howdy! you might remember me from such Fallout fandom as http://flamingmac.com/2010/10/fallout-nv-i-am-not-a-liar/, http://flamingmac.com/2010/10/fallout-new-vegas-happy-halloween-from-the-ncr/, or http://flamingmac.com/2010/08/fallouts-vault-boy-meets-hi-fi-marketing/.

i don't really peruse these forums, but i'm dropping in to share a critique of Fallout: New Vegas (warning, spoiler-laden):
http://flamingmac.com/2011/09/why-fallout-new-vegas-felt-incomplete/

i explore the difference between the first three major canonical Fallout games and New Vegas, and how game immersion is affected by these differences. based on this, i make recommendations for Fallout 4 and future Fallout games - and explain why Lonesome Road might (but shouldn't) be the missing piece.

- emilio

Why go back to an are we've already been in?
A new area would be better to flesh out lore and show new societies, cultures and religions.

Why rehash the Enclave and BOS even more?
It isn't even beating a dead horse anymore, it's beating a pulp of blood that used to be a dead horse.

Why follow the same archtype for character evolvement?
It's not exactly a necessity, and if anything they should try out new ways for the protagonist to learn about the world.
Just rehashing the same isolated formula isn't going to help.

Oh and the beginning isn't linear if you don't want it to be: http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/186/a/4/nv_map__how_to_get_north_by_gabriel77cortez-d3l1vn8.jpg

At the end of the day its just a game don't be so hard on it. Its just a form of entertainment

Ugh. I hate it when people pull this out of the hat because it's such a lazy reply. People watch films, go home talk and debate about them. People read books, go to groups to talk and debate about them. Games are no different.

It was a good read, I don't agree with you that New Vegas felt incomplete. But I certainly agree with

I liked how the Courier had no massive backstory to them, it allowed me to do what I like to do, fill it out for my character. Which a lot of gamers like to do because it gives them a extra connection to the world that a set-story just can't do. But they are hints and nods in a lot of places that hints at the Couriers past, New Reno for example, we can claim to have been there. Which to me, is done right in regards to our characters stories. But I never came across anything that pointed towards the Courier suffering from Amnesia. But I'm with Gabriel, I want to see new areas, new places, I want to see what's going on in other parts of America, I want to get away from the Brotherhood and Enclave. As I said in another post in the forums and as you said in the blog.

Fallout is about humanity.

Anytime i see a MZ reference with "fallout is about humanity" attached to it, i have to point out that "sci-fi aliens" are also about humanity.
take it or leave it (i know it usually gets left :sadvaultboy: )

Lets narrow it down then so there can be no confusion:

Fallout is about humanity's struggle with the results of its own folly.

Fallout isn't about humanity's struggle with an outside Alien presence.

This.

My thoughts exactly, another game like Fallout 3, ugh, no thank

I hate to be nitpicky about something like this but really? Korea ring a bell? There was more serious conflict between the ChiComs and the USA than there ever was between us and the Soviets.

Also there is no reason whatsoever to assume the player character should be experienced with the Mojave Wasteland. For all we know the Courier had never been to the Mojave before being hired to carry the Chip. And the linearity of New Vegas is far from unprecedented. Try going west from Vault 13 in Fallout 1 and tell me how that works out for you. Just like the original games New Vegas strongly hints at the path you're supposed to take but you can get around it if you try. Breaking out of the Fallout archetype is a good thing. There's only so many times you can start out from a sheltered upbringing and be thrust into the Wasteland without the concept being repetitive.

I see no point in returning to the West. First off we've been there and second off according to everyone meet California is not exactly the sort of place a Fallout game belongs in anymore. There's no reason to piss over Fallout's canon for a good setting when so much of the USA remains unexplored. Richardson also tells you up front in Fallout 2 that China launched first. There's no reason to doubt him and it fits the course of the war between the USA and China pretty well.

I would argue that this still continues on F:NV. When F:NV was real eased, Fo3 was still big - NV was unlikely to attact any players who were not familiar with FO - the F:NV experience mirrors the players relationship - we know what a vault is, we know what the great war was, what both PC and Player don't know is much about the Mojave.

