able to create their own areas and plotlines.
I hope this is a trend that continues in future fallout games. If I were queen of the universe, I'd demand that they set the next game in downtown Chicago or NYC because that would be seriously freaking cool. Sadly, Detroit would be kind of redundant, since much of the Motor City already looks like the ruins of a fallout game.
Game organization.
The balance between the hugeness of the world with the quest system and main plot was another thing Bethseda should be proud of. I really liked how the big side quests and main plotline were easy to keep track of. I could go off on my own for hours, but when I felt like following the main plot or doing a quest I didn't have any trouble finding the main plot again. This was a horrible problem in Morrowind (although I don't know if they fixed it for Oblivion or not).
Things that were not so great:
NPC companions.
I only played with two of them, and honestly, I thought they were kind of lame as well as being horribly overpowered. The ones that I met at least were bland and almost no personality especially in comparison to the NPCs you could have in the first two games (like Sulik or Marcus). They never seem to react to anything that goes on around you or even really interact in any meaningful way with the PC, and I never managed to get attached to them at all. They just seem like a waste of space.
Also, while I really hated not having NPC companions in Morrowind, for some reason being on your own in Fallout 3 just seems to fit the lonely atmosphere of this game better. I never managed to find dogmeat though, so I think if I play through again, I'll just pick up the dog and ignore everyone else.
Ridiculous bugs that should have been fixed during beta testing.
Oh man, there were some whoppers. For instance, in the first real town you come across many of the NPC's manage to either fall through a hole in the world and disappear or fall off the edges of the catwalks and die. This is definitely something that should have been caught during beta testing. It's kind of shameful that the game shipped without this getting a fix. Then again, Fallout 1 & 2 were awesomely buggy too (the magic car trunk, anyone?) so maybe they're just carrying on the tradition of being lazy and not fixing obvious stuff.
Small cities.
I really miss having the big giant sprawl of cities like the Hub, New Reno, etc... The settlements in this game are so freaking tiny, to the point where it makes no sense. Plus, it's a real pisser to struggle to find your way to a place to only discover four or five people living there. I mean, hell, I know the future is harsh, but as man is a social creature and division of labor is the most effective way to get things done, there'd have to be bigger settlements than what we see in this game.
The ending.
I won't spoil it, but I found it to be rather... anti-climatic. It lacks the punch in the gut from the first game (which had me screaming out loud "I hate you, fuckers!" the first time I played it), or the satisfaction that you get from the second game. It's not awful, just kind of meh, which is sad considering how much work was obviously put into this game.
Anyway, I thought this was definitely worth the 50 bucks, but then I'm biased because I love the Fallout franchise, so take this with the grain of salt. I definitely liked it better than Mass Effect, and I'll probably play through it at least partially again, and see if I can't be such a goody two shoes this time.
I have to admit that I was worried that I was not going to like this game. Fallout 1 and 2 are two of my favorite games of all freaking time, but I'd played Morrowind which I hated so much that I never got around to playing Oblivion, and I was afraid that Bethseda would screw up the Fallout franchise. Turns out that they fixed a lot of the issues that I had with Morrowind, and created out a pretty fun game.
What I loved:
The overall game atmosphere.
Fallout 3 manages to find it's own groove that's reminiscent of the old games, but still it's own creation. The game designers did a good job capturing the bleakness, brutality and crazyness of a post apocalyptic future coupled with the perky fifties vibe that was the signature of the first two games. While it's true that a lot of the humor of Fallout 1 and 2 is missing, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, just different. While I miss having some of the spectacularly hilarious dialogue options from the first two games (you know... the ones that you had to choose, but just knew that the whole town was going to end up attacking your ass for), I don't miss the tons and tons of pop culture references that were kind of annoying and jarring.
The atmosphere is so hardcore and bleak that I just couldn't bring myself to play a bad character. You see these people, who have just been totally shat on by life, which really made it difficult for me to do anything too bad. But even this bleakness can be a seriously cool thing. For me, some of the most sublime moments of this game came from just creeping around bombed out ruins at dawn with my Pip Boy radio playing music like "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" softly in the background.
The combat/character creation system.
Bethseda was smart and kept the fun parts of the combat and character creation system while also trimming a lot of the fat (useless perks, skills and turned based combat) from the first game. I also appreciate how easy the keyboard interface is to use. As a computer gamer, one of my pet peeves is playing a game that's clearly designed for a console controller and having the controls sloppily mapped onto the keyboard as an afterthought (Bioware - I'm looking at you.).
