Zero Punctuation: Fallout 3

[zheaven]

I have been wondering how you were going to review this game for weeks now.. Well done!

 

[MurmurTwins]

I think it's time for Yahtzee to release reviews bi-weekly.

 

[Pablosdog]

So

well it would be maam (but please nobody call me Maam, god I feel old enough.) But thank you. Usually though I'm on hte side of the Fanboy/girl raving lunatic 'it was better the old way' side. I would have adored it if they had made this game as an Isometric view. But They were not going to, and so basing it on the whole 'it should have been Isometric' already gives it a failing grade in the minds of many people. Its like a teacher asking for a paper on video games and then failing a paper for being PRO video games. Odd analogy I know but honestly thats about what it equates to.

But one good thing has come from all this. I am now tempted to go back to Cyrodill and again attempt to put every single book in the game into one house.

Yeah so, all the other flaws that a bunch of people are complaining about don't exist then?

lol wut?

Its not the fact that its third person that bothers me, its the lame fucking ai,storyline, and illogical design choices that make me think that game barely elevates itself about "meh"
The question is, what more do you want from fans of the original? Do you want us tugging on bethesda's salty sack and run around proclaiming it's the second coming?

Boo hoo we have complaints, no game is perfect, we never figured fallout 3 would be. But when they've had 4 years, and still manage to fuck up as much as they did, you have to wonder maybe they spent to much of that time with pr.

 

[TomClancy]

I was expecting more of a review since this game had so many flaws. He isnt very consistent or tactful in his past reviews. I dont know if its all the games coming out or the people bugging him and telling him what to do. He didnt mention that this game got a 10/10 by some magazines and he doesnt put it down for that, yet...he will bash Halo 3 for that reason. 8/ Doesnt make much sense why he doesnt go full throttle with the hate? There is so much obvious bad things in this game maybe he doesnt even want to bother, so he nitpicks on things that only matter to him, like IMMERSION and LIAM NESSON and the Oblivion copy paste thingy (really, who doesnt know all about the Obvilion engine being reused again.) He could have at least mentioned, when using VATS, you have trouble trying to select a body part i want on the Xbox 360, if the percentage is 95% and you will still miss or even if there is a object in the way, when selecting mutiple targets why does he have to concentrate his fire on one guy and do the same thing AGAIN for the other enemy. Why dont they just combine the animation? Another thing............. NO SEX OR CHILD KILLING! The list goes on and on. I dont see possibly how this could be a sequel to the other Fallout games. Fallout fans should steer clear from this game because the ending will make the entire time you spent on the game like a waste of time. Better luck for Fallout 4 or maybe remaking Fallout 1 would be nice too.

 

[TerraMGP]

So

well it would be maam (but please nobody call me Maam, god I feel old enough.) But thank you. Usually though I'm on hte side of the Fanboy/girl raving lunatic 'it was better the old way' side. I would have adored it if they had made this game as an Isometric view. But They were not going to, and so basing it on the whole 'it should have been Isometric' already gives it a failing grade in the minds of many people. Its like a teacher asking for a paper on video games and then failing a paper for being PRO video games. Odd analogy I know but honestly thats about what it equates to.

But one good thing has come from all this. I am now tempted to go back to Cyrodill and again attempt to put every single book in the game into one house.

Yeah so, all the other flaws that a bunch of people are complaining about don't exist then?

lol wut?

Its not the fact that its third person that bothers me, its the lame fucking ai,storyline, and illogical design choices that make me think that game barely elevates itself about "meh"
The question is, what more do you want from fans of the original? Do you want us tugging on bethesda's salty sack and run around proclaiming it's the second coming?

Boo hoo we have complaints, no game is perfect, we never figured fallout 3 would be. But when they've had 4 years, and still manage to fuck up as much as they did, you have to wonder maybe they spent to much of that time with pr.

