So I just finished Fallout 3...

[Vernacular]

Heh heh. The Fallout 3 threads make me laugh.

We also had Shamus Young and the Blisttering Stupidity of Fallout 3 http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27085

Where he says "This is going to be a 7,000 word series on some of the things wrong with the central story of Fallout 3. Yes, I know this is a celebrated and beloved game. It made a bunch of GOTY lists back in 2008, and still appears on lists of favorites today. To be honest, I liked it too."

"TO BE HONEST I LIKED IT TOO." Haha.

So back in 2008 when he was spending lots of time on Fallout 3 and LIKING it, was he a fool? Maybe he is still a fool.

How comes so many posters on the Codex that loathe Fallout 3 can argue with so much precision against it. Give SO MANY DETAILS, about the perks, about the storyline, about the backgound etc. Maybe they played it back in the day and if they were honest "liked it too".

I only played Witcher 2 for ONE HOUR ONLY. I think it's crap. I can't argue with precision how crap it is because I only played it for one hour. I stopped playing it.

Alpha Protocal - 20 hours - it's crap. Don't ask me for details - I just remember the rubbish combat. That horrible WORDSEARCH, some interesting conversation options. I stopped playing it.

So - to the guys that argue with so much precision against Fallout 3 - maybe you read the Guardian or Times or Telegraph. One day you came across the Daily Mail - and secretly enjoyed it. Now you need a shower but the fact you really enjoyed it is eating away at you...

So - to the guys that loathe Fallout 3 now, thanks for playing it soooooo much, because without you guys we would not be able to have these detailed discussions aout how rubbish it really was.

To be fair, it's not uncommon to play a game you either dislike or think is crap. DA:O is like that for me. I was excited about it when I first heard about it.

Then I played it.

I wish I didn't.

What a dull, lifeless mess. To my eternal shame I even finished it. I mean damn. Not one of the highlights of my gaming hobby, but I was so fucking bored and desperate for something new to play I tricked myself into thinking it would get better. It never did. So if push came to shove I guess I could post a scrollbomb about why it's crap. It's a long and well worn conga line that one. But really, why bother? Some people like it, a few even for legitimate reasons no doubt. The punchline is that they may even like it for the same reasons I hated it. Strange, but more than likely true.The true problem with these kinds of discussions is that people forget there is always a flipside. Whether it's weaker or stronger is up to the contestants, but there is always another side to critiques.

I will say one thing though; the ferocity of hatred against F3 is something else and borders the pathological. I've read rants about it that are positively surreal. That's the part I find fascinating. The undercurrent is a riptide and a half.

F3 is a terrible Fallout game, but an OK modern Elder Scrolls game.

True that.

 

[Lord Azlan]

To be fair, it's not uncommon to play a game you either dislike or think is crap. DA:O is like that for me. I was excited about it when I first heard about it.

Then I played it.

I wish I didn't.

What a dull, lifeless mess. To my eternal shame I even finished it. I mean damn. Not one of the highlights of my gaming hobby, but I was so fucking bored and desperate for something new to play I tricked myself into thinking it would get better. It never did. So if push came to shove I guess I could post a scrollbomb about why it's crap. It's a long and well worn conga line that one. But really, why bother? Some people like it, a few even for legitimate reasons no doubt. The punchline is that they may even like it for the same reasons I hated it. Strange, but more than likely true.The true problem with these kinds of discussions is that people forget there is always a flipside. Whether it's weaker or stronger is up to the contestants, but there is always another side to critiques.

I will say one thing though; the ferocity of hatred against F3 is something else and borders the pathological. I've read rants about it that are positively surreal. That's the part I find fascinating. The undercurrent is a riptide and a half.


True that.

To be honest - I never finished a game I did not like.

There are some games I did not like but subsequently tried again and rather enjoyed - for example both Fallout 1 and 2 and Arx Fatalis. Agreed about the ferocity, pathological and forensic posts written against Fallout 3.

It could be that I never completed Fallout 1 and 2 until after I joined the codex so I had little expectations about Fallout 3.

On F3, somethings I did not like relate to Super mutants and the stupid use of the stations around Washington blocking access - that I will never understand. I liked the logical reasons behind the vaults but loathed being inside them as sometimes I felt nauseous when adventuring inside them. Otherwise my "suspension of disbelief" allowed me to enjoy the game without asking serious questions.

 

[Vernacular]

Yeah, I was much the same with the "suspension of disbelief". I gave up asking it too many questions and it rewarded me with a good time aimlessly roaming around a wasteland with a mutt randomly wasting bandits and mutated critters for shits 'n giggles. My overall impression of it was more "A Boy and his Dog" than Fallout. I can certainly understand people's gripes if they expect a classic Fallout experience. My own experience with the game was an enjoyable one though. Like those Subway tunnels for example. People fucking hated those things, and I can certainly understand why. Thing is though, getting lost in there wondering where the fuck the exits were creeping around in the dark ganking ghouls was a blast. The vaults though I didn't like. They struck me as boring and samey. At the end of the day, as long as no-one expects me to think it's a good *Fallout* game, I feel no need to go a crusade to liberate Jerusalem in the name of the holy Interplay. I leave that to others. I'm too old for that shit.

 

[pippin]

Alpha Protocal - 20 hours - it's crap. Don't ask me for details - I just remember the rubbish combat. That horrible WORDSEARCH, some interesting conversation options. I stopped playing it.

