Review Edward R Murrow's Dissertation on Fallout 3

[Ausir]

It's different. During Oblivion development Bethesda lied just about everything. That had to be pointed out. With Fallout 3 Bethesda was a lot more honest and straightforward, starting with that "we aint gonna do what we don't do well" quote. It doesn't get any more honest than this.

500 endings?

 

[Tintin]

I don't really see where the old Oblivion review is just "trashing" the game and not criticizing it. He mentions the lack of RPG elements, just like in the Fallout 3 review, but also goes over how it fares as an action, exploration game or dungeon crawler, and his final conclusion, while not overtly positive, doesn't exactly trash the game.

P.S. You guys are huge nerds.

 

[DefJam101]

FLIP-FLOP.

FLIP-FLOP.

FLIP-FLOP.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I don't really see where the old Oblivion review is just "trashing" the game and not criticizing it. He mentions the lack of RPG elements, just like in the Fallout 3 review, but also goes over how it fares as an action, exploration game or dungeon crawler, and his final conclusion, while not overtly positive, doesn't exactly trash the game.

For the record, I agree. However I also believe Edward's review did the same. Sure, his overall opinion was harsh but he did point out plenty of things people might like:

Ultimately, Fallout 3 is more Bethesda mediocrity in the vein of Morrowind or Oblivion. If those games tickled your fancy, you're bound to love this game, it's everything they do, but better.

I think it's just pretty clear Edward wasn't after another hiking simulator (count the number of times he says things like "Seeing as it's a sequel to one of the best role-playing games ever made, the RPG elements are probably a decent place to start off") and I certainly see no problem reviewing the game as such. I certainly didn't review Dawn of War from the angle that "Explosions are kewl u'll love it". I reviewed it from what I expected out of the game, which was a finely balanced RTS in the same vein as Starcraft, a game that did it all better 10 years ago.

In short, Edward praised what was done well and derided what he found was done poorly and gave plenty of reasons why. As for being "full of errors", that's just a load of crap being used by people looking for a reason to bash it.

 

[Tintin]

I think it is reasonable to expect an RPG site to review a sequel to a widely-respected RPG title from an RPG gamer's perspective.

I don't think that Edward R. Murrow has any responsibility to evaluate the game from a neutral perspective, as a sandbox/action game, because this is a niche-focused site, not a general game review site. The reviews on a CRPG-focused website are intended to tell fans whether people who like CRPGs will like Fallout 3. JustAdventure frequently complains when games don't use the mouse for movement. That doesn't mean that arrow movement is a bad idea, but it certainly irritates their audience, point and click adventure gamers. Similarly, action-oriented gameplay doesn't necessarily make a game bad, but dedicated CRPG fans probably won't enjoy it.

Doesn't mean that it isn't nice to also get a more balanced look at whether the game has any merit for what it really is, but it's not required.

Then again, as for the whole debate going on about whether RPGCodex has "historically" fit that role in the first place, well, the grown ups can fight over that one. Same goes for the "bias" stuff.

 

[cares]

Interesting discussion going on in this thread...

now, I'll probably never play FO3 for various reasons (mostly because of my low tolerance for FP console shooters masquerading as rpgs and the idea of Bethesda as an rpg developer), but from what I've seen of it, it appears to me the only thing it's good for is exploiting glitches and posting funny youtube videos...

so, do some minor instances of decent quests and well realized stylistic elements really outweigh the apparent general retardedness of this game?

what the fuck puts it on the same page with Fallout 2?

 

[MetalCraze]

So GTA is not a sandbox game?

If you really can't understand what sandbox games are and what makes them different from other games, I don't think I can help you.

Hi Hamster. What you witness here is VD's trademarked 180 degree turns just to make himself seem less failing at arguments. Because just a few pages ago he was giving GTA as an example of sandbox game yet when you say to him that GTA had railroading (which is wrong for Arcanum cuz VD says it isn't a sandbox game because of that) he goes "uhm erm you just can't grasp my flawed logic!"

And a little bit Twinfalls way:
Having many skill checks doesn't mean they are good - because they are all leading to the same outcome and as you've said yourself it is often "quicker quest completion".
That alone makes absolute majority of those skill checks just a gimmick. Shitty design choices don't make a game good just because there are many of them.

 

[trais]

so, do some minor instances of decent quests and well realized stylistic elements really outweigh the apparent general retardedness of this game?

