OK, so after having my previous thread pretty much hijacked and locked for trolling, flame baiting and flaming, I am going to have to ask, if you agree with the review, good, if you don't, fair enough, but please, pretty please, either defend it or criticise constructively and most importantly, in a civil manner. No personal attacks or anything that would result in the thread being locked again.

So, for a re-cap of what I feel is relevant, the actual review will be my fist post. My second post will include the relavant discussion before the thread was hijacked. I know this is double posting, but its much easier to view this way.


Notes: Text Wall. Spoilers. Exercise caution. Without protective eye wear, EXTREME eye damage could result.

Notes: Edited. Added some missing points (which will be marked with a * * and rephrased some sentences for greater clarity)

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly


Introduction

Well then, having completed Fallout 3 today, I felt compelled to write my afterthoughts on it. A lot of what I will say has probably already been said, but some of it I feel is new. Everything I noticed or thought worth mentioning as I progressed throughout the game has been noted, so most of these observations are in chronological order.

Also, some background info on myself people may or may not find useful. I'm 20 years old, and I am both an avid PC gamer, and a fan of the original Fallout series. (One and Two, the second being my favourite) I'm also a regular at NMA. To some here, that bit of information is probably enough to label me a Fallout 3 hater. That is not the case. Being a middle aged gamer, being old enough to appreciate content and not be swayed by eye-candy , but not old enough to disregard the mindless, yet fun aspects of games, I think this puts me in an interesting position to judge Fallout 3 as impartially as I hope to. I will leave the final judgement up to you however.

The layout of my little review is based on the classic western film, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. As noticed, it has been preceded by an introduction, and will be succeeded by a conclusion. So, without further ado, I give you, my thoughts on Fallout 3.


The Good

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, *and by pointless I mean not related to the main story, which I think is nice as there is a lot to do in the wasteland not regarding your own story, which can wait for quite a bit before you even start tackling it* There are many funny sidequest, (Lug-Nut and the Naughty Nightwear comes to mind), but 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 and effort which was put into the sidequests 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.

*Visual Representations*
By this I mean ''One picture is worth a thousand words''. While at the time, the original Fallout's did not have todays graphics for such beautiful environments, they had to do with text and writing to convey certain messages. A good example was exiting the cave in Fallout 1, ''You see some natural light to the far side of the cave. For the first time in your life, you are staring at the outside world'' - or something like that. Given the importance of writing and dialogue, the originals pulled this off very well. Indeed, it was a trademark of the series.

Fallout 3, on the other hand, having at its disposal a much more beautiful graphical engine, can afford to use its engine to show us what words cannot (some times anyway). Some perfect examples, where I think Fallout 3 did this very well were:

Upon leaving Vault 101 for the first time. The brigthness of the sun, the sprawling and devastated landscape before you, the sign saying ''Scenic Point'' and the music, this added to the atmosphere.

The random skeletons scattered throughout the wastes. The one cut in half after trying to jump a car with a motorbike, the two lovers on the car bonnet with whiskey bottles on the ground somewhere on the wasteland, the skeletons of children clutching teddybears in houses, together with their parents remains on the beds, etc.

I also thought one particular highlight was the house in DC where you find a working Mr Handy which actually does its usual tasks without realising its masters have long gone. Beth explicitly awknowledged the poem ''There Will Come Soft Rains'', and for this I praise them. My Handy reciting a poem to a long dead child brought chills down my back. Its also good to see some relevant literary work referenced in game. Beth did their homework on this one.

For those not aware, here is the poem: http://www.jerrywbrown.com/datafile/datafile/110/ThereWillComeSoftRains_Bradbury.pdf (Definitely worth a read if you are into the whole post-apocalyptic feel)

There is also a short film related to the poem (read the poem first, as the short film diverges from the poem in some ways, but it still a good watch)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKJ77w6uQCg

Also, another good story, which may have been intentionally (or not) referenced with Dr.Braun in Vault 112. Its about a gigantic artificial intelligence that is self aware and tortures the last remaining humans on the planet for its own pleasure. Its called ''I have no mouth and I must scream'' and can be found here: http://data.antonindanek.cz/Harlan%20Ellison-I%20hav%20no%20Mouth%20and%20I%20must%20scream.pdf

Anyway, back to the review, and not for the things I think Beth needs improvements.


The Bad

Megaton Crater and Bomb:
One of the first things that struck me as I entered this strange settlement; the story of its creation. People think its located on a crater because of the bomb dropping, (which is strange, seeing as unexploded bombs do not create craters) but it was actually because of a plane crash there. (Parts of aircraft are indeed used to make the walls of the settlement.

Well, I have news for the level designer. Plane crashes DO NOT result in massive craters. Level design is still something I am going to expand on here, so bear with me. More to come.

Vaults:
For me, the eeriest vault was vault 92. No survivors, an interesting love story, deserted yet monster infested place, eery (may have something to do with the fact I have seen White Noise) and ironic as I re-entered it to find the music book for Agatha whilst listening to her playing the violin over the radio, just as the original vault-dwellers would have when they were being subjected to white-noise.

It worked for me because it was believable. The other vaults record experimentation beginning almost immediately after the vaults were closed, and then the immediate failures that followed. While I was scared [censored]less in Vault 106 due to the hallucinations, having survivors there broke the spell for me. Same applies to all other vaults. How the hell does Gary reproduce? How did the survivors survive in all those vaults seeing as the people to maintain them were either mutated/insane/dead, for a good 200 years? Assuming the only ones left were the test subjects and all the technicians, overseers, scientists and technics were all dead, how did food, water and heat production continue? Their continued existence just doen't make much sense, as eery as their presence may be.

Size of settlements:
OK, so I was quite pleased with the sheer number of settlements in Fallout 3, far greater than in the other series. However, one important caveat, cities of 3-8 inhabitants are NOT settlements. They are at best isolated groups of dwellings, tribes or neighbourhoods. Rivet City is the closest we have to a city, and Megaton the closest to a town. The rest of these 'towns' cannot be called such. How they defend themselves, with their populations of 5-6 against the hundreds of raiders and super mutants that roam the capital wasteland is beyond me. Frankly, Beth dropped the ball with the civilian population of this wasteland. Creating some true ''cities'' would not have been much to ask for, giving the towns and cities in the original Fallout series. Not to mention the state of these 'settlements' is rather dilapidated for places that have existed for almost 200 years. Ever think of cleaning your street buddy? Get some of those rocks out of the way....

Watered down factions, or nonsensical ones:
OK, now this one is important. Firstly, why did Beth feel the need to recycle the original Fallout factions, giving the distance between where the original Fallout's are set and where Fallout 3 is? The Brotherhood have been reduced to a generical 'good guys' faction, while the Enclave to the stereotypical 'bad guys'. The ''Good Fight'' - really? Do we have to have this little epic battle between monsters and knights? Why is there always an epic battle between clearly defined 'Good' and clearly defined 'Evil'. Why not a choice between the lesser of two evils? In Fallout one, the Brotherhood of Steel were no heroes, they were just a military cult selfishly devoted to preserving technology without any thought towards others. The fact their aim of destroying the mutants coincided with yours was a coincidence at best.

I am very happy Beth had the decency to create the Outcasts as at least a nod to the original Brotherhood and their selfish intentions. The raiders are another nonsensical faction. They make sense insofar as they [censored], pillage and plunder, but not in that they are psychotic ruthless maniacs with a fetish for rotten flesh and senseless gore.

Seriously, raiders in the original Fallout's had reasons. They terrorised, pillaged, exerted pressure for NCR, and so on. In Fallout 3 they just seem like they were added in there as the 'medium class' enemies to occupy the wastelands and buildings. Also, who the hell likes being around rotting corpses? Are they also satanists by any chance? Their whole attitude to bodies, torture, decomposition and so on makes no sense whatsoever.

Vampires and Zombies. I will expand on this later, but the whole Vampire theme just sounds like an attempt to broaden the target demographic, and feral ghouls (read zombies) were a cheap shot to add yet another filler enemy, this time to the many dungeonesque metro tunnels in the capital, not to mention to make the game a little more ''survivor-horror'' style. Not cool Beth, not cool.

Level Cap/Forced Ending:
Seriously, what the hell? This was one of my biggest gripes with Fallout 1, I was exhilarated with Fallout 2 for doing away with both, and then Fallout 3 comes and reinstates them? I was having fun exploring the wasteland and avoiding the main quest till I hit this brick wall called level 20, and then having to finish the game and not being able to play afterwards.

I should be able to get all perks and experience point and play God after the main quest is finished if I want to. I should not be limited, when it would be so easy to make it continue. An official Beth statement to this is that ''All games end''. Well, yes, games do end. But if you notice, some allow you to play after you end them, the predecessor being one of them. The ones that allow freeform play afterwards tend to be the good ones too. Bad move.

Dubious morals/priorities/hypocrisy:
Right, this one is not directly pointed at Beth, more towards the United States and its ridiculous rating system. But Beth also has some blame for not having the balls to do what its forebears did, and for creating the publicity that would have made it impossible to do otherwise.

