Doom is ridiculously well known. It's almost up there with Mario, Tomb Raider and Pong as being a recognisable video game name to "outsiders". I already used the GTA example but there's others. Look at the tom Clancy IPs. If someone says Rainbow 6 or Ghost recon you can be sure that the majority of gamers will be thinking slightly tactical action shooters rather than slow and realistic games that require as much planning as execution and hours of iterating. On the same vein: what do most of you think of when you hear the Swat series? Is it the isometric police quest games or the 3d squad shooters?

Well, I definitely would be thinking about the latter - didn't even know there was a more mainstream shooter version.

Don't forget that the original Doom was shareware unless you wanted to buy the extra episodes...

The difference with the doom anology is that the original doom games sold about 2 million copies in their own right in relation to the 3.5 million copies Doom 3 sold. Where as the fallout games sold several hundred thousand copies each where as Fallout 3 will clearly exceed 5 million copies sold pretty soon and in the long run a lot more.

Well it seems that this conversation goes to the wrong track here. I say that FO3 will definately define the game series for new fans of the series, but the reason for this is that they don't know about the things that made FO 1 and 2 unique in their depth.

If Bethesda understands their mistakes in FO4 the new fans will also understand what we older fans mean. This game lacks in things like the true consequences to your actions, ofcourse you may think that it's great that regulators will come after you when you have done evil things. But before there were things like the Frog'o Morton sidequest, you killed this young thug and his older brothers would come after you in random encounters, that is something I call a true consequence to your actions.

You may also think that some minor details like becoming a pormstar aren't anything that would make the game experience different besides doing some minor quest to get few caps, but that was what made FO2 interesting, you could be anyone you want and truly be what ever you wanted to be and things like these also affected the game world, prosttutes and other people would react differently when spoken to and your gender also would affect their reactions. In FO3 your game experience doesn't really change when playing different gender and that drops the replay value of it amongst the other even more drastic differences. This way the world of FO3 seems so sterile, all people seem androgyne since the gender doesn't really matter and the fact that you can do anything you want loses it's meaning in FO3 since there isn't too much to do that really affects your game experience.

So it's useless to rant us older fans of the series about whining from the obvious flaws that FO3 has compared to it's predecessors, since we do know what the ability to do what you want can be at best. Many of us old fans think that FO3 is a great game, but it isn't what it could have been. Can you blame us for wanting something more from a game that doesn't have all the possible content, if it was achieved over 10 years ago with technology far inferior to FO3's and with a lot smaller budget that Bethesda had.

If you call it gender, then it doesn't matter for you anyway. "Gender" is an euphemism hijacking a grammatical notion -- do you use he/him/his, she/her/her, or it/it/its when talking about something or someone? -- in order to avoid having to use the real biological notion.

six. That's what it's called. Male or female six. Gender is masculine, feminine or neutral, and the only thing it changes is some pronouns and a tiny number of nouns (like actor/actress).

Neuter, actually.



Well, at least in English. In many other languages gender is much more important.

How do sales factor into this? We're discussing which will be 'definitive', not which will be the most popular. I don't see how anything could 'define a franchise' other than the first entry into that frachise that really brought all its aspects to the forefront and solidified itself. Fallout 1 did this; it didn't rely on its sequels to flesh it out enough to feel like a unique IP.

Now, it really all depends on how you mean; definitive in terms of the series, or definitive in terms of the fans. The latter really has to do with what generation of gamer you're in, but the former operates on a different criterion. Namely, "Which Fallout game really brought everything together to define what Fallout is today?" The first game was strong enough in every aspect to do this. Hell, Fallout 3 borrows heavily from it as a world-blueprint.

In the Doom anology, if you were too young to play Doom 1 or 2, then Doom 3 would be your "definitive" Doom game. Speaking strictly in terms of the franchise, though, Doom is the 'definitive' entry. Doom 2 was essentially an expansion pack, and Doom 3 simply re-imagined elements of the game to create a survival horror game.

