Fallout Fallout 1 is the best RPG of all time that stood the test of time

[Daedalos]

2D art will always look better than 3D in the long run. The options of the art direction and mechanics is so different, that any 3D product will look incredibly dated fast (for our time).
2D just look more real and artistic, 3d quickly becomes a blur (MOTION BLUR LOLS) and alot of the colours, frames and models kind of melt together or just doesnt do the scene justice.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The nostalgia that our generation has for Fallout 1/2 will be just like this generation's nostalgia for Fallout New Vegas. You can already see it happening.

Those of you arguing Fallout 2 is better than 1: that opinion used to make you worthy of death around here. It was so obvious to everyone that Fallout 1 was the better game and the better RPG, and Fallout 2 was just a cheap knockoff with too much cheesy unfocused crap tacked on. Fallout 1 was a true work of art, whereas Fallout 2 was a mindless cashgrab hack job. The tutorial, the tribals, the dungeons, the Enclave, New Reno, porn, casinos, electricity, jet, Myron, Sulik, ghosts, aliens, Vault City, the GECK, talking deathclaws, San Francisco, the Hubologists, Frank Horrigan, and on and on and on -- it was all considered obvious shit.

In 5-10 years you'll visit this site or its successor and most everyone will agree that Fallout New Vegas is the best one, and 1/2 are nice I guess but didn't age well (i.e., I didn't play them).

Like the Gold Box games or the mountains of 80s shovelware RPGs are today...

Fallout New Vegas sure ain't gonna be aging well. Five-to-ten years from now I doubt most anyone will be able to look at anything Bethesda released in Gamebryo, let alone play them. Obsidian seems to have done their best to get the aesthetic and gameplay in a better place, but its still built on Bethesda's foundation of shit which leaves you with some terrible fucking designs, and a game that generously speaking isn't the best feeling to control.

 

[ilitarist]

3D graphics are easy to enhance. Whatever screen you'll have in the future you could use that hardware to render FNV in any resolution and any quality. It came out long past 3D models were primitive - it's not like when Final Fantasy 7 came out people thought that models are great and later realized they aren't. Even when in the future people will have photorealistic graphics FNV will look fine due to its artistic license (it doesn't quite tries to be photorealistic, it has a special direction).

Fallout 1 & 2 & Tactics will forever remain a heap of pixels. It came out after what you could call a pixel art era and before you could have anything remotely realistic.

If you ask Boyarsky or whoever else today whether they'd use FNV graphics or F1 graphics for their game today or in 30 years they won't think about it and chose FNV. You're delusional if you think otherwise.

 

[Makabb]

The nostalgia that our generation has for Fallout 1/2 will be just like this generation's nostalgia for Fallout New Vegas. You can already see it happening.

Compared to other shitty games, New Vegas is a pretty decent rpg shooter, and with mods it' actualy pretty good, BUT when you compare it as a 'fallout' game it's not so good.

 

[ilitarist]

Compared to other shitty games, New Vegas is a pretty decent rpg shooter, and with mods it' actualy pretty good, BUT when you compare it as a 'fallout' game it's not so good.

It's not even that good of a shooter. By 2010 we had, for example, Borderlands - shooter with RPG elements (and it looks to me that Fallout 4 took a lot from it) that has a decent itemization and relatively varied arsenal. F3/FNV guns don't feel that diverse and interesting, they don't have a shotgun that feels like a shotgun; they don't have powerful pistols that feel like it. Somehow even in Fallout's turn-based combat Desert Eagle felt like a real powerful thing.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

3D graphics are easy to enhance. Whatever screen you'll have in the future you could use that hardware to render FNV in any resolution and any quality. It came out long past 3D models were primitive - it's not like when Final Fantasy 7 came out people thought that models are great and later realized they aren't. Even when in the future people will have photorealistic graphics FNV will look fine due to its artistic license (it doesn't quite tries to be photorealistic, it has a special direction).