Firstly, we have exploding heads, gore, albeit in a cartoon fashion, tortured victims hanging from walls, organs splattered on the floors, quartered and mutilated people, drugs (under different names), drug use, alcohol, slavery, basically all that is wrong and bad and all that as seen by mainstream society, and ONE person in the entire wasteland to have 'six' with?

What the hell? You are telling me that its okay to have violence, swearing (including by children!), horror, torture, alcohol and drug use, but not six in a game? The most natural act of the above, but that is not allowed? What kind of society do we live in? The prosttute in Megaton was the only one you can 'sleep' with, and I mean that in a literal sense as all you do is go to the same bed she does and sleep, not 'sleep', but click sleep and sleep. No special fade out, just the same sleep fade out as usual. I spoke to many NPC's in the game where it was alluded you would get some, only for a dead-end response. It was almost as if these were originally women you could sleep with and at the last moment Beth decided to pull the plug on it. Seriously, giving the depravity of the previous games, I'm not impressed with Beth on this one.

Also, a strange thing I noticed in Little Lamplight. Princess has a crush on McCready because he punched her in the face? Is that even possible amongst children? It seems to me like an advlt emotion of submission, humiliation with sixual undertones that is somehow present in a a child. Strange.

Missed Opportunities:
To be specific, vehicles. The original Fallout's had me bugged on this one, with Fallout 2 partially correcting it with the Car you can get, although even then its pretty rare. I was happy with Fallout Tactics for introducing vehicles on a scale imaginable for a post-apocalyptic wasteland, only to have Fallout 3 revert to the pedestrian only wasteland.

Seriously, its been 200 years, and not one mechanic can fix a car or a motorbike? You are telling me the Enclave can devise power armour and keep vertibirds repaired and in flight, but not have one single jeep or hummer? Brotherhood of Steel can get a 30 meter robot back in action, but not fix a car? Hmmn...

Level Design:
While most of the levels designed in Fallout 3 were of good standard, one particular location stood out to me like a sore thumb. Raven Rock. Seriously, who the hell came up with that?

Its the most disjointed, non-sensical layout for a continuity of government bunker I have ever seen. Had the enclave built it themselves maybe I would be more willing to believe it, but it was a pre-war location to which the Enclave migrated to. Where are all the barracks, mess halls, broadcasting rooms, control facilities, relaxation areas and so on expected of such a building? Cell blocks, a very very very simple and ugly 'war room', living quarters and strange corridor layouts do not characterise military bunkers. I suggest they look up what fallout and nuclear bunkers actually look like.

Prologue ? Epilogue ? Narration
OK, so the intro was mediocre, with a very cheesy ending. It was longer than Fallout's one and two, but shorter than tactics, which while good, went on for too long. I also felt Fallout 3's ending went on for too long, and that the narration was a bit forced. But what particularly annoyed me was the ''Because in vault 101, no one ever enters. And NO ONE, EVER LEAVES!''

I mean, c'mon, how cheesy is that? The little music crescendo with the narration also didn't help. The fact that clearly your father entered the vault and then left, followed by you, makes this rather pointless.

The epilogue is even worse. A slideshow that screams 'rushed through development' comes through, and you are left none the wiser about how your actions affected the wasteland. I abolished slavery, gave the Union the memorial, disbanded the raiders, wrote a book, destroyed the enclave, disarmed a bomb, not to mention countless other feats, and the game doesn't even acknowledge any of that? What was the point? I wanted to see how these actions affected the world in the long run!

C'mon.... Fallout 1 and 2 had between 2-5 different endings for each city and faction, and Fallout 3 ignores all that and concentrates solely on the main quest, which even then is already pretty limited? Seems like laziness to me Beth...


The Ugly

Inconsistencies:
OK, this is probably the main problem with Fallout 3, and its a pretty big problem. Unlike Fallout 1 and 2 that relied on verisimilitude to make the world believable, Fallout 3 really does require suspension of belief to make the plot understandable or acceptable.

Firstly, Little Lamplight. This is a town located right next to the super mutant main base, and has been for the past 200 years, and some how they magically hold back the hordes? I mean, REALLY? You are telling me the BoS are having a hard time fighting the ''Good Fight'' (Don't get me started on that one) with power armour, laser weapons, Gatling guns and so on, getting their asses handed to them pretty bad, and a handful of kids with rifles, pistols and a flimsy gate, walking distance away from the main base of the mutant horror, cannot be conquered? You're kidding right? All the more ironic about Little Lamplight is that its the only town with a belieavable system of food and water production, almost like a vault. Yet, the proximity to the mutant base totally nuls that.

Secondly, while I think the nod to Lord of the Flies nice, and the story of how all the kids were left behind is particularly interesting, it still doesn't explain how this has been happening for the past 200 years... how are these kids reproducing? Assuming they have children as soon as they are of biological age, which can be as early as 12, then that gives max 4-6 years before the parents are expelled and the babies are cared for by the community. Fallout 3 completely overlooks this discrepancy, I mean, if six is bad, then imagine under-age six among children.

Radio Stations. A strange idea in a world where people are preoccupied with survival, water, food, and so on, a dispensable luxury. Still, I must admit I enjoy listening to the good old tracks while walking the land. What annoys me is people saying Enclave Radio, and this includes Sara Lyons, is a pre-war recording, when clearly Eden mentions the holocaust, current events, mutants, ghouls, the BoS and so on.

Another inconsistency is that of Slavers. As mentioned before, watered down faction? Where are all these slaves? Who buys them? I see no ''cities'' in Fallout 3 employing slaves, they are almost non-existent throughout the game. And somehow there you have it, Paradise Falls, a big slaver central shipping of slaves to imaginary buyers. If you want to include slavery in a game then put the effort to include the nitty gritty aspects of it too, not just the superficial elements.

And again. The setting. Does anybody else get the feeling all this is happening like 20 years after the bombs fell? I mean seriously, there is one tree yet to grow back from the ashes, grass is non-existent (bringing into question a plethora of problems which will be addressed further), wooden houses are still intact, shanty towns, not cities, shanty towns, dot the landscape, and people have yet to discover how to get cars to work.

I mean, really, 200 years have passed? Previous Fallouts had cities, not burnt out settlements in the middle of rubble, but cities, with clean streets, electricity, newly built housing, walls, plumbing and so on, and the east coast somehow has none of that. How computers in the middle of the wasteland function for 200 years is beyond me. Or that buildings and supermarkets are still stocked despite being in an area where survival is primarily through scavenging (more on this later).

Really, this world does not make sense. The roads are great, I really can believe they have been there 200 years. They disappear into the sand, are broken up, they feel like they have been baking under the sun for centuries. Yet, wooden houses do not. They would not last that long. Neither would computers left unattended, with inexplicable power sources. I suspect towns would start to develop and reconstruction would have taken its course. Not to mention farming. All this was present in the previous games. I would have no problem if this was set 10-20 years after the holocaust, but 200, its asking me to believe a little too much.

My next point is the economy and survival of these 'settlements' in Fallout 3. Firstly, you cannot tell me they have been living off pre-war packaged food. Food doesn't keep that long, and even if it did, from all that scavenging it would have vanished long ago. Yet they are all still present in shelves on stores throughout the wasteland. Strike one. Then you get no grass, vegetation, or anything of the sort. So there is basically no farming whatsoever in Fallout 3. The hydroponics thing in Rivet City is the closest we have, and I'm somehow supposed to believe it feeds the entire wasteland with vegetables? Strike two. Also, with no vegetation, what do Brahmin live on? Cows eat grass. Mutated cows with two heads and 8 stomachs should supposedly also consume grass. Where is the water? I do not see one purifier or clean river in that wasteland. Heck, would a well have been much to ask for? Yet people inexplicably exist in a desolate world. Strike three. I'm all out of strikes, and yet, there is more.

Lets take Fallout 2. You had a settlement that trade medical technology, one that traded gold, one that traded uranium, one that traded electricity, and one that traded fruit, vegetables, and so on. You can see how each of these would link, and how there is a dynamic economy here. Yet, Fallout 3 lacks any of this. There are like 3-5 traders in the whole wasteland, with one guard each, when there are raiders, mutants and god knows what around. Fallout 2, as you approached larger cities with larger caravans, guards had combat armour, laser rifles, mini guns, etc. It was feasible they defend themselves from large threats. Yet the caravans in Fallout 3 seem to do perfectly fine without them in an equally hostile environment. Go figure.

Then we have Fort Constantine, with a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, and some random Sat-Com Dish, with micro nuclear launching capabilities, and not one single interested faction other than Talon Company? Where are the Brotherhood Outcasts all over these places? Why doesn't the enclave care about the awesome power of destruction contained within these places? Or the BoS in general? Strange.

Dialogue:
Moving on, this is massive problem number two for Fallout 3, dialogue. I can understand people who have not played the previous games, as today's standards for dialogue is generally not high in games, but when you compare Fallout 3's dialogues, they are truly laughable.

I will start with a quote from Emil that to me says it all: ''Dialogue was not a battle we wanted to pitch''. That pretty much says it all for me regarding Beth's priorities within the game.

Investing in intelligence, charisma and speech have almost no noticeable effect within the game. All you get are chances in dialogue to pass or fail, and some extra lines. For somebody with speech 100 and intelligence 10, I still find myself communicating with others with all the skill and charm of a door knob.

