The Fallout Restrospective

[Line666]

Oblivion? Storytelling?
.....

Oblivion is so light on starts it's ridiculous. And as for looting, why are you playing RPG's if you don't want to loot shit? It actually boggles the mind.
Most games seem to have some sort of system in place so you start the game with basic shit and end it with really powerful stuff.

Whether that be just the order in which the gives you guns (HL2 anyone?) or the way that you start an RPG with basic armour and steadily end up with access to better armour because of the enemies that you fight or the places you can go.

Part of the beauty of NON-scaled levelling is also that you can go adventuring and certain areas won't really be accessible and some areas will and if you can be clever you can get into places and get better loot than you'd usually have at your level which just adds reason to go exploring.
In Fallout 3 and Oblivion it's a complete waste of time exploring. You're not gonna find any treasures at level 3, you're not gonna be rewarded for trekking through a forest or across the wastes for 15 bloody minutes. You're just gonna find some raiders/imps and nothing actually cool.

I think the most annoying thing about Oblivion was the botched leveling system, where you actually had to do some wierd wierd leveling up to actually be able to kill anything.

I got to level 21 and there were still bears killing me for fuck sake, it was tragic. Also, yep, the dialogue was terrible - especially the NPC's voices changing from happy young women one moment to shrivelled old hags the next.

Morrowind was a great game and it didnt punish you for leveling up. I spent hours on that game, whereas Oblivion petered out really early on and left me with nothing to do. Bethesda really dropped the ball on Oblivion.

 

[GarethSE]

It's funny. Myself, along with a majority of the hardcore early Fallout fanbase were deathly afraid of Bethesda branching out in a more mainstream fashion with FO3 would draw players like yourself to the franchise. It seems we were right to worry

In all fairness, it sounds like you'd be more at home playing first person shooters. You seem to be playing role playing games and looking for the parts that don't involve any role playing.

PLUS
FUCKING
A MILLION

i also had an epicly long reply written out to narco but I realised that anyone who thinks Oblivion has plenty of storytelling isn't going to change their mindset.
Please, go play Half-Life 2 and you will realise what amazing writing, good characterisation and a strong mythos that is clearly woven deeply into the tapestry of the game actually are and Oblivion will never be the same ever again.

i give up, you've actually done the impossible and made me give up on raging.
fuck man

 

[GarethSE]

and yeah ola thats the one

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Arkham-Asylum-15th-Anniversary/dp/1401204252/ref=pd_sim_b_7[/ame]
but here's the one with the really sexy cover
enjoy dude, it's a fucking masterpiece!
just take the story as a big metaphor for freud's psychodynamic approach and you'll be alright
that or just dont even bother trying to understand it. smoke lots of weed, turn the lights off and read it by candle light and just bathe in the atmosphere, you might cry its that fucking good
<3

 

[Ermz]

Their leveling systems were pretty much identical between the two games AFAIK.

The trick with their system is to not just level indiscriminately, but cleverly. You need to make EVERY level count by maxing as many attributes as possible during that level. By level 17 you should be invincible (literally... either via the 100% chameleon suit, or 100% resistance to magic and damage) and able to one-shot everything with stacking weakness spells and hitting em with a 5 point fire damage spell . It was actually quite funny to end the last boss like that.

Anyway, Oblivion was broken. They built Fallout 3 on the back of that same broken system and somehow expected it to work. I suppose it did... enough to let every retard out there who had never experienced anything more intellectually stimulating than games geared at drunken house rats call it the 'game of the year'. Where in fact it was the biggest let down of the last decade. If you played Fallout 1 & 2, then subsequently 3, you could not conclude anything other than it being an abysmal failure. Its real title should be Elder Scrolls: Fallout.

 

[GarethSE]

Their leveling systems were pretty much identical between the two games AFAIK.

The trick with their system is to not just level indiscriminately, but cleverly. You need to make EVERY level count by maxing as many attributes as possible during that level. By level 17 you should be invincible (literally... either via the 100% chameleon suit, or 100% resistance to magic and damage) and able to one-shot everything with stacking weakness spells and hitting em with a 5 point fire damage spell . It was actually quite funny to end the last boss like that.