Fallout 1 & 2 & Tactics will forever remain a heap of pixels. It came out after what you could call a pixel art era and before you could have anything remotely realistic.

If you ask Boyarsky or whoever else today whether they'd use FNV graphics or F1 graphics for their game today or in 30 years they won't think about it and chose FNV. You're delusional if you think otherwise.

Fallout New Vegas doesn't exactly have the best looking models, and overall a lot of Bethesda's design choices were fucking terrible.

The more you bump up that game with new textures the more you're gonna have to start replacing models, because those sharp looking straight lines on object in the environment and character's heads that look like they're cutting into the world are going to pop even more than before. So yeah, maybe if people spend a bunch of time to basically remaking New Vegas, in five to ten years it might not be totally terrible looking. Outside of some Bethesda visual design choices that is, like that fucking terrible looking baggy Vault jumpsuit with knee pads and seams all over it, and the Ghouls, and a number of other things.

Their version of the Vault jumpsuit would also be something I'd point to as an example that Bethesda very much were trying to go from something "realistic" looking. You can't have it be the original jumpsuit styled after those '20s & '30s pulp magazines, that isn't "realistic". Same with how visually nothing in their Fallout 3 actually looks like stylized stuff we see when we get a talking head in 1 or 2.

 

[Lhynn]

lolwut

FNV will forever look like shit, just like Fallout 3 will forever look like shit.

Pixels on huge screens apart, Fallout 1&2 on the other hand will forever look good on the strength of the art direction alone.

Yes.

New Vegas is poor mans Fallout

Pretty much. Or, it's the dictionary definition of "well, it's better than nothing, I guess". But at least that's in opposition to FO3 which was much worse than nothing.

Nope, FNV is better than fallout 2. Stop with your retarded bias.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

2D art will always look better than 3D in the long run. The options of the art direction and mechanics is so different, that any 3D product will look incredibly dated fast (for our time).
2D just look more real and artistic, 3d quickly becomes a blur (MOTION BLUR LOLS) and alot of the colours, frames and models kind of melt together or just doesnt do the scene justice.

I wouldn't say always. That Spellforce 3 game is 3 and it looks better

FNV will forever look fine.

lolwut

FNV will forever look like shit, just like Fallout 3 will forever look like shit.

Pixels on huge screens apart, Fallout 1&2 on the other hand will forever look good on the strength of the art direction alone.

New Vegas is poor mans Fallout

Pretty much. Or, it's the dictionary definition of "well, it's better than nothing, I guess". But at least that's in opposition to FO3 which was much worse than nothing.

Those two original Fallout games will also have a greater sense of immersion thanks to their music and that little descriptor window that goes into detail about what happened when you do things like punch someone in the face, and how some boil that started growing on your foot became an extra toe because of all the radiation you took. The move into 3D should have facilitated that kind of detail, you should have got eyes popping out randomly when you punch someone in the face (you know, as opposed to that one shitty animation that looks like you pushed someone's head of their body and then everything disconnects like that old exploding Alien toy, looks less like a cool animation on more like you pressed the magic button that makes models pop apart) if you're character was strong enough, you should be able to see all the weird radiation growths on the model, you should get an actual visual representation of exactly what's going on when you're high agility character dodges a point blank minigun. All those little details the original game gave you should have been visually represented in 3D, especially if they're going to make it a FPS; there's no level of abstraction anymore not to have it.

 

[norolim]

I'm pretty sure the nuCodex wouldn't really like Fallout at the time of its release. It had a lot of bugs. The combat was rather easy and boring once you got the hang of it and acquired the right equipment. And the AI was horrible. You could take a bow, I mean, a sniper rifle and pick the enemies off form a safe distance and the retarded AI would just stand there and die. Worst of all, though, you couldn't pick up apples. It didn't even have apples! Fucking popamole shit.

