Zero Punctuation: Fallout 3

[TerraMGP]

The resistance to radiation, like many other things, was explained in Fallout 2.

I am beginning to wonder if alot of the plot holes people see are things they simply don't remember or did not pick up from the other fallout games. As for the lack of people its somewhat apparent that unlike Western cities that somehow got out of things a bit more intact the bulk of DC was reduced to small specific colonies. In truth I see this as MORE how it would be after a nuclear war. This is exactly what I am talking about though. Your playing a game in a postapocalyptic wasteland where you spent time in a specially established vault designed for the sole purpose of keeping sample humans under specific observation as opposed to, I don't know, Saving as many as possible because the leaders of the US had some plan extending hundreds of years beyond their lifetimes to strike out at china.

I only ask people to start applying the same scrutiny to the other games as they do to 3 instead of bashing it because it departs from the comfortable norms.

 

[inthefade]

Very funny. I haven't played it yet, but I kinda knew it would just be an Oblivion clone with a fallout skin on it... Can't believe they didn't fix the horrifying stone-stare when the characters talk to you. When my roommates were in the same room while I played Oblivion they would laugh their asses off at how freaky and unnatural those conversations were. Is it really that hard to make the characters look casual in conversations, instead of framing them like you're taking a terrible portrait?
Well this makes me not want to play the game; Oblivion was fun for about 10 hours, and then I realized that it was just a huge waste of time.

 

[geldonyetich]

I loved the review, I loved the game, but I've gotta say the ending sucks [http://dsob.wordpress.com/2008/11/01/fallout-3s-ending-sucks/]. It deflates the rest of the game so incredibly that it goes from a 9.5/10 game to a 6 from the ending alone. A pity that didn't make it into Yahtzee's review.

To anyone still enjoying this game, I advise holding off on doing the main quest until you're completely bored of wandering the wasteland. Then, when you're smacked with the wet-mackerel of the ending, you'll have lost nothing.

 

[Vromnir]

Its a Fallout game, so look at it from a Fallout point of view.

No point since this game sucks from a Fallout point of view. No, scratch that. This game is not bad. It's wrong.

EDIT: BTW if FO3 is really better than Oblivion in every way, then I have absolutely no reason to try Oblivion.

Ok then, don't try Oblivion, I stopped playing it after I got Fallout 3, you are right about that part.

But from the way you were talking, it sounds like you were expecting Fallout 3 to be an abomination to every nostalgic memory you ever had about the Fallout series. If you expected it to be bad, of course you would disregard any good things about it, and immediatly search as hard as you could for evey single bad thing about it.

I'll run a couple of pros and cons of the game, in case you missed them:

Pros:

The V.A.T.S. System, which was an enormous help seeing that it was never supposed to be a shooter.

A realistic setting, in which you really feel like the world was nuked 200 years ago, and the remaining survivors are a reflection of that; most of them have given up hope of anything ever being nice again, others have completly lost their minds, and the remainder are either strugling to survive, or have turned to slaving or being a raider.

The voice acting was convincing, it didn't just sound like they were reading off of scripts; it sounded like they were really into what they were saying and that that is how a real person would sound if they were in that kind of situation.

Cons:

Some people have the tendancy to die for no apparent reason, or to dissappear completly. I've had this happen to me a number of times with Walace, the person who runs the water purification plant, to a great amount of fustration on my part.

The slow-mo close ups of the V.A.T.S. System, which don't seem to realize that i just want to kill the enemy im fighting, and move onto the next one.

The ending, which was the biggest flaw of the entier game, in my opinion. No matter which option you choose, the game ends.

All in all, if you can overlook the ending with all the side quests avaliable, I think that Fallout 3 is a very good game.

However, if someone here can come up with a solid argument of its flaws outwieghing its good points, ill be glad to listen.(Yes that's a challenge!)

 

[Tsuki Tanaka]

lmao, the first part really made me laugh

it sounds interesting, but im not sure its worth the money, because i get bored really easily and if its monotonous then ill probably forget it in about 2 days

Did you like Oblivion?

it was ok, but honestly i never finished it...
*looks at game*
hmm

Well, how much you enjoyed Oblivion will probably determine the extent of your enjoyment with Fallout 3. The game is similar, but does enough that it distinguishes itself and stands out from among the crowd. Does that make sense?

Calling Fallout 3 "Oblivion with guns" really does the game an injustice, because it's much more than that.

