Fallout 3
 

I noticed Fallout 3 on steam just now. Any reports from the field? I LOVED Fallout and Fallout 2. I'll pretend the Xbox version was never released though. ;) This isn't the same play style of course, but if the universe fits the first couple then I am interested.

I played it a bit on a friend's XBox. It was beautiful on the HD tv, but I'd still like to try it on my computer. The game played well.

I wannit... I cannah play it on my computer. The first time in a long damned time I'm seeing games I really wanna play that I just can't.

Just finished my second time through (I've had it for 360 for quite some time now). I can say that this game WILL NOT dissapoint you. It stays true to the atmosphere and story of 1 and 2. You'd think that since its a First Person perspective that it'd be more of a shooter than RPG, but its not. This game is perfect in every way.

So it's not "Oblivion with guns" ?

But Todd Howard said that it was exactly Oblivion with guns. :|

I don't buy that it stays true to 1 and 2's story or atmosphere. I'll know when I play it, though - planning to get it Friday.

I enjoyed Oblivion enough that even if it's a completely shit Fallout clone, an abortion of the series' style and substance, it'd still be an interesting game.

I remember taking a job as "fluffer" in the first series, getting poisoned and then not being able to find help in time. lol. Your analysis has me peaked in interest. I am damn close to whipping out the plastic and shoveling mo'money to steam.

Thanks also to Hawk for the feedback from some hands on.

I haven't played enough of it to give you much more. :P

Let's see some reviews from those of you who have.

I whipped out the plastic earlier today and started playing about 3 hours ago. So far, WOW! This game rocks! It definitely shares alot with oblivion as far as interface, controls, ETC. If you played oblivion you already know the basic controls of fallout but other than that, it's nothing like Oblivion. Sure it's an RPG and the controls are similar but so far as i've noticed, that's where the similarities end. The start of the game I thought was great! I've never played a game where you start out as a new born baby. Great touch.

One thing that annoyed me about Oblivion was that there were about 10 voice actors employed for the game and those same 10 voices were used on hundreds if not thousands of npc's. So far in Fallout the voices all sound unique with the exception of the raiders I fought in the Springvale elementary school.

The dialogs get a bit tedious since you have the option to ask most npc's alot of questions and you can usually respond with multiple responses depending on how you want your character viewed and developed.

Example:
Hey Mr, can you help me find my lost husband?:
Option 1: Sure, i'd be glad to help
Option 2: Fuck off bitch, I go my own way
Option 3: what's in it for me if I do help?

All in all, so far I have enjoyed it alot. The game feels very large too. Granted i've only put about 3 hours into it but I barely made it out of the vault and through the first "town". According to the world map, i've not even scratched the surface yet.

-Icculus {FYC}

This game's freakin hard.

http://www.cad-comic.com/#1771

I trust most of what Tim has to say about games, he's got a pretty good idea of what is good and what's not.

9.6 from pc.ign.com ??

hell, i'm sold...getting this weekend. yea!

Great review!

Heh. Heh.

Tim B^Uckley....yeah alright.

^

And I saw all those words, and it's so much easier to ask a friend who's played all of them so far, and says it's awesome. So there we go. IGN gave it a 9.6, and people like it, so I'd say it'd be worth it to check it out.

I'm finding myself pretty much deriding Fallout 3 at every opportunity. I'm acknowledging everything about it that's going to suck, because I know everything about Oblivion that sucked, and I'm preparing for the worst... but I know no matter how much it surprises me, if it even does, it'll never be as good as Fallout was.

Oh well, y'know? Bethesda isn't Interplay/Black Isle and they never will be. At least F3 is taking steps in the right direction... why we went so off-course in the first place is the real puzzler.

Picked it up today. Watching the Dallas/Houston game before I install.

I'll give a detailed review (no I won't).

So far I'm kind of bored. This could have a lot to do with me being really tired, but I'm just sort of... eh. Unsure if it picks up much or not. Hoping it does.

