It's a matter of opinion to be honest. Fallout 1 is my favorite game of the series but then Fallout 3 is my second. So it varies. Nothing is ever static in life; it's dynamic. So games would change, for good or for bad, only individuals can say that. After Fallout 2 (although most would argue after Tactics), the series was pretty much going downhill. However, certain plot info from Van Buren (the original Fallout 3) WAS interesting to say the least and some elements trickled into Fallout: New Vegas. But I do agree somewhat on what Marcin388 said. The originals (Fallout 1 & 2) were more fluid while Fallout 3 was more rigid in terms of character creation and interaction (Fallout: New Vegas was plagued with some of the same problems). However, both Colonel Martyr and nu_clear_day are absolutely right:

It's a matter of opinion.

There are stuff in Fallout 1 I love but also hate, the same with Fallout 3. There are good and bad elements. That's reality.

Yeah, pretty much. :thumbsup:

I still fondly remember Fallout 1 - and I still go back through that game every few years. It was formative to my conception of what I look for in a good roleplaying game, to say the least. And I do find it consistently vexing that no game has ever managed to build upon what I thought would have become a cornerstone of the genre - and that's the degree to which that ending sequence customized itself to your actions and choices throughout the game.

It really lent both Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 a sense that every single thing I did within that game world had a concrete and specific affect. Sure, a lot of that is likely illusion - logically I know that it's not necessarily keeping track of how every single dialog with even the most innocuous of NPCs plays out. But the important thing to me was that when I first beat Fallout 1 and I saw that ending slideshow - it absolutely blew my mind, and I couldn't wait to get back in the game, try things out a different way, to see how things played out.

Fallout 3 didn't have a lot of the things that I fondly remembered about my earlier time in the Fallout universe. But damn if I didn't find myself having a lot of fun with it, nevertheless.

It's not so much (to me) that it didn't bring anything worthwhile to the table, but that it brought wholly different stuff.

To give a less snarky opinion, I started out with Fallout 3 out of recommendation from a friend, and I fell in love with it, it was so amazing, then I found the Wikia, and eventually this place. Last year I go the trilogy pack and found Fallout, Fallout 2, and Tactics amazing games. The reason I have no problem with Fallout 3 is because I know full well that the gaming market is a vastly changing empire. Ten years isnt just a long time for you or I, it's basically a life age in the game industry, had Fallout 3 been a copy paste of the old Fallout games, it would have been a failure in the marketplace, and the reason is that in this decade, people by majority seem to prefer free movement over take turn.

People can gripe and moan till they turn blue, but the joke is on them as their nostalgia glasses arent going to save their precious childhood memories because it's not just THEIR game. As much as we grow attatched to the series, some changes must be made because this game has to appeal to thousands if not millions of gamers. Sure there's no real need for lore changes, but I get sick of the lore and series forums here because if anyone mentions Fallout 3, I see the same people swoop in like carrion vultures and start picking at the user just because they LIKE the game. Fallout and Fallout 2 had illogical things as well, Fallout 2 more so, but you never see these people picking apart Fallout 2. There's so much 'TEAM INTERPLAY VS TEAM BETHESDA!' around here and it's ridiculous. Fallout, 2, and Tactics are all great games, and guess what, so is Fallout 3. Yes by 'great game' I am saying a great Fallout game. Come at me bro.

This should be good. Let's read...






:spotted owl:

Good sir, I take your smarmy owl as a challenge of my honor! PISTOLS AT DAWN I SAY! :spotted owl:

15 steps and one shot each.

Oh god he accepted.What do ;-;

Just remembered. I....have....a doctors appointment to get to. :bolt:

It's also technically a matter of opinion that Crime and Punishment is a better novel than Twilight. Or that Citizen Kane is a better film than Transformers.

Yes there are some things that purely a matter of opinion. My position has consistently been that I don't pretend to judge Fallout 3 as a game. Personally I found it a boring and tedious game that I only managed to finish once after a friend loaned me his copy and I figured I should give it a full appreciation before making up my mind since I've been a huge Fallout fan for a long time. But I've found every game Bethesda has put out since Daggerfall to be boring and tedious and I fully recognize that many other people love the style of games they make. It's my opinion that Fallout 3 is a poor game and I don't attempt to argue that. Because it's entirely subjective as to whether you enjoy a game more than another just as someone could enjoy Transformers more than Citizen Kane.

