There's too many problems with FO3 for it to be considered the definitive Fallout; no item descriptions being my major gripe. Are you saying it will become the definitive Fallout because newcomers to the games will be too apathetic to play the old ones? That's like some 14 year old saying George Bush is the definitive American President because they never bothered to stay awake through their history class.

Now, what everyone can hope for, new and old fans alike, is that enough of the new Fallout fans pick up and play through 1 & 2 so that a larger (informed) base will post on these forums and affect the development of mods and expansions.

Just had to register to answer to this one.

To say that FO1 and 2 was anything but mainstream when they came out just shows exactly how little you know about the history of Fallout or the gaming industry as a whole. So if that is what you base your argument on then further discussion is pretty pointless. FO2 was probably even more anticipated and talked about when it was released compared to FO3.
What would be interesting to discuss though is however FO3 will be considered a continuation of FO1 & 2 or if it will be considered a whole new chapter in the FO universe. I'm betting for the latter.
FO3 is not a bad game, but it is too different from the original two titles to attract the same audience. Therefore, I believe, we will have two groups of fans of the Fallout franchise - one will consider FO3 as the starting point of the "real" Fallout, and the other will consider FO1 & 2 the "true" Fallout games. That's just the way it's going to be and there's therefore no meaning in continuing the FO3 VS FO1/2 discussion, cause essentially they are two different types of games set in the same universe. As long as Bethesda brands FO3 as a continuation of the old games, the two groups will always collide. IMO they would have done a lot better if they wouldn't have put that number 3 in the title.

Also, stop with the budget = quality argument, it's just not true and it's not doing your credibility any good. Besides, considering the industry at the time, Fallout 1&2 was definitely high budget.

Yes, it's silly to compare the sales and budgets of 1997 games to 2008 ones. The market was vastly different back then.

It seems like you guys still don't get what he's saying. It's not hard to understand, I'll lay it out for you again. He's not arguing that Fallout 3 is Fallout, or that Fallout 3 is better than Fallout 1 or 2. It's the simple fact that many more people have played Fallout 3 than they have Fallout 1 or 2. Because of this, people will come to remember the Fallout franchise by the Fallout 3 game, and not the Fallout 1 or 2 game.

It doesn't matter if there are two different fan bases, or that budget doesn't equal quality, or that mainstream gamers play Fallout 3, or that the game has no item descriptions. That's all besides the point. The fact of the matter is that more people know the Fallout franchise by the game Fallout 3, and not Fallout 1 or 2. In addition, the hope that many more people will attempt to play Fallout 1 and 2 after Fallout 3 seems like a forlorn one. I highly doubt that people will want to go back and play those games, no matter how great they were.

I cant source this, I did read it in a major UK gaming mag, but apparently the total sales of FO1 and 2 were about 50,000 in the UK.

Fallout 1 and 2 were a cult hit, not a sales smash.

SOME people will think Fallout 3 is the definitive game. Others will know FO1 is. We get what the OP is saying.

FO3 is fun to play (and will be better with mods), but like it has been mentioned, the mainstream gamers playing FO3 will probably move along to the next 'big thing' once it's released and most likely not touch FO3 again (until FO4 maybe). The fans of the originals are very different, and will keep the original games going, it's that reason that they wont ever be 'all but forgotten' and will forever be known as the definitive Fallout games.

QFT.

To talk about "mainstream gamers" you must tread lightly around the word console. A games console and it's games are simply "living room" electronic entertainment.

Even as short a time ago as the mid to late '90s PC gaming was still regarded as "bunch of nerds in moms basemant". However PC orientated gamers have always been somewhat more attached to the titles they play (and often revere)

FO 3 will not be noted as the definitive Fallout. Why? because the "nerds" own the internet. :hubbahubba:

I agree I loved Fallout 1 & 2, and I've played both of them and enjoyed the realistic sence of not knowing what a fluffer was the first time I played Fallout 2, then after finding out, going back and killing everyone one turn at a time lol... Though the original Fallout 1 & 2 were exceptional games, they are simply in a different world all together... It's hard to compare a 2D turn based game to the new system of Fallout 3... there definately different games...! And although I loved the dark humor and senceless killing over penty things, I say good bye to the old Fallout games, and hello to the new! It was fun!

Honestly, I don't see the point of this thread.

I agree with the points you are making, but i think it is important to pay homage to the original two fallouts. They are amazing games that were ahead of there time and the they are the two pillars upholding F3. To say that the new fallout renders the predecessors irrelevant is like saying that Mario Galaxy is so good that the original Super Mario Bros wont even be remembered. I find it annoying that people cant accept that all of the fallout games are of equal importance in their own separate ways.