So anyway, today at 03.40 am I finished this playthrough of Fallout and I can finally add it to my Stupid Highly Irrelevant Evaluation Table, or S.H.I.E.T. I also decided it needs a small celebration here, on the Codex. For a while, I was contemplating necroing the oldest Fallout thread I could find, but then I remembered I already posted about it in this one.

I'm not going to write a review, because I couldn't possibly add anything new to the discussion. Instead I'll illustrate why Fallout went straight to the top of my RPG list, by providing short descriptive ratings of some of the core systems and features:

Combat: very good for a solo TB system, multiple modifiers and Aimed Shot function are its strongest points.

Character Progression: a model system. A perfect balance between complexity & accessibility . Most skills, perks & traits are useful during gameplay.

Controls & UI: Great character sheet and keyboard shortcuts, bad inventory.

Itemisation: hand placed gear means you won't be finding 20 knives in the final location. Good.

World Quality: solid depth of interaction with the environment & NPCs. Great atmosphere & characterisation of the setting. Fantastic.

AI: along with bugs, probably the biggest weakness of the game.

Choices & Consequences: it hardly gets better than this. Deep, meaningful and plentiful. You feel a part of a dynamic world.

Plot: solid, considering its open-endedness.

Graphics: the industry was capable of much better graphics at the time, but for a complex RPG it was quite enough.

Music: without the music setting the atmosphere and tension, there would be no Fallout.

Sound: very good sound effects that give your actions a doze of believability.

Personal Slant: as for the answer to the OP question: I only rate games, I played relatively recently, so that nostalgia is not a significant factor in my evaluation. And amongst such RPGs, yes, Fallout is currently the best. Next stop is Fallout 2 though - a game I never finished.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

If you ask Boyarsky or whoever else today whether they'd use FNV graphics or F1 graphics for their game today or in 30 years they won't think about it and choose money. And who could blame them.

FYP.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

My guess would be that Boyarsky or whoever else today wouldn't want to use either. Bethesda's engine is fucking shit. It didn't even sounds like the New Vegas team wanted to use that engine.

 

[Roguey]

My guess would be that Boyarsky or whoever else today wouldn't want to use either. Bethesda's engine is fucking shit. It didn't even sounds like the New Vegas team wanted to use that engine.

JES praised the engine in the big interview. The toolset they made for it made it possible to make all that content in that short amount of time despite their lack of familiarity with it.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

My guess would be that Boyarsky or whoever else today wouldn't want to use either. Bethesda's engine is fucking shit. It didn't even sounds like the New Vegas team wanted to use that engine.

JES praised the engine in the big interview. The toolset they made for it made it possible to make all that content in that short amount of time despite their lack of familiarity with it.

Imagine what they could have done with an engine that wasn't recycled kludge. I seriously don't understand why Bethesda keeps using it or a reiteration of it, it's not like they couldn't afford to license a better one. Then again, a better engine in Beth's hands might be a case of pearls before swine.

lolwut

FNV will forever look like shit, just like Fallout 3 will forever look like shit.

Pixels on huge screens apart, Fallout 1&2 on the other hand will forever look good on the strength of the art direction alone.

Yes.

New Vegas is poor mans Fallout

Pretty much. Or, it's the dictionary definition of "well, it's better than nothing, I guess". But at least that's in opposition to FO3 which was much worse than nothing.

Nope, FNV is better than fallout 2. Stop with your retarded bias.

I personally think New Vegas would potentially have been better than 2 if certain things hadn't happened (like, say, the gutting of the Legion content). As it stands I think they more or less break even, with FO2 perhaps slightly edging ahead on things like the already-mentioned art direction and sound design as well I think.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

My guess would be that Boyarsky or whoever else today wouldn't want to use either. Bethesda's engine is fucking shit. It didn't even sounds like the New Vegas team wanted to use that engine.

JES praised the engine in the big interview. The toolset they made for it made it possible to make all that content in that short amount of time despite their lack of familiarity with it.