A good comparison here is Fallout 2's ending on the oil rig with the biologist, or fallout 1's debate with the master, to Fallout 3's conversation with Eden. The first two involve detailed, logical, rational and intelligent points, based on evidence (sterility for Fallout 1, humanity's ability to evold and adapt in Fallout 2), to discredit your nemesis. Fallout 3's goes more or less like this: ''I will not install the FEV, you know you are right because you know you are right, circular logic, that does not compute, destroy yourself, OK then, buh bye''

Voice-Acting is mediocre at best, with only a few exceptions. That is not much Beth's fault, but more the problem of voice-acting every NPC in the game. Fallout 1 and 2 reserved voice-acting for special characters, while Fallout 3, voicing every character, makes them all sound similar, boring, and cheap to be fair. With all the money invested in marketing it does not surprise me voice acting wasn't a strength of the game. Add that to stiff and unimaginative facial expressions by all characters and you have lifeless NPC's. There are very few memorable NPC's in Fallout 3 compared to previous games.

Main Quest:
And now for the icing of the cake, the main quest.

I will begin at the end, where I think we can all agree it was the worst possible ending in a computer game I have seen for a while. Seriously, you have to sacrifice yourself? Its not bad enough you have been outcast from your vault and have no family or friends, but now you also have to die? A bit too far maybe?

Not even that, but the fact Fawkes is perfectly capable of going in there and doing it himself, yet says 'I would not take away your destiny from you''. What the hell? I just saved your ass from captivity for like 200 years and you will now not take away my 'destiny!' ???? Yeah, sure man, I could totally go in there right not and press those buttons, but becaise I DEEM IT YOUR DESTINY TO DIE, im going to let you do it instead. Hmmn, okay.

Beth responded to this by claiming NPC's were added after the main plot, so they had to tweak Fawkes by letting you die instead. Ha! I mean, would it not have been easier to just toggle radiation off in the GECK room , which, presumably, is why Fawkes is radiation resistant to begin with? To aid you in that quest? Incompetence? Hmmn... mark my words. I will not surprise me one bit if the next Fallout game, be it a DLC or Fallout 4, has the Lone Wanderer waking up on a bed or medical table after being somehow resuscitated from his radiation induced death, a realization that Fallout 3's ending was truly horrible by its own writers.

I actually liked the Giant Robot. I felt it was quite 50's style and reminded me of the Iron Man. However, his 10 minute killing spree in the city was kind of ... cool, but disjointed from the main story. Its like they had big plans for the robot at the beginning of the game and then had to end up be content with a little battle at the end. I don't know. I think there could have been more potential for liberty prime.

One thing that annoys me in particular is the recycling of the Fallout 1 and 2 plot. Fallout 2 had already gone some way recycling the plot of Fallout, so when Fallout 3 comes and does it again it kind of is annoying. I mean, by all means, continuity of the franchise ftw, but please, do come up with something that has not already been tried previously.

Lastly, Eden's plan is pretty stupid to begin with. He wants to infect the water supply right? To kill off all mutants. Well then, firstly, what is the point of his radio broadcasts? He does realise all its listeners will be dead as soon as they drink the water right?

Not to mention, unlike Fallout 2, where the virus was not optional, you inhaled it and died, in Fallout 3 people have to go to the river to drink the water to die. I mean, surely people would see people dying by drinking from the river and refrain from doing so right?

I mean it was radiated to start off with, then got clean, then people drink, and once more people die. What is the difference? People have survived thus far without that river, they can continue to do so without the Enclave diseased river.

Conclusion

Anyway, after a long long review of what feels more like a rant than anything else, I come to conclude this little 'article'. By all standards, this is a good game. Its probably one of the best to have come out in 2008, seeing as each year there are typically 3-6 good games out. So Beth has done pretty well with Fallout 3, as sales clearly indicate. While I enjoyed playing the game, I did not enjoy it as a Fallout sequel. I think this is where mainstream Fallout 3 fans and hardcoe fallout fans go their separate ways.

While Fallout 3 is a good game, it comes short in all areas that made the fallout series special, such as compelling main quest, intricate and thought out dialogue, re playability value, and believability, or in this case verisimilitude. These were indispensable factors in Fallout's success and cult following, and something Fallout 3 has done away with in the eyes of many NMA'ers. It has, however, concentrated on many areas with were not as essential to the original games, and which perhaps these days has a better return for money. I suspect the target demographic, console gamers, also has something to do with the inevitable watering down of the game. Still, the original Fallouts represent the pinnacle of gaming in some respects, so a watered down version is still bound to be good, just not as good.

All in all, its a good game. A very good game. I think we can all agree on that. But I suspect it will be forgotten by its legions of captivated fans long before its predecessors ever will be by those glittering gems of hatred.

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So hows that, am I in the ball park?

And resuming the discussion,



I did do that the other day, read nearly every article.

Well, asking for everything would have been nitpicking. Asking for what has already been included in previous games and that was essential to make it believable is a reasonable demand. So I draw the line where the woorld broadly makes sense; where settlements do not simply enjoy an underpopulated, static relationship, but a dnamic and realistic relationship. For me that would have been enough.

I disagree it would have taken ages to make. Fallout 2 was done in a year. Fallout 3 had four years of development. There is really no excuse.



Can you direct me to it please?

Thanks.





Thanks. It could have been worse, I mean, Fallout Tactics, which I actually enjoyed, wasn't all it was meant to be, and Brotherhood of Steel was just pathetic. But I would have expected more from the true sequel to the series, especially where writing is concerned, as that was the trademark of the series.

Reading is definitely an enjoyable experience. I hope to read H.P Lovecraft's fiction soon enough if I have the chance. Some creepy stuff there.



Yeah, as much as NCR was my favourite faction in Fallout 2, I still had to notice they had their darker side also, like usiny violence and military pressure to achieven their 'self righteous' goals. It adds another element to the basic 'good vs bad' formula, an element I think is lacking in many games today.



Indeed, gangs would have been interesting. I think the raiders represent one big group in the wasteland that are just dispersed. They all dress the same, act the same, and all seem to share a penchant for hanging rotting flehs that is quite frankly inexplicable. Vault 87 ceased to be scary for me, with all its human remains, organs and so on, because I could not walk in the wastes without stumbling upon it. Gore and wantom violence is more effective when its used scarcely. It would have been scary if that was the only place, or one of the few places, where there was so much gore. That would have made it unique and horifying. But when gore is all around you it loses its effect.



What annoyes me about the radio is that the BoS have little reason to help defend it. Its not like Three Dog is constantly yapping on about the BoS, so its not the best of propaganda tools. Although if he did we would end up with another Enclave style radio, with its patriotic and propaganda spreading undertones. Still, that would have added another layer to the goodie goodie BoS, who believably would have wanted to control a radio station with a 'puppet dj' for their own purposes, rather than inexplicably defending a building to simply allow a hyped dj to broadcast his show with no apparent rewards whatsoever.



To be fair, Fallout 2 wasn't perfect in that sense either, I would have imagined slaves would be everywhere. Still, they tried with Vault City and the family gangs in New Reno. Fallout 3 just doesn't even attempt to include a slave economy into the game.



Thats actually a very good way of putting it. Its almost as if this game is more about your fathers Journey than your own. You acted more like a sidekick in your own story rather than the protagonist. The developers did actually say they had big plans for Liberty Prime but that in the end they had to settle for a last battle, with the energy shields inexplicably blocking your path to the Memorial. Heck, I could have just swam there myself.

About the ending where you die, Beth have stated they have a master plan. I am willing to bet you will find yourself on a surgery table or waking up without any recollection of what happened. All that you know is that you are alive, and that Fallout 4 continues. This is in essence an admission that they screwed up Fallout 3's ending pretty badly.



Well, I wasn't referring to the building materials, but rather that the story goes people think the town is located on a crater because of the presence of the bomb (which is illogical in itself, seeing as unexploded bombs do not create craters) She then reveals that in reality what caused the crater was a plane crash, where some of the material was scavenged from. So the cannon is that the crater is there due to a plane crash, not a natural ravine or anything like that, but a plane crash. Bad writing or just a lack of common sense? Both maybe.

I noticed the lab scientist there, but he is still out of place. Generations of scientists would have had to exist to keep fixing those water and food machines. I didn't see any female survivors, and the gary clones self-evidently cannot reproduce. We can come up with a million explanations as to why and how they are there, but the point remains Beth did not include any cogent explanation in game, and good games should not have to rely on their audiences imagination (beyond a certain point) to sustain the worlds they create in game.

I disagree with 'its internally consistent'. How is it consistent to have armies of mutants, talon company mercs, raiders and so forth, not razing towns of 2-7 inhabitants? In Fallout 1 that is exactly what happened should you take too long in your quest, and that was razing entire cities, not just communities of 2-7 inhabitants. If thats the story they want to tell, as you have said, then they are telling it pretty badly.

Exactly - my first time through in Fallout 2, I had no idea who I wanted to support - I didn't like NCR so much more than I liked Vault City. And even Vault City had some depth - they come off as arrogant and isolationsit, but there's actually some relatively good reasons for their motives - the Wastes are a harsh place and sometimes you have to make hard decisions, this is something Bethesda would do well to remember in their next game. (Not that it wasn't there, but I do think it could have been pushed much further - they said pre-release that there was a definite "neutral" path in this game, but the closest thing I could find to that meant flip-flopping between the "good" and "evil" choices.)