In my opinion you're better off playing something else.
In my playthrough I had to carry at least five different weapons hoping that enemies would have them too, so I could repair and resupply them. Maybe because you need billions of bullets to kill anything, and weapons degrade damn fast. I mean System Shock 2 fast. And it's as annoying now as it was annoying back then.
Exploration and looting aspect of F3 is somewhat crippled by it, because even if you'd managed to grab some powerful gun early in the game, you still wouldn't want to use it 'cause you would have to run back and forth between part of wasteland you're currently exploring and someone who can repair it for you for money.
Dialogs and quests are mostly rubbish, so even if you find something decent in this game, you'll be too pissed off to enjoy it anyway, so my advice would be to stay away from this game.

 

[Naked Ninja]

OMG, DU, just read your comparison between Starcraft and DoW...it's horrible. Once you start getting deeper into the mechanics of DoW there is just SO much more there, with the cover, morale, different armor and damage types etc. So much depth.

Terrible job on comparing Space marines and chaos as well, the two are balanced in other ways than just simple numbers.

And "why build space marines when you can build terminators?" Are you high? Space marines are the most potent basic unit in the game, remaining so all they way through to the top tier. There is little that 5 squads of fully kitted out space marines can't handle, especially since you are capped out at 2 squads of terminators.They will tear your relic unit down, your vehicles, whatever.

"Why build scouts?" Because with 4 sniper rifles per squad they can very quickly break the morale of even high level squads, rendering them nearly useless.

"If you've let your opponent get more units than you, you're dead. Superior numbers always win and don't get me wrong, so they should."

L2P noob. You are very wrong here.


Damn dude, you just suck. Try playing DoW online sometime, it will be enlightening.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Damn dude, you just suck. Try playing DoW online sometime, it will be enlightening.

The two expansion packs that were released (that I didn't include in the review) went a long way towards correcting quite a significant number of balance issues, like taking away some of the heavy weapons for the Chaos (in Vanilla DoW, Chaos got everything the same as the Space Marines and while their accuracy and other factors were reduced it wasn't by enough). You'll also note other issues like the Servitors which I mention in the review (can't remember what the Chaos version are called now) not taking up population has been corrected. Servitors in the Dark Crusade Expansion (if I recall correctly) use no population but are capped at 4 units compared to vanilla where they took 1 pop (an issue I raised in the review).

Balance issues in DoW were an ongoing problem when I wrote the review (before or about the time the DC expansion came out). Relic even had "Balance Issues" forums for them (now archived). DoW today + Expansions and expansion patches is a better game.

Still not as good as Starcraft though.

 

[Naked Ninja]

The two expansion packs that were released (that I didn't include in the review) went a long way towards correcting quite a significant number of balance issues

Oh, I'm sure they did, like Brood Wars and the SC patches did for SC.

in Vanilla DoW, Chaos got everything the same as the Space Marines and while their
accuracy and other factors were reduced it wasn't by enough

Space marines still got Scout marines in vanilla though, the sniper rifles are AMAZINGLY useful at rendering entire squads ineffective. You can't just compare individual units out of context.

Balance issues in DoW were an ongoing problem when I wrote the review (before or about the time the DC expansion came out). Relic even had "Balance Issues" forums for them (now archived). DoW today + Expansions and expansion patches is a better game.

Fair enough. You're still a heretic though and I have no choice but to wage eternal war against your blasphemous self.

I must admit, I considered SC my top RTS until we got into playing DoW at the office at lunch, after months of it I am amazed at the depth Relic put into the whole thing, there are so many delicious nuances. I hope SC2 has some of that depth, at least.

I do miss real air units though.

 

[Longshanks]

If that is the case, I really think that you should have added to your comments on his review what you thought he did right. Don't get me wrong VD, I understand you probably have a lot more experience in dealing with people than me. And maybe this wouldn't go well with your posting style or something. But in my limited experience, criticism where you don't show any good points not only tend to be way harder to swallow, but can also make the criticized one a bit lost, as they might not have a good idea of what they did right.

A decent point. There may have been something positive back in the early stages of the thread, but if there was, it was slight. It's particularly decent as much of the criticism of the review from VD, TF and NN is over minor issues - schematics, vampire people, too harshly worded (stylistic decision more than anything) and shit-flinging about bias (apologies to VD for lumping him in with these, as he's argued in much better faith, will separate now). In fact TF and NN seem to have engaged in exactly the behaviour they are criticising Ed for - going in with a prejudiced view (we know NN has no love for, and is continually frustrated by the stereotypical Codexer who venerates Fallout and bashes most else), and then looking very hard for anything that will support their bias, resulting in some erroneous criticism, jumping to attack and accusation rather than requesting clarification, and nitpicking at the edges, ignoring the heart of the point they were addressing. Some of DU's points have been pedantic, but his comments on the "vampire people" nitpickery ignoring Ed's point entirely was absolutely spot on.

