Fallout 3 reviewed!

[Wilco]

Oblivion's and Morrowind's worlds' had some really bizarre scaling, to say the least. Maybe it's the 3D perspective or First person view that accentuates this, but 'thriving' cities looked like scale models to me, with three or four NPCs standing around staring at walls for no apparent reason. The wilderness wasn't much better either... it would suddenly go from lush forest to bitter cold and snow. It looks like Oblivion 2 will be even worse in this regard.

Thus far the only 3D game to successfully portray a living world is the Witcher... but then it was mainly an urban adventure in the first place.

 

[elander_]

Mini nukular explosions in al it's glory lololol

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/album_ ... ic_id=3282

The effect doesn't even touches the ground. It looks like someone has put a sprite image, the size of a publicity panel, a few meters above the ground where it is supposed to touch.

At least that blonds ass locks tight and great on her vault suit armor. (nerdgasms)

 

[Spectacle]

When reading the review it sounds more like it's going to get something like 65 or 70%, and then it gets 81? Wtf. Jävla CPn.

It's an AAA game, which means you have to subtract 10% from the listed score to get the real score. 71% sounds about right for Fallout 3.

 

[Amateur]

As one poster on the No Mutants forum said after the review was posted, I would have no problem with this if npcs' close proximity for one another mattered. If the raiders got killed by deathclaws or the slavers kidnapped them, or w/e, it would show a world of interaction.

If that's NOT the case however, than the reviewer is right, it's claustrophobic, and the game isn't really going to make much sense.
...

I have to say, when things are located this close it takes away the immersion.

But what you're saying about the interaction is very important.

The game worlds are NOT dynamic. By "dymnamic" I mean the world does not change with the unscripted interaction of its inhabitats or variables not dependent on players actions. The scripted changes which are only triggered by the player does NOT make a gaming world dynamic. Altgough players actions must be very effective on the state of the world there must be the independent effect of the other forces like NPC's, time etc. too.

For example in Oblivion when a "good" guy see a "bad" guy, he attacks. This kind of interaction is a very primitive and generic one. These encounters makes no difference in the game world other then adding eyecandy. However think of a different situation where a group of bandits ambushing traders on some major road to the city. If traders give up using that road (not a scripted event) that's a nice interaction. If prices go up because of the blocking of the trade route that's even better. If a group of guards are send to secure the road that's great. The actions may not be independent at each step but at least one can introduce independent blobks of actions (guards do not come together one by one, instead a group of guards are spawned in the area, or the game does not create unique trader npc's instead keeps track of the number of traders and spawns less units if the number goes down etc.). Moreover quests can not be taken by other NPC's or change by environmental changes independent of the player.

For the last 10 years I have seen nearly no improvement on this aspect (Only STALKER seems to head that way but I have yet to play Clear sky ). The world "waits" for the player to trigger something.

In one of the previews of Fallout3 I have seen a comment like "in the first 30 minutes I have encountered a lot of quests wooow". This is just hilarious, the problem was never to find quests in the first 30 minutes, the problem was you can NOT find quests after 3 hours since there is no quest generation, and the static world just gets empty as you proceed. And in this aspect random generation for simulating extremely large environments is much more immersive then a small deterministic environment with unique npcs...

 

[Burning Bridges]

Oblivion, FO3 = compressed game world = every experience on silver plate = what you get when you try to squeeze a PC game into a gaming console

 

[SimpleComplexity]

Preordered. That PiPBoy plastic crap clock is teh awesum!

20 moar days.

Also, mask of betrayer:

Personally, I have the deluxe edition of FO3 on order from Amazon. I can't wait for my PIPBoy clock... ^_^ I think Bethesda has done a tremendous job with the marketing, and, frankly, I'm jealous of what resources they have put into FO3.

 

[Disconnected]

Both Morrowind and Oblivion had the same everything-within-3-feet problem. It was just less obvious in Morrowind because the fog cut off your vision at 2½ feet.

 

[Kingston]

You guys, you don't understand until you've played it. You just don't.

 

[Ion Flux]

When reading the review it sounds more like it's going to get something like 65 or 70%, and then it gets 81? Wtf. Jävla CPn.

It's an AAA game, which means you have to subtract 10% from the listed score to get the real score. 71% sounds about right for Fallout 3.

As honestly as I can say this, I think you are being generous.

 

[Brother None]

It's an AAA game, which means you have to subtract 10% from the listed score to get the real score. 71% sounds about right for Fallout 3.

As honestly as I can say this, I think you are being generous.

Not necessarily. I'm not sure about Sweden but in a lot of European countries the media ratings aren't as inflated as they are in the US.

In the US a 80% basically means "barely ok", the kind of mental association you have with a C-. In most of Europe 80% still means "good".

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

So, the world is small and crowded, heh? Something tells me this will be Fallout 3: Invisible War.

 

[Vibalist]

It's an AAA game, which means you have to subtract 10% from the listed score to get the real score. 71% sounds about right for Fallout 3.

As honestly as I can say this, I think you are being generous.

Not necessarily. I'm not sure about Sweden but in a lot of European countries the media ratings aren't as inflated as they are in the US.

In the US a 80% basically means "barely ok", the kind of mental association you have with a C-.

Which is pretty damn stupid, considering how everything below 65 becomes completely the same.