Though Lyons' group really isn't the BoS anymore - the irony (which I think was intentional) is how the Outcasts are the faithful members of the true Brotherhood. Lyons gets to be goody-two-shoes, because he's decided to split from the main body of the organization. Since Lyons is now setting up the Knights of the Wasteland, I don't think it's that strange that they support ThreeDog. They could have explained their interest in greater detail than a sentence or two, but I don't see anything glaring with the idea.

I mean, don't have a problem that you die, only in what leads up to you making that choice. Had it been handled well with proper foreshadowing (other than your Dad making just as in inexplicable a choice - I reloaded at that point because I was hoping there might be a way to engage in dialogue with him right there so I could figure what the frak he thought he was doing,) I wouldn't have minded. That I can't play after the end of the game isn't a real problem to me (and you don't have to die to not continue on - like Fallout 1.) If the only thing they learned from this was to not kill the PC -they'll have completely missed the real problem.

A lot of the problems I noticed in this game, actually, are not so much that certain things don't make sense - but that they missed opportunities to fully explain some of the situations. I'm not completely discounting the possibility that it makes sense for Dad to die, how Gary(s) survive, and any number of other things - but they really could have supplied some more information to explain themselves.

See, the whole dad arc was especially interesting to me. Here is an obviously talented scientist on what is essentially psychotic mission to save mankind, and will, in the end, sacrifice anything he has to, including his and his kid's life in the process. That sort of heroic/tragic figure story is pretty powerful. Anyone who would leave a vault to face near certain death (avoiding spoilers) and do several other things that appear, well stupid, and then come to the end he did, had me on the edge of my seat. You can see it unfolding...this sort of manic self destruction...the irrational choices...the sort of mid-life crysis of fearing that one'
s life would turn out worthless. So,in the end, I wasn't surprised, and frankly, being able to really get him to say why he did it would have weakened the story. The impact is more powerful if the character never knows why.

I'm not bothered by the ending either. Just how heroic is the character, who will lose his life, and just how heroic is the player, who will effectively lose his character (at lest symbolically). I thought it was pretty cool.

On paper, I think the Father arc worked pretty well. I got that he was the sort of obsessive scientist who would sacrifice himself for the right cause. That seemed... relatively clear through most of the game (just from the fact that he one days decides out of the blue to run away without warning and no thought of you, for example - we at least know where his priorities are and it ain't his kids.) I'd have liked to have seen that angle pushed even further, though - just to drive it home.

But his actions once the Enclave show up just seem needlessly extreme - it's like he has a messiah complex, really. Like Optimus Prime, it's like in every movie he's just looking for an excuse to sacrifice himself for the greater good - as a last resort, okay. But with your Dad, that's like his go-to tactic - trouble shows up? Oh, well it's time be a hero without even considering an alternative.

I don't know, it just didn't resonate well with me. If I'd seen that sequence in a movie, I'd feel like it belonged in one of those Sci-Fi Originals, not something going up for an Oscar. Okay, it doesn't always need to be Shakespeare (and I'm a bit of a B-rate movie junkie, as much as I love The Bard) - but if they're trying for a poignant and crucial turning point - they could have done better than basically saying "Here's the poignant and crucial turning point."

And the very end just seemed all too abrupt to me. It didn't feel like a natural sequence of events to me, building up to the inevitable climix. Far, far too much of a Deus Ex Machina, at that point. Like I've said, it's nothing to do with the underlying themes of the game. Sacrifice plays almost no role in the majority of the game, which is why it feels so odd to me that it's shoved in my face at the very end of the game. I just don't think that's good storytelling.

Technically, in literature, if the protagonist dies that the end of the story, that's a Tragedy. This is a consequence of the character's inner flaws. Literally, their Achilles Heel. They are brought down by their own demons and problems, and their inability to overcome them. I see none of that in Fallout 3, though. At least not to the extent that I'd say it impressed me. Honestly, my overall impression at the end of the main storyline in Fallout 3 was, "meh." I didn't hate it, but it didn't really impact me very much.

As an artist myself, that's almost worse than an infuriatingly horrible response. I'd rather impact people in some way than leave them with no real feelings either way. I don't think it's the worst story in existence, it wasn't even really all that bad. But I didn't do anything for me, either. It's just kind of there (for me, at least.)

First let me start by saying, since this is your thread Geronimo, that if you feel I step over the line - PM me and I will stop posting to this thread.

Okay, as to Megaton - I went through the conversation with Manya. She definitely implies that the crater was made by a crashing airplane - but she doesn't actually say it. She just says that it wasn't made by the bomb. There's no reason why it couldn't have been partly natural feature - and anyways, Manya was born over a hundred years after the bomb dropped - so her statements aren't necessarily accurate. Now, having no plausible explanation for the crater isn't necessarily better than having a really dumb one - so even if I am right about it being a natural ravine, there's still a problem with it in that there's no explanation for it in the game-world. But it's not necessarily true that the devs intended the crater to have been the result of a plane crash. Goodness, if a plane crash left that big a hole in the ground - how did the bomb make it through intact? How was it possible that any debris was left over for use in building?

As for the psycho-hallucinogen vault - I was simply pointing out that the Insane Survivors may well have been organized enough to keep the vault running. Yes there are no female survivors - but that could have been a recent occurance - or perhaps they raid the Wasteland on rare occasions for the purpose of finding beby factories. Or maybe the hallucinogenic drugs retard aging. Anyways, it doesn't take a huge amount of suspension of disbelief (IMO) to accept Vault 106. As for Gary and Vault 108 - I find that one even easier to believe. Just because Gary can't communicate with you, that doesn't mean that he can't communicate with Gary. So yes, they keep the cloning vats going every now and then to pop out fresh Garys - or the vats themselves are programmed to unleash a new brood of Garys every twenty years. Seriously, if you've accepted the idea of government sponsored larg-scale nuclear Fallout shelters - and are actually using them as extremely sick and perverse social experiments - how can pointing at one or two specific bits of them and saying "no that part is too unbelievable" not be considered nitpicking?

As for the settlements. Well I guess I'll try this again - and this is only the impression that I got from the game.

The Capital Wasteland is a poisoned area. The radiation is pervasive and persistent. All groundwater in the region makes your geiger counters go tickity-tickity-tick. Farming crops is impossible - the best you get are small shrubs and grasses, which can support small numbers of Brahmin and the various beasties that roam the radioactive wasteland. And those beasties aren't the friendliest critters in the world - Deathclaws, Yao Gaoi, Giant Radscorpions. For these reasons - humanity has not managed to regain it's footing. Since agriculture is impossible, making a good sized permanent settlement is hard to do. Not to mention the roving bands of Raiders, Slavers and Super Mutants.

It's a desparate and dangerous world. It's a world where there aren't actually any cities or even towns, but gatherings of survivors - sticking together for mutually security. Having an area populated by a dozen or fewer people does make sense - you're survivng off of hunting or herding a small pack of brahmin - or trading whatever goods you can scavenge for food from the Caravans.

And this is why the whole story arc is so poignant for me. Because, yes the Capital Wasteland is in a sad and sorry state - but your sacrifice brings about the possibility of a real future. The main story line is intimately tied to the nature of the world it takes place in.

Well that is the only lesson they took from Fallout 3... don't end the game. Brilliant. The ending was a meh moment for me, much like the plot (oh joy FEV genocide..again). I didn't have a problem with the PC dying, just that, at that point I didn't need to as Fawkes was nearby. The ending sort of fell flat as everything seemed sort of arbitrary : Liberty Prime, the shields, the legions of Enclave troops springing into action.



Well I don't see agriculture as impossible, they'd end up having to eat mutant cabbage or something similar, as was does in the previous games. The water can't be too deadly or, frankly, everyone would be dead by the time the game takes place, so if they have any way of cleaning the water up, they can put some aside for irrigation and perhaps make surviving easier. With all the dangerous factions roaming around, it is sort of strange that the settlements haven't really grown large, I'd expect to see ones along the lines of Megation, a quasi-fortified haven. Once one is up, people come flooding in to be safe and live, most would be sensibly out of the city- although digging in there might be a tad easier - the DC area's portrayed as a zone of death. But alas, we're stuck with tiny outposts that add to the "grimdark", that really should have been wiped out by now - or are by the end of the game. Even if they just had big settlements without any clarification on how they're making out (see a farm, water "purifying" plant, etc) it would have added a lot more as big settlements offer a chance for interesting sidequests.

Perhaps the water is in that "deadly enough" range that cabbage is impossible to grow - but not so deadly that humans can't just barely survive off it. Or perhaps the radiation is of that low-level super persistent type where people who make some effort to clean themselves up now and then can get by - but the cleansing process is unsuited for making farming viable. Regardless, the Capital Wasteland is in fact, unsuited for farming. There are examples in the game of failed farms.

