Please explain to me the appeal of Fallout 3

[Fanta Grape]

Yeah, I'm sure that this topic has already been done, but bugger me.

So what IS the appeal of Fallout 3? (Note that this is not a "Is it just me or does Fallout 3 overrated" thread. I'm genuinely interested)

I've played through the whole game and overall... I found it really subpar. Why? Well a few reasons.

1. The game does not equally balance out good actions and bad actions. Good actions are harder to perform and you get less rewards, but the overall perks or benefits are usually the exact same as the evil option.

2. The combat feels pretty much just like "Choose this style. Now good luck." At no point in the game did I feel that the shooting/fighting ever required strategy. If you boosted up small guns, you shot with small guns. If you boosted up energy weapons, you shot with energy weapons. There's little to no ducking, running, aiming or strategy aspect.

3. The graphics bugged me. I'm not a graphics whore but everything felt brown and green and grungy. This would be fine if there was some occasional contrast but most areas feel the same, even the buildings. I guess this is what the new Vegas will be for? But I dunno...

4. The narrative as a whole felt very weak so my motivations for going from point A to point B and shooting x subject were very slim making the game feel painfully tedious.

Now I will give credits to the VATS system, the open world, the gameplay concepts and the customisable parts of the game, but it just didn't really hold up for me. So members of escapist, what were the defining points for the game that made you love it?

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Because of how much there is to do.

I played over 200 hours and still didn't experience everything.

Everywhere you walk something interesting happens and you can go on for hours just exploring.

That was the beauty of this game and what will also make New Vegas amazing.

 

[captaincabbage]

Well, it's expansive and it's, err, grey and, umm, it's brownish too, and, uhh, I'm sorry what was the question?

I kid, I really love Fallout 3. For me it's the humor and the effects you have on the world around you that sell it for me, tho I can't wait for Bethesda to throw the Gamebryo engine in the bin like a prom night dumpster baby.

It's hard to really explain the appeal of a game to someone who doesn't feel the attraction to that game, so there's not much you can really say, I just like it.

 

[Shycte]

I agree with you at some points. The game was so gray and dull and DC fucking sucked. No seriously, I was expecting a cool deserted city but all I got was fucking blocked roads followed by even grayer metro-tunnels.

VATS got boring quickly and the normal shotting didn't hold the game up.

Loved Oblivion tough.

 

[Meggiepants]

Before I talk about the appeal, I feel like addressing your points.

1. I don't really think you are meant to be rewarded for how you play, good or evil. It's more about how people react to you than your perks. I could be wrong on that, but that was my take.

2. The combat sucks. Not part of the appeal imo. Moving on.

3. It's a wasteland. If you blew up an entire country, everything would look the same. Look at images from war destroyed cities. It's pretty much all brown and muck. I think this game, and the book/movie The Road actually did post apocalyptic scenery right. This is pretty much how it would look.

4. The narrative story was weak and only a small part of the "Story" overall. See below.


Now, the appeal for me, is the setting. Immersive post apocalyptic games are few and far between. This is one of the best ones on the market. The story is the world, not just the narrative. It's the blown out buildings, the skeletons clinging to each other in bed, the corpses in a bathtub full of whiskey bottles, the crazed mutated animals, the twisted cities... all of it is part of the story. If you don't really care for the setting, then I wouldn't recommend this game to you.

But I really like this type of setting and story, so despite all its flaws, Fallout 3 works for me.

 

[TimeLord]

I loved Fallout 3 because it was HUUUUUUGE and imersive until you used VATS....

Try playing Point Lookout at midnight in a darkened room with the sound on your TV halved! Do that and walk through that swamp and you will jump everytime you hear anything!

 

[martin's a madman]

Why do you care? You've already decided you didn't particularly enjoy it and me telling you why I enjoy it isn't going to change your mind.

I found the combat mechanics just fine.

The narrative served as a source of immersion.

The game as a whole was immersive.

The variety of Weapons,equipment,junk, and to a lesser extent, enemies kept it interesting and fresh.

You didn't have to stick to one particular play style, you could mix and match.

Fallout has a very interesting universe.

EDIT: I do find it hard to believe that you're genuinely interested, but if you actually are, there's some of what appealed to me.

 

[Prince Regent]

A shotgun-nuclear-missile-launcher, let me say that again a shotgun-nuclear-missile-launcher!

 

[WrongSprite]

I don't need to explain, if you don't like it, then you don't, everyone will see things differently.

 

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

I loved the music.

 

[mudE13]

I was waiting for somebody to let me know the appeal of it too! I bought the game when it came out, played it off and on for a few months, loaned it to a friend, never saw it again, got the GOTY edition as a gift, and still I am only about half way through and haven't done any of the DLC. I have tried to get into it, but I just can't. I have even restarted playing it so I could get the "Whole experience", but still nothing. I have it sitting on my self for when I have beaten a good chunk of the games I own. Maybe I just have to give it my undivided attention like a high maintenance date that won't put out until I give her a truckload of compliments and gifts.

 

[sms_117b]

It's difficult to describe the appeal the game has for me, it's an experiance, a game where the whole package is more than the sum of it's parts.

The world and how it's different from our own is brilliantly done, instead of CPU tech advancing nuclear power does, on top of that the American culture doesn't advance beyond the 50's making a world that is slightly different but erely (spelling?) familiar.

Story, for me, was excellent, even the original ending, all the side quests are interesting, the DLC is superb (all of them!).

Anyway like I said, the games overall package is larger than the sum of it's parts.

 

[imnot]

it's fun!
and nuclear weapons rarley release clouds of colour and rainbows upon the land scape do they?

 

[Aphex Demon]

I also, felt nothing when playing fallout, I didnt get too far into it, but I was waiting for the addiction to kick in, although it never did.

