OK, the ''You have exceeded the maximum number of block quotes'' message is starting to get annoying, so im just going to bunch up all my points in order.

I did not have a hard time navigating it, again, you are presuming to know anything about me, and for some reason those presumptions are always negative. I think this is subjective, I think its a badly designed level, you think its a good one. To judge my intelligence based on a subjective matter is ridiculous.

At the end of the day, its supposed to be a continuity of government bunker, not something from Unreal or the matrix.

Big Town can be said to be as old as little lamplight seeing as apparently since the beggining advlts got expelled from there. Still, 50 and 100 years is still quite a lot to live on given the dangers of this particular part of the United States. Given the sheer number of mutants around, not just in Germantown, I would have thought that place would have been crushed a long time ago. Same goes for little lamplight. Rivet City, Megaton and Tenpenny Tower are the only places in the whole wasteland that are slightly well defended.

I suppose thats one way of looking at it, still, an explanation would have been nice.

I don't remember there being radio stations in I am Legend. I have no problem with radios. Shouldn't the BoS simply allow the Mutants and the Raiders to battle it out? They are both enemies of the BoS.


Thats my entire point. If the only source of water in the entire wasteland cannot be purified, how are people surviving? There are no wells, no collected rainwater cisterns, no underground streams (barring Little Lamplight), no lakes.

Its not that I don't like the game, its that I see flaws in it. I am in my second playthrough, but it will probably be my last. I give credit where is due, and criticise where I feel there is a flaw.

Im not trying to make the game look bad, and neither do I wan't graphical intercourse. I suggest you read my posts more carefully next time, as I made this last point explicit at least twice in my last post. All I am saying is that Beth shied from touching a spot that its predecessors didn't.

I didn't say I didn't want another ending, all I said is I do not want to have to pay for it. Can you see the precedent being set here? We screw up endings on purpose, so we can release new ones and charge for them. Brilliant!

Well, seeing as it is a Fallout sequel, and not say, Oblivion with guns, I would have expected it to follow through with some of the trademarks of what made Fallout what it is. If Beth had launched this game under a different name I would have no problem with it. Imagine a company purchasing the Half Life franchise and making Half Life 3 an isometric turn based game, or a real time strategy game. Fans of those genres would love it, but the original fans would have the abomination it became. Same goes here.

I don't think you understand my point. And neither did I go on to claim I have a problem with every weapon, and every enemy. I actually praised the weapons in the game, had you read my posts more carefully you would have realised that. All I am saying is that this is another easy 'cheap shot' to adding yet another filler monster into the many dungeons (read metros) in the game.

Yes, but most of it can be done in one game. Read my last post to see what I mean.

Indeed, and that is what set the originals apart from most other games. For Fallout 3 to backtrack on that was a mistake. I liked knowing what impact my actions had on the wasteland. In Fallout 3 the only long term noticeable effect you have on the world is regarding the main quest. All of the above can be done, and indeed, is done without having to sacrifice ingame cannon.

I don't understand how a vehicle would break the 'sandbox' feel to the game. A dune buggy would have made things interesting. Lore/cannon actually had a car in Fallout 2. Tactics, which Beth has considered part of it cannon, and part of it not, also included vehicles. Verisimilitude would also warrant some vehicles in functioning condition 200 years after the war.

I don't think the engine is actually a problem at all, I think its one of the things they got right. All the flaws and issues they got wrong, in my opinion, could have been solved by a better writting team. It really should not have been that hard given the precedents of the originals. Perhaps the first two games raised the bar too high. We saw the gradual degradation with Tactics and BoS, perhaps it was only inevitable Beth would not live up to those expectations either.

Gamebryo can't support high quality vehichles.

Again, if you tried to research the matter you'll find Little Lamplight had "Mungos" in it untll very recentley, infact from what we can tell, about two or three years before Mcreedy's birth.

Raven Rock is not a complicated level, and you even admitted you didn't find it hard to get around, so why complain?

You like the weapons eh? Carefull, you might say this game is vaugley entertaining if you carry on that way. Metros aren't there to be dungeons, they splt up the city nicley and often have good loot. I don't understand your problem with having an enemy that's slightly modified from FO2.