But I will argue that Fallout 3 is a bad Fallout game largely because it didn't even try to be one instead choosing to import a totally alien series' gameplay and design goals wholesale into a bland, simplified interpretation of the Fallout universe. I can actually can back up that opinion with facts just as I can back up the opinion that Citizen Kane is a better film than Transformers regardless of what your personal enjoyment of those films may have been. It seems harsh to say but the existence of opinions does not make all opinions equally valid.

You do like Andrew Jackson, you take his bullet to the chest and stand there. After several seconds of not giving a damn, you aim right at his head and pull the trigger.

That's... more problematic than you're making it seem, I think.

Trying to compare Citizen Kane and Transformers along a set of arbitrary standards would be unfair, I think. Sure, if Transformers was attempting to be the next Citizen Kane, that would be one thing. But simply because they're both films doesn't necessarily mean that it's much use comparing them on the same level. You're certainly not going to get much terribly useful results from such an endeavor. I mean, Citizen Kane has absolutely sub-par CG effects; no matter how much you might praise it's compositional elements and narrative, it's still awful at being an action movie.

That's why I think it was a mistake for Bethesda to call their game Fallout 3. Because they're clearly not attempting to make a direct-line sequel. They're obviously rebooting the game in their image. As the third in a specific line of Fallout games, I think it's the worst of the trilogy. As Bethesda's take on the Fallout universe, however, I think it does pretty good.

ie, along one line of comparison, you can certainly make a couple of objective anolyses. But I'd dispute if they're terribly useful statements.

If Fallout 3 was attempting to be everything that us old Fallout fans had dreamed of, then yes - they failed at that. But I don't think that's the case. For example, I placed horribly in the Boston Marathon this year - didn't come close to winning. That's an objective fact. But it's also not taking into account that the reason I performed so badly in that race and was totally unprepared to compete that day was because I was home in Alaska, probably sitting at my computer at the time.

In other words, there's some merit to attempting to compare the two versions of the series in an objective light, but I think it's a lot more useful to expand on what we'd subjectively want to see going forward.

To an extent, I disagree with your numerical labeling of Fallout 3. I mean, Fallout games have never had any real storyline in terms of the sequel ribbon. Even Fallout 2 has nothing to do with Fallout, it just takes place about 40-50 years after its events. Fallout was an open and shut game with it's own self contained plotline, and the same applies to Fallout 2. I feel Fallout 3 pursues what the underlying theme of Fallout is all about, the survival of humanity as a whole, with The Lone Wanderer being the ball that gets the land to rolling, in this respect, he is to D.C. what the Vault Dweller was to California. Were it not for the Vault Dweller there'd be no NCR or anything else to this day. In this respect I feel Fallout 3 deserves a region sequel to tie up it's events like Fallout 2 did for Fallout.

Probably. But that's sorta the point I was making. Looking back on it it doesn't come out quite right in my post. The point is I won't try to compare an opinion on which film is better because that's entirely subjective. You can enjoy Transformers more than Citizen Kane and that's alright. But films do have qualities that can be objectively compared even moreso if they claim to be the same type of film. You use CG animations as an example. I agree the CG effects in Transformers are much better than anything in Transformers. That's an example of an opinion which you can nonetheless back up with concrete facts and that I suspect everyone would agree with. In the same way I can point out that the cinematography and acting in Citizen Kane are vastly superior to anything present in Transformers. That's technically my opinion and you can hold the opposite view but I don't think you'll be able to come up with much to defend that view.

Now imagine that Transformers was labelled Citizen Kane 2 and people insist it's purely a matter of opinion on whether or not you think it was a good sequel to Citizen Kane and arguing about any specific qualities that make up the film is impossible because it's all just opinion. That's essentially the viewpoint I'm arguing against in regard to Fallout, and well all things.



Agreed. Yet Bethesda chose to label their game Fallout 3, treat it as a sequel to the original Fallouts and have in fact redefined the entire series of Fallout to fit their image (see New Vegas which despite being a spinoff and made by a different company still had to follow Fallout 3's lead in what sort of game it was). So regardless of what we can all agree they were obviously doing I'm going to judge it on what the game purports to be and criticize it on that front just as I would've strongly criticized Transformers if it had been legally named Citizen Kane 2 and everyone involved with it insisted they were making an authentic sequel and loved the original film even though what they're making was a ridiculous effects-driven action film that has nothing to do with Citizen Kane.



