Yes!


Is it? Why? Everyone knows a bit about being desperate... if you have the 'amplified sensitivity' of an artist you could successfully 'fake it' too.
Nah... they're just not trying.
And with a reason too: if you want to create a world where you expect people to look forward spending dozens of hours in, you need to make it so that they will enjoy it and not depress them constantly.
The old Fallouts achieved that by balancing that desperation with tons of (even 'immature' if you wish) humor that made the nightmarish wasteland a surprisingly entertaining place to be.
So I maintain that the trademark 'silliness' of the old games wasn't simply there for aesthetic reasons but it was functional - a necessity.
So if the writers of the future games can't develop the necessary skills to convincingly present ultimate destruction with a smile, we will simply not see any truly mature subjects anytime soon.

I'm sure it is. Especially for developers who think that "violence is effin funny". Anyways, yeah FO1 was subtle and intelligent. FO2 was more campy but it knew very well what it was striving for, hence the 4th wall breaking. But the writing in both of 'em was superb. FO3 on the other hand was the most immature "mature" game I've ever played, with terrible writing. And I consider myself as an easily amused individual.

That's got to be a very slim tightrope to walk with a game like this. Because like has been said, at the end of the day you want to make a game that people actually want to be occupying for a decent stretch of time. Finding that balance can't be an easy thing. For my own two cents, I don't think Bethesda did such a disagreeable job, I honestly wasn't rolling my eyes so very much; and there were some moments where the "mature" theme was driven home quite well, I thought. (I was particularly pleased with The Pitt DLC, where there was no "right" answer, and no matter what you did at the end, it tended to leave a bad taste in your mouth...)

That said, I'd still like to see greater contrast in the peaks and valleys of the next games, here. By way of example, I'm a bit of Whedon-ite, myself. His dialogue can be quite cheesey, he sticks a little too closely to some well-worn tropes, etc. But one thing I've always thought he does very well is mixing up the dramatic bits and interspersing them with just enough comedic relief. I know I'm watching something good when I'm laughing and crying at the same time. A good Fallout game ought to ideally be able to find that same balance - exposing the raw humanity of people in desperate situations, placing the character in front of some (actually) mature concepts; and then breaking the tension with some ultraviolence and a few witty remarks.

Maybe you didn't like the writing in Fallout 3; I did. So much so that now my two favourite writers on Fallout 3 have gone to Big Huge Games, I'll be picking up their next game (which I'd have been pretty unlikely to do before) just to see what they've come up with next. I'm confident that the newer recruits who've filled their shoes at Beth will continue to entertain me in future Fallouts, though - so basically I've become a "fan" of two companies whereas before it was only the one.


Yeah, the Pitt was a very obvious labour of love and I thought the writing and story was absolutely brilliant. It remains my favourite DLC, though Broken Steel and Point Lookout were pretty awesome.


I get that, but I've played some games recently that have made a big play of "mature" themes and difficult dilemmas and left me feeling quite cold, when all is said and done. That's because it's quite easy, ultimately, to shock people and pull a few obvious heartstrings while you're at it. Yes, it's something Joss Whedon can excel at - but when he descends too far into soapy melodrama it all ends up rather crass and silly (Buffy season 6, Angel season 4).

Really the game that was the best at being "grown up" for me was Mass Effect. Not because it featured a ton of swearing and violence (or fluffers and porm stars) but because it forced you to put aside your emotions and make cold choices based on what was best for your crew. (Well, unless you were me and you just killed off because you wanted to hump ).

Agreed. It's generally (for most writers, and in my own experience, at least,) more difficult to come up with funny bits than it is to be melodramatic. Add to that coming up with the proper balance between the two to keep an overall consistent tone; and things get really difficult. (Especially when we're talking about videogame RPGs where there's no telling in which order the player is going to be experiencing any of these things - a player who just happens to stumble into a bunch of "mature" dilemmas in a row is going to walk away with a very different experience than someone who ended up taking an alternate route.)

Now you're sounding like my wife. (Who did the same thing, in the case of ME)

I think that if there's any conclusions to be drawn from this thread, it's that it's less about adding in elements like hokers and drugs; and more about the end result you're looking to achieve. I'm reminded of a little vignette that plays out in Junktown (IIRC) in Fallout 1. Where you go to sleep at the tavern, and are woken up by the manager because some crazy is threatening to kill one of the hokers in her employ. Not even going into how it's a well-crafted little mini-quest, where an optimal solution (regardless of your intent) is very difficult to accomplish; I think it speaks to how these elements were put together.

I feel, in that example, that it's concievable, design-wise, that what came first was that situation. ie, that it wasn't so much that they wanted a tavern with prosttutes in it; but that they were needed in that area to set the scene for that conflict to play out. That tavern didn't give you prosttutes just for their own sake, but because the purpose they served was to provide that little story - the "maturity" factor lay in the conflict with the psycho and his hostage, and less in the fact that prostition was included in the game, in other words.