Again, don't complain about paying for gameplay, since you just bought a thousand hours for about thirty pounds. Buy the DLC or dont, just don't come to the forums and complain about it, we know the ending wasn't great, this is just turning into a case of "Where iz shad0wmere!? z0mg".

Will Smith broadcasted for help everyday at 12pm.

Rivet city isn't "Slightly well defended" The only way on is across a bridge that's about fitey feet long and can only be acsesed with permition. Tenpenny tower has eight foot concrete walls, balconies for vantage points, a full security team and an equipped population. Face the facts, the settlements are well defended, and those that are not usually get wiped out. Only the other day the republic of Bob (Formeley Dave) ws assaulted by Radscorpians ans a few people died.

This is good game, you say you give praise where you see fit maybe you should take this into account;

Graphics
Sandbox
1000 gameplay hours
Extesive cast of enemies and allies
Well worked livley Wasteland
Huge truck loads of content
Results for quests
Housing

Infact, i'm not even going to list them, you should play through AGAIN with a fresh mindset, make a character build inverse to your last and follow my earlier recomendation.

Infact, i can even tell you how the game could play, having done this already.

Big guns + Explosives character.

As said previousley, complete the Oasis quest for Lindens armor. Sell small gun rounds and guns in exchange for missiles, flamer fuel etc. use Fat man's and missile launchers with more accurate results in combat. Traverse the wasteland looking for tech for Casdin and RP the role of a big gun Outcasted Outcast. Mix and match guns to armor to look good, hunt down an Enclave camp for Tesla and a Gatling laser, or complete Crowleys quest in a way that givesyou Tb-15 to go with your minigun.

Character build changes alot of things, it's as if you don't wan't to recognise this fact.

You wan't to know how the Wastelanders obtain purified water eh?

This is my rationalised theory after all of my three playthroughs.

When vaults fail/are opened they would of had fresh water supplies, it's not a stretch to imagine that scavengers and merchants take them to sell at settlements. Dr Li said it was perfectley possible to purify water on a small scale, i'm sure such a method has been adopted by an intelligent minority. Mr Gutsys and Handy's can make purified water aswell.

Now im going to tell you your right; there isn't enough purified water, that's why the Megaton immigrants complain about it, people in Rivet City discuss the matter, that's why people sit on the ground, leaning againt a rock, begging and dieing. Beth knows theres not enough pure water, that's why the games main quest is to resolve this issue.

I feel that Eden explaining how people purified water would of been needless, me and ou both understand how this is done, so why have it slowly explained to a backdrop of patriotic music on loop?

Shadowmere is the Morrowind horse that everyone couldn't find/lost and it became the done thing to post questions about where the horse is and it created a lot of spam and wasted space because idiots decided to post torents of such threads instead of reading other threads or using the Wiki.

I concentrate on the negative because I agree on the rest.

If youv'e done every quest, every unmarked quest, got every item in the game, then don't complain, hope your thoughts are taken into account for the next Fallout, and if i were you, adjust your review accordingley.

Fallout 3 has 16 Wasteland creatures Molerats etc.

Raiders, scavengers, merchants, settelers and beggars (Most have unique apperances and all have dialouge, most traders comment on Megaton, should you blow it up).

Megaton, Tenpenny and Rivet City have dozens of unique characters and personalities, and most will atleast have unmarked or marked side quests.

The game has many robots, and variants. Mr Gutsy, Handy, Robobrain, Protectron, Nukatron, Enclave bot etc.

Other factions and enemies/allies include the Outcasts, Bos, Super mutants, ghouls, and the Aliens.
Each has several unique characters inside those main factions (Except the Aliens).

In conclusion, FO3 has a wide host of enemies/allies.

Hey man. Good review. I appreciate old fans who point out faults while still recognizing the game's strong points and what it does add to the series. Rather than add another wall of text to what is by now, a HOUSE of text, I'm just going to say that I agree with most of what you said (Main Quest, Dialogue, Inconsistencies, Prologue ? Epilogue ? Narration, Watered down factions, Size of settlements, and Vaults, and everything mentioned in The Good).

As for the rest, not that I disagree, but never really felt strongly enough about them. :shrug:

Must be tiring trying to defend these points, but know that your opinions are shared by a lot of other people. It's a great game, but it does have its flaws. Amidst all the praise that it's getting, Beth should also know what they need to improve on for future games.