I want you to accept that maybe, just maybe, its not so much a matter of 'The game doesn't live up to the original' and more a matter of 'The game doesn't live up to my unrealistic, Idealized view of the original'. Your right, people have alot of complaints about the game but frankly these seem to be similar to complaints some people had about 2. People complain about the story for example. You know if you look hard enough you will find inconsistancies in the first two games with the story and side quest stories as well. As for the AI what do you want exactly? A massive open world where each foe knows how to skulk around and then shoot you from behind while two teammates distract you?

The fact is that All of the fallout games like every other game in human history have flaws. This game just got ripped apart and seen as 'barely above meh' because its not VB and because its popular for the people who consider themselves Indie to not like Oblivion. There was nothing game breakingly bad about Fallout 3 and it kept the Mythos alive very well. Yes many games today are utter tripe but this was not. Its just that between the people trying to be cool by bashing bathesda and the people who will never be happy with a Fallout 3 no matter who makes it because it won't scratch that Nostalgia itch the game really doesn't stand a chance with the overly vocal 1% who are going to highlight every single thing that could be considered wrong with it regardless of how every other game past and present can be picked apart with at least as many flaws.

As for 360 problems for the game, well, why are you trying to play ANY game with a first person mode on a controller? honestly.

 

[Pablosdog]

So

well it would be maam (but please nobody call me Maam, god I feel old enough.) But thank you. Usually though I'm on hte side of the Fanboy/girl raving lunatic 'it was better the old way' side. I would have adored it if they had made this game as an Isometric view. But They were not going to, and so basing it on the whole 'it should have been Isometric' already gives it a failing grade in the minds of many people. Its like a teacher asking for a paper on video games and then failing a paper for being PRO video games. Odd analogy I know but honestly thats about what it equates to.

But one good thing has come from all this. I am now tempted to go back to Cyrodill and again attempt to put every single book in the game into one house.

Yeah so, all the other flaws that a bunch of people are complaining about don't exist then?

lol wut?

Its not the fact that its third person that bothers me, its the lame fucking ai,storyline, and illogical design choices that make me think that game barely elevates itself about "meh"
The question is, what more do you want from fans of the original? Do you want us tugging on bethesda's salty sack and run around proclaiming it's the second coming?

Boo hoo we have complaints, no game is perfect, we never figured fallout 3 would be. But when they've had 4 years, and still manage to fuck up as much as they did, you have to wonder maybe they spent to much of that time with pr.

I want you to accept that maybe, just maybe, its not so much a matter of 'The game doesn't live up to the original' and more a matter of 'The game doesn't live up to my unrealistic, Idealized view of the original'. Your right, people have alot of complaints about the game but frankly these seem to be similar to complaints some people had about 2. People complain about the story for example. You know if you look hard enough you will find inconsistancies in the first two games with the story and side quest stories as well. As for the AI what do you want exactly? A massive open world where each foe knows how to skulk around and then shoot you from behind while two teammates distract you?

The fact is that All of the fallout games like every other game in human history have flaws. This game just got ripped apart and seen as 'barely above meh' because its not VB and because its popular for the people who consider themselves Indie to not like Oblivion. There was nothing game breakingly bad about Fallout 3 and it kept the Mythos alive very well. Yes many games today are utter tripe but this was not. Its just that between the people trying to be cool by bashing bathesda and the people who will never be happy with a Fallout 3 no matter who makes it because it won't scratch that Nostalgia itch the game really doesn't stand a chance with the overly vocal 1% who are going to highlight every single thing that could be considered wrong with it regardless of how every other game past and present can be picked apart with at least as many flaws.

As for 360 problems for the game, well, why are you trying to play ANY game with a first person mode on a controller? honestly.

You aren't getting the point, and no one is "indie" for not liking oblivion, that's utter drivel and you know it. Oblivion was a flawed game, it had less skills and again like fallout 3 had horrible ai, a horrible storyline and yes broken characters(every character could pretty much do every quest). Just because a game is beloved by the masses doesn't ignore the faults that it has. Fallout was largely a realstic depiction of a world gone sour. This is a suger coated game that just happens to have the fallout name.