Well first off, you have to take into account that Fallout 3 is not running off the Fallout name (clearly none of the real depth either). It's running off of Oblivion. You also compare it to a movie. Both are erroneous assumptions. The reason the second movie did good is because the first did. Those who liked the first will follow the second. This is what happened here.

I thought Fallout 3 frankly didn't live up to Oblivion or the Elder Scroll series. It sold out and was purely a mod, modified graphics. They even reused voices reused the engine. It just a bunch of reused. They didn't even bother to come up with quests for Fallout in a lot of instances. I still have yet to totally beat Oblivion because of all the content I keep getting sidestepped. I end up quiting formating the comp and starting all over. Fallout 3 was beatin in a matter of moments in comparison.

I believe if anything any further Bethesda software might not sell to well. I know I will no longer be purchasing Bethesda games.

If you going to make a mod, do it for free otherwise give me a full game. They are still running off of stuff for Morrowind, its ridiculous.

The side quests are literally dog [censored], and I'm reinstalling the old Fallouts just to make up for the utter lack of depth and character of this game.

I like all the fallout games i have played (1,2,3). Fallout 3 is definitive as a return to the series, not a series definer. The fallout series is genre defining, though.

Well, it seems you don't get what I'm saying. I said that the two (FO1&2 and FO3) were not the same and therefor always will have two different fan bases considering different versions of the game to be the "true" Fallout, and as long as Bethesda franchises the new fallout games as a continuation of the old we will always have this debate. Because of this, IMO, Fallout 3 might be considered the definite Fallout game by some, and not by others. And that was my answer to the OP.




I'm not talking about sales smash here (besides, picking a number like 50k without anything to compare with, what does that say?).
I'm talking about how it was recieved by the general gaming community and how much it was talked about.

You have some good points, but your overall message is incorrect I believe. My opinion on all of this is pretty simple. Nobody, no matter who you are, can rightfully claim something as the definitive title if you didn't experience all of them. Period. Same with movies. You can't be a movie critic and claim a particular movie of a series is 'the definitive title' if you've never even seen the others. I would say that just because some 90% of people might think of the 3rd one as the definitive title doesn't make it so, because it's only an uninformed opinion, considering they likely never played the originals, let alone heard of them. Take for example the above poster who's friend commented about the game's name, case in point. Being ignorant and uninformed of the history of the series pretty much means you have little influence among those that do, as you've probably seen on the boards.

However, I still do agree that likely 99% of the people who played FO3 as their first one would consider it definitive. But I would disagree, as would most people who've had the honor of experiencing the originals.

I would like to point out that I myself have only played the originals just starting a couple months ago, for the first time. I ordered them from a great site called GOG.com and you can actually get downloadable copies of the original 2 (plus Tactics) for only $6 a piece. Not to mention all their titles are DRM free, patched to the latest official version, and include everything you need in an easy to download .exe installer. /shameless plug

I like fallout 3, but I kind of got disappointed at the end, and where is the explosion videos and true endings when they talk about everyplace you visted..... I wanted to hear life after the vault, or life after you kill one of the antagonist or the robot guy, i forgot his name. If fallout 3 becomes fallout, then I'm sorry for the new people that never played the other fallouts because your missing out. In a way I wish I never played the other fallouts so I cannot be disappointed...... and that saying alot because I love the other fallouts. I just hope Bethesda hears the fans of Fallout 1 & 2 and fix the problems they have now. I'm ok with the game just ending, it happen in fallout 1.

I like fallout 3 but its simple not fallout....its missing a few things that could be fallout but like i said its not fallout and the only reason why its selling more then the first two fallouts is because of advertising

I sort of know what you mean but I think what will more specifically happen is somewhere down the line say 10-20 years from now a definitive version of the game will be made and people will mention Fallout 1,2,3...4,5 who knows as being "influential" on the final games.

What I mean by this is that I suspect that video games are going through a very similar process to the movie industry when it started to become an accepted medium to the masses in the 1930's. If you look back at films in the 40 and 50's many of them are remakes of films that were made in the 30's. I don't doubt at the time ppl though "why remake it? we already like the version we have?" However the newer versions are generally viewed as the defining version. One good example is the Maltese Falcon, the film had been made several times before the Humphrey Bogart version was released and ppl were mystified why they would make it again. Now I bet most ppl here couldn't name those other versions and the Bogart rendition is a cast iron movie classic.

