Hey guys, pretty new here. I posted a long while back here, about Oblivion, and havn't touched this forum since. This forum actually got me to get myself a gaming computer. ^^

Anyways, I wanna know more about Fallout 3. I'm very interested in it. Just like I was interested in S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl. I bought Shadow of Chernobyl quite a while ago, thinking it would be the best game ever. I was hyped up about the game. I just wanted to explore the Chernobyl area. I thought it would be amazing having all those choices and such. Turns out, I hate the game. I couldn't ever beat it. It was nearly impossible, and VERY discouraging for me to play. The land in the game is very bland. It all looks the same. Not much variety in it. I still havn't beat it, and have kinda forgot about it. I recently started it again. (Yesterday) And I'm trying to plow through the main quests to beat it, just to beat it. To have it checked off. You know what I mean? I mean, I've beat every game I bought, exept UT3, which I bought for multiplayer so I don't care, GTA IV, which I'm currently playing and loving and plan to beat it, and lastly, Shadow of Chernobyl, which I'm not sure if I'll ever beat. Hopefully I will, just to have it beat, and not staring me in the face wanting to be beat. It's just so discouraging to play it. I don't know how to explain it. Lol..its like...super hard (Not now that I have a STALKER suit), and just...scary? I dunno how to explain. Anyways, the main thing about this topic is that I wanna know if S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Fallout 3 are similar. Are they? Is Fallout 3's landscape bland, like Shadow of Chernobyl? What about graphics? Does Fallout 3 have good graphics? Because that's another huge factor. Also, I'm thinking about Mass Effect. Once I beat GTA IV, I wanna get one of the two games. I wan't it to be fun to explore the land, like GTA IV. Exploring in GTA never gets old. It's a SUPER detailed place, and just so much fun to explore. I can't get enough of it. However, STALKER's land is so bland and boring...no fun to explore. How's Fallout 3? How's Mass Effect?

How would both games run on my system maxed out? This part is a big factor. I wanna run the games maxed out, 1440x900, on this rig, with quite playable framerates.

9600GT 512MB Stock clocks
E7200 Stock clocks
2GB Stock clocks
XP...stock clocks...LOL


Anyways, I'm tired, dehydrated, and confused right now. This topic may be utter crap. LOL. Anyway's, lemme know if you need anymore info to process my request. Lol.


Thanks for any help,
Alex

You aren't going to get everything maxed out with that rig without some serious performance issues. Those are 2+ year old specs, you just have to accept that. But you can max out the important ones (Water, texture size, shadows, decal cap, etc...) and probably edge a few of the LOD/draw sliders up a bit. I run on a similar rig with a better video card (8800GT, overclocked slightly) and that's where I run it. But I also only run at 2x anti-aliasing and 4x anisotropic filtering. Here's a few screenshots off my system that show how it looks.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c144/Soulmoon/ScreenShot131.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c144/Soulmoon/ScreenShot142.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c144/Soulmoon/ScreenShot140.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c144/Soulmoon/ScreenShot56.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c144/Soulmoon/ScreenShot29.jpg

Difficulty wise, it's not as hard as Stalker.

It feels a little barren in places, but it's supposed to. It's a wasteland. That said, it's generally a fairly interesting wasteland. I've got 180+ hours into the game so far and I still encounter things I've not seen yet. Admittedly less and less often, but that's still good for that much playtime.

Both games have barren landscapes, but as mentioned, they are supposed to. With that said, I think Fallout 3 is a much better game.

Personally, I think the landscape in F3 is far more bland and repetitive than STALKER. I see the same buildings with exactly the same interior solid layout etc. over and over again, admittedly the same happens in STALKER, but the colour palette is much more varied and the scenery is much more dynamic and different.

But there's nothing IN that scenery. It's just... there. Fallout has a more limited pallet of objects, maybe, but it uses them to far better effect. Buildings in Stalker tended to just... well, they were just sorta there.

Oh for [censored]'s sake. I spend 10 minutes constructing a response and it gets wiped by this [censored] forum glitch. *sigh*

Authentication mismatch or whatever? I always ctr-c my message before I hit post.