I mean, when the creators themselves said that they made fallout strictly in mind to be isometric, turn based and complex. Figure out how bethesda fucked up, and in a way fucked them over from ever making a sequel to a game THEY FUCKING CREATED. No one is comparing this to vb, vb is long dead. What we are comparing it to, is and should be, how good it is compared to the originals. It's like you frown upon any sort of criticism to a game you like. Fallout 1 and 2 had there problems, but you know, since they were good enough for bethesda to steal the i.p away, they must have been worth something right?

Also, where the fuck did I complain about 360 problems relating to fallout 3?

 

[TerraMGP]

So

well it would be maam (but please nobody call me Maam, god I feel old enough.) But thank you. Usually though I'm on hte side of the Fanboy/girl raving lunatic 'it was better the old way' side. I would have adored it if they had made this game as an Isometric view. But They were not going to, and so basing it on the whole 'it should have been Isometric' already gives it a failing grade in the minds of many people. Its like a teacher asking for a paper on video games and then failing a paper for being PRO video games. Odd analogy I know but honestly thats about what it equates to.

But one good thing has come from all this. I am now tempted to go back to Cyrodill and again attempt to put every single book in the game into one house.

Yeah so, all the other flaws that a bunch of people are complaining about don't exist then?

lol wut?

Its not the fact that its third person that bothers me, its the lame fucking ai,storyline, and illogical design choices that make me think that game barely elevates itself about "meh"
The question is, what more do you want from fans of the original? Do you want us tugging on bethesda's salty sack and run around proclaiming it's the second coming?

Boo hoo we have complaints, no game is perfect, we never figured fallout 3 would be. But when they've had 4 years, and still manage to fuck up as much as they did, you have to wonder maybe they spent to much of that time with pr.

I want you to accept that maybe, just maybe, its not so much a matter of 'The game doesn't live up to the original' and more a matter of 'The game doesn't live up to my unrealistic, Idealized view of the original'. Your right, people have alot of complaints about the game but frankly these seem to be similar to complaints some people had about 2. People complain about the story for example. You know if you look hard enough you will find inconsistancies in the first two games with the story and side quest stories as well. As for the AI what do you want exactly? A massive open world where each foe knows how to skulk around and then shoot you from behind while two teammates distract you?

The fact is that All of the fallout games like every other game in human history have flaws. This game just got ripped apart and seen as 'barely above meh' because its not VB and because its popular for the people who consider themselves Indie to not like Oblivion. There was nothing game breakingly bad about Fallout 3 and it kept the Mythos alive very well. Yes many games today are utter tripe but this was not. Its just that between the people trying to be cool by bashing bathesda and the people who will never be happy with a Fallout 3 no matter who makes it because it won't scratch that Nostalgia itch the game really doesn't stand a chance with the overly vocal 1% who are going to highlight every single thing that could be considered wrong with it regardless of how every other game past and present can be picked apart with at least as many flaws.

As for 360 problems for the game, well, why are you trying to play ANY game with a first person mode on a controller? honestly.

You aren't getting the point, and no one is "indie" for not liking oblivion, that's utter drivel and you know it. Oblivion was a flawed game, it had less skills and again like fallout 3 had horrible ai, a horrible storyline and yes broken characters(every character could pretty much do every quest). Just because a game is beloved by the masses doesn't ignore the faults that it has. Fallout was largely a realstic depiction of a world gone sour. This is a suger coated game that just happens to have the fallout name.

I mean, when the creators themselves said that they made fallout strictly in mind to be isometric, turn based and complex. Figure out how bethesda fucked up, and in a way fucked them over from ever making a sequel to a game THEY FUCKING CREATED. No one is comparing this to vb, vb is long dead. What we are comparing it to, is and should be, how good it is compared to the originals. It's like you frown upon any sort of criticism to a game you like. Fallout 1 and 2 had there problems, but you know, since they were good enough for bethesda to steal the i.p away, they must have been worth something right?

Also, where the fuck did I complain about 360 problems relating to fallout 3?

First the 360 refrence was not meant to be aimed at you, but the guy who posted after you. Apparenlty this forum does not like my quoting things.