The most substantial argument is VD's point that it should be reviewed as a sandbox game, not more generally as an RPG, but I don't see this as entirely incontestable, certainly not to the point that Ed's review should be derided as a mere biased rant. If anything it could be agreed that Ed and VD have different reviewing standards or styles. The conclusion that Ed went in with prejudice and played the game to confirm them (subconsciously or not) is an unfair one, and is a classic ESF style attack (a popular put-down in this thread). VD's Oblivion, Fallout 3 impressions and even his Fallout 3 review (not quite positive enough for some) were all attacked in exactly the same way.

I'm willing to bet that had VD reviewed Fallout 3 as an RPG, with a fairly demanding standard, as Ed did, his review would be just as negative. Given the standpoint from which the game was reviewed seems the only major point of disagreement, it has seen surprisingly little discussion in the thread so far, taking a back seat to exhaustive battles for pyrrhic victories on minor issues.

I am not at all surprised that Ed disliked Fallout 3, as having read many of his posts on the Beth boards during development, it was clear he'd not enjoy another M&O-like game, particularly when it's meant to be Fallout. Knowing what kind of games you do not enjoy, and therefore being wary of a developer known to produce them, is not unreasonable bias. In Fallout 3's case, Ed's wariness proved well-founded, it is very much an M&O type game, and given he did not like those, it's not surprising he did not like it. His review is very much written as someone who, likes strong RPGs, and is not a fan of sandbox RPGs. And as such it can be criticised for providing a narrow view of the game, and not making enough effort to put himself in the shoes of a sandbox fan. However, this is not a fatal flaw, and is a defensible reviewing approach, whatsmore it is made clear in the piece.

 

[hiver]

dammit people....

That had to be pointed out. With Fallout 3 Bethesda was a lot more honest and straightforward

They lied about karma system. (mostly unofficially )
Lied about dialogue. (there are low intelligence options - all of them)
About endings. (officially)
And about leveling up of enemies. (officially)


one question for you experts that managed to play the whole game.
Does tagging a skill actually do anything?

My three tagged skills were increasing point by point, just like others.
<Whats up with that?

 

[KurtH]

Tagged skills get a one-time bonus of 15 points.
:nerf:

 

[Hamster]

The game had 7 chapters, for God's sake. That alone clearly marks it as a story-driven game, which is the opposite of sandbox.

That marks it as a story-driven game? Chapters are just divisions of main quest, nothing more, and all games have mq. Yes, chapters in BG1 open new locations as you progress, but the same happened in GTA and Gothic.

And how about Icewind Dale? According to your definition(it has chapters and no free exploration) it's also a story-driven RPG and must be judged by harshest roleplaying standarts.

 

[Vault Dweller]

So GTA is not a sandbox game?

If you really can't understand what sandbox games are and what makes them different from other games, I don't think I can help you.

Hi Hamster. What you witness here is VD's trademarked 180 degree turns just to make himself seem less failing at arguments.

Trademarked 180 degree turns? Prove it or shut the fuck up.

Because just a few pages ago he was giving GTA as an example of sandbox game yet when you say to him that GTA had railroading (which is wrong for Arcanum cuz VD says it isn't a sandbox game because of that) he goes "uhm erm you just can't grasp my flawed logic!"

GTA is a 100% sandbox game. GTA does NOT have rail roading. Do you even understand what railroading means? It's a term for "you can only do this and nothing else". How can it be applied to GTA?

As for that Arcanum "quote", where did I claim that? Can I have a link to that post? If not, please avoid making shit up and claiming that I said it in the future.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The game had 7 chapters, for God's sake. That alone clearly marks it as a story-driven game, which is the opposite of sandbox.

That marks it as a story-driven game? Chapters are just divisions of main quest, nothing more, and all games have mq.

Yet in some games MQ is the focus (BG, Witcher, KOTOR, etc) and in some games it's optional content (GTA, Morrowind, Assassins Creed, Gothic 3). See the difference?

Yes, chapters in BG1 open new locations as you progress, but the same happened in GTA and Gothic.

Not to the same degree. GTA 4 gives you half of the huge "game world" right away and opens the other half shortly after. Gothic 3 is wide open from the start. Gothic 2 starts you off with the entire newly added, wide open land, twice the size of the original game, and later opens the colony (G1 area) for you.