I remember a big interview where someone talked about the engine, think it was maybe a MattChat video, "praised" isn't exactly how I'd describe the interviewees outlook on Bethesda's engine. Tactful would be a better descriptor. And it didn't exactly sound like they liked using the engine, or think it was good. The most kind thing said about it I can remember was basically that it was easy to change things quick if you needed to.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Nope, FNV is better than fallout 2. Stop with your retarded bias.

What's the retarded bias? Like that against Fallout 2 because it has too many pop-culture references?

I found NV very boring and couldn't even bother to finish it. I can't imagine I'll ever try again, let alone ever replay it.
Also, the FO3 gameplay is one of the worst things to ever happen in gaming.
As a side note, people who hate Arcanum's gameplay but like NV are obvious Bethesdard newfags and should be killed.

tl;dr: fuck you, F2>>>NV.

 

[Roguey]

Imagine what they could have done with an engine that wasn't recycled kludge. I seriously don't understand why Bethesda keeps using it or a reiteration of it, it's not like they couldn't afford to license a better one. Then again, a better engine in Beth's hands might be a case of pearls before swine.

These days it's just Unity, Unreal, and Bethesda's own id tech and none of them necessarily work well with what Bethesda wants to do, especially considering the massive amount of work they'd have to do developing new tools.

I remember a big interview where someone talked about the engine, think it was maybe a MattChat video, "praised" isn't exactly how I'd describe the interviewees outlook on Bethesda's engine. Tactful would be a better descriptor. And it didn't exactly sound like they liked using the engine, or think it was good. The most kind thing said about it I can remember was basically that it was easy to change things quick if you needed to.

Moving characters around can sometimes be difficult for us. For example, Bethesda's engine actually makes moving NPCs around pretty easy. If you mark them as persistent then great, they'll move on in the world forever.

That's one of the things Bethesda's toolset makes very easy. It's super easy to make areas, super easy to modify, super easy to track assets, and it's pretty darn powerful. Look at this way: there's no way in hell that our team could have made Fallout New Vegas without that tool. It was just impossible. And if you look at the mods, it's astounding what people can do with it. I personally think that is very cool. I hope we get to the point where we can actually develop tools like that.

The scripting system in the Bethesda engine is also very powerful and you can also do crazy stuff as well. But I do appreciate the ease-of-use stuff they had in Bethesda's editors.

I've worked with a lot of different toolsets and engines and stuff that we've developed internally, and making an engine, making a toolset is so incredibly time-consuming and so frustrating for so long.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

Imagine what they could have done with an engine that wasn't recycled kludge. I seriously don't understand why Bethesda keeps using it or a reiteration of it, it's not like they couldn't afford to license a better one. Then again, a better engine in Beth's hands might be a case of pearls before swine.

These days it's just Unity, Unreal, and Bethesda's own id tech and none of them necessarily work well with what Bethesda wants to do, especially considering the massive amount of work they'd have to do developing new tools.

What happened to CryEngine? It had bad netcode, that much I know, but is it actually dead or just in the process of changing hands?

 

[agris]

Imagine what they could have done with an engine that wasn't recycled kludge. I seriously don't understand why Bethesda keeps using it or a reiteration of it, it's not like they couldn't afford to license a better one. Then again, a better engine in Beth's hands might be a case of pearls before swine.

These days it's just Unity, Unreal, and Bethesda's own id tech and none of them necessarily work well with what Bethesda wants to do, especially considering the massive amount of work they'd have to do developing new tools.

What happened to CryEngine? It had bad netcode, that much I know, but is it actually dead or just in the process of changing hands?

I guess it isn't used much in games that the codex pays attention to, other than KCD. At least, I don't recognize most of these games, aside from the obvious Farcry / Crysis titles.

But, I think this is classic Roguey. It doesn't know, but presents information as if they do. There is the Frostbite engine, and other proprietary code developed by studios using Visual Studio/.NET (such as Star Traders: Frontiers) or XNA (such as Underrail), although those are languages and somewhat stretch the definition of game engine. Everything I've listed is more popular than Id Tech, though.