It looks really beautiful, but as per games these days I dunno if the gameplay is gonna be all it's hyped up to be.

So far I'm finding the game to be rather ugly. I don't care how destroyed the world is. The vaults lacked color. Why the vaults? The color black is much more present than it should be. The contrast is set much higher than it should be by default. Everything is gritty to the point where it's not appealing after more than 5 minutes. It's not realistic, it's just... ugly.

it's not suppossed to be realistic - it's suppossed to be 1950'esque post nuclear world. if you dont think its fits that style then yes post, but know going in what it was meant to be..if that is not your cup of tea then thats cool but don't post as its a slanted view that fits your world view and not others.

your not a dev but rather a consumer. as a consumer, the purchase itself says that you get the vision they were trying to accomplish - opinions on if they achieved that are valid, others are not.

you would have a platform to say that u disagreed with the direction of the game if you didn't buy it, and if you didn't do reseach prior and know what you were getting yourself into that's your fault.

ps i havent played the game and not a fanboy, it's just your reasoning and approach is without any sense of integrity.

...

What?

The game is ugly on multiple levels.

The scenery is ugly, as it's supposed to be. I get this.

The washed out black that occurs on about 45% of my screen in day is ugly and makes everything... ugly. There is not an in-game contrast setting, and contrast is the issue entirely. Brightness just washes the screen in a grey color, again, due to the contrast.

This is a deliberate design choice and it's really, really poor.

As a consumer, when I looked at the game both on the box and in screenshots, I did not see washed out blacks with no detail. I saw things more like this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...creenShot0.jpg

Instead, whenever I'm anywhere that isn't inside, I get terrible, terrible contrast rates that just make the game falsely gritty and incredibly ugly.

It's exactly like seeing a picture of a guitar, choosing to buy it, and then having this happen when you get it:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...8/douglas1.jpg

Just because I liked how it looked in the picture doesn't mean that faults like this are acceptable.

Got it on the PS3 last night and after upping the brightness a touch so I could differentiate objects in the low light areas, I've found it quit enjoyable. Not quite the same feel of strategy from the first two but the immersion is damned nice.

Glad I got it on the PS3 rather than trying to run it on my computer but I for sure miss the control given by mouse and keyboard. :|

Can it fat man. Play the damn game and enjoy it.

Really, that comparison would only make sense to me if you saw a picture of the game, played it, then your whole T.V broke in two. Honestly if you saw pictures of the game before you bought it, you probably would have seen the colors before hand.

It is done like that on purpose. Many people has seen Washington D.C or at least seen pictures of it and most of you know it is a very hilly area with a lot of foliage and greens that also contain a lot of brown and Grey with the buildings. The point is for you to look at the Washington D.C it is today and then see it... Destroyed!!!

It is supposed to be a very compelling thing to see the Washington monument pretty much destroyed, The national buildings used for murderous activity, especially if you live in America it's really supposed to strike something in you.

The ugliness is supposed to contrast the real thing which is actually quite beautiful in colors.

Of course if your looking at it from a pure objective standpoint, it will look ugly.

No, your example is off entirely. Besides, there's no issue with the guitar. It's playable. It's just that what was advertised and what I got are not the same.

The problem, as I said over and over and over and over again, is that the contrast is absolutely terrible. I get washed out blacks on about 60% of the different texture types during the day. DURING. THE. DAY. Is this such a hard concept to understand?

It's got nothing to do with the scenery.

It's got everything, EVERYTHING, to do with the really poor job they did with the contrast on release.

If it happened everywhere I wouldn't feel so bad as it would just be a monitor setting. Since it ONLY happens outside, the issue was a design choice. Upping the brightness just makes those washed out blacks a washed out grey that doesn't show any detail. This is ugly.

U.
G.
L.
Y.

If you don't understand the difference between the contrast being wonky in certain areas (about 95% of the playable game) and the game being made purposefully ugly because it fits the theme and the game... then I don't know what to say. I'm not commenting on the models, the textures, the level design, the color pallate, none of that. I'm commenting on why the contrast level if different outside than it is inside. I'm commenting on why, whenever I'm in an outside environment during the day, my screen is filled with a washed-out black color.