Dissapoint.

 

[Steppin Razor]

So what IS the appeal of Fallout 3? (Note that this is not a "Is it just me or does Fallout 3 overrated" thread. I'm genuinely interested)

The massive area to explore and all of the various weapons and armour that you can find throughout the game. While shooting was sometimes frustrating when you'd miss someone 3 feet away that didn't even know you were there because the skill system was all sorts of retarded in certain situations, the taking down of enemies was satisfying. Whether it was a small band of Raiders or Enclave soldiers, or maybe even a Deathclaw or Albino Radscorpion, killing them was fun.

1. The game does not equally balance out good actions and bad actions. Good actions are harder to perform and you get less rewards, but the overall perks or benefits are usually the exact same as the evil option.

Benefits generally ended up the same, yes, but there was usually a pretty horrible result for the NPCs when you went darkside. Caps were a little less abundant for Good players until you get the ammo finding perk, but the other bonuses you got for quests were balanced out instead of favouring one alignment over the other as so many games do.

2. The combat feels pretty much just like "Choose this style. Now good luck." At no point in the game did I feel that the shooting/fighting ever required strategy. If you boosted up small guns, you shot with small guns. If you boosted up energy weapons, you shot with energy weapons. There's little to no ducking, running, aiming or strategy aspect.

I'm confused. If you skilled up in Small Guns or Energy Weapons, it would make sense to use Small Guns/Energy Weapons. Every RPG that has a weapon skill system is exactly the same. Why would you use something your character is terrible with?

As for ducking, running, aiming and strategy - the game was too easy, even on the hardest difficulty. Hopefully the new difficulty in New Vegas will help to fix that.

3. The graphics bugged me. I'm not a graphics whore but everything felt brown and green and grungy. This would be fine if there was some occasional contrast but most areas feel the same, even the buildings. I guess this is what the new Vegas will be for? But I dunno...

Eh, the city looked like a shithole. Just as I'd expect from a city that has been bombed until it resembles a shithole.

4. The narrative as a whole felt very weak so my motivations for going from point A to point B and shooting x subject were very slim making the game feel painfully tedious.

The main storyline sucked overall, I don't think you'll find many people that disagree with that. Which is kind of sad really, as it's actually a pretty epic story if you think about it. Leaving the vault before you're killed, tracking down the father that left you behind only to lose him, and then carrying on his life's work and giving clean, uncontaminated drinking water to the people of DC. So the question becomes - how did they fuck it up so badly?

 

[Harlemura]

I know I'm echoing stuff here, but it was the amount of stuff to do.
I'll admit that I hated Fallout 3 near the start, since I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing and was just getting killed by stuff all the time. But as soon as I'd figured it all out and got going with some of the side missions, I was away.
Fallout, for me at least, was one of those games that I didn't want to stop playing until I finished what it was I was doing. Since there was a butt-ton of stuff I could be doing, it kept me going for hours.

Then I got to do it again, being evil. Then yet again, being neutral. Never as good as the first time, but still holds its time eating properties.

 

[ninja555]

Mostly it is the exploration factor. Pick a direction and keep walking until you bump into something. Also the 'choose your style. Now good luck' has been around in many games, Baldur's Gate, Fallout 1+2, etc.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I also, felt nothing when playing fallout, I didnt get too far into it, but I was waiting for the addiction to kick in, although it never did.

Dissapoint.

It's a very slow start and the many unfixed bugs on the console versions leave the game feeling half-finished, sometimes like a dodgy Oblivion hack.

On Topic: If you ever want to experience Fallout 3 as it should be, get the PC version and make it your first priority to get the latest Fanmade Patch. Then take a trip to www.fallout3nexus.com. It shouldn't contain all the glitches, but it does unfortunately. It's fortunate that Bethesda gives the fans so much control, without it then Oblivion and Fallout 3 would be hopeless.

 

[Varrdy]

Fallout 3 appealed to me on so many levels. The twee, 50's attitudes and Googie styling really takes the edge of an otherwise grim reality. The game doesn't take itself too seriously, in other words.

What it does do, is highlight just how blase we used to be about nuclear / atomic weapons and what might have happened. Complaining everything is "grey" and there's rubble everywhere is just daft because, that's what you get after a good bombing. Buildings blown to shit, dust, rubble, scorched and blackened earth - the works. As for the "grey", there are many blatant clues in the game as to why.

Carole tells you "the city was on fire for weeks, even months..." - do you know what happens to paint when it gets rather hot? If you look at the interior of nearly every masonry structure in the game, you will see the paint on the walls and ceiling is flaking off or already gone.

If you play the game with decent headphones in a dark room, you really do get drawn in by the atmosphere.

There is a good variety of weapons although I agree the combat is somewhat basic. The ability to shoot from cover alone would make a massive difference.

Another thing I like a lot is how you can play it over and over and still find new stuff. I like how you can choose and change your outfits like a post-apocalyptic Barbie and how nearly every item in the game has a use. The immersion is further enhanced by little things like weapon-degradation and the fact you can do your own thing.

I also like how the designers have made the regular weapons believeable. Sure there are the standard classes (Melee, pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles and heavy weapons) but they are all uniquely designed but still believable. There are other, more exotic and strange weapons made from junk but that's proably what would happen in a post-apocalyptic environment. They also add to the humour of the game and I salute the guy who first came up with The Fat Man - what a weapon!

Sure the game is buggy and it's far from perfect but, on the whole, the game appeals on so many levels.

It could be that the content just isn't your thing. I don't bother with WoW, Lord of the Rings or any of that because I have no interest in "fantasy" - wizards, dwarves, elves, magic, trolls, potions et al.

Wardy