Ya, we are used to it by now: Throw out some meaningless stuff, call it positive so you look respectable, then destroy the rest of the game.

You must still be entertained by it all though. Either that or you're a practicing masochist. I'd be hard-pressed to understand why else you hang out in this particular forum so often.

It's more like avoiding the things I'm supposed to be doing, and that should give you an indication of how much I dislike doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

OK, these posts are getting much easier to quote and reply to, thankfully!

No, I don't want Eden to explain how water is purified, he already implies people do that. What I would have wanted was visual evidence people are doing this, and HAVE TO DO THIS, to survive in this particuarly inhospitable wasteland. Like I said before, I don't think I've seen a well in the entire game.

Im not complaining about the quests, doing the side quests what one of the things I enjoyed the most out of the whole game. I actually did say in the review I think the side quests were pulled off better than the main quests, it was actually one of my good points.

Yes, the robots I feel wwere a nice touch to the game. The only thing about the factions is that they are all recycled FO 1-2 material. I would have liked some new stuff aswell. Hopefully that will be for Fallout 4.

And indeed, I will write another review for Fallout 4 when it comes out, and I do indeed hope Beth takes onboard some of the criticism leveled at the game, just as much as it takes praise. I would not write this review if I didn't think it would help change something. I obviously don't have false hopes, but its not like I get paid for this, and this is the Beth forum, so I do suppose they keep an open eye for what is posted here, and hopefully and more importantly, an open mind also.

Ya, we are used to it by now: Throw out some meaningless stuff, call it positive so you look respectable, then destroy the rest of the game.

I don't know. I'd hardly call the stuff he mentioned in The Good to be meaningless (was that what you were pertaining to?). The Bad and The Ugly were probably wordier, but I think he had valid explanations for both his good and bad points. On the whole, I appreciate member reviews like this more than people who dismiss FO3 by saying that it adds nothing to the series because "it's just not Fallout." Besides, Beth could use a little reminder on what could be improved on amidst the ocean of Game of the Year Awards and 10/10 reviews that they've been getting.

A lot of that "good" stuff came off like damning with praise, with a fair number of good...but... sorts o things. it's a typical NMA style forum "review", but at least it's substantially moderate compared to what you can find in the forums over there.

Ahh the conspiracy is back! It only came across as "damning with praise" because you want to see it as such, maybe as the review isn't chock full of glowing praise ? Even if it did, it's alot better than most reviews of it, even professional ones that come off like a marketing piece.

Ahh the conspiracy is back! It only came across as "damning with praise" because you want to see it as such, maybe as the review isn't chock full of glowing praise ? Even if it did, it's alot better than most reviews of it, even professional ones that come off like a marketing piece.

Don't try to spin this. You know exactly what it is. No one here thinks the game is perfect, but let's not play silly games. I'd rather see something like the typical NMA post. At least I know that those folks aren't going to try to smoke me with false fluff.

Art:
Something that struck me as soon as I started the game, and by that I mean from windows, not actually playing it yet, was the art. The slides on the menu were very very appealing. Some of it was random, some of it was informative, and some of it was mildly humorous. In game, however, this was taken a step further with all the 50's references, with actual vehicles, houses, and a decent '50's atmosphere. Kudos to the art team. They did a good job at immersing me into a 50's world, both graphically, and through writing on random newspapers, billboards and so on.

While the radio stations I think were out of place, the 20's-50's music also added to the retro atmosphere. Its nice being immersed in something not purely graphical.

Effort:
Its easy to see a lot of effort was put into this game. Having taken four years, I would expect so. For starters, the game is probably bigger than both Fallout 1 and 2 combined, although set in a smaller region. There are many more maps, many more locations, a bigger world to explore, and a bigger diversity of areas. Effort was definitely put into world design, that's for sure.

There are also many side quests, some of them pointless, some of the funny (Lug-Nut and the Naughty Nightwear comes to mind), and some of them are just boring dungeon crawls. Still, a lot of variety, freedom of exploration and so on. Good score overall. As explained latter though, all this inspiration seems lacking in the main quest.