To be honest, I never got around to finishing Oblivion, either, but I beat the shit out of Fallout 3. They really smoothed out a lot of the issues that were present in the engine Oblivion. =P

I'd probably rent it first, and see how you like it.

good idea, i probably will rent it first, thanks for the tip
woo! *gets gaming gloves on, but not really*

Speaking of gaming gloves, do you remember those weird glove things they made for the SNES?

no i never had a SNES, i didnt get into gaming till i was 8, so its a little before my time XD

It was actually called the Power Glove, and was released with the NES. It's kind of like a primitive Wii-mote, but not really.

Look it up.

Nintendo, it seems, has always had a penchant for weird controllers and accessories. xD

 

[TerraMGP]

lmao, the first part really made me laugh

it sounds interesting, but im not sure its worth the money, because i get bored really easily and if its monotonous then ill probably forget it in about 2 days

Did you like Oblivion?

it was ok, but honestly i never finished it...
*looks at game*
hmm

Well, how much you enjoyed Oblivion will probably determine the extent of your enjoyment with Fallout 3. The game is similar, but does enough that it distinguishes itself and stands out from among the crowd. Does that make sense?

Calling Fallout 3 "Oblivion with guns" really does the game an injustice, because it's much more than that.

To be honest, I never got around to finishing Oblivion, either, but I beat the shit out of Fallout 3. They really smoothed out a lot of the issues that were present in the engine Oblivion. =P

I'd probably rent it first, and see how you like it.

good idea, i probably will rent it first, thanks for the tip
woo! *gets gaming gloves on, but not really*

Speaking of gaming gloves, do you remember those weird glove things they made for the SNES?

no i never had a SNES, i didnt get into gaming till i was 8, so its a little before my time XD

It was actually called the Power Glove, and was released with the NES. It's kind of like a primitive Wii-mote, but not really.

Look it up.

Nintendo, it seems, has always had a penchant for weird controllers and accessories. xD

And thats what makes them good. They are willing to try things instead of just pumping out modernized rehashing of how systems have always been made or tacking on REAL gimmicks (A wiimote which changes how gameplay works is not a gimmic, just underutalized by developers. Adding an MP3 player function to, say, a PSP IS a gimmick as it has no effect on gameplay)

Sadly with the DSi coming out I see some people at nintendo jumping on a very bad bandwagon.

 

[Lycanfan]

Well of course seemed he to like this game, which is essentially the same as it's predecessor (i.e. Oblivion), and basically called it an improvement over the last game. Whereas Fable 2, a game that actually improved upon it's predecessor and added a whole plethora of new things he all but dubbed as "the same as the 1st game but with a graphics upgrade." Perhaps it was because Fallout 3 is basically a FPS with a RPG system tacked on as opposed to Fable 2 which is just a strait RPG.

 

[Sirisaxman]

I think my best friend, who is a HUGE fan of the older Fallout games, summed it up best. The gameplay is better in Fallout 3, but the story is worse than the previous games.

 

[SimuLord]

Stupid question, does Fallout 3 have a DRM or Securerom? I heard it does and bad things about the "protection" I don't want to spend money on a game they'll only let me install a few times before I have to get it again.

Get it from GamersGate, which is providing a DRM-free version for the Euro market through its partnership with 2K Games (Bethesda's publisher). The North American retail box version contains SecuROM, but it's only being used to verify if the disc is in the drive, none of that install-limit stuff. Still, I'd rather have GamersGate's offering than my local Best Buy's.

 

[Snotnarok]

Thanks for the info SimuLord, I'm only trying to get some info for it since I'm not a fan of having to pay for a game more than once (few I think would be). I'm looking forward to getting it then.

 

[Soullegend]

haha great introduction nice one yahtzee

 

[Matey]

"A realistic setting, in which you really feel like the world was nuked 200 years ago, and the remaining survivors are a reflection of that; most of them have given up hope of anything ever being nice again, others have completly lost their minds, and the remainder are either strugling to survive, or have turned to slaving or being a raider.
just want to kill the enemy im fighting, and move onto the next one."

i felt very differently about the setting. it felt more like the world was nuked at most 20 years ago. the characters are all pretty hopeless or crazy. which would be fitting with a recent apocalypse. however 200 years after the nukes... it wouldnt feel like the world ended to anyone. when you look at a computer do think "whoa... what is that?! i dont get it at all" depending on your age... the answer is no. most people today who are under 50 are comfortable with computers and TVs and all sorts of technology. because its nothing new to us. if we lived through a nuclear war im sure we would be pretty hopeless and confused. but guess what. 50 years after the war... anyone not old enough to remember what it was like before the war... wouldnt think twice. it would all be completely normal to them.
and with 200 years to build up a decent society and some civilization... im pretty sure they would be alot better off than shown in fallout 3. as for the hordes of cannibalistic raiders... i must admit i havent really researched cannibalism.. but my understanding is its not a feasible option for survival. youd get horribly sick and die, if you tried to survive as such.

anyways. i know ive put in more thought than could be considered fair... but the originals caused me to have very high standards in the setting. i can forgive pop culture references in the games when they are hilarious. that kinda thing was fun in the originals. but i just feel the setting was a big detractor in fallout 3. though it did look pretty nice, except if youd been running around similair themed areas for hours.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Despite being rushed,buggy and underdeveloped(balance,item descriptions,dialog,ending,enemy variety,chems are hella weak and is under utilized,vats is under utilized, ect,ect ) its got enough content to make up for it but after the first 30 hours it gets boring as crap...
Would have been nice if they polished it up and balanced it... alot more....