The DC ruins.
This is definitely one area that I thought was a vast improvement from the first game. It's so cool to walk around ruins that you can actually recognize. There would be times where I'd just stop and stare when I realized that holy shit, yes, I am actually looking at the Jefferson Memorial in the distance. Even better, you get to go into them. I also loved the use of the subway system as a means to get around downtown. While I'm sure that there was a lot of creative liberty taken with this area, I think that Bethseda deserves a ton of credit for designing a game with recognizable landmarks, while still allowing enough flexibility for them to be able to create their own areas and plotlines.
I hope this is a trend that continues in future fallout games. If I were queen of the universe, I'd demand that they set the next game in downtown Chicago or NYC because that would be seriously freaking cool. Sadly, Detroit would be kind of redundant, since much of the Motor City already looks like the ruins of a fallout game.
Game organization.
The balance between the hugeness of the world with the quest system and main plot was another thing Bethseda should be proud of. I really liked how the big side quests and main plotline were easy to keep track of. I could go off on my own for hours, but when I felt like following the main plot or doing a quest I didn't have any trouble finding the main plot again. This was a horrible problem in Morrowind (although I don't know if they fixed it for Oblivion or not).
Things that were not so great:
NPC companions.
I only played with two of them, and honestly, I thought they were kind of lame as well as being horribly overpowered. The ones that I met at least were bland and almost no personality especially in comparison to the NPCs you could have in the first two games (like Sulik or Marcus). They never seem to react to anything that goes on around you or even really interact in any meaningful way with the PC, and I never managed to get attached to them at all. They just seem like a waste of space.
Also, while I really hated not having NPC companions in Morrowind, for some reason being on your own in Fallout 3 just seems to fit the lonely atmosphere of this game better. I never managed to find dogmeat though, so I think if I play through again, I'll just pick up the dog and ignore everyone else.
Ridiculous bugs that should have been fixed during beta testing.
Oh man, there were some whoppers. For instance, in the first real town you come across many of the NPC's manage to either fall through a hole in the world and disappear or fall off the edges of the catwalks and die. This is definitely something that should have been caught during beta testing. It's kind of shameful that the game shipped without this getting a fix. Then again, Fallout 1 & 2 were awesomely buggy too (the magic car trunk, anyone?) so maybe they're just carrying on the tradition of being lazy and not fixing obvious stuff.
Small cities.
I really miss having the big giant sprawl of cities like the Hub, New Reno, etc... The settlements in this game are so freaking tiny, to the point where it makes no sense. Plus, it's a real pisser to struggle to find your way to a place to only discover four or five people living there. I mean, hell, I know the future is harsh, but as man is a social creature and division of labor is the most effective way to get things done, there'd have to be bigger settlements than what we see in this game.
The ending.
I won't spoil it, but I found it to be rather... anti-climatic. It lacks the punch in the gut from the first game (which had me screaming out loud "I hate you, fuckers!" the first time I played it), or the satisfaction that you get from the second game. It's not awful, just kind of meh, which is sad considering how much work was obviously put into this game.
Anyway, I thought this was definitely worth the 50 bucks, but then I'm biased because I love the Fallout franchise, so take this with the grain of salt. I definitely liked it better than Mass Effect, and I'll probably play through it at least partially again, and see if I can't be such a goody two shoes this time.
Found you through thriftwhore for reference :-)
Re: Found you through thriftwhore for reference :-)
I think that I'm going to have to take your advice and give Oblivion a try, especially since the computer gaming world seems kind of bleak at the moment - at least until the Sims 3 comes out and I exercise some of my megalomania :P I'm glad to hear that they've made the main quest much, much clearer because that would really help with my enjoyment of the game.
I've definitely played the Knights of the Old Republic games (I actually co-moderate a large KoTOR fanfic archive) and I absolutely love them. I'm kind of disappointed that they're going the MMO route for the franchise instead of just making a straight out sequel, mostly because I really don't want to get sucked into another MMO.
I love bioware, although sometimes the drive me crazy with their repetitive plot lines. I'm pretty sure the only reason I made it through Mass Effect though was because I had it on the default setting. And even then, I had a hell of a time because I suck at driving computer game cars. It was amazing how many ways you could die or just get get that stupid Mako stuck.
I'd love to play the Resident Evil games (because Zombie + Post Apocalypse = ultimate win in my book), but we don't have a console. I suspect that eventually we'll get one in the next year or so, in which case I'll have to catch up on them.