Yeah, another Fallout 3 thread. Deal with it, bitches.
So here's what I think after playing this thing for two days now: it's pretty fun. It's slowly leaching all intelligence out of my brain, but it's fun.
I'm not going to go too much into the dialog and quest aspects since those've been raped (justifiably) quite thoroughly here already, but I will say that at least there are signs that Bethesda is finally starting to wake up from their six-year dumbfuck slumber. The "extra" choices included due to my Speech skills, while nowhere near as satisfying as those in F1 and 2, do seem to make it worth it that I didn't just max out Strength and go for the console idiot brute force method. Not that there's any added depth or consequence that I've seen so far from any of the "smart" responses, but they're there anyway. Meh, I suppose it's really all quite transparent. I need to further the story.
The vault was actually great. Don't know if this has been said here before, but if they made the whole game at the same quality as in here I might be impressed. I still have a long ways to go but I hope things pick back up again. I'm starting to see signs of the old repetative nature as in Oblivion and that will quickly damn this thing to the depths of uninstall hell, AFAIC. We'll see.
Combat isn't necessarily easy, yet. So far, V.A.T.S. isn't the über-cheat everyone else is making it out to be, at least for me. That's probably because none of my combat skills are very high, but I'm actually doing better in RT mode since I can empty my clip into a molerat's head faster that way (I'm playing on Hard difficulty). It usually comes down to the old hide-behind-something and pick away at them or, if out in the open, pulling off the old run backwards shooting or clubbing technique until they or I fall over. I've been saving V.A.T.S. for the money shot since it's pretty amusing if you get a gory kill.
Now on to the whore aspects. tEh GraPHixors would be pleasing if we were still back in '02. Same engine, same relatively muddy textures, same overuse of HDR/bloom. Faces and body animation are improved, but still suffer from that indescribable, wrong, Bethesda "look". Someone commented that the landscape is too brown, too much of the same, and looks like ass. I don't really have a problem with it, though, since I would expect a wasteland to look like, you know, a wasteland. The extreme rockiness seems out of place, however. Should be more flattened and blasted areas. I guess they were going for more interest; can't blame them, I guess. Performance on my rig has gotten better the more tweaking I do. As with Oblivion, the picky nature of Gamebryo requires this. Very stable so far, except the first night I tried to play it where having any shadows or HDR enabled at all would cause an immediate crash upon choosing new game. Solved this on my own. Don't ask.
Voice acting is definitely improved, but I've never been a VA connoisseur. I recognize some of the voices but most are new and fitting with the rest of the game's quality level. All ghouls seem to use the same gravelly voice so far. That's annoying. FX are adequate if uninspiring. Liberal use of echo in caves and shit -- par for the cake-icing course with Bethesda.
Balance is actually pretty good this early on. It's challenging on Hard mode to stay alive and prosper. I have to watch my ammo levels carefully -- the supply shop in Megaton isn't a neverending fountain of 4.56mm slugs. The shopkeeper's caps supply is pleasingly low as well. Problem I'm seeing though is that despite that, there's still too much junk that can be sold. In addition, there's not a very strict limit on the weight you can carry, so it would be pretty easy to horde all the wealth in town if I wanted to.
My bottom line is that you do get a wasteland fix from Fallout 3, but you're going to pay in more ways than one (even if you don't physically remove it from an inventory). In typical Oblivion-like fashion, you get sucked in for a while and start believing the game might just get better and better. I'm smarter than that, though. I realize this is just Todd's and Pete's promises burning their bloom into my retinas during the early game, but it's probably going to all come crashing down about a week or two in. So, I'm just going to enjoy it for what it is while I can. Pretty soon, all the voices are going to sound like each other, the short one-liner responses are going to simply not matter, and I'll just be struggling to make it to the endgame. You know, just finish up already.
I'm a whore.
So here's what I think after playing this thing for two days now: it's pretty fun. It's slowly leaching all intelligence out of my brain, but it's fun.
I'm not going to go too much into the dialog and quest aspects since those've been raped (justifiably) quite thoroughly here already, but I will say that at least there are signs that Bethesda is finally starting to wake up from their six-year dumbfuck slumber. The "extra" choices included due to my Speech skills, while nowhere near as satisfying as those in F1 and 2, do seem to make it worth it that I didn't just max out Strength and go for the console idiot brute force method. Not that there's any added depth or consequence that I've seen so far from any of the "smart" responses, but they're there anyway. Meh, I suppose it's really all quite transparent. I need to further the story.
The vault was actually great. Don't know if this has been said here before, but if they made the whole game at the same quality as in here I might be impressed. I still have a long ways to go but I hope things pick back up again. I'm starting to see signs of the old repetative nature as in Oblivion and that will quickly damn this thing to the depths of uninstall hell, AFAIC. We'll see.
Combat isn't necessarily easy, yet. So far, V.A.T.S. isn't the über-cheat everyone else is making it out to be, at least for me. That's probably because none of my combat skills are very high, but I'm actually doing better in RT mode since I can empty my clip into a molerat's head faster that way (I'm playing on Hard difficulty). It usually comes down to the old hide-behind-something and pick away at them or, if out in the open, pulling off the old run backwards shooting or clubbing technique until they or I fall over. I've been saving V.A.T.S. for the money shot since it's pretty amusing if you get a gory kill.
Now on to the whore aspects. tEh GraPHixors would be pleasing if we were still back in '02. Same engine, same relatively muddy textures, same overuse of HDR/bloom. Faces and body animation are improved, but still suffer from that indescribable, wrong, Bethesda "look". Someone commented that the landscape is too brown, too much of the same, and looks like ass. I don't really have a problem with it, though, since I would expect a wasteland to look like, you know, a wasteland. The extreme rockiness seems out of place, however. Should be more flattened and blasted areas. I guess they were going for more interest; can't blame them, I guess. Performance on my rig has gotten better the more tweaking I do. As with Oblivion, the picky nature of Gamebryo requires this. Very stable so far, except the first night I tried to play it where having any shadows or HDR enabled at all would cause an immediate crash upon choosing new game. Solved this on my own. Don't ask.
Voice acting is definitely improved, but I've never been a VA connoisseur. I recognize some of the voices but most are new and fitting with the rest of the game's quality level. All ghouls seem to use the same gravelly voice so far. That's annoying. FX are adequate if uninspiring. Liberal use of echo in caves and shit -- par for the cake-icing course with Bethesda.
Balance is actually pretty good this early on. It's challenging on Hard mode to stay alive and prosper. I have to watch my ammo levels carefully -- the supply shop in Megaton isn't a neverending fountain of 4.56mm slugs. The shopkeeper's caps supply is pleasingly low as well. Problem I'm seeing though is that despite that, there's still too much junk that can be sold. In addition, there's not a very strict limit on the weight you can carry, so it would be pretty easy to horde all the wealth in town if I wanted to.
My bottom line is that you do get a wasteland fix from Fallout 3, but you're going to pay in more ways than one (even if you don't physically remove it from an inventory). In typical Oblivion-like fashion, you get sucked in for a while and start believing the game might just get better and better. I'm smarter than that, though. I realize this is just Todd's and Pete's promises burning their bloom into my retinas during the early game, but it's probably going to all come crashing down about a week or two in. So, I'm just going to enjoy it for what it is while I can. Pretty soon, all the voices are going to sound like each other, the short one-liner responses are going to simply not matter, and I'll just be struggling to make it to the endgame. You know, just finish up already.
I'm a whore.
