I have done just about all there is to do in Fallout 3, with several characters varying from very good to nauseatingly evil. Tonight I was just slaughtering along for the hell of it, when a question suddenly popped into my mind, one that is perhaps primarily addressed to the people here who have played Fallout 1 and 2.

Is it possible that one behaves more violently in this game than in the previous ones due to the lack of dialogue options? I found today, that personally I did react so. I was talking to Roy Philips, the ghoul leader, and I chose to ask him what it's like being a ghoul. What followed was a constant stream of verbal abuse from him, regarding which I had no dialogue options to choose from (unless you count 'I have to go now'). After three meaty sentenses of massive humiliation, I chose the only way out that a person with any shred of dignity would use in such a circumstance: I blew his head off.

After this act of brutality on my part I felt vaguely satisfied, but thought suddenly that if I had actually been given some good lines to choose from in terms of response to his comments, a verbal assault would have felt more gratifying than one filled with hot lead.

Does anyone have an opinion on this feeling of mine?

Bethesda has bad writers?

:rofl: You have a brilliant sense of the obvious, sir. What I mean in my own obscure and over-wrought way is "does it bother anyone but me?".

I would say Fallout 3 is more violent. There are less options to telling someone off in fallout 3 compared to fallouts 1 and 2.

I try my best.

Sometimes it bothers me, sometimes it doesn't. It all depends on my character playstyle and/or role play. If I am playing an intelligent character who prefers to talk it out instead of resorting to violence, the yes, it does bother me because I can't completely play in that style. However, if I am role playing my character as some bat[censored] crazy guy who just wants to kill people for fun, or kill anybody who gets on his bad side, then it doesn't bother me because I can just pull out Jack and slice off his arms.

I'm angered at the fact that I can't say anything cool

I'm stuck with corny responses that I would never say (or at least my pc would never say)

In fallout 1 you can tell lou "Go to he11." I rather enjoyed that.

Thank you for your response, Seti18. That is my feeling exactly: in F1 and F2 you could make it through 80 or 90% of the game without fighting if you chose to do so, and much of it was thanks to the varied and very, very amusing dialogue.

Don't get me wrong: I like Fallout 3. It's just that, is it too much to ask that every once in a while we could all just get along? Let's just talk things out ... just this one time!

I could mention certain things that occur in The Pitt, but those would be spoilers, so all I'll say is that certain dialogues in The Pitt made me feel like I was playing ye good old Fallout games again, and that is as high a compliment as I can pay. A sister worrying about her brother and the results thereof, hmmm?

JJleon said: "I'm angered at the fact that I can't say anything cool

I'm stuck with corny responses that I would never say (or at least my pc would never say)"

You have it in a nutshell, sir. You have voiced my exact feeling.

Too bad I always play as the good guy who never gets angry.

Yes, it irritates me constantly.

Plus the inability to go back a step in conversation.

In one memorable encounter, I was offered three choices - more or less along the lines of good/neutral/bad karma paths. So, in character, I chose the 'good' path, and found that this certain NPC expected me to give up all my weapons as a result of the conversation. Well, he wore a .44 to the face, and I went back to the previous save and chose a more realistic, sensible and safer option.

The dialogue options in the game tend to treat 'good' karma characters as wimps. Okay, just because I'm not evil, and I help people out, doesn't mean my character is a wimp or someone to be messed with. 900 + human kills would kind of make him someone you just don't want to be around, let alone talk down to or belittle.

That is of course the proper course to follow is one is to avoid getting frustrated. I did that, and it worked like a charm. Then I decided to try a character of lesser valour, and well, let's not do that, shall we? The game isn't really equipped for it.

Again: I like the game. I just think that an occasional 'Shut the (oh, I might as well censor it myself:) **** up or I'll blow your brains out' would have been nice as an optional warning before you actually start pulling the trigger.

How about talking to Colonel autumn.?

[censored] you.

No seriously [censored] you.

Gungho1, that is an interesting aspect that I hadn't even considered. You have found that good guys get that much crap? I never noticed that, but I see what you mean. I'm tempted to try a new good guy character just to see how screwed I'll get. Intermediately bad guys don't have any option, and really, really good guys get screwed ... Hm, this is starting to look kind of bleak.

Colonel Autumn, Spluger? I talked to him with one character. I blew his brain out with another. Either way, it really doesn't make for much of a climix, does it?

You could fight or talk in the climix of Fallout 1, but either way it was a real challenge.

I just realised what I have trying to say all along: if you market something as an RPG, why not make it an RPG? Doesn't that sound like a good idea? An FPS is enjoyable (goodness knows I've been playing F3 a great deal), but then market it as an FPS, not as an RPG.

(Enjoy it while it lasts - this thread will probably be deleted soon.)

In the first 2, if you didn't watch what you said, it would often end in a fight anyway.