I've played both games and am an avid fan of both. In my opinion, they both become a bit boring after playing for awhile since there is only so much you can do until random encounters become repetitive (more so in stalker) and often have CTDs that bug me. However, overall I like Fallout 3 better since you have more control over who you are (such as playing Chuck Norris) rather than being the same person every time you start a new game. Also, Fallout 3 has a much larger area to explore (even if some people complain that the subways all look alike, they're subways...) and I personally think it allows for better immersion in the game. Another point, Fallout 3 gives you your own personal nuclear bomb launcher, c'mon... everyone wants to find a nuclear bomb launcher under their Christmas tree...

Your PC will run the game perfectly on high (not ultra high) at 1280/1024.

Thanks for all the replies guys! Kinda dissapointing to hear that FO3's landscape is barren like S.T.A.L.K.E.R's. I've seen video's on Youtube of people playing FO3 maxed out at my resolution with my card, but I guess the rest of there specs could be better. Also, the first poster said that my specs were 2+ year old..I was surprised by that. I Googled and quickly found out that my card was made in Febuary of 2008. Not saying you're post wasn't helpful, (Because it is, with all the pics and stuff) but I just thought I'd correct that statement. Anyways, do you think I would like the game? Do you guys understand what I mean when I say S.T.A.L.K.E.R just isn't a game I'm exited to play? I can't really explain it. I just don't ever feel like playing that dang game. I don't know why. Is FO3 like that?

Thanks for all you're help guys,
Alex

It's not "barren like Stalker", it's just barren. It's a post apocalyptic game, it should be. But there's a lot more stuff to see and do in the same volume of space.



Date wise, but the 9600 GT is surpassed, performance wise, by the older 8800 GT. It was a step backwards in performance, but cheaper.



Hard to say, depends a lot on the person. It's a more forgiving game, gameplay wise, and much more interesting story-wise and world-wise, but the pace is different, and it's an RPG with levels and stats and all that, so take that into consideration.

STALKER CLEAR SKY is not barren at all. It has better graphics than both games and more vibrant colors and better enemy AI. The current AI in CLEAR SKY is ..... realistic. the firefights are intense, cause the enemies have a lots of ways to hurt you(grenades) and they are smart. Better than Shadow of Chernobyl. The branching upgrade system for weapons gives you some really nice twist on playing styles - sniper vs rambo types mostly, or the combination of both - depending on what weapons you get. Artifacts hunting in CLEAR SKY is way better and because of limited supply of artifacts it helps a bit with the replayability. The only thing that they have still to figure out correctly are the faction wars. But it is such a complex and dynamic system, that i can see it as a major challenge. No one has better system as of yet in that regard.

But Clear Sky has terrible reviews.

it had a lots of bugs when it was shipped - apparently some mismanaging of the testing posses. Patched, the game mechanics are better than SoC, even if the story is a bit weaker.

Mmk, I'll go check it out right now.

I found STALKER thoroughly uncharming, and a bit of a mess to be honest. It's like they were trying to do Half Life: Morrowind Style, but didn't do either thing well.

Fallout 3 on the other hand I'm absolutely loving. It has its faults (some design, some technical) but for the most part it's brilliant.

I have a very similar computer (the same specifications but with an e8400 and Vista) and Fallout 3 runs very well with all the settings at maximum, and 4AA and 15 samples AF. No idea if running at that resolution will have much of an impact on perfomance though, since my monitor only goes up to 1152x864.

Well that's good to hear. Kinda encouraging. Lol. I just got out of X16. Trying to beat the dang game as fast as I can.

as good as F3 is, one thing can not be denied - the enemy Ai is simply dum. The AIs in Clear Sky are excellent, have not seen better yet. And the sceare factor is higher in stalker. You feel on edge most of the time. F3 is simply not as intense.

I have to agree there, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. got the atmosphere perfect in many places, I particularly like the feel that they captured when you first enter the dark tunnels under the Agroprom area, and that's what I loved about the game, Fallout 3 on the other hand, it has some nice things, but the atmosphere stands no chance against S.T.A.L.K.E.R, not to mention S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has some green in it, Fallout 3 is just brown wasteland/

