It's not fair to compare graphics of a game that was made when games consisting of more then 256 colors were rare. Compare Fallout2 to a game that was made around the same time as Fallout2 like Daggerfall which is a first person played game. Even then, it would still depend on the taste of the person. It's not like the old days anymore. When Monkey Island 1 first came out for the PC and Amiga, Amiga version had much better music and 32 colors out of 4096 colors palette, when compared to PC versions music composed of beeps and 16 colors out of 64 colors palette.

Later Monkey Island 3 was released and nobody compared the graphics, just the story, humor and implementation. Because that's irrelevant. You can't compare a horse cart that was invented thousands of years ago with a sports car today, and say the sports car is much better. When Monkey Island 4 was released, they totally dropped the mouse support, and it became a pain to play the game properly. The story was still good, but the controls, and the graphics were not as good as Monkey Island 3 as they belonged to roughly the same era.

This I can explain since English is not my native language. I'm almost forced to speak 3 [censored] languages over here on the main land in Europe.
Because most French, German or English people absolutly refuse to learn something else. Especially the French! God! I hate dubbed movies. GRRR! (Just makin fun! There are a few of course)
And in the near future I'll need to learn Arabic, Russian and Polish too! Nah mostly they are bi-langual.

Way of topic,... but i like to see all English, French, German and American people try that for a change! Then I'm doing pretty well if I may say so.

Whatever... Glad to see everyones decisions standing rock solid.

Oh btw I do know what a hyperbole is, the oposite of a parabole in mathematical terms. Lolz... (I'm pulling your leg) :foodndrink:


Yup better being crazy then to fit the norm!

I over exaggerate myself (like above) sometimes. I don't intend to offent. Although not everyone perceives it that way even happens to me in real life all the time.
Oh well... Better to speak your thoughts than silently suppress things. It's not mentally healthy.

I'm trying for Arabic, Romanian, Japanese, Russian, and even tried a bit of Hindi and Turkish :foodndrink: (though none out of necessity).

@ the topic though... "Magic Items" do have a slight precedence in the series. Power Armor rightly raised your strength and the cool Shades made sense at the time, the Repair tool helps you with repairs... What I'd like to see in NV is a PC wearing a repairman's uniform have a bonus to Bluffing their way past a guard with dialog options that they acquire for wearing the suit at the time they are questioned.

Arabic, Romanian, Japanese, Russian, Hindi and Turkish. I would say most western people would prefer to choose more germanic/romanic languages. oo:

Wow Japanese! A friend of mine works as a translator in Japan always wanted to go there on holiday, never did. Hard to master I bet. Only word I know is: konisuwa.

I'm going stop here because it's off topic. But that's a cool country, the gamers over there are even crazier then us Europeans he says. :ninja:


Isn't this more of an Oblivion thing? I'm a bit biased here because I never actually played Oblivion to the end. Just a few levels.
The only stat raising armor in Fallout 1&2 is in fact power armor. Not because it's magical but a mechanical/pnuematic robotic exoskeleton.

Like in this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hkCcoenLW4

The same as that robotic forklift in the movie: Aliens 2. This is why power armor raises strength IMO.

The bluffing thing I missed also in FO3. In FO1 I had bluff my way past a guard with the robes, still had to perform a speech check though. Which I miserably failed coz I was addicted.

Too be honest I'm not so fond of all "magical" items. But the reason I do like the "lucky shades" is because in real life some people also have lucky items.
And I think, even though it's superstition, if someone believes hard enough in that something excists, it will eventually manifest itself. There is even a psychological term for this.


Nice idea actually! A baseball cap sunblocker that raises perception in the daytime... would be more realistic in a sense living in the vault that long the light must have hurt our eyes.
Never thought of it that way. Is there a mod for this?


Even the commodore 64 was waaayyyy better than the PC. Maybe not from graphic stand point, it had only 16 colors. Although They created nice games anyway. But the SID chip produced astounding sounds compared to the *bleep* *bleep* noises from the PC in particular. I think back in the day because there wasn't a lot of graphical options gamemakers had to get creative and put more focus on gameplay and other stuff, this is what's lacking in the games of today IMO. I have a huge game collection for the C64 and still play them ones in a while.

Listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoGFV_xxR64 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqRUMBGI188 (there is only sound in the intro on the PC version though, lol):

Commodore ROCKS until the roof came down!!!! Oops again off topic but needed to be said.

Magic Items was in Quotes... The idea is that you work better with good tools. The PC tries to fix a bike with just his hands, or tries with a vice-grip... The vice grip should increase his chances quite a bit . My thinking about the uniforms was that it would add dialog choices that come with a skill bonus because its more believable that you are a repairman if you come dressed for the part.
...
I think that could likely be done via scripted polling of the current game time and enabling /disabling a stat bonus.
...
http://sidplay2.sourceforge.net/ is cool and there are still folks that make SID tunes (I'm not one of them... but I must have had several hundred SID tunes on my computer back before the Katrina Hurricane.