(Not deleted, just moved. I'm happy with that.)

But that's the point, isn't it? In F3, it rarely matters what you say. In F1 and F2 it made all the difference in the world, which made you care in a different way. The decision to use voice actors all the way through is ambitious and interesting, but that in itself limits the parameters of in-game conversation.

I love my Blackhawk Magnum, don't get me wrong, but the bark of a gun should be only one option. On the other hand, I've belaboured my point enough.

*er-hem* back to what I believe was the original question: I'm not more violent in the third game than the others because of the dialogue, but rather how much I enjoy watching people explode into chunky jiblets in real-time 3-d high-definition.

I play the game as an rpg, and don't care much for violence ingame.

I believe the lack of voiced dialog (excluding Talking Heads) allowed for more conversation options and made each Fallout 1/2 character feel more "human" and easy to sympathize with. Which certainly gave you less incentive to blow their heads off.

Perhaps it's just more bias here but I think Fallout 1/2's pixellated gore was much more tasteful. It was ridiculously obscene (firing an MP5 in burst mode at point blank and having the guy's entire upper body blown off) but so awesome. Maybe I'm just used to other shooters, so in Fallout 3 the gibs don't feel as distinguished.

In games like these we're certainly limited by our choices of interaction with the NPCs and what we can say. For instance, in Morrowind/Oblivion, I sometimes feel as if a high-ranking thief would not get stalled by the almighty dialog box when arrested by a guard. He'd punch him in the face and high-tail it out of the city, not stand by and make small talk about how he's going to repent his crimes.

If you ask me, Fallout 1 handled these interactions far better - dialog outcomes seemed far less predictable. In Fallout 2, almost every NPC (especially in hostile areas such as New Reno) had a dialog option in their conversation that was just screaming to the player, "you svck! I want to die! Please attack me now!" :nope:

Totally agree here.
In terms of violence, the originals are much more brutal. I don't find that having an arm or leg blowing off and flying in the air with a 10mm bullet shot from a pistol to be brutal. Not at all. Not only it is ridiculous, but it's more comical. While in the originals, the preset death animations were much more realistic and disgusting to watch, along with the sound effects that came with it. Blowing up the left part of someone's hip and hearing him screaming the hell out while he's dropping on the floor was not a pleasant sight to see. Or seeing a kid getting cut in half because he was mistakenly caught in a firefight with a Plasma Rifle was also not pleasant.

I find Fallout 3's violence to be bland, really, since the NPC does not react before dying. His body just gets the Havok physics activated and his corpse goes flying in the air with no reaction. (Not everyone dies from getting his arm blown off. Hearing them scream would be much better)

And as for dialogue, well.. Fallout 3 has always been pretty bad in the Speech options.
You are forced to use guns in the main quest to finish it, "unless you use a companion as a bodyguard" like one of the Devs said in an interview I barely remember...but companions end up dying anyways and you are forced to use a weapon one day or the other.
Playing through Fallout 1 as a Speech, Barter and Unarmed person was one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I had with the game. I never resorted to my unarmed combat for the main quests, but I did use them for some of the side quests when I wanted to get my hands bloody.

FO3 resort to more FPS Actio nviolance than the previous games. Simple as that. gamesas didn't even attempt to match the previous games qualities. Even with al lthere talk of "Staying true" to the series.

Fallout 1/2 are much more brutal and violent than Fallout 3, watching varieties of death animation are just satisfying, laser weapons can cut a person in half, bullets are capable of blowing up limbs/body and big guns bascially obliterate your opponent (Bozar and Gauss). Also, the bloody mess trait grants you to watch the most disgusting death animation ever.

As I see it, the Fallout series always featured brutal raw violence.
Nevertheless in the first two, that violence was one possible way to achieve your goal.
In FO3 however, violence is the goal.
I didn't enjoy FO3 at all... until one day I thought:
"hey... what am I trying to do here? this game is not about story or building a character or exploring a world or roleplaying... this game is about blowing things up!"
Since I realized that, I left the game aside until the time came when I felt like blowing a few things up -
and, as long as I'm in that 'exploding' mood, I find the game very enjoyable indeed.

To be honest I'm desensitized to game violence, espeically with the 'bloody Mess' perk in Fallout 3...the violence is so obscene that I actually find it funny. I shot someone in the leg with one bullet from an assault rifle and the whole corpse just errupts into gore and blood....and I found it funny.

Man when I put it that way it makes me sound sick XD but honestly it's so 'out there' that it's hard to sympathise with.

With Fallout 2 I was actually taken back a bit more. In New Reno and certain encounters with the Enclave, the violence was pretty whoa, even without the bloody mess perk.

Fallout 2 has FANTASTIC dialogue options. Oh yes. I hope they deliver the same standard in New Vegas.