Fallout Underwhelmed by Fallout :(

[laclongquan]

Let the next two decades take care of themselves. We only care about this decade.

 

[NotAGolfer]

In 20 years noone will a rats ass about these games anyway, because by then we all will put on our VR goggles and navigate the shiny Brave New World of VR games with gestures and our voices... maybe even our brain waves, who knows.
Why bother sitting in a merry-go-round when there are rollercoasters available?

 

[roshan]

I know I'm late to this party, but unstretched 960x600 (for 16:10) or 960x540 (16:9 plebs) is gorgeous in these old 640x480 games. Never more than 1440x900, which I only use in IE games.

I've set both the Fallouts and JA2 to 1280x720 resolution, fiddled around with different settings and this is the one that felt the most "right" in terms of not making the world look too boxy, keeping text readable, getting the resolution to 16:9 and making the graphics look sharp.

I have a 24 inch though, if I had a 22, I'm guessing that 960x540 would be a better choice.

 

[Davaris]

Sometimes more is less. To understand this is very important.

 

[Shadenuat]

The only thing I'll add is that Fallout is full of non-highlighted ways of interacting with the world. For a weak player like me, a lot of that gets missed, and I think that's going to be especially true for anyone going back and playing the game now for the first time. Rather than doing things like having a popup that says, "I see some boulders here. Maybe there's a way to cause them to collapse? 1. Use strength. 2. Use dynamite." etc., the game expects you to think of this as a viable solution, figure out mechanically how to do it, and then execute.

It doesn't really. It's a fine idea and games should do it more but dynamite in a cave, just as using radio to lure out mutants, are just a few single scripted events. The dynamite is basically pixel hunting, and radio doesn't serve any purpose for the whole game, using it later is like an easter egg, almost close to a joke from Icewind Dale 2 about the dead cat and hoarding quest items.
When you stack 15 oil barrels on top of one another and move them with telekinesis and explode killing boss 15 levels higher than you in Divinity: Original Sin, that's what you can call interacting with the world, and that is definitely something that was expected from the player.
In that sense Fallout is a glorious experiment that dabbles into everything and I love game for that bold approach (to the point that sometimes when somebody puts a gun to my face and asks what is best rpg I say "Fallout 1" as it's like Dark Souls of isometric RPGs). But it's systems aren't really that deep or consistent in their execution.

Planescape had better writing but it was linear and had craptastic combat.

PST and Fallout combat are very similar in what they accomplish. Both have fantastic animations, flow easily and don't bother player that much, both have some filler and neither requires as much effort as real challenging combat like in JA for example.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Your problem is that you value form over function. Fuck the setting and atmosphere, I want more intricate quests and locations, and Fallout 2 delivers. It is not just MORE CONTENT. The content is in fact - in terms of structural complexity, not in terms of setting/theme which is subjective - BETTER.

Setting is an integrate part of any game that actually tries to paint you a picture instead of saying "there be monsters, go slay them to claim your XP and loot!". I'd say that in RPGs the setting is more important than the story (or to be more precise, the setting IS the story). It's the foundation that makes everything work and makes you suspend your disbelief.

I could do it in Fallout but not in Fallout 2. The gangsters straight out of 1930s were laughable, the kung-fu city and the yakuza were absolutely fucking retarded, the NCR was illogical and did not fit the setting. As for MORE CONTENT, here is a quote from old post:

Take Den - a two-map town with a lot of stuff to do:

1. Collect money from Fred.
2. Get book from Derek.
3. Lara wants to know what is guarded in the church.
4. Get permission from Metzger for gang war.
5. Find weakness in Tyler's gang guarding the church.
6. Help Lara attack Tyler's gang.
7. Deliver a meal to Smitty for Mom.
8. Free Vic from his debt.
9. Sabotage Becky's still.
10. Get car part for Smitty.
11. Return Anna's locket.
12. Talk to Stacy and ask her to tell you the story about her cat.

I hope we agree that "quests" #1, 2, 4 (the name implies more than the quest delivers; it's a straight "go to NPC A, tell him something, report back" type stuff), 7, 9, 11, and especially 12 are kinda shit. Quests 3, 5, and 6 are basically one quest. So, overall, we have "helping Lara to put Tyler out of business, permanently" (sadly, without the option to side with Tyler) and "freeing Vic in different ways". Without the fluff, without running between NPCs on different maps, you could do Den in about 5-7 min. Exploring, looking for stuff (no matter how silly) to do, running back and forth is 3/4 of Den's "menu for tonight's entertainment".