No way! He's the critic, I liked your spelling! I liked it so much I copied it for my own thread. :foodndrink:


Dang...that's impressive. I thought English was your first language. I gotta get me some Rosetta Stone...
It's all good though. If I would have known your reply to my list was all in good fun I would've just laughed. But for some reason whenever I read support for Fallout 2 I hear an annoying NMA kid in my ear; I can't stop it no matter how hard I try!

To stay on topic: Fallout 3 does footsteps better! :rock:

Three languages here too, fluent in two. Also, hands off NMA

Something F3 does better than F1/F2.. Hmm. Getting lost.
The subway tunnels can get quite confusing. At times it's very atmospheric, other times it's just plain annoying.

Also, I think I prefer the way F3 indicates radiation. It was never really much of an issue in F2, apart from in the reactor core in Gecko, but even then, I avoided going in even if I could have survived because it was difficult to judge how much I was taking in.

Well I'll take back what I said, sir.

Yes, the radiaton indicator is excellent.Too bad radiation svcks without mods, but so it did in FO2.
IMO the pip-boy EFF display is also niftier to read variable stats changes due to drug use for example.

And as for the tunnels. The only thing that annoyed me the most was the fact that I could not proceed over a pile of rubble which looked like I could easily jump over and then had to take a huge detour through empty tunnel systems to get to my destination. GRRR!

Can I get an enemy tunnel respawning mod somewhere?


You mean with the GECK editor? I'll try... but I haven't really figured out how to use it yet.


I hope everything worked out fine rebuilding and everything. Anyways I know the C64 demo scene is still very much alive even today.

Graphics, exploration aspect, tutorial sequence (F1 didn't have one, F2 had Temple of Trials), built-in Geiger counter, better balance in terms of skills, the concept of DIY weapons. That's all I can think of off the top of my head but I'm sure there are a couple more.

I was trying to find points that couldn't be put off as my personal opinion, and was trying to avoid being overly specific.

Because I can and because it's quite much as retarded as saying realtime combat is better than turn based because it's realtime.



As I said it was very much intentional and was actually meant to save content for consecutive play troughs, it's just that there wasn't that much of content to be found. I'm quite much too trough player with most games, if games keeps stats on how much of area has been scouted or how much of loot has been picked... it usually ends up somewhere around 99%. Original Fallouts have much more dialogue and quests are usually more complex, that is what I see as core content. Fallout 3 has lot more space... not empty, actually quite crowded in many cases, but that space is just filled with meaningless items and generic disposable feral ghouls or raiders. Fanboyz are quite much part of crowd, both here and on NMA, it's just general opinion is pretty much opposite on both crowds. On NMA, if something is actually implied to be either adequately or, god forsake, well done in FO3 it might cause quite rabid response.

My biggest problem with FO3 is that it is too much FPS and not enough RPG. In RPG's characters limitations should determine outcome of events, not mine. I'm decent at FPS's, difficulty of combat was quite wimpy as players skill determines combats instead of characters skills. when it comes to characters skills... lone wanderer is pretty much demigod, lot before lvl cap hits in.

On game mechanics and minor stuff, there is plenty of nice things on third. Stuff wearing out is nice addition, but basically doesn't change anything on larger scale as there is ton and tons of weapons and armor (plus ammo) available on almost everywhere, even when weapons will wear out very fast. Another detail thing is that food can be used... little problem is that there isn't hunger. I'm glad that those will be fixed on NV's HC-mode. I actually like that many armors on FO 3 give stats boosts, it's perfectly realistic on many cases. It's far easier to move around on light clothing, so it makes sense that casual wear gives that bonus or that certain folks will take you more seriously if wear what they think of as decent attire, it's just that bunch of raiders probably would have less credible image of you if go to talk to them wearing pinstripe suit. Some of those stats boost just don't make sense at all.

But I never said that. O_o

Quick mention to no one in particular about RAD's in Fallout... Everyone knows there are Geiger counters in Fallout 1 and 2 right? ... and that you equip & use one to determine your RAD count.

(Its funny that you can't find Geiger counters in Fallout 3 (or can you?) ~you'd expect those without pipboys to have them... especially Scavs')

Yes, but I never use geiger counters in FO1&2 to be honest. One of the drawbacks is they are ridiculously heavy and somewhat useless similar to motion sensors, i never found a real practical use for them. Maybe Stanley upgraded our pip-boys or some mechanic got bored in his/her lifetime in the vault and tweaked our pip-boys, after all it is 200 years later. But indeed it's funny other people don't have them.