Sure. But had you prefaced your non-appearance in the Boston Marathon with a well publicized announcement that you were going to run, loved the Boston Marathon and were training really hard to place I suspect you might've earned some criticism had you simply stayed home when the time came.

I don't understand why the two are viewed as mutually exclusive. Largely what I want to see going forward in addition to new, interesting concepts of course is for a return as much as possible to the roots of Fallout. In this case objectively comparing the latter Fallouts and why they failed in comparison to the originals is is pretty useful and important.

I don't care if the next Fallout is the style of Fallout 3 as long as BGS takes the elements of DT, ammo types, perk design, and whatnot from NV and expands upon it. If they make the skills and combat deep enough I can forgive a shallow plot and theme park world design.

I like the way you think. Unfortunately... "Better" is subjective to view... http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2008/TWLIT.php is a better grossing film than http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1941/0CIKA.php. Its better for the backers. CK is engrossing, but not as end-grossing. :sadvaultboy:

That's my opinion also... By any other name (and the original 90's fans are the only ones who care about the name), I'd have bought it sight unseen and been happy with it ~whatever they'd made of it.

Its funny... There is a link between Citizen Kane and Transformers (if we were talking about the original "Transformers the movie")...
(Both films featured Orson Wells). :lmao: http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/credits.gif

I think OP needs to work on bettering his dialogues <_<

1 is wrong for a few reasons. Firstly, you gain 15 points not 10. Secondly, I don't really mind being able to become good at everything. Because how do you know that the weapons you chose at the start are still useful at the end game? If they aren't you're kind of screwed unless they put in something to reallocate your skill points which might even be more disruptive to the role playing experience to suddenly stop being good at ranged weapons to be very good at melee ones. I do agree that I'd like to see more variety in skills however. Throwing weapons were non-existant. However on that note I don't have a problem with merging similar skills into one single skill (Like Doctor and First Aid into Medicine).


3 Is a matter of personal opinion, I personally like the Idea of blowing up people with a teddy bear moving at relativistic speeds. I'd rather have fun weapons rather than a bunch of boring familiar ones even if the fun weapons don't quite fit the theme. I do find it somewhat hypocritical that people are against funny weapons, but are for funny dialogue.


With 4 yes there's a bit more of a combat focus, what there needs to be is a way of conversing with enemies in certain situations. Like say you could dress up as a raider and converse with them or avoid fights with them so long as you can convince them you're one of them.


5 I find true, it makes combat harder but not puzzles or non-combat activities. I believe that's more a fault of the skill system being more hard coded IE you cannot open a safe unless you meet an arbitrary skill level instead of simply having a higher skill level making it easier to open stuff and therefore a difficulty boost can mean something.


6 Is a technical issue, as some of the urban settings likely need to be separated into separately loaded 'Chunks' in order for performance to be well enough. As for invisible walls, every game has them even fallout 2. The only difference was that In fallout 2 that they had a health bar and could be exploited, less so with fallout 3.


7 Is quite true, NPCs need a few things. First they need to be more unique and distinguishable from rank and file nondescript NPCs. Second, they need to have more believable animations, currently they just stare at you and very rarely make hand gestures or otherwise try to pass of that they're a real person. Third, they need more details to their lives "Oh I'm pretty boring you wouldn't want to listen to it all" is not a valid backstory for the character.


8 Is flat out wrong, you even get a ghoul companion and find a ghoul settlement.


9 Is true, it needs more options like the original Deus Ex did. You could beat the bosses by shooting them, knocking them out, hacking, talking them down, many things. In Fallout 3 and Deus Ex Human Revo your only option is really to just shoot at them until they stop moving.


10 I agree with, fallout 3's humor was rather lacking, they need some outrageous characters in them. Some that seem almost self-aware that they're in a video game and decide to take the piss out of it.


11 I find kind of contradictory to number 4. On one hand he's angry that there's only people to kill, but on the other he's complaining because people are too nice and give him quests. You can't have it both ways. Not having robotic guards or working terminals? Radiation doesn't break robots or shot down terminals, but the explosion sure can so I doubt it's a stretch to think that some of them can survive. Also, he overlooks the fact that people still know how to work with robotics and can repair them, so it's kind of moot when talking about robotic guards and not the ones that have remained functional for hundreds of years.




Personally, there are a lot of technical issues that prevent it from being as 'deep' as fallout 1 and 2 if simply because voice actors would cost a lot more to flesh them out completely.