One color.

One.

That color is a black that my monitor can't reproduce. My monitor can't reproduce it because the contrast levels are all sorts of horrible. The black at the end of the brightness bar? That's washed-out. The black on the "War... it never changes" dude? Washed-out as well. Half of the terrain in the outside world? Washed-out.

I'll have to post comparisons for you so you can understand that I'm not complaining about the locale or the scenery, but the deliberate choice the developers made with contrast.

I know this is a choice the developers made as it doesn't happen indoors where the contrast is normal but does happen outdoors where the contrast is poor. This doesn't happen in any other game I play either.

I can't say I'm liking this game either, but that's mostly due to the retarted AI and the conversations. Immediatly breaks the immersion.

Yeah, pretty much. The dialogue was one of the best parts of Fallout 1 & 2. The speech skill in Fallout 3 nine times out of ten is for the purpose of getting larger quest rewards. It's impossible to beat the game with the speech skill alone, or accomplish much of anything at all with it. Often you'll find F3 having Mass Effect-like dialogue, as in having only three options for any given scenario.

1) Agree with what the person says / accept offer
2) Disagree with what person says / do not accept offer
3) Threaten to kill the person / accept offer, but in a rude manner

Basically I don't really feel like making a huge rant here, but the game is Oblivion with guns, SPECIAL and Fallout skills. I think the game is much worse than Oblivion and I thought Oblivion was pretty mediocre, but it's the same kind of game so fans of Oblivion will probably enjoy this game regardless. But it's not even remotely close to Fallout. Even the setting doesn't feel right.

Oh, and the combat in this game is awful. It's just like it was in Oblivion. Just you have the gimmick of vats: basically you can pause the game and target an enemies' body parts. Upon targeting them and accepting, the enemies go into slow motion while your character attacks them multiple times at regular speed. If you kill an enemy using VATS, the enemy will (still in slow motion) enter into a ragdoll state and you'll see its head blow off or something. Needless to say, watching an enemy being dismembered in slow motion for 3-4 seconds following almost every battle gets extremely old; especially when you're often up against multiple enemies. Then, after getting experience anywhere, you'll hear a cash-register ka-ching. Very intelligent design choices.

And I've gotta agree with Credge. The world looks awful. Plus, supermutant orcs and mudcrabs.

I thought I might find someone reading this thread brave enough to talk about their adventures so far, but I can imagine a flurry of flaming posts delivered immediately after.

If you've got the game and <3 it mucho, kudos.

BTW, don't complete the main storyline until you're sure you're done fucking around, it will end you.

The thing that really busted a nut was when I went to the super duper mart, or whatever, finished it, then some kid came running up to me saying something about fireants. So I helped him out and returned to megaton.

When I came back, that person from craterside supply was nowhere to be found and I found Walter (from the water treatment plant) dead down some stairs...

Seriously, wtf?

Also noticed a few NPCs getting stuck in certain bits of the map . Then they return to a previous waypoint, only to repeat the same mistake, over and over again. Not cool

I haven't had any waypointing issues with the AI but I've found artifacts with the HUD after long periods of play. Nothing a reboot of the PS3 didn't fix though.

I came across a trio of human meat hunters, standing dangerously close together, immediately after picking up a rocket launcher with one missile. It was a random encounter, and I happened to feel negatively to them hunting friendly wastelanders. I gotta say, they fly most humorously.

Did we play the same Fallout?

I keep seeing this complaint and I have no fucking idea where it's coming from. Even looking back fondly on Fallout 1 and 2 in the warm light of my sweet childhood memories, I don't remember the dialogue being especially mind-blowing, or even all that grand.

Dialogue in Fallout, as I remember it:

1. Desperate complaint concerning Wasteland survival/conditions.
2. Anachronistic humor/cleverness.
3. Swearing/shouting/badassery.
4. Genuinely worthwhile moment.