Pre-War Organisations and Vaults:
A good direction I think Bethesda took with Fallout 3 was its depiction of pre-war organisations. From RobCo to Nuka-Cola, to Corvega and Lob Enterprises, and not to forget the devious Vault Tec, Fallout 3 expanded on the Fallout world of greedy and immoral corporations, with many of their headquarters based where the game is set. Score for Bethesda.

Also, I liked the addition of extra Vaults in Fallout 3. Fallout would not be Fallout without Vaults. Still, I wished there were at least some that survived somehow, either through being a control vault or one where the experiments did not result in the demise of all the vault's population.

Combat:
Its not quite an FPS, yet its not an RPG either. VAT's was born through the need to reconcile both of these. For somebody playing on a low end PC, VAT's was definitely a life saver when it came to small crowded spaces with lots of enemies and a particularly annoying FPS (Frames per second) score. I only played from first person perspective, and thought it was a passable shooter experience. VAT's made the game interesting when needing to quickly dispatch dangerous enemies, and unlike many of my NMA counterparts, the exploding heads did not bother me too much, I actually enjoyed seeing it every time. I only wish it happened a little less often. With a luck of two and constantly scoring criticals, it did have me wonder.

Weapons:
I liked the variety of weapons in Fallout 3. Many of the original series weapons were replaced or absent altogether, but made up for with Chinese weaponry, custom based weapons (awesome by the way), large variety of grenades and mines and unique weapons. Also, melee characters were well rewarded.

Communism and the Chinese:
Another interesting direction Beth took. I liked the large numbers of Chinese spies, remnants, Vault 112 simulation commandos, and so on. Their weaponry also made sense seeing as they had a large presence in the D.C area. I think Communism was well explored in Fallout 3, something I always felt was missing in the original series, giving the paranoia of the 50's and McCartheism. Liberty Prime's taunts were priceless.

What exactly IS an NMA post ? You're always bleating on about these nasty NMA shadow boogeyman every now and then.



So where exactly are his veiled digs at Bethesda here?

Hey man. Good review. I appreciate old fans who point out faults while still recognizing the game's strong points and what it does add to the series. Rather than add another wall of text to what is by now, a HOUSE of text, I'm just going to say that I agree with most of what you said (Main Quest, Dialogue, Inconsistencies, Prologue ? Epilogue ? Narration, Watered down factions, Size of settlements, and Vaults, and everything mentioned in The Good).

As for the rest, not that I disagree, but never really felt strongly enough about them. :shrug:

Must be tiring trying to defend these points, but know that your opinions are shared by a lot of other people. It's a great game, but it does have its flaws. Amidst all the praise that it's getting, Beth should also know what they need to improve on for future games.

Agreed.

Ya, we are used to it by now: Throw out some meaningless stuff, call it positive so you look respectable, then destroy the rest of the game.

I don't know. I'd hardly call the stuff he mentioned in The Good to be meaningless (was that what you were pertaining to?). The Bad and The Ugly were probably wordier, but I think he had valid explanations for both his good and bad points. On the whole, I appreciate member reviews like this more than people who dismiss FO3 by saying that it adds nothing to the series because "it's just not Fallout." Besides, Beth could use a little reminder on what could be improved on amidst the ocean of Game of the Year Awards and 10/10 reviews that they've been getting.

A lot of that "good" stuff came off like damning with praise, with a fair number of good...but... sorts o things. it's a typical NMA style forum "review", but at least it's substantially moderate compared to what you can find in the forums over there.

Every one of his "Good paragraphs" is formed as follows;

State the good point. Make a condescending remark about Beth. List the con of the good point.

Ahh the conspiracy is back! It only came across as "damning with praise" because you want to see it as such, maybe as the review isn't chock full of glowing praise ? Even if it did, it's alot better than most reviews of it, even professional ones that come off like a marketing piece.

Don't try to spin this. You know exactly what it is. No one here thinks the game is perfect, but let's not play silly games. I'd rather see something like the typical NMA post. At least I know that those folks aren't going to try to smoke me with false fluff.

"Some effort was definitley put in"

"Inspiration lacking"

"Out of place"

"Pointless"

As i said, subtle jabs.

^^

I assure you, your subconcious is somehow forcing you to dig at the good points. Honestley, re-read them, youv'e countered ost of the good points with cons.

I can't see how you can deny you added te good stuff to make it respectable, you couldn't of had it called"Bad and ugly".