Personally, had I been wandering around the Capital Wasteland in all it's bleak and barren glory - and encountered some large settlement of ten thousand or so - that would have broken the game-world for me. Unless there was a really good explanation of how a relatively huge city came to be and supports itself. Those tiny settlements aren't "grimdark" supplements or whatever you're implying with that statement. Those settlements are ones that make sense for a world with no farming, very little clean water, and hostile forces scattered throughout. If you're looking for something the FO3 developers added for the purposes of giving the game more horror-movie appeal - that's the Dunwich Building.

But I see that you're saying that there shouldn't be barren or bleak-ness. It's been two hundred years - there ought to be cities and farms and basically a whole new world. Forget about the radioactive water - that way you can have an entirely new storyline at the middle of the game too. It could be Fallout 3, Capital Jungle. A lush, overgrown, verdant world - with large settlements with new civilizations and societies. That doesn't sound particularly "Fallout" to me. Actually it sounds like a game that should have elves and dragons in it.

Those tiny settlements really shouldn't exist, you'd think some group would have found and wiped them out after 200 years, but leaving them in game adds to the whole "grimdark" they're trying to create - which results in a feeling that this isn't 200 years after the war, or at least DC has some lazy people (if that last one is true, that's an awesome in-joke, heh). I'd imagine that if the water is so radiated that mutant vegetation can't grow (like cabbage, just used that as an example from a farm in a previous game), then humans'd find it deadly and then no one would have been left alive. DC's radiation is probably a lot lower than it was immediately after the war (thinking Glow-level of radiation at that time) so I just think the people could farm, enough to sustain a big settlement with rationing & supplementing with..whatever the hell they feed themselves with now, just not a case of them doing it pretty well.

As for the last bit, no, where did I say there shouldn't be any barren land, even after 200 years ? or any mention of having a lush, overgrown world ? This is after a near apocalyptic event after all, earth scoured by that atomic spark and all that fancy stuff. Your last paragraph is amusing to read, but you misunderstand what a large settlement is - while the game doesn't need a town the size of, say New Reno, it could do with one slightly smaller. In the sense that civilization is just people applying an order to things, then yes - I'd hope the game would have that as it does now. You can have some NCR-wannabe group that wants to "help" out its neighbours by banding together (frankly with all the dangers that's sensible). Fallout's feeling isn't cheap post-apocalyptic "grimdark", and after 200 years, it'd just serve that things are moving forward. Rather than some people bumming around waiting for a Messiah.

That's the best thing about art: personal impact is, well, personal. To me, he was a tragic figure, from the time the game started to the end, and the story made the wasteland an even darker place. I will grind you down, waste your life, and crush your dreams, it seems to say, and the Wastes seem very effective, considering the state it's in after so many years. Not only did he fail, but he failed everyone around him.

And just how more heroic can a sibling be, to see that the old man's dream could work, and his life was not a waste, and you were the one that could make it happen, if only you give up everything. Even that is tragic, as it was the foolish actions of the father who goth you in that desperate situation to start with. I think it's a better story than in the other Beth games, because it's much more personal.

First off, hey I'm glad it worked for you.

And I would agree, it's a more focused story than other Bethesda games, and certainly more personal than previous outings.

On paper, it sounds great. If I was pitching that story to my editor, it'd likely get a pass. It sounds really epic and personal. I just don't think the execution was all that spot-on. For me, at least.

1. Raven Rock; It's not Beth's fault you can't handle vaugley complicated level design.

2. Settlements; Big town has about ten citizens, defense robots, an ammo supply and a bottle neck into the town. Very defendable. Most other small towns have similar defences, and your argument falls through because settelers of small towns often die. Iv'e seen the Enclave attack Arefu and wipe them out, Girdeshade battle with YouGwai and Ants and raiders attack Megaton.

3. Megaton; This is an alternate universe, there are no planes there are "Air cars/buses". How do you know what they can or can not do?

4. Gary - Alot of Garys fled the vault, as we see in the DLC. We have no comprehension of the knowledge of Fallout cloning, maybe they have a longer lifespan? Also remember, they weren't cloned two hundred years ago, it could of been five or ten years ago.

5. Radio stations give hope to the people, if you had an army of BOS, radio equipment and a talent, the logical course of action would be utilise all three. The BOS defend Threedog so they can use the bunker, and to flank a Super Mutant path.

6. People drink water, infected or not, hence the situation we have in third world countries. Eden's plan is infact, very good. If the wastelanders had a clue he was going to kill them i'm sure an force would be collaberated to assault Raven Rock.

7. The ending is a none issue due to the Broken Steel DLC.

8. If your that desperate for pixel porm, go and play Mass Effect. Not having six every five minutes isn't a flaw, infact six is included, just not so graphicalley your twelve year old mental state can get horny over it.

9. Dialouge wasn't great, but it was never marketed for such. It's like downloading a Live arcade game and complaining it's too linear.

10. Factions don't have their full potential, but what is portrayed, is done so very well. Just because in Fo1 and 2 the BOS are neutral, dosen't make it a bad design choice to change the Karma stance of a group miles and miles away. Infact the Outcast thing was a great addition. If you don't like factions get the Regulator/Merc perk, give Casdin some tech, hand in Holotags to the BOS, hang around with Euoligey and give him some slaves, go over the the Union Temple and escourt them into DC.

11. Feral ghouls were in FO2, only they moved slowly. Beth makes no attempt to make this a horror, but yes. You are right about something, it is a survival game. The vampires in this game are basicalley "Pro Cannibals" i think it works nicley. If you had no food i'm sure you might resort to such actions.

12. No replayability value!?

Good/Neutral/Evil Karma paths.
Dozens of unique endings (Albeit similar).
A host of companions.
Various skills to invest in.
Easter eggs and random events to find and exploit.
Bobble heads and skill books.
Tenpenny tower/Megaton.
Different quest results.
Besides the listed quests, many many unmarked ones.
Continuous quests like Casdin's tech.
Achievments awarded for extensive use of skills and exploration.
Around 130 locations each with something to do there.
A continuous war zone to reak havok in.
Using VATS or the MIRV in battle.
House customization.
Male/Female.
Hundreds of different results and dialouge options. (Not including Lady killer, Black widow, Scoundrel and Child at Heart).

13. Voice acting was a vast improvment from Oblivion, and the game features over twenty voice actors, seperate voicing was even used for the tutorial quests as a baby.

14. Your suggestion about Princess having a fetish of being supressed is absaloutley ridiculous. It wasn't designed in that manner, why would you even think such things? Even Froid never said that.

15. Vehichles would not have been apropriate/playable. Fast travel is fine.

16. The narration and prolouge are great. End of discussion.

17. Your "Fallout 2 did stuff Fallout 3 didn't and it only took a year so Beth is noob" discussion is pahtetic, Fallout 1 and 2 are isometric turn based games for the pc made in the ninties. Fallout 3 had to account for textures, draw distance, animations, models, fitting all the vast wasteland without using too much memory, it would take much more advanced coding being on a next gen console and it has much much more content.

I think it could have been better...expanded, but nothing is perfect, I suppose. Obviously I don't think it's total crap like some folks do.

I actually agree with the OP on this - that place felt wonky to me.

As far as the settlements attacks: Huh, I've never seen that, actually. I'm on my second playthrough, but my first was roughly 80 hours and I never came across that. Maybe this could have been pushed further, then? It might also have helped had there been any real reason for me to spend more than half an hour with any of these locations, or to come back and visit after the quest was finished. Maybe Arefu did get wiped out in my first playthrough, but I never really went back to visit - what's the point when the game has given me no hints that anything further might be going on there at a later date?

She meant airplanes, actually. That was meant as an illustration of the way Wastelanders view the Pre-War world - as bordering on magical. Like if you had shown an airplane to an ancient Roman, he would have described it as a flying chariot. Buses she understands - she lives in one, after all. So that's how best she can relate the concept of a flying apparatus that takes people all over the world.

Another little problem (and frankly it bother me all that much - I can fit it into suspension of disbelief) is this. If a plane carrying a bomb crashes with enough force to create a crater like that - how does the bomb remain so intact? I get how it didn't explode in the crash (that's not how those work,) but how was that the one thing that wasn't obliterated in the crash?

Eh... to an extent, yes. But the idea of DLC is that you're still playing a complete game without it. What if I don't buy Broken Steel? Is it still a non issue?

That's not what he's saying, and it's an over-simplification of it to boot. We're talking about a mature game dealing with advlt subjects in a deprave world. Fallout 2 was maybe a bit too far with this, but even Fallout 1 had frank representations of sixuality. It's not because we want to see porm (and Mass Effect didn't have any pormographic material, either.) But if we're dealing with providing a grim vision of the future - why not have some more advlt themes in there? No one is asking for graphic depictions of anything.

It was actually. Because it was marketted as a direct sequel of the Fallout series, which was highly regarded for good dialogue. And... if you're going to have branching dialogue - shouldn't it be good? If the people talk at all in any game, I'd expect it to be well-written. (Personally, I thought they did an okay job, with some really excellent moments even. But there were some parts that really pulled me out of the game, as well)

Which play out remarkably the same for the most part. It's different, sure - but I wasn't blown away, personally. And neutral isn't a path of it's own, as it really just consists of flip-flopping arbitrarily between the good and evil options.