Other than the fact that both games take place in a location that has been devastated by a nuclear apocalypse though, Fallout 3 has little to do with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Fallout 3's landscapes are in fact quite barren, but look nothing like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which actually had lots of vegetation, you just won't be seeing any pretty flowers in it (and if you want that, Oblivion might be a better choice.) Gameplay has very little in common beyond some similarities that naturally result from the perspective and first person shooter style combat, and as much as I liked S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Fallout 3 would probably be easier to get into. Graphically, Clear Sky far surpasses Fallout 3 in my eyes, but Shadow of Chernobyl might be a little dated in comparison, the first difference you will notice is probably the world though, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. takes place in a near future, which seems fairly plausible until you get into the science-fiction elements related to the Zone, and while there is radiation in the game, and not a lot of people living in the game world, and those who do must struggle to survive, there's mutated animals, but the natural environment still has a fairly substantial population of flora, Fallout 3, by comparison, really is barren, it's all brown, and for the most part, the trees and grass in the game are charred and withered, but the world still might seem more interesting as the fact that the nuclear war happened in 2077, and it's all based on '50s science-fiction, allowed the developers to take more liberties with imagination, at least when designing the fictional technologies in the game, and allowed the developers more room to write a fictional history and backstory, which you can learn about in the game.

Simply put, it's not S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and aside from the barrenness, I don't think there would be too many of those things to put you off the game.



I find Fallout 3 to be about as scary as Super Mario Brothers, actually, the latter is probably scarier due to the attempt at doing a bright and cute art style giving potential for nightmare fuel that Fallout 3 lacks, and compared to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Fallout 3's combat AI does leave much to be desired, although it did kind of impress me that NPCs actually pick up weapons on the ground if they are better than their own, once I was killed by a deathclaw and while my body was on the ground and I was waiting for the game to reload, I actually saw Star Paladin Cross pick up my alien blaster and use it against the deathclaw.

Woah! Nice post! Very long lol.

I beat S.T.A.L.K.E.R yesterday, and never wan't to go into anything of the sort again. So freaking scary and tense, or suspensful. Know what I mean? I absolutely hate that. I was so discouraged to play the game because it feels so..so..I can't think of how it feels, but it's not good. It's like...you're there. I don't like that. I wan't it to be a game, not a life disastor simulator. Lol. When I say Barren, I don't mean vegitation or animal wise. I mean how good is the landscape constructed. How many buildings? How much variety? In S.T.A.L.K.E.R, their was not much variety in the landscape. Same plants, same dirt, over lots of hills. Not to impressive. I've been watching video's of FO3, and it looks nice. Their seems to be alot of buildings, and ruins of towns, rather than hilly same thing over and over. I think I might go ahead and pickup FO3. Just to see if it's like I think it is or not. I seem to wan't it really bad. I won't be able to get it anytime soon though, as I'm currently playing GTA IV.

I think that's all I gotta say.

Thanks,
Alex

I think you may not be impressed by F3, esp if you're not impressed by Stalker. I think it boils down to what you expect out of the game in terms of immersion. Stalker received many favourable reviews largely because of its atmospherics more than anything else. If you've finished stalker, you'll now how scary playing it can be. And that's partly the point of Stalker's horror-oriented genre. Also, the scenary changes when you hit Pripriyat (the town next to Chernobyl) which is modelled on the actual town itself. If you're a fan of James Rollins's books, playing Stalker and reading The Last Oracle, helps make a lot of visual connections since Chernobyl and Pripriyat are mentioned in the book.

F3 is going to be boring for you as well, compared to an 'alive' town like GTA4. There's a lot of barren land in between various locations in F3, with the odd random encounter. If anything, I'd think a MMORPG might suit you better, since you'll almost always be surprised by different types of encounters online etc.

Get F3 if you want to be immersed in the Fallout storylines, or if you want to play a decent RPG. It has, in my opinion, fantastic visuals much like Oblivion, although not as scary as Stalker. I get nightmares still, just thinking about Stalker (especially after you've modded it with various improvements to the graphics, night scenaries, night sky, rain effects etc). F3 is wasteland wasteland more wasteland. Don't expect to see people for miles around...

You mentioned another RPG - Mass Effect... That's a viable alternative to F3: Lots of interesting planets to visit, alien races, and the storyline just blows you away. It's done by the same folks as Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) so if you've played those Star Wars games, you'll know what to expect.

The plus side with F3 and Stalker - the very active mod community. Just visit www.fallout3nexus.com to see the many various modifications to the game that's possible, and expect even more now that the construction kit is publicly released. I really enjoyed Stalker a lot more after I've modded it...