You can't compare it to the BG1 flow. Just because you liked exploring areas doesn't make it a sandbox game. Every game has new areas (duh!) that you explore. Every game has main quest and some story. Every game has combat. Yet some games are story-driven, some are sandbox, some are dungeon crawlers, etc.

And how about Icewind Dale? According to your definition(it has chapters and no free exploration) it's also a story-driven RPG and must be judged by harshest roleplaying standarts.

Story-driven doesn't imply oodles of role-playing, btw. If the story is sitting in the driver's seat, than you not driving but enjoying the ride. KOTOR, Planescape, Witcher.

As for your question, once again, all games have all or most aspects, but they can only be defined by the dominant aspect. In the IWD case that's combat, hence it's a dungeon crawler.

 

[Hamster]

Not to the same degree. GTA 4 gives you half of the huge "game world" right away and opens the other half shortly after. Gothic 3 is wide open from the start. Gothic 2 starts you off with the entire newly added, wide open land, twice the size of the original game, and later opens the colony (G1 area) for you.

GTA 4 gives you 1/3 of the world, Gothic 2 2/3. IN BG1 as far as i remember only that forest with spiders and main city are closed, so why it's "not to the same degree"?

Just because you liked exploring areas doesn't make it a sandbox game.

If exploring is the most fun and extensive form of gameplay present, then why not? Maybe it's not a pure sandbox game but it surely has massive explroring element.
After all, why are we judgung sand box games by lower standarts? Because creating huge world to explore drains resources of developers and as a result other elemets are not so developed as in games where all resources were spent on filling small locations with content.
Thats what we also see in BG1, it have huge areas to explrore but inferiour roleplaying content compared to, for example BG2.

As for your question, once again, all games have all or most aspects, but they can only be defined by the dominant aspect. In the IWD case that's combat, hence it's a dungeon crawler.

Yes, it's combat in IWD. It's also combat and explroring in BG1.

 

[MetalCraze]

Trademarked 180 degree turns? Prove it or shut the fuck up.

Just read your own replies. Like f.e. from our recent discussion a few pages ago. Boy your memory is short.

GTA is a 100% sandbox game. GTA does NOT have rail roading.

Right. "You can't go here until you will complete this absolutely linear quest line" is not railroading - it's a 100% sandbox.
Even Fallout is much more sandboxy in this regard.

Do you even understand what railroading means? It's a term for "you can only do this and nothing else". How can it be applied to GTA?

No railroading means that you must do this and nothing else to reach this next thing in a game. And it applies to GTA just fine.

As for that Arcanum "quote", where did I claim that? Can I have a link to that post? If not, please avoid making shit up and claiming that I said it in the future.

"Once you are done with the handful of quests per town, you are done. Move on or stay and stare at the screen all day. Can you explore around each town, looking for and finding new things? Can you constantly find new things? Can you play for a few hours doing "nothing important" like you can in GTA, Fallout 3, Morrowind, Gothic?"
Which is a part of discussion "why Arcanum is not sandboxy" yet the same is applied to GTA just fine. And especially to TES games incl. F3.

 

[Helton]

Honestly, besides freedom, I thought "sand-box" also implied some kind of construction.

You could make an argument for Vice City and San Andreas because you made a little real-estate empire. GTA 4 wasn't sand box to me, though.

 

[DefJam101]

I was also surprised by DU's DoW review. Maybe I played it long after it had been patched and... expanded... but it seemed to me like a fairly balanced and strategically deep game. Comparing it to Starcraft, though, the actual unit composition means much less. It felt like a more physical game, where movement and positioning were of greater importance than having the right combination of units to RocksPaperScissors the other guy to death. I'm also not sure why you said there was no way to disrupt your opponent's resources, it's called harassing. You run around at the start of the game (and early midgame) and attack his outposts, slowing down his resource acquisition. It's a perfectly valid strategy and is absolutely essential for victory against a competent player.

Yes, Starcraft is more balanced, but it's a different type of game IMHO.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

According to Matt Norton, lead designer of Fallout 2, the deathclaws were a pre-war military genetic engineering experiment, so they could conceivably be found on both coasts without the need to make it from one to the other.

My point still stands about them wiping out all the other species.

While F2 have it's own share of silliness, F3 has way more stupid or retarded things scattered around it's claustrophobic wasteland.