Dozens of unique endings (Albeit similar).
Basically 3 endings, really. As far as videogame endings go, they did a very good job of customizing it to your character. But as a Fallout game (as Fallout 1 and 2 have some of the best endings ever) it leaves a lot to be desired. (Plus, I thought the ending was a non-issue since Broken Steel is coming out. ) Personally, I'm a bit discouraged in my second playthrough, because I now know pretty much what the ending is going to be like.

A host of companions.
I wouldn't replay the whole game just to see what it's like to tool around with Fawkes instead of Charon or something. Nothing's really any different with any of the companions.

Various skills to invest in.
Most of which max out by the level cap anyways. My Science-based diplomatic character has already mastered all of the non-combat skills (not all up to 100 but close enough as to make little difference) and many of the combat ones as well (including ones I don't even use.) This isn't because I'd set out to make a superhero character, but from picking starting stats that best described the character I was roleplaying, and picking choices through the game based on that character - without having any real end result in mind. My first playthrough has already invested in most of the skills. If I play again, I can see what Big Guns, and Explosives look like, but that's about it.

Tenpenny tower/Megaton.
Eh. I played as a "good" character the first time through - and I did the one Tenpenny Tower quest. All that would be different had I gone the "bad" route was a house in Tenpenny. And how much different is that going to be from having a house in Megaton, really?

Around 130 locations each with something to do there.
If by something to do, you mean clearing out the dungeon.

Using VATS or the MIRV in battle.
VATS is really cool - but it's not going to be any different in another playthrough.

Male/Female.
Not that much different, really. People don't really respond to you any differently depending on your gender. There's the Black Widow/ Ladykiller perk you can make use of, but that only shows up once or twice through the whole game. (Plus, if you play as a female - many people still refer to you as "sir" and "mister.")

Well, I responed to as many as I could, at least. Any I didn't quote here I either agree with or at least don't disagree enough to make a deal of it.

I'm not actually as dead-set against as some others around here, either. I think there was a good foundation in the main story, at least. Most of it was very interesting - but the wild-eyed wonder I had earlier on in the game sort of went downhill to something closer to apathy as I progressed through the game. By the end, I was running around exploring until I just decided to end it because I wasn't really caring all that much anymore.

They did a pretty good job, I think. But I would absolutely expect better the next time around. There's some excellent storytelling in this game (I also like the visual storytelling - as someone from the "show, don't tell" school of storytelling, I think those little touches added a lot to the game world.) Some of the best moments, I thought, were in the side stuff that you run across - the Keller Tapes, running into the SOS transmissions and such. But the overall execution, the gestalt, left a bit to be desired in my opinion. Sort of a problem with not seeing the forest for the trees, I think.

- Bittercup in Bigtown offers continuous items. Paradise Falls is a nuka cola challenge location, and has many reasons to go back. Handing in slaves, buying Clover, maybe taking a different karma path, buying supplies and investing. Megaton has lots of shops and even after youv'e finished the side quest there is still more unmarked quests to do. I checked in on Arefu to re arm them and see how the vampire bodygaurd was doing. At one point i found Doc Hoff and his caravan, assisted by Arefu fighting of Mirelurks.

- Even if you are right, should it take that much strain on your imagination to accept the crater as a fact?



- Even if you don't buy the DLC the game has, if you push, near a thousand hours of gameplay. You have a full game, the thing is it ends, like most other games.

- The op complained the six was just fade out/fade in the partner was dressed and just lying down. Re-read his post, what he wanted was a more graphicalley intimate sixual scene.

- Again it was NEVER MARKETED on it's dialouge, the sequel has turnbased but because this isn't turnbased it in no way makes it a bad game.

- Three endings is a good ammount, and Fallout 1 had a dead end aswell.

- No you wouldn't replay the game for the purpose of new companions, but it is an additional factor.

- What's wrong with making a big guns and explosives character? The whole game could take a different turn, utilising mines and grenades and frequent Fat Man use. You could complete Oasis differentley to get Lindens armor, or harvest Outcasts for Gatling lasers, go on hunts for big gun skill books and everyday combat strategy would change.

- A house in Tenpenny tower means Megaton is completley dead and buried. It has different shops and the ghoul quest. On my recent playthrough i killed everyone and barricaded the gates and made it into my own personal tower of doom. :flame:

- Each location is unique and there are about twnety dungeons in this game, most locations warrent an unmarked or side quest, a trader, place to live or some one with something intresting to say, or important equipment, Tb-15, Medic etc.

- By using Vats i meant challenging yourself buy not using Vats, or maybe downloading the turnbased Vats mod.

- The dialouge perks grant alot of new options, and in my two female playthroughs i have never been called "Mister"

Okay, I checked - and you definitely have not advocated the lush green DC area. I apologize for attributing someone else's comment to you.

So basically, the issue comes down to how poisioned the land should be - Beth decided that the Capital Wasteland was poisoned enough to only support light grazing, and no crops - and you think that's too far. I posited that maybe it was deadly to plants because the Science! you use to eliminate radiation from living things isn't suited to apply to farming - does that fix the issue for you?

Because that's all I can glean from your criticism. The only settlements that date from the Great War are (IIRC) the Vaults, Little Lamplight and the remnants in Mama Dolce's. I suppose Underworld counts if you date it from when Carol moves in. All of those settlements are limited in size by their very nature - only Underworld might have room for growth - but considering the state of Downtown DC, it's hard to see where they would grow to. Otherwise, you are absolutelty correct in that the tiny settlements don't last 200 years. Grayditch dies during the game - both Arefu and Big Town are on the verge of disappearing. That's part of the point - that the settlements are fragile and can be wiped out easily. Rivet City is under 40 years old, Megaton has only had walls "for a few decades" and Tenpenny Towers was founded by a guy still living on the roof.

No, that was just in regards to agriculture being an impossibility rather than a criticism on it. My point was that larger settlements are indeed possible within the CW, and I still maintain that their absence impacts the believability of the game's setting, time wise. But that's not so much as I think the game could have had them, for game play issues - a larger town allows for a lot of potential within, and a number of small towns allow for a lot amongst themselves. So they sort of passed up a story-telling chance as well as something I'd expect to see after 200 years.

No, you are correct. I think it's a pretty subjective thing, though. I feel like I didn't have any real reason to go back and revisit places, personally. Megaton, for me - to store my stuff and buy some things. Other than that, though; I didn't much reason to check up on any other places. I do agree that things like the house and suppliers are good hooks to draw you back to places, but it didn't do that much for me because I pretty much knew (or had been lead to believe from lack of encouragement otherwise) that nothing would be different.

Sounds like a good step in the right direction, but I don't feel like it provided enough encouragement for me to visit and anything at all.

I fit it into the suspension of disbelief category, and I think it's more a case of not providing quite enough background information to categorically justify it. But can't you also how people might have a problem with the potential holes in the logic of that place?

I thought we were talking about the actual ending, not whether or not it was bad that it ended. I don't have a problem with a finite ending, actually. I just wanted terribly impressed with the Deus Ex Machina that supplied the ending story in the game. (And though I think the actual end credits were pretty good that they still fall short of what I'd hoped for a Fallout game.) Sorry for the confusion.

I still maintain that if you have dialogue in your game at all, that it should be up to the same high standards as the rest of the game. Gears of War wasn't advertised as having exceptional dialogue, but I can still criticize the quality of it, if it detracts from the game. (It didn't have very good dialogue, of course...) I'll give some slack to games where that really isn't supposed to be a factor (Gears for example, of course - or in a Fighting Game, etc.) But I'm playing an RPG where a large part of the game consists of dialogue. If half of the game I'll be talking to NPCs - shouldn't that be a factor in the quality of the game?

I actually like having a definite cap on the end of the game. A story is only as good as it's ending, in my mind. And yeah, three endings is good for a game in general. But we're dealing with a sequel to a game known for it's endings. In that, I think it falls short. It's certainly not up to what I'd have liked to see in a next-gen Fallout game - especially when that actually was listed as one of the selling points of the game.

To be honest, my strategy would still consist of going into VATs as often as possible, shooting enemies at range, and running away from melee characters while I shoot them in the legs. That's not going to change much if I used a Missile Launcher instead of Lincoln's Rifle. I like the usefulness of all the skills - I think they did real good there, in making each skill something you want to have. But for me, when the only skills I haven't mastered in my first character are Big Guns and Explosives (and Barter, I think) it doesn't serve enough for me to consider playing another game just to see how that plays differently. I've made use of all those weapons with my first character and did reasonably well with 20-30% - so I've even seen what that sort of gameplay is like.

But you don't really gain anything other than a house (which you get either way) if you blow Megaton. There's no new quests that you can't complete if you'd chosen differently. Your only reward at all is a couple hundred caps - that you can just as easily gain through a couple hours in the Wastes.

They do a remarkable job in making each dungeon different. But it's still a law of diminishing returns, if I've already cleared out 5 Abandoned Factories, then the 6th better have something really compelling or useful, or I'll just bothering with them as much. I missed a couple dungeons in my first playthrough, but I haven't come across any real suprises in any of those on my second playthrough. It's a neat dungeon, but it's still just a dungeon. Nothing wrong with a good dungeon crawl, but even Diablo would give you some quests for them.