But what I am trying to say is that a games popularity with the masses may be no reason to love it, but its also no reason to needlessly rip it apart. I fully admit the MAIN story of Oblivion was not as good as it could have been, but then that is part of what made it good. all the other stories were great. The side quests made the world feel more like a world. Yes they could put a better carrot on the stick but maybe instead of complaining about that people should start looking away from that carrot and enjoying the walk. Oblivion was a good game because it was fun. I liked the fighters guild quests, mages guild quests, knights of the nine quest, pretty much everything other than the way the main quest ended, up until the end, I adored.

I agree, Isometric Tabletop translation needs to come back, but as much as I would like to see that I have to admit when a game is good. Sure it has AI flaws but for a massive world it does well. Sure the main story falls a bit flat but the side stories and the sandbox of the world feels wonderful and fits the Fallout feel. Putting more scrutiny to a game because its popular or because it deviates from the way its predecessors worked is no more productive than excusing massive glaring flaws in a game. Fallout 3 had none.

You can rip the fun out of any game if you try hard enough, and I have the feeling that most everyone who is upset with it was convinced from the start it was going to be bad, and never gave themselves a chance to be open minded about it. I would bet that most of the detractors came into it wanting it to be bad, wanting Bethesda to be at fault. I love Fallout, I love the real Baulders gate, I love revenant and I am a tabletop gamer. Oblivion is still fun, Fallout 3 is still fun and both keep with their well established backstory, mythology and feel of the setting.

But frankly if people want to rip the fun out of the game for themselves I suppose thats their choice. Me I'll be playing Fallout 3, and working on writing up some tabletop rules since I'm sure anything produced to be 'almost like it' is a bit off for my taste.

 

[kamos]

I'm a huge fan of your reviews, but I felt like you've played the game for 10 minutes and based your review on what's written around the net.

Also, to all the people who say Fallout 1/2 fans are *insert whatever here*: I am a huge Fallout 1/2 fan and I actually liked FO3. I think the graphics were pretty good in FO3 (despite some minor design flaws like intact cities after 200 years, hehe) and the real-time / aimed shot thing never got old.

I have seen good things and I have seen bad things in this game.

Good:
- You get to see things in 3D, cool explosions (that nuke's explosion was great), etc.
- Good level design... great mood in the "dungeons".
- Many interesting characters / places. New content for the FO universe.
- Bizarre aimed shot / RTS mix that was actually pretty entertaining. Raiders falling from windows like bandits in western movies.

Bad:
- "Boo hoo I'm a villain!" characters and vampires. Oh man... vampires. Heh-heh. Some of the writing really sucks.
- A whole semantic layer is gone, and a lot of the dark humor and irony went away along with it. There are no item descriptions, no scenary descriptions, etc.
- The ending sucks. They said FO3 had 200 endings, no wait a thousand, NO A MILLION ENDINGS MWAHAHAHA all your endings are belong to us!!! - oops, sorry for that. What I meant is: so what the hell happened to the world after all my char's running around?

Finally, I'm still trying to understand why Bethesda decided to buy the Fallout franchise instead of just creating its own. I don't think the game would have sold less, and they wouldn't have angered so many fans/fanboys/whatever.

Also, playing FO3 made me apreciate Blizzard a bit more. I always thought: "bah, can't they make something new instead of the same old games?" But know what? That shows a bit of respect for the hardcore fans.

Also, the guy who said this game can be played like FO 1/2 has obviously never played those games and is just trying to act cool and start a flame war. Pissing in a sea of piss never gets old, I guess.

 

[mhitman]

fallouts ending seemed anti climatic to me :/

 

[Matey]

i woulda liked it better if it was called "fallout adventures" or something like that...
i dont mind off-shoots in the fallout universe that explore different game styles...
i loved tactics...
but if its calling itself fallout 3... it shoulda been a real rpg.

anyways. yes beth did put tons of detail into the game... unfortunatly they didnt bother putting in much effort for the story or the dialogue or the setting. seriously... if we had a nuclear war tomorrow... any of us who survived would be fighting to survive however we could. and there would be bandits and raiders and so on.. as well as people banding together trying to make a decent life... (just like in fallout 3). however... our children would not have known life before the nukes... and thus would consider all this normal. and they would move on... in fallout 3 everyone still seems to be like "holy shit the world just ended!" and trying to scrape together without any cohesion or plans.


anyways. to sum it up. detail is good. but its poorly thought out.

