But here's the problem, we're dealing with RPGs. With RPGs story and writing is a critical and essential component. While gameplay is important, special attention must be taken to writing, as with a lot of RPGs, a huge amount of time is spent communicating with NPCs, and discovering lore.

Keep in mind that if Mr. House had antiballistic missile lasers, D.C. was likely formidably defended; while still not enough to stop a nuclear holocaust, it's not surprising that it wouldn't have been completely leveled.

As Savage Beating pointed out, it's not surprising that many buildings in D.C. would survive, especially since nukes airbust, not detonate directly on top of the city.

Nothing in the building's going to survive because of the heat, but the building itself stands pretty good odds. If you look athttp://i47.tinypic.com/iwrk0h.jpg of Tokyo after a firebombing it's fairly clear that most of that damage would be due to the secondary fires and not the bombs themselves.

There were 77 nukes headed for Las Vegas, and thats not even a major target. D.C probably had around 1000 nukes headed toward it. Granted, many were probably shot out of the sky, but you can't stop 1000 nukes.

All very well accept that the White House is a radioactive crater and a building over the road is perfectly fine.

Still, I belive that many buildings would still be leveled. http://homepage.eircom.net/~finnegam/war/images/atomic_blast_in_hiroshima_b.jpg <--- Nuke
If a building isn't leveled by this ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsB83fAtNQE I don't know what could. Several nukes would level the entire city even if detonated in the sky. And if not I belive many buildings would fall simply because of age. They don't stand forever

( let us not forget people, we are comparing Real World Nukes here. Fallout World Nukes are a completely different kind of flying, all together! We do not know if they are Kiloton, Megaton, or what? Radiation may act similar in the way of Half Life, or not depending on what material was used in the bombs, which if it was uranium 238 more than likely it would have a half life of 4.468 BILLION YEARS Real Life? Or it may be Fallout version of Uranium, which has a different Half Life?

The point i am making is, while it is good to compare and debate the damage of what happened to DC in Game World, comparing it to Real World is not accurate because there is too many missing equation in the formula. While it would have been nice to have such detailed accuracy and realism as Bomb and Missile damage potential, devastation potential, Radiation Half Life, and other equations, it would have taken away from the uniqueness of the game for some people, as too many details can turn people off cold.)

Deus Ex's story was bobbins, didn't stop it being one of my favourite games of all time. Ditto Final Fantasy VI, or Skies of Arcadia, or indeed Fallout 3. Obviously, good writing is desirable and preferable, but personally speaking it's not a deal-breaker. The writing in New Vegas was generally of a much higher standard than that in FO3, but I still like FO3 much, much more overall.

Anyway, having bemoaned dead-horse-flogging, I'm in danger of grabbing a whip and joining in myself, so I'll stop now.

Well real life places like Hiroshima are doing fine after 60 years. Besides radiation does work like it does in real life, Vault City was exposed to radioactive particles because the ground water had been contaminated from a nearby Nuclear plant, they didn't turn into Ghouls or grow six stories, they all experienced chromosal damage and fertility issues along with others which they were fully able to classify.

Even comparing it in-game, the White House is a crater and a building on the otherside of the road is perfectly fine so unless your going to tell me that explosions work differently in the Fallout Universe then find me a rational explaination for what I feel is Bethesda's error.

( I can respect that, and i can agree that the Radiation itself works like in Real life, but, Vault City was being effected by a leaky Nuclear Reactor, not a Nuclear Warhead, so i feel the first part, while a very valid argument, and i agree because the affects would be similar, is invalid to the discussion. As for the rest, as i said, those are missing realistic factors Bethesda felt IMHO that were not crucial to the game, and i do not think those real world factors were all that important, as the war was 200 years ago, unless your trying to figure the Megaton Explosion, of which i can understand, as that felt more like a Kiloton explosion, and would be consistent with the US Arsenal of the Early 50's, as the damage range was not to far because of the crater, and the Radiation count did not go out farther than the gate of Megaton. So if you want to attribute the lack of realism to Bethesda, ok, but the games was not designed for realism on a major scale, otherwise it would be more like the real world.)