 

[Ion Flux]

It's an AAA game, which means you have to subtract 10% from the listed score to get the real score. 71% sounds about right for Fallout 3.

As honestly as I can say this, I think you are being generous.

Not necessarily. I'm not sure about Sweden but in a lot of European countries the media ratings aren't as inflated as they are in the US.

In the US a 80% basically means "barely ok", the kind of mental association you have with a C-. In most of Europe 80% still means "good".

I understand, but I wasn't speaking in terms of the crazy, meaningless numbers that reviewers give games. I just meant that I personally have lower expectations for this game, that's all.

But yes, applying gaming journalism crazy math to that number it sounds reasonable.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Personally, I have the deluxe edition of FO3 on order from Amazon. I can't wait for my PIPBoy clock... ^_^ I think Bethesda has done a tremendous job with the marketing, and, frankly, I'm jealous of what resources they have put into FO3.

He didn't make any retarded animu emotes you spermguzzling cocksucker.

 

[aron searle]

Slavers to the left of me
Mutants to the right
Here i am
Stuck in the middle with you

 

[Noceur]

Not related to the article, but I just watched a fallout 3 trailer on Gametrailers.com subtitled in japanese.

Is it just me, or does Fallout seem like the wrong kind of game to try and sell in Japan? I mean, they already do live in a post-nuclear world.

 

[Data4]

Slavers to the left of me
Mutants to the right
Here i am
Stuck in the middle with you

I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one thinking of that when I read it.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Is it just me, or does Fallout seem like the wrong kind of game to try and sell in Japan?

Every PC game other than dating sim seems like the wrong kind to try and sell in Japan.

I guess no one really gives a fuck; How hard is it to pay some small studio a thousand bucks to do a translation? And if the game sells 100k copies(To some hardcore reverse weeaboos or whoever) it will already be enough to get a profit.

 

[cutterjohn]

Fallout 3 IS "Oblivion with guns". Whatever I stated in any earlier issue. So, with that said, there is no going back.

Well, I'm shocked...

 

[cutterjohn]

Every PC game other than [insert] pedophile [/insert] dating sim seems like the wrong kind to try and sell in Japan.

I guess no one really gives a fuck; How hard is it to pay some small studio a thousand bucks to do a translation? And if the game sells 100k copies(To some hardcore reverse weeaboos or whoever) it will already be enough to get a profit.

fixed!!!!111!!!1

[EDIT]
Oops. Unintentional DP (take that as you sih bitch!) :D
[/EDIT]

 

[Chefe]

If I get to fire a small nuclear weapon, I want to SEE a huge explosion, be blinded by a huge flash of light, feel the mighty shockwave as it throwns the rubble away with lethal force and see anything in the range of the explosion either being blow apart or burned.

They're using the Oblivion engine.

 

[raving nincompoop]

Especially since if there was a deathclaw cave or whatever right near a raider camp....the raiders would choose a new place to camp.

Didn't you pay attention? They can't because they have slavers to the left and zombies to the right and some settlement over here and a town over there. That's the real tragedy of a post-apocalyptic world - it's overcrowded.

I don't understand all the excitement about this, I'm sure one of the raiders have a few cleric levels in him and can just TU the zombies. Also, I think it is reasonable to expect that raider guild would be in good terms with the slavers guild.

 

[Lord Chambers]

Is it just me, or does Fallout seem like the wrong kind of game to try and sell in Japan? I mean, they already do live in a post-nuclear world.

I got almost five seconds of laughter out of this before my PC reflex shut it down and mourned for the victims of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

 

[Claw]

Reading all those complaints about a "compressed world" I feel compelled to say that Piranha Bytes did a great job with that in Gothic and Gothic II.
When I played Gothic for the first time, I remember seeing a ruin on a mountain from the "starting area" and it took me many hours to actually go there. The game felt really big initially, until I realized that after wandering into the wilderness for hours I was actually just a few steps away from the Old Camp.
To me, the world map always looked like a larger map folded to take up less space. Many areas are very close together but seperated by natural obstacles so you can't tell how close together everything is when you play it for the first time.

I always felt that was a great strength: You can go exploring for hours - encountering something of more or less interest every few steps - and once you have explored the area you can go back to to your starting point in five minutes.
In Morrowind however, I got pretty bored on the way from Seyda Neen to Balmora. In Morrowind, there were multiple occasions where I actually tried to do something else while moving from A to B. Vivec was worst, of course. I don't believe I've ever had a more boring gameplay experience than travelling between cantons. Seriously, what the hell? Consequently Vivec is the place where I stopped playing Morrowind.

I'm not sure there is an insight here, unless it's this: No matter how Bethesda does it, it sucks because it's Bethesda doing it.

 

[Radisshu]

You guys, you don't understand until you've played it through five times. You just don't.

It's an AAA game, which means you have to subtract 10% from the listed score to get the real score. 71% sounds about right for Fallout 3.

As honestly as I can say this, I think you are being generous.

Not necessarily. I'm not sure about Sweden but in a lot of European countries the media ratings aren't as inflated as they are in the US.

In the US a 80% basically means "barely ok", the kind of mental association you have with a C-. In most of Europe 80% still means "good".

80 usually is pretty good in Swedish gaming magazines. The swedish press usually are as hype-affected as the americans, though. The biggest swedish gaming magazine gave NWN 10/10 when that came out, for example.