I understand the validity on both positions. And honestly, I can understand why people are complaining about Fallout 3 not 'being the real deal'.

To me- the cold reality is that it IS Fallout. Just because someone denies it a hundred times doesn't make it any more true. I mean- there is more than a mountain of proof here to sustain this notion. Though it isn't the Fallout that many old hardcoe fans remember, stories do change. Life changes. And people should just grow up and accept it. Stores can CHANGE after all and still be apart of a series. >_>

I'm not saying that Fallout 3 is a perfect game by any means. And I'm not too crazy about the previous Fallout titles either. All I can say is that I agree with the new direction they are going with visually with the new Fallout. I just don't like some of the game mechanics.

Is it a part of the series? Yes. Does that mean its good for everyone? No. Can you blame the old fans for hating the new Fallout? Not really.

This is what happens with games, with tv shows, all kinds of media. Sometimes people are just going to have to adapt. Hell, one day we'll tell our great grandchildren about the Playstation and Nintendo and how superior those games are compared to Galactic Hologram Space Battles- and we'd still be wrong.

Gaming has improved over the years- and if that isn't true then we wouldn't be buying them for more than 3 times the money.

"The defenitive Fallout game" ? Sure if you are consolekid and cant handle harder games then Counterstrike or Unreal Tournament you would consider Fallout 3 "The defenitive Fallout game", we older persons who have played Fallout 1-2 and even Wasteland (twice!) will consider the first Fallouts real deal. :/

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if someone already made this anology but:

The "newer, bigger budget" items don't always overshadow the older, "outdated" ones. Case in point: The Star Wars films. Does anyone out there really argue that the newst three (the prequels) are better films than the first three? Or how about Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal skull? That movie was an abomination, doesn't mesh with he eariler ones, and it shows.

FO3 is, to me, the Temple of the Crystal Skull of the Fallout series. It's flashy, has a big name cast, a large budget, lots of good visuals, but the humor is way too over the top, the villians are flat and boring, and the plot is full of holes. In and of itself, it's not a bad product, but as a part of the series it was trying to continue? It falls pretty far short.

Seriously all you have to do is look at movies and music these days. Bigger budget does not mean bigger quality. Ive never even played FO 1 or 2 either and I don't care for his post. The Star Wars reference was absolute brilliance, and perfect evidence to refute the OP. I have every intention of getting FO 1 and 2 and playing them through. I actually do that with alot of games I miss the first time around. Knights of the Old republicfor example, got 2 first, then got 1, 1 was better. Oblivion, got it first then got morrowind, morrowind is better. With KOTOR there really was no graphical difference. Seriously graphics and effects are the only thing better in oblivion than morrowind.

The first thing that comes out of this generation of gamers mouths is 100 percent all the time GRAPHICS. They will not give a game the time of day if the graphics arent latest and greatest(heck ive seen people [censored]ing about FO3's graphics I think their great, unless everything now has to be on Crysis status or better to be considered good graphics). I havent enjoyed a command and conquer game since tiberian sun and even that was a slight let down, then it just got out of hand and crappy. Everything that was good about those games is completely lost, despite their huge budget, sales and reverence from game sites. It always svcks when a great game is no longer in the hands of the ones who created it. Thats why I have complete faith in Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2. Fallout 3 is a great game, but hardly the "definitive" when its not even in the hands of the original developers.

last statement isnt entirely true. I clearly remember spending more than our average 49.99 USD (pc games) when I bought castelvania for nintendo. I bought it from toys r us, and I really want to say it was in the 70 dollar range. Im pretty sure overall things have become cheaper in the computer industry than more expensive. pretty sure if you said "budget PC" at a computer retailer even in the mid 90's you would have been laughed out of the store. Picking up a budget PC from a retailer for under 400 dollars with everything you need (maybe not the best for gaming today but still) it would have blown someones mind even 10 years ago. My gaming rig cost me 800 bucks to build, and the only thing I havent maxed out is cryisis (and thats most likely because I never bought it, nor do I have any interest to). In 1999 (before i knew crap about building a PC) I bought a PC for around two grand, in its equivilency, would have been considered midrange for the time(was a 600mhz Athlon with a 16mb voodoo 3 and 128 mB ram), in 96 my parents paid almost 3 grand for a 180mhz pentium pro with 32mb ram a 2g HDD, and a matrox Mystique video card. If you put 2 grand into a build now, you could configure a pretty high end system.