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

The best Fallout game, for me, is New Vegas, except for the crappy combat engine. But then the original Fallout also had a crappy combat engine.
But then the original Fallout was not even Fallout but Wasteland. And Wasteland was better (rose-tinted glasses, but then Fallout is better than Wasteland 2).

But then... Better... But then... Better...

 

[roshan]

Setting is an integrate part of any game that actually tries to paint you a picture instead of saying "there be monsters, go slay them to claim your XP and loot!". I'd say that in RPGs the setting is more important than the story (or to be more precise, the setting IS the story). It's the foundation that makes everything work and makes you suspend your disbelief.

I could do it in Fallout but not in Fallout 2. The gangsters straight out of 1930s were laughable, the kung-fu city and the yakuza were absolutely fucking retarded, the NCR was illogical and did not fit the setting. As for MORE CONTENT, here is a quote from old post:

Take Den - a two-map town with a lot of stuff to do:

1. Collect money from Fred.
2. Get book from Derek.
3. Lara wants to know what is guarded in the church.
4. Get permission from Metzger for gang war.
5. Find weakness in Tyler's gang guarding the church.
6. Help Lara attack Tyler's gang.
7. Deliver a meal to Smitty for Mom.
8. Free Vic from his debt.
9. Sabotage Becky's still.
10. Get car part for Smitty.
11. Return Anna's locket.
12. Talk to Stacy and ask her to tell you the story about her cat.

I hope we agree that "quests" #1, 2, 4 (the name implies more than the quest delivers; it's a straight "go to NPC A, tell him something, report back" type stuff), 7, 9, 11, and especially 12 are kinda shit. Quests 3, 5, and 6 are basically one quest. So, overall, we have "helping Lara to put Tyler out of business, permanently" (sadly, without the option to side with Tyler) and "freeing Vic in different ways". Without the fluff, without running between NPCs on different maps, you could do Den in about 5-7 min. Exploring, looking for stuff (no matter how silly) to do, running back and forth is 3/4 of Den's "menu for tonight's entertainment".

Don't you think you are disingenuously cherry picking one of the most fedexy towns in Fallout 2? Also a lot of more interesting content in the town and several fun things to discover are not on the quest list. Karl and the ghost town, lending Fred money so he can get rich, becoming a slaver, dealing with the kids stealing from you, burying Anna's bones, etc. There's also a lot more to the quests than you let on.

BTW - you do in fact have the option to betray Lara and side with Tyler.

 

[Arkadin]

I like Fallout and Fallout 2 both. Yeah.

 

[MRY]

suspend your disbelief

Right.

To go on a brief rant: suspension of disbelief is basically about trust, and the bonding that trust allows, between a creator and his/her audience. The creator says to the audience, "Look. I know you think it's embarrassing to enjoy pulp adventure stories about stoic heroes and super mutants and zombies and monsters called deathclaws. But you know what? I love those things, too. I'll show you, so you can trust me. Then you show me you love them, too." Suspending your disbelief is really about letting down your defenses -- the arsenal that is ready to blast apart every weakness in the creation before you -- so that you can enjoy what you enjoy.

But when a game makes that opening bid, and then midway through says, "LOL, this setting is such a fucking joke, isn't it funny to have a deathclaw who talks! Oh, and here's Dan Quayle making a fart joke! Oh man, hi-ya, kung fu action! ROFL!" it's not laughing at the setting, it's laughing at the player who invested himself in the setting. It's like the classic cool-kid jerk character in movies who pretends to be interested in the nerd in order to make the nerd a laughingstock. The nerd has only one option: "Oh, yeah, totally, fuck post-apocalyptic settings, the whole thing was retarded to begin with, only a loser would like them." The creator is not just ruining his own creation, he's poisoning the audience's love of what the creation promised. And he's making them scared to suspend their disbelief again because they don't want to be mocked again.

There are perhaps more egregious examples out there (the ducks in KODP, for example), but FO2 is up there among the worst. And even if you say that FO2 never asked you to take it seriously (after all, it starts with the stupid Temple of Trials), then all the same it's taking advantage of the trust that was built up in FO. And if you say FO never asked you to take it seriously, then we'll just have to disagree. FO was certainly campy, and it wasn't pretending to be Dostoevsky, but it wasn't ridiculing itself. To the contrary, the setting is clearly a labor of love born of a fondness for the genre.

Incidentally, I have much the same reaction when I read things like David Gaider calling Bioware's old devoted fanbase "sweaty basement-dweller grognards." The man is more than entitled to develop new political and artistic commitments as he gets older, and maybe his new values are the right ones and his old ones were the wrong ones. But saying something like that is exactly the same kind of destructive mean-spiritedness: taking the very basis of your trust relationship with your audience (a shared seriousness about RPGs) and then using it to smear them. "Man, those losers who really cared about our games. WTF is wrong with them?" It's like reading F2P business models where they call their most devoted fans "whales"; if you think people who love your game are big stupid marks, then your game is a sham and you shouldn't make it.