 

[Saxon-Mercenary]

Another great video.

 

[ampa451]

i hope he either does LBP,or left 4 dead, or he woodsheds Sonic unleashed and reveal it as another fan game.

 

[BlueMage]

Oh Yahtzee, your (seeming) love for Thief mirrors my own.

Oblivion with guns will be purchased.

 

[Snotnarok]

This review actually convinced me to try the game out, usually I don't listen to reviews since they're very picky on things that don't matter, but eh.

 

[EchetusXe]

I don't like Branston pickle.

 

[Worm4Life]

Much better than the Fable 2 review.

 

[derpa]

You know there is no point in arguing this. If you guys want to make yoruselves miserable by ripping apart the game bit by bit over small things and convincing yourselves that its not good then really your only hurting yourselves. Bethesda makes good games. I personally adore the large open ended world thing and the do it really well in real time. I love the old games, but Oblivion and Fallout 3 are great games.

I will say this though. If your capable of keeping your standards realistic and not projecting hatred onto a game for the 'indie reason to hate it' you may find that alot of those games are actually fun. In the end isn't that the point?

There are small things but there are a lot of big things also.

Listen, I've sad its a "bad RPG" which it is, while its a pretty fun action/FPS with some RPG elements thrown in, really just should not have been named fallout 3 and just like "The Wastes" or "Fallout: Oblivion"

Also Beth doesn't make good RPGs anymore, how was some standards not even remotely realistic?

 

[TerraMGP]

Its not that they don't make good RPGs anymore, its that they mix the RPG and FPS/action elements enough that it does not feel like the RPGs we are used to. Granted the system could still use some refinement and they could do with going back a bit more in complexity but I feel like they are trying to find A balance between their older and newer games. I will agree with everyone that they have problems with follow though on the main quests though. But if your looking at it as a pure RPG or mainly an RPG you are going to miss the boat because thats not the design intent.

As for unrealistic expectations Everyone expected what they thought Van bBurin would be. They wanted it to be Isometric, they wanted it to have everything the same as it was, and frankly they wanted Black Isle again. Any variation is going to upset people enough that they are going to call it bad. I still don't understand why people don't like oblivion overall but maybe thats why I'm still confused by anyone saying Fallout 3 didn't work.

Sometimes you have to judge a game by what it is, not what you expected it to be.

 

[TerraMGP]

Well as an RPG fan I can tell you I liked what they did. No the RPG elements are not as deep as one might hope but they are deeper than people give them credit for and work well. See the thing is I think of it in terms of having two diffrent DMs. Mass effect we can say is a rule-lawyering DM who just got off a kick with a couple of really bad Starwars D20 (Pre Saga) campaigns and decided to try something new. So He/She picked up a copy of D20 future tweaked the hell out of the rules and just went nuts, hence mass effect.

Oblivion and Bethesda are more like the DM who wants to play the original D&D where Elf is a class and wants you to Role play everything out with the statistics as a general guideline rather than the deciding factor. The kind of guy who is more than willing to let your fireball impact cause an avalanche that kills the ogre in spite of there not being a rule for it.

I personally enjoy both DM styles so to speak. Mass effect and games like it grant you alot more in the way of rules to lawyer and lord do I love that, but Fallout 3 has more immersion because I'm not checking those rules all the time. Yes I'm more or less buying feats, skill points and stat points but move beyond that and it feels more like those role plays where you just play a role. I like that too. Its hard to do with a video game though, and I think thats what Bathesda is trying to protect.

On that note it does make me sad though that they killed the Fallout D20 project. THAT one I am mad at them for.

 

[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.