AP is about 15 or 20 hours long, so you pretty much completed the game. If you are willing to tolerate a game for 20 hours then you might as well finish it.

Subway tunnels

I used to get lost until I noticed almost every station has a map of the metro service. The lines are even interrupted where the tunnels are inaccessible. The vaults are supposed to be samey since they were produced like that. But the Vaults in Vegas are just too good.

 

[roll-a-die]

So considering this seems to be the current bitch about Fallout 3 thread I think I wanna get some things off my chest. I'm playing this game again, with mods.

This game's story was so bad, that with a single playthrough I burned every bad moment of the story into memory. Like someone who stared into the sheer depth of 40,000 suns, I go blind with the stupidity of it. Dear god, it was dumb. Some choice quotes.
"Tunnel Snakes rule!"
"I'll show you a real tunnel snake!"
"Agh, my " drunken "mom's in there," but I'm scaaaared of bugs, "You gotta help her." - That dick face.



Unlike most of the codex, I somewhat like the gameplay in these games. That is what really, in effect, made the game for me. The gameplay cycle, was something I already kinda liked and had enjoyed in Morrowind, and somewhat less enjoyed in Oblivion, made a bit better than it was in oblivion. I'm one of those people who explore and dick around with little objects, and get collections of useless objects like metal forks(There's around 360 of the two pointed forks in Morrowind IIRC.)

The level design in this game is fantastic. Caveat here, when you get to the good portions. As with every elder scrolls game, there's a lot of boring empty space.


Dear god though, the story, even today when my hate has somewhat mellowed, reminds me of, well an 8 year old adhd sufferer trying to word vomit the entire stories of fallout 1 and 2 into a 3 sentence summary.

In general, Fallout 3 though, is a passable Elder Scrolls game, and an utter failure as a fallout game.

 

[pippin]

The Vaults in 3 suck a lot, but that's not Bethesda's fault. When you do this "every vault was an experiment" thing, you're enablind stupidity and memes. Vault 101's door happened to be never closed. I think Vault 3 is a more plausible example of what would happen if that was the case...

But yeah, there's one thing you can enjoy if you're autistic enough: larping a scavenger. You can choose to occupy a shelter, wander around collecting trash, go back home, rinse and repeat.

Kinda like this

 

[Rhapsody'n Blue]

Yeah, I was much the same with the "suspension of disbelief". I gave up asking it too many questions and it rewarded me with a good time aimlessly roaming around a wasteland with a mutt randomly wasting bandits and mutated critters for shits 'n giggles. My overall impression of it was more "A Boy and his Dog" than Fallout. I can certainly understand people's gripes if they expect a classic Fallout experience. My own experience with the game was an enjoyable one though. Like those Subway tunnels for example. People fucking hated those things, and I can certainly understand why. Thing is though, getting lost in there wondering where the fuck the exits were creeping around in the dark ganking ghouls was a blast. The vaults though I didn't like. They struck me as boring and samey. At the end of the day, as long as no-one expects me to think it's a good *Fallout* game, I feel no need to go a crusade to liberate Jerusalem in the name of the holy Interplay. I leave that to others. I'm too old for that shit.

I appreciate your moderate approach. As somebody else said in this very thread, there are better mediums of entertainment for writing and high art than a game ostensibly about shooting Mutants on your couch with an SMG. That said, I too was in the "raped my mom" depression camp soon after FO3's release, and it wasn't all irrational fanboyism at play; the general state of the industry shouldn't be ignored when trying to understand this reaction:

(Western) cRPGs were in a horrible state in 2008. In memory it felt like a bleak and endless tundra of desolation -- this was even before Dragon Age: Origin (2009), and Obsidian didn't have anything particularly innovative on the horizon either (not sure what they did for 2008, but 2006 and 2007 were dedicated to Neverwinter 2). I can't even remember what the last quality cRPG was in the years leading up to that -- Oblivion perhaps (yes, the bar was that low), but more realistically Lionheart (never played) or Arcanum. Maybe I missed out on an indie effort or two, but there was nothing like we're experiencing today.

This void could have been seen for what it was, an anomalous low point in the field due to the dominance of AAA gaming at the time (i.e. before the rise of crowd funding as an avenue for validating the developing of more niche products), but one couldn't discount the very real precedent it was setting in an otherwise bleak landscape.

Fast forward to 2015 and we're in a much better position: in a world post Pillars of Eternity, I get a bit less edgy when somebody lowballs cRPG development. Post Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/Shanghai, post Wasteland 2 (even if it did kind of suck), post Dead State, State of Decay, Dragon Age: Origin/II/Inquisition, and even Fallout: New Vegas, the industry is in a much better position. Fallout 4 will likely be a day one digital purchase for me, and I expect I’ll enjoy it for all the reasons you painted so eloquently above. Despite that, I have no illusions it will be anything more than a hollow “A Boy and his Dog” simulator, replete with cringeworthy dialog and repetitive gameplay. By hour 30 I will likely put it on the shelf to bake for a bit, but the 30 hours leading up to that will be filled with a few genuine smiles. Smiling at Fallout 4 is a lot easier knowing a new Planescape is right around the corner.

 

[Prehistorik]

... Fallout 4 will likely be a day one digital purchase for me... By hour 30 I will likely put it on the shelf..

 

[RoBoBOBR]

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you can now enjoy the beauty that is Fallout 3 for free and play it with hundreds of other specimen!