Frak, there's a turn-based mod? I need to spend more time in the GECK forms, I guess. (I like the current combat system well enough, but I still like turn-based.) I don't know, though - personally the VATs is a major selling point. I don't like playing shooters all that much, so it's nice to have something else to do other than run around and shoot. It might play different, but I at least wouldn't enjoy it any more.

Your father calls you "son" once or twice, the boy for the Them! quest calls you mister pretty much every time. There were also a number of other times where it occured.

The thing is, a lot of this stuff is just really subjective. If you loved the ending and were blown away by it, then you're not going to care much about how it compares to the originals. But if you're not, then it is going to make you nostalgiac for the games of which this is billed as the direct sequel. It's not like I'm any more right than you about a lot of these excuses you supply - but neither or any of wrong in our opinions and what we take away from the game.

If you liked going back to the settlements for whatever reasons worked for you, then more power to you. But there is another way to see it, which is that much of that really works like it was supposed you to tie you back into the locations to see these random events - because they didn't follow through on the suggestion that there were going to be further developments to make me actually care about the fate of that place. It's like meeting a side character in a movie, who shows up for a couple lines and then leaves, and then finding out later on that he got mauled by a pack of Deathclaws. It's interesting, but I didn't get to see him enough to really care that much about his fate.

OK, this is going to be a long one.

Also, apparently there is a set number of quotes you are allowed to use, so I have had to bolden and underline some of Skillzgamer's quotes.



Indeed, I am glad Beth included the outcasts. It does create the possibility for future faction wars, and so on. Not to mention its not a complete watering down of the BoS, which makes me happy.

Also, I agree. There are many inconsistencies in the game that could have been explained, but have been left without a reasonable explanation. A lot of these issues could have been solved with some background information.



Thanks for your concern, but don't worry about it, I can deal with different opinions.

About the plane crash, maybe I read it wrong or misinterpreted it, but im pretty sure she implied it was due to a plane crash. Either way, I'll look at it again.

And as I said before, and I think Nu clear day said also, the problem with some of these places is simply some background info explaining their existence. The original fallouts went through some lengths (and admitedly fell short in some areas) to make their world plausible and belieavable, but Fallout 3 has a lot of 'plot holes' so to speak, that would have easily been solved by adding random pieces of information or background knowledge.

I don't know, a post apocalyptic world for me without water and agruculture sounds impossible. Read any book about the aftermath of a nuclear war, or indeed, any war, and the emphasis of reconstruction is usually agriculture. Fallout 3 doesn't even have a well. Or maybe I missed it. Not even a small purifier beside a river, nothing. It doesn't even have grass, which is odd in itself, which would be necessary to support brahmin. Sure, in this way, its easy to see why settlements are small and underpopulated. But the truth is this is not how it would be, it would either be no people at all or larger settlements, not inbetween.



Not thousands, something of like 30 plus maybe would have made more sense. Rivet City was good. Megaton was alright. More of those, only a bit larger would have made sense. Or maybe at the edge of the a
map so its implied the town is larger, as was the case with the Fallouts.

Obviously a lush green land would have broken the 'wasteland' feel. But I always imagined the East Coast to be more 'verdant' than the West Coast, maybe its just me, I've never been to america. The thing with Fallout 3 is that its all about wasteland. You had trees, grass and so on in Fallouts. Sure, they were rare, but they were there. I think this was done on purpose so that Harold could have a big part in the game. I even heard (and this is a rumour, I do not know if it is true) that they were planning to set Fallout 3 much earlier, but because they wanted Harold in game they were forced to make it in the future. No comments if that is true.



OK, before I start, I am going to ask you to leave your patronising and condescending attitude at the door. I have not disrespected you, and I wish to be treated equally in return. If you are not capable of commenting on other peoples views that are opposite to yours without resorting to arrogance then I suggest you do not take part in this discussion.

Having said that, lets begin.



It is indeed over complicated, and don't insult my intelligence. For what the level is meant to represent, a continuity of government bunker, it looks or feels nothing like one. Had that been an enclave outpost to begin with or an enclave lab, then yes, but its like saying they retreated to a medieval castle that somehow resembles a space station. They could have just said, yeah we retreated to a space station.



Never seen robots in Big Town. Still, given the number of mutants in the game, that settlement, and many others, should not exist. It does have a bottleneck, but only because game physics do not allow you to jump over crudely made walls that are as high as your game character. The fact some settlements get wiped out in your game still does not explain how they have managed to survive there for 200 years.



Megaton place crash. By air buses she meant airplanes, as has already been explained, in the same way a tribal would refer to a gun as thunder spewer or something like that.



An ingame explanation would have sufficed. As has already been said, writing is not a particular strength of this game. Hell, the items don't even have descriptions.



Listening to music is a luxury, and a dispensable one at that when you are struggling to survive against famine, disease, raiders, thirst and so on. Protecting a flank to what? The Citadel only has one entrance.



Im not sure what point you are making here, my original point was that there is not point in broadcasting radio shows to an audience you intend on killing anyway. Yes, people drink water, but its implied the river water, which is, incidently, the ONLY source of water in the entire games, kills people who drink from it. If thats true then that wasteland should be barren. Wells, uncontaminated lakes, collected rainwater, small scale homemade purifiers, all that would have made the game more believable and frankly does not take a lot of effort to implement given the scale of the game.

7. The ending is a none issue due to the Broken Steel DLC.

Yes, which I will have to pay for. I have to pay for an ending because the original one is almost universally regarded as not being particularly good.

8. If your that desperate for pixel porm, go and play Mass Effect. Not having six every five minutes isn't a flaw, infact six is included, just not so graphicalley your twelve year old mental state can get horny over it.

Again, you presume to know anything about me. In fact, once again insulting my intelligence just shows how hostile you are to people with differing views to your own, and how unsuitable you are to this discussion.

Im not asking for six scenes or six every five minutes. All I ask for is a fade out, and actualy awknowledgement by the game that six has taken place, not that you have just once more gone to sleep. Yes, its included, once, almost as if just to say ''Yeah the game has six''. Its another one of those things Beth made a big deal about when there should have been none.

9. Dialouge wasn't great, but it was never marketed for such. It's like downloading a Live arcade game and complaining it's too linear.

This was an RPG, or variation thereof, last time I played. RPG's are generally characterised by god dialogue and writting. The fact its a Fallout sequel, in which dialogue and writting are the cornerstones of the series, just makes this point all the more poignant.

10. Factions don't have their full potential, but what is portrayed, is done so very well. Just because in Fo1 and 2 the BOS are neutral, dosen't make it a bad design choice to change the Karma stance of a group miles and miles away. Infact the Outcast thing was a great addition. If you don't like factions get the Regulator/Merc perk, give Casdin some tech, hand in Holotags to the BOS, hang around with Euoligey and give him some slaves, go over the the Union Temple and escourt them into DC.

I agree, I am glad they included the outcasts. I did all that. Interestingly the game has no comment on any of those actions once the game is over. It all made no difference.

11. Feral ghouls were in FO2, only they moved slowly. Beth makes no attempt to make this a horror, but yes. You are right about something, it is a survival game. The vampires in this game are basicalley "Pro Cannibals" i think it works nicley. If you had no food i'm sure you might resort to such actions.

You had crazed ghouls, but they weren't zombies, they were just rogues. They spoke and yielded weapons. Yes, cannibalism is a good portrayal in game. But Vampires, I don't know, maybe a step too far.

12. No replayability value!?

Good/Neutral/Evil Karma paths.
Dozens of unique endings (Albeit similar).
A host of companions.
Various skills to invest in.
Easter eggs and random events to find and exploit.
Bobble heads and skill books.
Tenpenny tower/Megaton.
Different quest results.
Besides the listed quests, many many unmarked ones.
Continuous quests like Casdin's tech.
Achievments awarded for extensive use of skills and exploration.
Around 130 locations each with something to do there.
A continuous war zone to reak havok in.
Using VATS or the MIRV in battle.
House customization.
Male/Female.
Hundreds of different results and dialouge options. (Not including Lady killer, Black widow, Scoundrel and Child at Heart).

Dozens of unique endings? I am yet to see more than four. All of which are very very similar. All skills are maxed out at the end of the game anyway. Found all the easter eggs and places to explore, I actually left all the main quest for last. Got all the bobble heads. Did all the unmarked quests, as said, did everything before finishing the game. Used vats and the mirv. Customised my house. Being a male or female makes very little difference. The fact there is a lack of six ingame actually removes one of the advantages of previous games where seduction played a part in some quests. All in all nearly everything you have mentioned can be done in one game, and perks to add dialogue lines just adds insult to injury over the watering down of the SPECIAL system.

13. Voice acting was a vast improvment from Oblivion, and the game features over twenty voice actors, seperate voicing was even used for the tutorial quests as a baby.

Yes, but this isn't Oblivion. This is Fallout. Had this been a sequel to Oblivion they maybe you are on to something, but its not. Its a sequel to a series in which good voice acting, good dialogue and so on are trademarks of the games. A step backwards is not what we are looking for.

14. Your suggestion about Princess having a fetish of being supressed is absaloutley ridiculous. It wasn't designed in that manner, why would you even think such things? Even Froid never said that.

Because that is what is implied in the game. Have you ever seen or heard of a child who likes another child because they have been hit and socially humiliated? Nope neither have I. And yet, there you have it.