As for rehashing the Enclave and BOS.... The Story of the Enclave as far as I'm concerned was complete in F2, introducing them in F3 was a mistake - the story of the enclave is now like "AfterMash" or the last season of scrubs - overdone. That said, there still could be some interesting things in the "Enclave Conspiracy" (Pre "Enclave" Enclave)

The BOS still could have an interesting story or two to tell, but the focus must be away from them,.

from a literary standpoint, aliens are about humanity. i know though, allegories dont work across the board.
thats why i said take it or leave it. but please dont confuse aliens being present as it "being about aliens" cause thats not the point in the slightest. I dont think the vast majority of people make that distinction, and thats one of the reasons it recieved so poorly.

I wont bring it up as passionatly as i used to on these forums. but you have to admit, using the humanity argument against aliens is pretty funny in that context.
haha funny, even.

i am arguing that the PC's backstory is Fallout, in a way. it's what separates the Fallout games from other post-apocalyptic RPGs, and any RPGs for that matter. it's why i felt like a hero at the end of my first F1, F2, and F3 characters, while at the end of my first NV playthrough i had this vague distaste of being used, of just being a soldier in someone else's war (even the independent path is just hijacking someone else's war). most of my NV-playing friends had a similar sort of disassociation from the game after their first playthrough, like there was something missing that we couldn't put our finger on, and that's what prompted the article.


i'm not saying Fallout mirrors the player's relationship to the game, it mirrors their relationship to a nuclear apocalypse as represented by the game world. if the bombs started falling right now you wouldn't feel more comfortable because you'd played Fallout or watched The Day After.

well, i don't want to get too bogged down in the F4 suggestions, because that was just the epilogue to the critique (and this isn't that thread), but folks have brought up some good points:



i agree, the Enclave in F3 was pretty off-base for what happened in F2 - but only in scale. the Enclave absolutely had outposts across the nation, and Navarro and the Rig were the centers. i think the real flaw was having President Eden and proposing that Raven Rock was the real center of the Enclave. it makes more sense that the Enclave would be rooted in the West, as the East would no doubt be nuked to slag ten times over (as opposed to just two or three times over).

and i, personally, am getting a little tired of the BoS. they're blowhards and, for all their smarts and nobility, it's a little unbelievable that they'd be voluntarily sequestered for so long. maybe that's why Victoria was an extra-cool character, she got what was wrong about the Brotherhood. i liked that part of F3 a lot: that someone in the BoS actually saw they could do some good in the world, and did it.

however, i'm not suggesting that these be central parts to the story. NV had the Brotherhood and Enclave in supporting roles, and even this could be stepped down some. it's not necessarily the organizations that i like so much, it's what they represent, what they cling to, and the change they can bring via technology. there shouldn't be some super-secret Enclave and BoS chapters that the NCR missed - that's just cheesy. instead, imagine what some power-hungry organization would do if they found a cache of Enclave equipment. or, some NCR hawks try to drum up support or start a coup by masquerading as a threat.


i'm definitely not proposing a rehash of previous games. i would say that F3 was not a rehash of 1 and 2 and managed to be a very different game (engines aside), yet it followed a familiar path of character development. F2 was much more a rehash of 1, even though you weren't from a Vault. but all of those games built an in-depth personal connection between the player character and their efforts, versus merely the desire to get the guy who shot you in the head.


absolutely, and i stand corrected. however, how many of the generations that play these games know the story behind the "Forgotten War"? unlike Vietnam as a proxy war with China, Korea was more a "semi-proxy" war with them. despite this, decades of propaganda and jingoism weren't aimed at Korea and China, they were aimed at Soviet Russia.


Richardson was a lying stooge. the Enclave is a military organization, orders should be sufficient, right? yet they were so paranoid that they still needed a puppet president! think about that: the Enclave is this super-secret organization, they have unparalleled power in the West, yet they still needed a figurehead and the semblance of democracy to keep their rank-and-file members believing they're on the right track (that's why Pres. Eden was built). Richardson has every reason to lie about who dropped the first bombs, as that would divert any suspicions that people were working for the madmen who just might have started the war.


you work for Mojave Express.

thanks for the feedback, folks!
- emilio