Now you mention it, we never leave the vault with a geiger counter as a precaution in the series, although logic tells me: it has to be standard equipment for an irradiated wasteland world.

True, but were the Vaults created purely for the protection of humanity in the US in the case of a nuclear holocaust? It's a widescale experiment by the government (kind of wish they stuck with the initial story) to test multiple outcomes, don't know for sure but probably to see the amount of radiation people from certain Vaults have accumulated depending on the amount of time that passed after their Vaults reopened as well.

I sometimes used a geiger counter when going to the Glow in Fallout 1 or some small irradiated places in Fallout 2, just to figure out how many RadAway's I would need to get myself cured. Just in case for when my RadX would wear out after playing too many games of chess against the Glow mainframe.

Bethesda accomplished such a feat in TES II:Daggerfall(actually more, since Daggerfall's map is much larger than Fallout 3's) before Fallout 1 was released. Bethesda has been making explorable maps much larger than Fallout 3's since before Fallout 1 was released. It was technologically possible when the first two Fallouts were created. Bethesda's specialty is exploration of large, seamless areas.

Broad and sweeping statement don't you think?

I seem to recall that Bethesda [back in the day] had a 10 x 6 mile 3D FPP map of LA in their first Terminator game [in 1991], and that it was said to be generally accurate with the landmarks.

I have read an estimate that it would take you two days to walk [real time] coast to coast in Arcanum if you did not use the overland map travel. (I have Arcanum, but haven't tested this myself just yet )

I have to say that (I think) making the game first person automatically makes the world seem smaller ~because it usually will be. Fallout's maps crossed state lines, and every area was visitable... In FO2 if you ran out of power in the car, you could return to it on foot wherever you left it. The Wasteland was desolate waste and using a few abstracted maps for all of it is no different (or worse) than using one palette animated map to depict a thousand cells of open ocean in some other game. :shrug:

A map the size of FO3's was uncommon (and perhaps never done), but was not impossible.
IIRC Captain Blood [from 1988] had 32768 planets to visit, and the ones with aliens had their own languages

I haven't read the entire posts in this thread, im sorry.

but anyone mentioned about the radio stations? I dont think Fo1 or 2 had radio stations.

I really like both Enclave and Three Dogs radios.

I'm not sure something can be done better by a sequel if it didn't exist in the games preceding it.

FO3 is just better in general. it has better graphics, better combat ,3d , huge fully explorable wasteland, game engine tracking all of what happens in the wastes (random battles,character locations, etc.) no all powerful unltd. ammo weapon, tons of weapons, bars/restaurants , towns

in the end you really can't compare the two. THEY ARE TWO SEPARATE GAMES STOP COMPARING THE TWO SAYING FO3 IS A BAD GAME, BECAUSE IT'S NOT A 2D TURN BASED RUNE SCAPE-ESQUE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the fallout series has taken a turn for the better showing people RPG's do not have to be like that only for hardcoe fans.

sorry got off track i'm just tired of people saying "fallout 3 is gay because it isn't like fallout 1 & 2" well you know what play those, don't ruin it for the rest of us who actually like the new turn because it is bigger better and more fun. I will also have you know that fallout new vegas has lots of FO2 references in them like giant geckos.

Ah yes, gecko's!

The white ones are cute, the golden ones very lucrative and the fire breathing ones hmm... well... a pain in the bum!

I love gecko's! Good that they return in New Vegas.

I agree with Gizmo. I never tried to walk across the arcanium maps, but i can tell you that it took absolutely forever to walk across the U7 map, even if you don't account for the many encounters you were bound to have. I vaguely recall that the U5 map was huge also...very uncommon for that period, when floppy disks needed to be swapped every time the zone changed. And remember, the Ultima maps were fully rendered (albeit 2d) contiguous areas.

And now that i think on it, the Ultima 9, first person 3d Ultima, probably had a larger contiguous are than FO3.

Damn you EA!

Bethesda's very own TES II: Daggerfall, which was released in 1996, had 219,654 square kilometers of explorable land, according to calculations posted on the UESP.

I have tried walking across the map in Arcanum, and it does, in fact, take a LONG time to get from one side to the other unless you're in one of the narrow portions.

Exactly how big the maps are in FO1 and 2 is open to some interpretation, since you cannot directly access the grids that are not in cities/settlements. During the course of those games, however, odds are high you will end up getting at least one random encounter in each of them, so if you include the cells for the REs then getting an accurate measurement is a bit tricky. To complicate matters even further, you will also get a given RE cell more than once due to limited supply vs unlimited encounters.

You need to grow up and stop using "gay" as a pejorative.



If you can't stand a sensible comparison without breaking out into a hissy fit, perhaps talking to people isn't something for you.

An apple is red (most of the time)

An orange is orange.

To me, comparing the two is impossible.