15. Vehichles would not have been apropriate/playable. Fast travel is fine.

I don't see how they would not have been appropriate. This is 200 years after the war. Technology is everywhere, power armour, vertibirds, lasers, giant robots, forcefields, mini nukes. Yet no cars. Hmmn. I know its an engine problem, still, it should have been taken into account when they started making the game. I have no trouble with fast travel.

16. The narration and prolouge are great. End of discussion.

Wow, I never thought of it that way, maybe you are right. This actually sounds a lot like something Eden would pitch. Until you have something original or vaguely more constructive than 'I am right you are wrong' I am going to refrain from commenting on this.

17. Your "Fallout 2 did stuff Fallout 3 didn't and it only took a year so Beth is noob" discussion is pahtetic, Fallout 1 and 2 are isometric turn based games for the pc made in the ninties. Fallout 3 had to account for textures, draw distance, animations, models, fitting all the vast wasteland without using too much memory, it would take much more advanced coding being on a next gen console and it has much much more content.

Fallout 3 represents dramatic steps forward in what makes a game visually appealing and dramatic steps backwards in what makes a game intelectually challenging. They could have had both, but chose to concentrate in areas that were not particularly the strong points of the original Fallout games, while ignoring the factors that made those games sucessful and in essence what made them Fallout.

Even if you are right, should it take that much strain on your imagination to accept the crater as a fact?

I have to, because the game offers on plausible explanation as to its existence.

The op complained the six was just fade out/fade in the partner was dressed and just lying down. Re-read his post, what he wanted was a more graphicalley intimate sixual scene.

That was one of the points I complained about, and for me a fade out would have been perfect. I did not want more graphically intimate sixual scenes.

Three endings is a good ammount, and Fallout 1 had a dead end aswell.

Yeah, Fallout 1 had three main endings, and like 3 main endings for each town/faction involved. In Fallout 2, even excluding your main quest, you other actions could herald the beggining of unified government once more or throw the whole region back hundreds of years plunging it into darkness. Fallout 3 just has the main endings and ignores all your other actions.

Also, pretty much everything else Nu clear day said in response to your arguments.

How can anyone make any sense of this wall of text?

Sorry, I'll try and reply promptly next time to avoid these walls, but I do have other things to do also

Just look in the quote brackets for your name, which is where my reply will be. The bold and underlined stuff is mostly my reply to Skillzgamer, which was a wall text already.

1. I think your issues with Raven Rock boil down to the fact you had a hard time navigating it, granted markers can be hard to find sometimes but if you use the local map in the Pipboy then you should be fine. Again and again you tell me not to comment on your intelligence, yet it's hard not to when you refuse to accept the fact that Raven Rock is a well designed level.

2. The settlements have not been around for two hundred years. Tenpenny tower has been there for about fiftey, Megaton, 100 and places like Big town and Girdershade are very very recent developments. Lets me give you an example, there are about ten people in Bigtown armed with defense robots (activated by the pc). Now lets say there are fifteen Mutants in Germantown, well they have the intellect not to leave the base undefended and launch tactical assaults to take prisoners with strike teams of five and six. Now, one could argue they don't kill everyone because Big town produces children which the Mutants need. For all we know they could jsut be harvesting these places. Rural towns have no Mutant threat IE Arefu and Megaton.

3. Again Fallout is an alternate universe, from what iv'e been led to understand, most things run on nuclear power, hence the crater caused by the plane.

4. If you take in intrest in learning the BOS tactics, you'll find GNR flanks a Mutant route into a battle ground with raiders, the BOS don't just defend the Citadel, infact the whole point is that they are defending wastelanders and such. Radios, if a bit overused serve a good purpose and make complete sense in my point of view, if youv'e ever seen "I am Legend" or whatever that piece of nonsense was, even Will Smith utilised radios.

5. People CAN NOT purify irradiated water. This is the truth, it seems you want to not like this game.

6. Not having graphical intercourse in a game is not a bad thing. Look at mature games like Bioshock with mature content like the Sander Cohen missions, no six is included in that game, yet it's not a bad thing. I think the problem is you are actualley trying to make the game look bad instead of playing it for what it is. Rpg lite/shooter/sandbox.

7. Don't buy the DLC then. One one hand to say you hate the ending, and on the other you say you don't want another ending anyway.

8. Again this is rpg lite. gamesas never claimed this would be anything like the original Fallout's. For the record, you should download the Van Bauren tech demo, and you will see what a good choice it was that Beth made this game.

9. So what, your upset that the Feral ghouls in this game don't have weapons and move fast? That in no way, is a valid issue, if you have a problem with every weapon, every enemy in the game, then maybe you should be playing a different game.

10. The game has the best replay value in a game for a long time. Even if you have played through for one thousand hours then that's more than what you payed for isn't it?

Again i'll list the replay factors;
Good/Neutral/Evil Karma paths.
Dozens of unique endings (Albeit similar).
A host of companions.
Various skills to invest in.
Easter eggs and random events to find and exploit.
Bobble heads and skill books.
Tenpenny tower/Megaton.
Different quest results.
Besides the listed quests, many many unmarked ones.
Continuous quests like Casdin's tech.
Achievments awarded for extensive use of skills and exploration.
Around 130 locations each with something to do there.
A continuous war zone to reak havok in.
Using VATS or the MIRV in battle.
House customization.
Male/Female.
Hundreds of different results and dialouge options. (Not including Lady killer, Black widow, Scoundrel and Child at Heart).
Intresting main quest with different outcomes.
Rping in different ways, for example i'm playing a playthrough as hitman currentley.

11. Just because the game didn't tell you exactly what happened to each faction, neither does any other game besides the originals. Use your imagination, write a story, discuss the possibilities here on the forums, download the Broken Steel, contribute your knowledge on the Wiki or what have you.

12. The Gamebryo engine and the sandbox gameplay and the lore/canon makes it pretty unlikley to be driving around in your new Fiesta.

13. Fallout 3 is made by different developers, twenty years since FO1, plays some things better, one or two things equal or not as good, but thats due to the engine and time restraints.

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.

Geronimo,
My comment about your asking me out of the thread wasn't about disagreeing with you, it's just that sometimes I get a little carried away and step leap over the line of polite conversation.

Well, we've now discussed Megaton and Rivet City in fair detail, would you say at this point that perhaps, both those locations still have "the problem with some of these places is simply some background info explaining their existence"? There's plenty of back story to most of the inhabited locations in the Capital Wasteland - I understand that some people feel it's the locations themselves that don't make sense - personally I disagree, and I suspect that no one's changing their minds about it. But, if you accept that the settlements that are in the game are there - wouldn't you agree that Beth did a pretty good job at giving stories to most of those places?

And now, this is the part I don't get:


Firstly, it's a post-apocalyptic role-playing game. IMO, it's fair that the designers of the game get to decide the truth of how the world would be. The idea that Washington DC and surrounding area received a different level/type of bombardment than the West Coast is not a stretch for me - in fact I kind of expect that to have been the case. So it is not a big deal for me to accept that radiation and fallout and the response of the land itself is different here than in previous games.

Secondly - why does it have to be fully inhabited or fully uninhabited? Are you saying that there's a sharp dividing line of "hazardous-ness" where below that level you have cities everywhere, and above it everybody dies? But, even if that is indeed the case - the explanation for the sparseness of settlements is right there in the game. I proposed earlier that it's only been "recently" (i.e. a few decades) since the radiation level dropped to the point where re-settling the Capital Wasteland was viable. We know that Megaton has only been growing "for a few decades" - basically since the walls went up. We know that Rivet City is just under 40. All of the tiny settlements are younger than that (Republic of Dave/Kingdom of Tom is two and a half generations. I'm not sure about Andale. Canterbury Commons was founded by Uncle Roe.) The 101 Overseer's terminal (during Escape!) explains why the scouting teams were sent out when they were - because the radiation levels had finally dropped enough for it to be worthwhile. So, it hasn't been all that long that the wasteland has been rebuilding.

Edit: replaced "smaller" with "younger". Of course tiny settlements are smaller.

Thats cool, just keep it as it is and we will get along just fine

Yes, excluding the 'crater' part of Megaton, I do think it has a fair bit of history to it. The attempt at explaining the crater itself is history, even if perhaps strange. Rivet City is believable for me, and has a nice history also (with the naval college and all). Not to mention the hyproponics bay, the fact its in a defensible position, has good security officers, numerous and well armed men, etc. That makes sense for me. I can see that city surviving and thriving the capital wasteland.

Beth did a good job at giving stories to these places. Granted. Its just some of the stories (little lamplight) and the sheer existence of some of these settlements (big town) that I question.



Yes, obviously they have the right to decide how the game world will be, and I have a right to disagree with it. I do indeed think it received a larger dose of radiation. Perhaps the 'radiation only allowed colonisation, so to speak, to happen now' argument is the one that fits best. Still, there are problems here. Andale, as you have mentioned, seems to have always been there. Big Town also, seeing as its a waste dump for advlts of Little Lamplight, which have been doing this presumably since the start. And then we have to account for the lack of water in the whole capital dc area.

Can anybody come up with an explanation for me as to how these people obtain their water (that does not include purification of the river water)