Also similarly to the movie industry, the game industry is based on tech, tech which is nowhere near to being fully realised. Look back even 8 years to the year 2000 with smash games like Deus ex and Baldurs gate 2 and they were cutting edge games with brilliant gameplay. Now those games seem like they are from another generation altogether yet really the timeframe hasn't been that long. So I don't doubt that in the year 2015 we'll be looking back at Fallout 3 and thinking, "wow I cannot believe this was cutting edge once." It's not just about graphics either, gameplay has evolved too. Have we had a game where you can develop a relationship with a character over time? no but I think we will someday. I don't doubt there will be many game features to arise in games that we would have ever thought of till we saw them. I am old enough to recall the actual release of the first Half life and just that simple thing we take for granted of being able to press "E" on a friendly NPC and have them follow you around and fight alongside you was breathtaking.

So in summary I think many games that developers are making now are blueprints for games they would like to make, the game in their head so to speak. I bet when john Romero and John Carmack were coming up for ideas for the original Doom they didn't look so naff in their heads, but they had to try and respresent that world with the tech that they had available and more importantly with the tech that the gamers had in their machines. So when Id remade the Doom concept a decade on with Doom 3 (admittedly without Romero), they upped the graphics true, but they also upped the sound, the story, the interaction with the environment. So Ultimately I think we are a long way from having a defining version of any of the games we have seen, they will either be forgotten because they weren't popular enough or will be upgraded until the tech reaches a fairly high level and then ppl will have to focus on gameplay/story/mythology instead of selling games based on newer graphics.

As someone who has not experienced fallout 1 or 2, and I only troll these boards minimally, It seems to me most FO1&2 fans are critical of FO3 due to how much more tame it is, and the lack of pop culture references.

I certainly agree with Fallout 3 being more 'mainstream' though I don't think that correlates to 'Less good'
as far as the references to other things, I notice quite a few in FO3, the most glaring one was the reference to 1984 in a certain vault's history.

There's a fair few references the replicant quest is a blatant rip of Blade runner, the mutants look like the Uruk-hai from the LOTR movies, the slaves heads exploding if they try to leave is off something else but I cannot remember what, the character Jericho is a refernce to the post apoc tv series of the same name and so on.

Excellent post and I agree with everything that you've said. I never paid much attention to the Fallout 1 or 2 TBH. My brother did play them and he loved them very much and he says that they are very enjoyable.

Of course Fallout 3 will be bigger and more shiny, cuz it's brand new, compared to games that were released like 9 years ago, this doesn't mean that the original ones svcked or w/e, cuz hell, if they did Bethesda wouldn't have bothered at all in getting the franchise.

I don't know but the OP sounds like a 16 year old playing Fallout 3 on an Xbox if you ask me, what do you guys think?

Never. It will never live up to the originals, as it is an oblivion in fallout clothing. (see what i did thar)

I love Fallout 3... but it will never be THE definitive Fallout game. Perhaps Fallout 4 could be... but Fallout 3 just... didn't do anything that sets it ahead of the others. There were no new major foes. Enclave/Super Mutants/Raiders/Renegade Robots. Nothing terribly new. Unless... it turns out the Mirelurks really DO have an undersea kingdom. Really, there will never be a point where Fallout 3 makes people look at it like people look at chickens and thier eggs. We know which came first. I think that the mythical mod kit would certainly help Fallout 3 gain fans... but if the core product is only a mimic on its own... it cannot truely become THE definitive version. I expect they will be more bold with their next full sequel to the Fallout Series... but that is another Oblivion and several expansions to the current Fallout off. It is hard to become the definitive iteration of a game unless you introduce radically different gameplay to it. Since Fallout is an RPG, the storyline is more important than the medium... With this game, they may have comprimised the storyline so they could fit the behemoths in the game. Lets be honest with ourselves here... "The have a different version of F.E.V." is okay for FPS games like Doom or Half-Life or Quake... but you need to go into more DEPTH than that to justify it in an RPG game. Unfortunately, before you could really discover much more about it, you are thrust into the next stage of the game, with little encouragement to look back/ contemplate the difference. Perhaps... if Fallout 4 is a prequel, they can accomplish this in an appropriate manner. Any expansions we see... I have serious doubts to the odds of them putting any focus on the Super Mutants.

You are dead on..... fallout 3 is oblivion the only different is how to gain lvls. and exp. I want to play fallout 1 and 2 again

Give it 10 years like Fallout 2, and Fallout 3 will be a gift from god that NO GAME EVER will be able to overcome.

Never played any of the old fallouts, but I loved oblivion, and fallout 3 seems to be an oblivion in the future with more stuff to do, so I love it.

Actually, I am a fan of the "crude, low budget" titles you are talking about. They may have been some of the best RPGs to ever grace the PC. I love Fallout 3 as well, but do not knock the genius game masterpieces that came before Fallout 3. They are worthy of respect as works of gaming art.