double post

This is entirely true. When my dad bought his first PC back in 1995, it cost well over $3,000. With inflation that's something closer to $5,000. A NES when it came out was around $150 in 1985 dollars, which is, probably, comparable to the prices that you'd pay for the XBox and PS3 when they were launched. Games have been being sold for $50 new since I started gaming. Fallout 1 and 2 were pretty big back in the day, and saying that "oh look at how many more copies FO3 sold!" is an invalid comparison. The gaming industry back then was MUCH smaller.

And if you're really old... You remember fondly getting a little dizzy playing Wolf 3d, because FP and 3d was all completely new.

Hey guys, it's been a while since I made this thread and I didn't realise it was still running.

Looking back I admit my initial posting was rather hostile, this was because when I made it I had just got the game and was absolutely loving it, yet when I came on here all the threads were hate threads saying it wasn't Fallout. So if my posting sounded a bit vitriolic I apologise.

Anwyay I think the original statement I made will indeed be borne out to be true. Many of you on here are confusing the word 'definitive' with better and this isn't the case at all. I've not played either of the first two Fallouts and they may indeed be far better than Fallout 3 but they are not the 'definitive' versions for reasons I will again attempt to explain.

Something becomes 'definitive' only when it reaches the public consciousness and when it does reach that consciousness it will usually always remain the 'definitive' experience of whatever it is, be it a video game, film, music type, fashion style etc.

The original Fallout games, although likely superb and brilliant did not ever hit the general public consciousness and so simply arn't known by the world at large, outside of their hardcoe niche following. This does not mean the games are not good, only that they never reached the public consciousness.

Fallout 3 with 4 million sales in the first week has smashed into the public consciousnesses and for all those millions of people, and thus history it WILL be regarded as Fallout, the definitive version. Whether it is as good as the original games is irelevent.

Now let's look at examples of this from history. First of all what do you know about vampires? Likely that they can only be killed with a stake through the heart, or by exposure to daylight. They are afraid of garlick and can turn into bats. None of this is real vampiric lore, it's all from the 1920's Hollywood film versions, but they reached the general consciousness and so that became the 'definitive' view of vampires, even though they are false.

Many people think Manhunt was the best of the Hannibal Lector films. However it is not regarded as 'definitive' as it starred Brian Cox as Lector. Although at the time he was praised for doing a great job the film wasn't a big commercial success, unlike the Silence of the Lambs which followed. This film, starring Athony Hopkins was a massive blockbuster hit and thus Hopkins became the 'definitive' Hannibal Lector.

Now let's look at the other examples people gave to dismiss this idea. Firstly Star Wars. Well the originial Star Wars films were some of the most successful films of all time, they are forever etched in the public consciousness and NO future Star Wars films could ever replace them, ever.

It's an entirely different scenario to Fallout 1 and 2 which had no worldwide commerical exposure at all.

Now look at Doom. Doom was THE game that started the first person revolution, (actually Castle Wolfenstein but that game didn't enter the public consciousness in the same way). Doom was huge, it represented a whole new way of playing games and a new level of realism in videogames. Therefore it will ALWAYS be known as the definitive first person shooter because like Pacman, Mario and Donkey Kong it entered into the public consciousness.

I hope this clarifies my thinking on this, apologies to those I offended, I never meant to suggest that the first two Fallouts were bad games in any way, just that as they were only appreciated by a devoted minority, and thus were never absorbed by the public consciousness they will not be remembered as the definitive Fallout games.