You're comparing fallout to straight up uranium. Fallout washes away in a fairly short period of time from rain and isn't really radioactive itself. Vault-City was getting radiation from the power-plant leaking radioactive water into the reservoirs.

Well, not quite. Ghouls and most of the mutated animals in the fallout series are a result of radiation. It appears that radiation can act in one of two ways when coming into contact with an organism, 1. as in real life with birth defects and death upon reaching lethal levels or 2. in the way of 1950s sci-fi movies.

( Well Stated, have an Ice Cream Cone. :icecream:

We cannot forget that when we assume what happened with the Fallout as well, as Shdow stated well. And that also with the Fallout, When the West Tek Facility was hit by warheads, it released FEV into the air, so we are not looking at realistic radiation anymore as that would have traveled worldwide by now, as that stuff is in everyone who was not sealed into a bunker or Vault, minuscule traces or heavily dosed to mutate, and passed on through bloodlines. Everyone depending on the amount of FEV in their system could potentially be a ghoul with the right amount of regular Radiation exposure, however, most after two hundred years would be unlikely to be able to and would simply just die of Radiation poisoning.)

The bombs and radiation in Fallout work like this:
It's realistic when it makes the game more fun or interesting.
It's 50's SCIENCE! when it makes the game more fun or interesting.

Expecting the game to adhere to one or the other isn't very constructive. It's fun to argue about the setting -- God knows I do it enough -- but in the end it's just backdrop. The reason those folks in Vault City got sick instead of mutating was because it served the story. The reason most of DC was still standing was because it served the story. In terms of the use or misuse of science, all 4 primary Fallout games play fast & loose with reality, and that's the way it should be.
If you want a realistic PA game, enjoy starving, dying slowly of cancer and watching your skin erupt as you stumble blindly around the freezing dustbowl.
I'll take the fantasy, with dollops of realism for poignancy, over reality any day.

Actually, small thing from FO1, Razlo points out that the Radscorpions are too big for radiation mutation or evolution, and their venom is too potent for their size. The radiation was not the prime mutator in the wasteland, it mutated the prime mutator: FEV, it was released into the atmosphere when West-Tek was nuked, radiation altered the virus, making it less potent but also diversifying it, the mutations of the wasteland are due to exposure to this "mutated" FEV (MFEV), and it is the reason that the West Coast mutants had many problems after dipping, they had already been partially mutated by the MFEV and it decreased the effect of the non-mutant FEV. One could also use this as reasoning as why humans are so much more resilient than in real life, and why radiation doesn't effect them quite like it does in real life, being able to survive shots to the head from small-caliber firearms, but this is only speculation.

Razlo didn't see that retcon coming.

Fallout was fairly restrained in this regard, absolutely true. For better or worse, things loosened up after that. I justify it to myself by imagining that as the years went on the mutations increased. Maybe the FEV slowly spread around the country (somehow). I wonder if it jumped to any other continents?

When the Glow went boom boom I think that caused FEV to fly all over the place. I'd have to look at the Fallout bible for that.

Wasn't all of the FEV at Mariposa? Thats where the Master's soldiers dipped captives.

I smell a plothole. :spotted owl:

HOLD ON AND LET ME CHECK TH DAMN BIBLE GUYS XD!!

:facepalm: Not even we dinosaurs can answer this question, Fallout lore is very complicated :fallout:

Lol we relentlessly hunt down flaws :grad:

Yup, West-Tek was hit by nuke causing FEV to fly all over the place.

They started research on FEV at West Tek on animals, then they moved to Mariposa where volunteer human testing started.

Yet all FEV research was supposed to be at Mariposa, so why is it still at West Tek? Hmmmmm. PLOTHOLE!

They probably didn't move all the FEV yet. It's kinda hard to move great big green vats of goo and not get noticed.