Regarding the favorable quotes for Fallout: Obsidian's Gamebryo Edition, I guarantee if you go to the source material there will be quotes that indicate they are avoiding criticism of it or being taciturn, as the previous poster mentioned. Rogue had a weird tendency to try to promote mis/dis-information.

 

[Roguey]

But, I think this is classic Roguey. It doesn't know, but presents information as if they do. There is the Frostbite engine, and other proprietary code developed by studios using Visual Studio/.NET (such as Star Traders: Frontiers) or XNA (such as Underrail), although those are languages and somewhat stretch the definition of game engine. Everything I've listed is more popular than Id Tech, though.

Frostbite is EA's, and after seeing it handle Inquisition and Andromeda, you think Bethesda wants to use that thing? Meanwhile, https://www.gamespot.com/articles/fallout-4-surpasses-skyrim-to-become-bethesdas-mos/1100-6447621/

Regarding the favorable quotes for Fallout: Obsidian's Gamebryo Edition, I guarantee if you go to the source material there will be quotes that indicate they are avoiding criticism of it or being taciturn, as the previous poster mentioned. Rogue had a weird tendency to try to promote mis/dis-information.

I typed up that massive interview myself, I think I'd remember if Josh said something disparaging about Bethbryo.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

These days it's just Unity, Unreal, and Bethesda's own id tech and none of them necessarily work well with what Bethesda wants to do, especially considering the massive amount of work they'd have to do developing new tools.

Bethesda wants to make openworld first person shooters, lots of developers do that better than them with different engines.

If Obsidian were so enamored with Gamebryo, why haven't they used it to make anything in the seven years since they used it?

 

[Lilura]

Just a couple of reminders.

• It's called Oblivion With Guns.
• There is Fallout and Fallout 2: there are no other Fallouts; not even Tactics is Fallout.

 

[fantadomat]

There is not really a thing like THE best rpg of all time. The best one is different for everyone and it something special that marks a moment of their life. For me it is MM6.
As for Fallout games,well Fallout 2 is better game than the first one in my opinion. Also the old Fallout games and the ones after Fallout 3 are totally different games,they can't be even compare them. It is like comparing lemons and oranges.
As for the engine,i do like how simple and free it is,you can just hit the ~ and fix the problems. Not many games this days that give you such freedom. Still the engine do have a lot of problems,it will be nice if they decide to remake it and update it in something more.....modern,for a lack of better word.

 

[Roguey]

Bethesda wants to make openworld first person shooters, lots of developers do that better than them with different engines.

Really, name the ones that have sold better than Fallout 4 and Skyrim.

If Obsidian were so enamored with Gamebryo, why haven't they used it to make anything in the seven years since they used it?

Gamebryo is dead, asking Bethesda if they could use Bethbryo would be incredibly odd. They're making do with Unity and Unreal. The tools they've created themselves are good enough for what they want to do.

 

[Lilura]

Maybe if Bethesda called it Oblivion With Guns and just set it in their own generic post-apocalptica, people would compare them to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. rather than Interplay/Black Isle cRPGs. Either way though, they compare unfavorably.

I give Bethesda credit for being excellent marketers, but they are shit devs the genre can do without.

Nothing good has come out of Unity, btw.

 

[Roguey]

I give Bethesda credit for being excellent marketers, but they are shit devs the genre can do without.

Look at the related section for any given more-traditional crpg on Steamspy. Skyrim's going to be reeeeeeeeeeally high on the list of games they also own. Even a hardcore RPG pretty much exclusively for grognards like Age of Decadence? 74.8% of those folks own Skyrim. For Dungeon Rats, it's 71%. It's extremely unlikely that a traditional RPG will ever reach Skryim sales, but the potential is always there for it to increase the potential audience, or at least keep it going. Baby's First RPG is their gateway to more stuff that they might also enjoy. New players have to start somewhere.

Nothing good has come out of Unity, btw.

Judging by the last two big Codex polls, a lot of folks here disagree.