Seriously, you can't change what real gamers think Gameplay and Fun content will always be sought after more than a highly polished lesser game, Fallout 1&2 > Fallout 3 / Morrowind > Oblivion, This is not my opinion this is fact.

I think the main difference between Fallout 1/2 and Fallout 3 is that the first two games are from a different era where graphics weren't the end-all of games- Which means that the people who loved those games when they were released love them now as well and will love them in the future because honestly, their graphics are so dated by todays standards that it doesn't really matter anymore.

On the other hand, Fallout 3 is a product of the new age, where graphics are a much larger selling point and will actually make or break the game for a lot of people (I work at a Gamestop store, trust me on this one, I talk to people every day who seem like graphics is the only way to judge the quality of a game).

Basically, this boils down to the situation where us aging geezers who grew up on Fallout 1/2 will continue to play them since the graphics are so dated that it's a moot point anyway, while Fallout 3 is actually too new, in the sense that the current generation of gamers will quickly dump the game for a newer and shinier model. This will most likely result in the fact that Fallout 3, even though it's sold a lot more than Fallout 1/2 combined, won't stand out as much in the memory of its gaming generation

In short, I don't think it will become the definitive Fallout at any point, although it certainly set a new standard for them. For better or for worse

It IS the definitive Fallout game, theress no 'how long before' about it. All these people talking about how much better the originals were, well, Fallout 3 got alot more sales and alot more people play it, it's not a matter of opinion.

I think that fallout 3 is NOT the main game from the series.because it al started with Fallout and that's a fact.
Fallout 3 is to the fallout series as Oblibion is to the Elder scrolls series.
A game that is targeted to the mainstream gamer and introduces you to the universe it's based on,it's enjoyable,medium difficulty and doesn't take much time to learn how to play the game.BUT once you finish the game and want more you'll realise that there's a BETTER game that the series has to offer and maybe you'll start playing those games as well.

I'm an old geezer and I'm jumping to the next shiny thing, but usually it's in the hope that I'm gonna discover a good game (The Witcher was a good surprise and I can name a few others). But from time to time, I DO GET BACK to the old classics (Fallout, Daggerfall, Planescape, Baldur's Gate, Ultima, Might and Magic and such). Sure the graphics are outdated. Sure, they require a lot of patience. But their feel is still there. Like someone put soul when developped those.Most of the new games are feeling empty, general. First person is immerssion if you have something else to support it (good characters, good story, and so on), but take a look to Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Heroes of M&M 5. I choose that example because that franchise it's in a similar situation. After the hype passed, the only titles standing are the games developped by New World Computing. The fans of M&M games developped by Ubi are long gone. Their forums are empty. They moved to the next shiny thing. So who's defining what? The people who were around in the beginning or the people that are moving rapidly to the next big name?! At least the fans of the original series care about those games. They still try to teach people about their favorite games. Can you call Doom3 memorable? Or Unreal Tournament3? And the examples are all around. Stange how the originals are the defining and memorable ones. There are very few exceptions from that rule.
Also, gaming was around for a long time. From the Arcade halls to Commodore and Atari 2600. From those two branching into NES and Master System, continuing with many generations of consoles. It's PS3 or XBox 360 defining? Maybe in the hardcoe area of the console players(yes there are a lot of those too). But the next gen war is clearly won by Wii and PSP. People are predicting the death of PC gaming for quite a few years now. And yet companies are coming and going and coming back. Because the PC market it is a sure stream of money despite the piracy and other problems. Why those companies don't abandon the PC, if that's so bad?! Because their place would be taken immediately by the smaller companies or the independant developpers, those waiting just a window of opportuinity to install themselves in the place of the big corporations. The casual games market it's a highly pirated market and yet they have huge profit.And if you look at games like Luxor, 7 Wonders, Bejeweled and such, those games are selling very well. The casual games companies are very knoledgrable about their customers. Those people know exactly what their clients want from them and the fact that those clients aren't computer literate, nor have the state of the art PC's. What game is defining in the eyes of those clients? Surely not Fallout...So definitive is a very relative term. Nothing it's definitive in this world.And nothing isn't impossible(just for the moment impossible). Who knows, maybe in the future, Bethesda manages to get it right on spot. Or maybe not. But talking about things being definitive and definig, those terms are just relative. Maybe Bethesda will sell the franchise, maybe they'll be bought by EA or Activision/Blizzard. Maybe they go bankrupt. The gaming industry it's going with light speed. You never know what happens next. So those two terms are just misplaced.