Aside from a couple memorable conversations (usually Talking Heads or some of the better special encounters) the dialogue in Fallout 1 and 2 wasn't all that fucking great. Okay, the dialogue in Fallout 3 isn't stellar either, but I haven't had any conversations where I was like "Okay this is just retarded." I've had some parts where I was like, oh, that's odd, or "Huh," but never "Jesus Christ this game is fucking horrible."

I came into Fallout 3 hating it - Bethesda was going to ruin it, just like they ruined their own franchise, and I wouldn't enjoy it beyond killing things in slow-motion, if I even enjoyed that. I've played Fallout 1 and 2 umpty times each, completed them a total of about ten times with different characters, and last played them only about a month ago in preparation for Fallout 3.

End result: I fucking love Fallout 3. Quit your goddamn whining.

I've been playing it, stopping only to eat, sleep, and work, since Friday. And I've been enjoying it. I don't know what I've got going for me that the whiners don't.

Agreed. This game is tons of fun so far. The only thing that's been annoying to the point of me saying "god fucking-dammit!" have been the missions where you have to escort someone a long distance away. They tend to pick their own route at times and if you don't give them a weapon to fight with, as soon as you encounter an enemy they flee. And I mean flee! I had to chase this one guy at least a mile before he stopped "fleeing" and that was after I had dispatched whatever threat was in the vicinity. Needless to say quick-save became my very good friend when that was happening. It sort of went like this:


Kid: Hey Mr. i'm too old to live here anymore since they kick you out when you turn 16. Can you escort me to big-town?

Me: Sure, why not. I could use the Karma and experience. Let's go.

** walking incident free with no issues. Suddenly I can't hear him anymore.. turn around and he's nowhere to be seen.. WTF? So I hit T and "wait" for an hour. Fine he shows up again. Let's go. Uh-oh, a giant rad-scorpion at 6 o-clock! Whip out the Combat shotgun, hit V and proceed to make it's head explode quite dramatically. Turn around and guess what? the kid is gone again! I can just see him disappearing over the nearest hill! So I chase his ass down, finally catch up and he won't stop running! I try to talk to him and it tells me he's "fleeing" thus making conversation impossible. Meanwhile i'm thinking "stop running you pussy he's dead!" He finally stops after another hill or 2 and now we're WAY out of our way and have to walk over alot more hostile territory to get to our destination!

That was when I reloaded from the starting point and took things alot more carefully. Walk 20 yards and turn around. still there? great, F5 to quick save. Walk another 30 yards.. still there? Awesome! F5 again. Another 50 yards. Aww shit where'd you go now? F9 to reload. Let's try this again. and so on and so forth.

To be fair, when I finally realized I could give him a weapon to use things got alot easier. Even with a shitty hunting rifle that kid could do some damage. Very good aim for a 16 year old!

Aside from that one gripe this game has been great so far and endlessly entertaining.

2 Thumbs up!

-Icculus {FYC}

You didn't just fast travel?

I hadn't been there yet.

Icc, I got the grand imagery of a teenage tearing ass away, his hands up and screaming like the kids did in the old Fallout games.

The only "goddammit!" moments I've had are those fucking Talon Mercs popping out when I leave a building half beaten to death or crawling up out of the metro tunnels. I swear, they're always around when I gots no damned cover to get behind.

Hunting Rifles saved my ass sooo many times.

I'm on my second run through, now. This time going for the more "evil" side. I didn't think the main quests would end so abruptly, otherwise I would have done more side quests. Lesson learned.

Fuck you all nay-sayers. I'm going back to nailing people in the wall with my made up Nail Thrower.
Raiders often owned me with a rocket launcher. Just before a subway entrance , i was running because some douche threw a grenade i turned around and all i see is a trail of smoke hitting me in the face and a slowmo death of me going WEEEEEEEE in the air.

Ooohh, and any of you blew the shit out of Megaton ?

No, but I plan on being an evil asshole next go around just to blow it up.

Do you get another house if you actually do destroy it?