Oh well with FOMM its fun to edit with "FOCK" it will rock!!

Also the devs obsession with cannibalism gets annoying after awhile...head hunters and super mutants I can agree on but to make all raiders cannibals by deault...uhg...

 

[GCM29]

The beginning was good, I laughed. Fallout 3 is a great game and better than Oblivion (although I don't look at Oblivion quite as harshly as Yahtzee). Sadly, I've lost my copy of Fallout 3 somewhere in my apartment....has anyone seen it?

 

[BadXAsh]

I gotta say I'm loving Fallout 3, It's been the best single player game play experience I've had in a LONG time. However I just read that they are planning 3 small download-able content packs in a few months. All for a cost... this annoys me to no end.

I payed $50 bucks for this game and while i feel I've gotten my money's worth, some free extras would just be the icing on the cake! It would keep my attention on Fallout 3 and give the Developers time to make Fallout 4.

DLC should be used to keep people interested in your product until you can deliver a new full game or even save the little things bundle them together add other small things, like most character creation options, or clothes and release a Large Expansion pack, not to try and soak every dime out of your consumers, and THEN hit them with another $50 game.

Ugh sorry for the Rant, just blowin off some steam, while waiting for the new ZP review.

 

[VMerken]

O god, no more mutant forums, I believe someone had said something like this. ?All of the normal people are no longer a part of the 'Fallout Community,' they're just fans of the games. The people who are a part of the 'Fallout Community' have been refined and distilled over time into glittering gems of hatred."

http://www.nma-fallout.com/content.php?page=features&id=14

Yeah, except that I'm not a member of the No Mutant Allowed forums or the "Fallout Community". It merely happens to be the case that, after playing Fallout 1 & 2 and "ObliGun", I cannot see the latter title embodying anything of the titles it claims to be a sequel of. Bethesda bought a franchise and used it as a skin for their latest Elder Scrolls, not a lot more can be said.

The graphics are great on PC with some tweaking, so is Oblivion. Well done, that point. The music however, often made me wonder when I was going to reach Mordor rather than feel part of a postapocalyptic environment. Kills the atmosphere quite a lot, so it's nice someone put out a mod which can overwrite London Philharmonic with Fallout 1&2 tracks. Still, I had hoped that Bethesda would at least have kept the music at the same level. Their house, their rules 'ey. The gameplay is less complex than Fallout's as it centers purely on skill points, nothing else. All the strategy is laid out on a single level. Maybe mods will rectify this, I don't know, but playing vanilla Gunsblivion is not really challenging.

And let's not get started about FPS/TPS perspective, twitch gaming polluting a title which once was essentially a GURPS-based RPG and all that.

By its own merit it's an okay game (but nothing groundbreaking or deep about it as far as I can see) and as PablosDog mentions, not everyone in the "Fallout Community" is glittering its hatred over it. We're all individuals, with a subjective opinion. You. Me. Even the members of the "Fallout Community".

Either way, I think there would have been less of the "verbal opposition" you observe if only Bethesda hadn't glued a "3" to that Fallout. "Fallout Gaiden" would have been much more appropriate for a title, which throws out basically all the core points of the game and replaces them with other ones.

 

[thetrixxxter]

I've probably put in over 100 hours into fallout 3 and yeah the ending does suck, but then again so does everything else in life. not every story has a happy ending and a real hero rarely lives long enough to be called one. that's why the medal of honor is usually awarded posthumously. i still like the game and i think it turned out pretty good, just like Yahtzee said.

 

[3nj0i]

hah that was the best when the credits rolled in and he said "yeah its pretty good" and then the credits closed, classic yahtzee =D

 

[kimboslice]

Fallout 3 has waaaaaay too much hype.
It's not even that great.

 

[I Am The Party]

I was toying with the notion of buying this game and now that it's got an 'okay' from Yahtzee, it's bound to be prett damn good because we know that in Yahtzeeworld, a game only gets an awesome if it's bleeds branston pickle...and that'll never happen.