Maybe graphics weren't the end-all of games in Fallout's time, but they were a big deal. Even long before Fallout, graphics were a big deal. Gamers have always put pressure on developers to produce better looking games.

In the June 1990 issue of Computer Gaming World, reviewer Dennis Owens says this about an RPG: "The sparseness of the graphics seems especially odd in a Macintosh game. One wonders if it was really necessary to limit the graphics this much in order to add the appreciated details to the role-playing system." A reviewer in another magazine lauds the devlopers of that same game for eschewing fancy graphics in favor of game play, and comments on how the current trend in RPGs is weighted toward flashiness.

What I really find oddis the fact that Apple had the possibility to become the only platform and lost towards IBM PC. Already, at the time, Microsoft was taking a big chunk of the PC market. The games were limited of the OS and machine's possibilities. Just like today. But back then, Apple had the better machines and the better OS.And here we are, 20 years later, playing our games on IBM PCs and Microsoft Windows.

In 1990, the most advanced consoles at the date were Sega Genesis(Mega Drive) and SuperNES. As strange, as it sounds, many people, back then, understood the limitations of the technologies at the date. What is odd today, it's the fact that you can make a good looking game, without gointg overboard and make a perfectly decent gameplay, add a good story and such. And yet, most of the companies are preferring to sell you graphics. When you finish a next gen game in 4-10hours, I say that the game wasn't worth the money. Most of those short games are thrown into a corner and forgotten. But there are still a few games that are okay. I might not like Fallout3(and yet, it got quite a few things right, so there is hope that a Fallout4 might be a better product), but, excepting the very short main quest, the game it has a good run for the bucks. If the editor is released, the game will be around quite a few years(that made Morrowind a good game, saved Oblivion and there are a few other titles that were saved by the fans mods).

I still believe that if you want to reach the casual market, you have to understand that the casual players have different tastes, not state of the art computers and play 1 or2 hours per day, but they still want a longer game. You might have herad of small RPG's like Avernum or Geneforge. Those are aimed towards that audience. The console crowd was initially considered casual gamers. But the console crowd is as hardcoe as the PC crowd. Sure, they have different titles to be attached of, but they are no different. And hardcoe players are the only ones with high end machines. That's a fact. No casual player will throw 400 euro on a state of the art video card. Nor 300 euro on RAM with OC capabilities.And the examples can continue. You can have one crowd, but not both. If you want the both crowds, you will have to make sure that the game will work on a machine bought from a store, like BestBuy, Circuit City(rest in peace) and so on,..And we know how good the prebuilt PC's are....

In our days, consoles are selling constantly 4-5 million copies. On PC only high profile titles are managing to get that kind of sales. Wii is selling crazy. funny titles, because they know exactly the profile of their customers. The best console titles can go to 10-15 million of copies sold. On PC there are only a few titles that ever reached that kind of sales (Blizzard titles, The Sims). The PC gaming industry is't s still trying to figure out to which people should sell. And what.

That's not really the point though. The point is, go out and do a survey of gamers and see which Fallout games they've played. The majority who've played a Fallout game will only have played Fallout 3 and not have played the earlier titles, so to them, the majority, it will be the definitive Fallout game, as it quite literally defines what they think of when they hear Fallout. And stating what you do about Oblivion being the same comes across as awfully presumptuous, you just assume the person reading that prefers Morrowind over Oblivion. You have to realise that over matters like that, these boards are hardly a fair place to test it, as generally only the players loving the series the most are willing to commit the time to posting continually on a forum.