I will now turn off my rant and stop exposing my childhood traumas.

 

[Grim Monk]

FALLOUT 1 WAS "TOTALLY REALISTIC"!!

Robin Hood with his "Thieves Guild":
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Loxley

Dr Who/Tardis:

Aliens:

Godzilla:

And being really mean:
Radscorpians/Giant Rats
Deathclaws
Mutants
Everything else related to FEV
"Robobrains"

Want more?

 

[Invictus]

Beign more of a combatfag neither Fallout was such a big deal for me. I played both enjoyed them but all this Kodex circlejerking over them as "best game evah" is simply baffling to me.
I must say that I do prefer F1 and the setting and humor have a lot to do with it...but to say that you feel underwhelmed is kind of weird, I mean perhaps you should have adjusted your expectations to begin with.
Both games are fun and certaily better than 90% of what is out there and good enough for anybody with the slightest taste in quality RPGs

 

[roshan]

Dialogue with the prostitute in The Crash House: "How much to you charge?"

Talked to Vinnie, the leader of the Skulz. Just asked him generic information about his gang. Now when I talk to him, he says: "You got it?" Got WHAT exactly? He never asked me to get anything.

 

[Tehdagah]

Do you really think that this is how the game was meant to be played?

It looks fine.

 

[MrBuzzKill]

too lazy to read entire thread
just wanted to point out that I fucking LOVE Fallout 1
carry on

 

[tuluse]

I've set both the Fallouts and JA2 to 1280x720 resolution, fiddled around with different settings and this is the one that felt the most "right" in terms of not making the world look too boxy, keeping text readable, getting the resolution to 16:9 and making the graphics look sharp.

I have a 24 inch though, if I had a 22, I'm guessing that 960x540 would be a better choice.

When you play with that large of a resolution you're really not experiencing it in it's intended viewport. Fallout 1 specifically hid a lot of tiling behind the fact you could only see so much at once.

Also if 720p isn't the native res of your monitor, you'll be getting ugly scaling on top of it.

agris has the right idea.

 

[Goral]

(...) in 20 years there's a big fat chance forums will have threads like "underwhelmed by Skyrim" and people will barely remember what FO was

In 20 years we will live in Fallout world, mark my words.

 

[Jason Liang]

I think what I appreciated most about sandbox rpgs (Darklands/ Fallout/ Fallout 2/ Arcanum) was that it provided an alternative to the class system of D&D/ Wizardry/ Final Fantasy. You can roleplay an evil character or an idiot. You can completely ignore the quests. You can customize your own character progression within the interactions of the game world and tell an unique story to yourself. In the Fallouts, you could play a dumb pimp that bitchslaps hos and sells them into slavery. Or you could play as Myron's sex thrall jet junkie. In Arcanum you can play as Heisenberg, cooking drugs to make money and using SCIENCE! to get what you want. The point is to fulfill your own fantasies and challenges. In that sense, where the beauty of the game is to provide a world where you can create your own niche, Fallout 2 is probably the best of the four. Forget about saving your village; just go on slaving raids, horde money and blow it on jet and whores. If only Arcanum had a truly developed evil route, where you can mindbreak NPCs and sell them to Madame Lils.

These four games ultimately did not provide worlds rich or robust enough to satisfy. Its the difference between these games and GTA. Interesting settings and open-ended character development, but short on actual implementation, ESPECIALLY Arcanum.

Fallout 2 > Arcanum > Darklands > Fallout 1

You know what game is underrated? Shadowrun (Genesis)- the inspiration for GTA. That's a game that deserves an enhanced edition.

What makes a game great is the systems that the game implements and the extent to which your PC can influence those systems. For example GTA has systems that spawn cars and NPCs, Shadowrun Genesis had a system that generates jobs, Pirates had a lot of systems. That is the heart of sandbox gameplay.

 

[Jason Liang]

My ideal game would be Arcanum's character system with Jagged Alliance/ Shadowrun Returns' combat system with Fallout 2/ GTA's sandbox world systems with Shadowrun (Genesis)'s unlimited gameplay.

Gah! I wish Shadowrun Returns was easier to mod!

 

[Sykar]

Dialogue with the prostitute in The Crash House: "How much to you charge?"

Talked to Vinnie, the leader of the Skulz. Just asked him generic information about his gang. Now when I talk to him, he says: "You got it?" Got WHAT exactly? He never asked me to get anything.