Anyway, Oblivion was broken. They built Fallout 3 on the back of that same broken system and somehow expected it to work. I suppose it did... enough to let every retard out there who had never experienced anything more intellectually stimulating than games geared at drunken house rats call it the 'game of the year'. Where in fact it was the biggest let down of the last decade. If you played Fallout 1 & 2, then subsequently 3, you could not conclude anything other than it being an abysmal failure. Its real title should be Elder Scrolls: Fallout.

Morrowind makes me forgive Elder Scrolls for going to shit.
Can't we have a new prefix for any Bethesda games from now on that is indicative of their massively shitty nature?

 

[narcossintese]

i give up, you've actually done the impossible and made me give up on raging.
fuck man

Dude, are you angry? LOL
I´m not being disrespectful or anything. I´ve already played the entire half life (and Fallout) series too. I work with games (not a full time job, tough). I didn´t like the story on Oblivion because I think it´s too cheesy, but it´s totally there. They´ve created a whole universe on that game. It´s not like Boderlands where they just give you a text screen and say go.

I will never get how can people enjoy grinding games. I´ve had this friend that used to play Ultima Online, and he used a software running cycle scripts to keep the character doing clown costumes to sell later and power level. The game was so based on power levelling that people had to make the game play by itself until they got enough power to make quests.

 

[kaomao]

It's incredible how many young dudes over here bash a new game (Oblivion) while they praise the old shit
I'm older than some of you (31) but still I think it's better play that shitty oblivion game than fallout, where there's that stupid combat system, turn base sucks.
Even though Baldur's gate had a turn base combat system, I think it was the only Rpg that I can call "RPG".
Oblivion is fun that's it, I love the environment and I loved the dungeons, yes there's a shitload of bugs with the dialog system as Öwen said (multiple voices on the same character LOL) and a few other bugs I hated so much (quest related).

 

[GarethSE]

the LORE is cheesy, its just a LOTR jerk off fantasy as ermz so eloquently put it, the STORY itself is just awful beyond words.

see the thing is i dont know how you can say other RPG's are grind based. morrowind is grind based? fallout 1 and 2 are grind based? what?! nah man.
WoW is grind based. lineage 2 is grind based.
fallout 1 and 2 and morrowind and other good shit? nah man, just nah aha

 

[kaomao]

fallout is not grind base but I hate a lot that stupid turn base combat system. if it was realtime it would have been much better.
I used to play at d&d (the original basic/expert/companion/master and so on) back in 1990 and I hated the combat system, I mean waiting for the monster to attack, roll the dice, waiting for the monster again lol i
t was boring, even though I love to play d&d because of the leveling and great environment and had a great time with good pals I played with, wich is better than playing in fornt of a pc lol!
Bestiary was great too.

 

[Ermz]

^ Actually it was folks like you that pushed Troika to develop a real-time as well as turn based system into Arcanum, which absolutely ruined something that could've been a fairly glorious game. In some ways it was a spiritual successor to Fallout, albeit in a way different universe. Point is that it didn't work at all. Some games are way better suited with turn based combat rather than real time. When you put a real time combat system into a game it almost immediately becomes about twitch reflexes rather than forethought and strategy.

Imagine Jagged Alliance 2 in real-time... hah.

 

[Limak]

Bitching over combat system in an RPG game, seriously... I really miss times where 3D in games was merely a gadget and players were playing for the game itself(storyline, world setting) instead of masturbating over endless abuse of graphic engines and arcade combat system. RPG is a genre called like that for a reason, you play it for the world created within it, for beign put into situation of the story's hero. WHat RPG is NOT about for sure is graphics and combat system(there is FPS/arcade out there too for a reason for people who like minimal involvement).
Fallout 1&2 had it's magic, Fallout 3 doesn't have any. It's missing the personality, balls, talent and most important(and what most games are missing nowdays) - passion of it's developers(for the game, not for the $).

I think Fallout 3 and most current MMOrpgs/RPGs are perfect examples of how the genre is degrading for sake of players who mistook RPG for FPS. I think the fact that arcade-type gamers enjoy those games while RPG-type ones despise them shows alot.