Nitpicking spelling errors now, aren't we? /sigh

 

[groke]

Why can't anybody understand that low res games look like shit on 1080p monitors if played fullscreen.

Why can't anyone understand that if you don't know how to configure your graphics card you shouldn't be using a computer?

 

[NotAGolfer]

Suspending your disbelief is really about letting down your defenses -- the arsenal that is ready to blast apart every weakness in the creation before you -- so that you can enjoy what you enjoy.

But when a game makes that opening bid, and then midway through says, "LOL, this setting is such a fucking joke, isn't it funny to have a deathclaw who talks! Oh, and here's Dan Quayle making a fart joke! Oh man, hi-ya, kung fu action! ROFL!" it's not laughing at the setting, it's laughing at the player who invested himself in the setting.

I dunno, for me Fallout always was kinda meta, there was no investment in the game's story. Sure, I liked some NPCs and factions in FO1 more than others and sided with them, but to really get me invested you have to try harder and tell a non black and white story where it's not that obvious who the baddies are. Fallout storytelling was at the same time great for being very flexible so you could discover the story while exploring the world (not like most games that rely on exposition heavy monologues from NPCs or cutscenes to tell the story) and weak because again you have to save the world from the big bad.

I still appreciated the setting and gritty tone, I don't have to feel invested in it to enjoy the what ifs the game presents me. The same goes for FO2.

edit: WTF?! Everything is white! My eyes!!!

 

[roshan]

So I really enjoyed taking down Gizmo with Killian. But now no one acknowledges that I did. The boxer who works for Gizmo, the waitress at the bar, the bartender, even Tycho... Not a single NPC in the map realizes that Gizmo is now dead. For the best RPG of all time this is just really really sad.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Problem with the FO2 haters is that you tell them you want more quest density and they interpret that in the worst possible way. "You want boring filler content! You want gangsters with fedoras and scientologists! YOU DECLINER!!"

Right, right, like say... wanting XP for combat means you want filler combat and don't understand the deeper meaning of RPGs YOU DEGENERATE!!!11. I wonder why people often think the most retarded shit in order to validate their own opinions.

By the way, did not know you were such an ardent supporter of FO2, or that you cared that much about FO in general.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Setting is an integrate part of any game that actually tries to paint you a picture instead of saying "there be monsters, go slay them to claim your XP and loot!". I'd say that in RPGs the setting is more important than the story (or to be more precise, the setting IS the story). It's the foundation that makes everything work and makes you suspend your disbelief.

I could do it in Fallout but not in Fallout 2. The gangsters straight out of 1930s were laughable, the kung-fu city and the yakuza were absolutely fucking retarded, the NCR was illogical and did not fit the setting. As for MORE CONTENT, here is a quote from old post:

Take Den - a two-map town with a lot of stuff to do:

1. Collect money from Fred.
2. Get book from Derek.
3. Lara wants to know what is guarded in the church.
4. Get permission from Metzger for gang war.
5. Find weakness in Tyler's gang guarding the church.
6. Help Lara attack Tyler's gang.
7. Deliver a meal to Smitty for Mom.
8. Free Vic from his debt.
9. Sabotage Becky's still.
10. Get car part for Smitty.
11. Return Anna's locket.
12. Talk to Stacy and ask her to tell you the story about her cat.

I hope we agree that "quests" #1, 2, 4 (the name implies more than the quest delivers; it's a straight "go to NPC A, tell him something, report back" type stuff), 7, 9, 11, and especially 12 are kinda shit. Quests 3, 5, and 6 are basically one quest. So, overall, we have "helping Lara to put Tyler out of business, permanently" (sadly, without the option to side with Tyler) and "freeing Vic in different ways". Without the fluff, without running between NPCs on different maps, you could do Den in about 5-7 min. Exploring, looking for stuff (no matter how silly) to do, running back and forth is 3/4 of Den's "menu for tonight's entertainment".

More quality content, not more fetch quests (and yes it has more of those as well and as usual they're shit and add nothing to the game). New Reno alone probably eclipses the entirety of Fallout 1 when it comes to C&C, then there's Bishop-NCR-VC power struggle, Gecko-VC powerplant problem, an interesting conflict between Mutants and human purists in Broken Hills (which becomes more morally ambiguous when you dig deeper), Navarro and multiple ways to get Vertibird plans etc. there's also (as someone already said) overall more connection between different settlements/towns, one nice example is Jet antidote (that can be made in different ways depending on skill checks and whether you use Myron).

Fallout 2 goes full derp in regards to the setting but there's plenty of great stuff in it.