Fallout 3 has dumber things than intelligent deathclaws living in a Vault? Intelligent spore plants? Intelligent radscorpions that play chess? Kung Fu Town? Westworld? 1920s Gangster Town? 200+ pop culture references which were the basis of a huge chunk of the quests and dialogue in the game? Tribals?

I agree that Fallout 3 has a bunch of silly things in it, but "way more"? I don't think so.

Your position is based on a false assumption that you can use "the best" weapon all the time and thus don't need back ups. I explained it a few times already, but you don't want to listen. I understand. Arguing is more fun.

The best Unarmed weapon is a crafted weapon, bar none.

500 endings?

Yeah, where the hell are the endings in Fallout 3? The only things I can see that affects the endings are your karma, if you poison the water, and who goes in the chamber. So, basically, eight possible endings? Where's the over 200?

so, do some minor instances of decent quests and well realized stylistic elements really outweigh the apparent general retardedness of this game?

Well, there's certainly a lot wrong with Fallout 3, in my opinion. However, like I said previously, I think my radically "Fallout Taliban" point of lowered expectations for the game helped my enjoyment of it. I think Bethesda actually took more care with the setting than BIS, Micro Forte, and Herve-Interplay did, even if they did incorporate some flaky elements to explain away why the East Coast has Supermutants, the Brotherhood of Steel, and so forth.

what the fuck puts it on the same page with Fallout 2?

Me. Fallout 2 suffered greatly in design from a lot of "Wouldn't it be kewl if.." and a general lack of communication between designers, and it shows. Fallout 3, even though it has some goofy things in it like the vampire wannabes, feels a lot more like a very cohesive design for the setting of the locations around the game. Fallout 3, in terms of the setting, feels a lot more like Fallout than Fallout 2 did.

Then again, I'm one of those wacky Fallout fans that puts Fallout on the pillar and puts most everything else, including Fallout 2, on the ground around it. I don't excuse Fallout 2's faults in the setting just because it's bigger and has more quests.

In my playthrough I had to carry at least five different weapons hoping that enemies would have them too, so I could repair and resupply them. Maybe because you need billions of bullets to kill anything, and weapons degrade damn fast.

I agree with this. I think I even mentioned that I can't go out in the wasteland, do some fighting, and come back with a working helmet. Then again, I typically like beating enemies to death in Fallout. For some reason I like melee in gun heavy games and guns in melee heavy games. Dunno why. :D

Dialogs and quests are mostly rubbish

Eh, the dialogs mostly suffer from too damned much swearing. Otherwise they're not that bad. Of course, there's nothing on par with the Vault Dweller saying, "Could you repeat that louder in to my pocket?" to Gizmo in Junktown. Or "Time is money. Chit-chat is not money!" Truthfully, I would have liked more of the Paranoia style humor considering the lead designer worked on paranoia.

And some of the quests in Fallout 3 are really, really well done.

 

[trais]

Fallout 3 has dumber things than intelligent deathclaws living in a Vault? Intelligent spore plants? Intelligent radscorpions that play chess? Kung Fu Town? Westworld? 1920s Gangster Town? 200+ pop culture references which were the basis of a huge chunk of the quests and dialogue in the game? Tribals?

I agree that Fallout 3 has a bunch of silly things in it, but "way more"? I don't think so.

No Adults Allowed city, whole Megaton with it's Moira Brown, exploding cars, portable nuke luncher, fire-breathing ants, skills-increasing armors and clothes, GOAT... it's probably matter of personal taste, but I do believe that talking deathclaws living in a Vault or Gangsters Town ain't that bad in comparison.

And some of the quests in Fallout 3 are really, really well done.

True, but I don't think it's worth to suffer from rest of the game only for them. At least not till mods can fix combat mechanics or basically rest of the game.

 

[Hamster]

Here's a map of BG1:

So, leaving dungeons aside, we see 47 locations, out of them as far as i remember 34 are available from the start.

 

[cares]

Me. Fallout 2 suffered greatly in design from a lot of "Wouldn't it be kewl if.." and a general lack of communication between designers, and it shows. Fallout 3, even though it has some goofy things in it like the vampire wannabes, feels a lot more like a very cohesive design for the setting of the locations around the game. Fallout 3, in terms of the setting, feels a lot more like Fallout than Fallout 2 did.

I guess it might, I'd have to play the thing to decide...but I'm not convinced it has enough substance to look past the disgraceful FP gameplay to enjoy whatever little worthwile this game has...

Then again, I'm one of those wacky Fallout fans that puts Fallout on the pillar and puts most everything else, including Fallout 2, on the ground around it. I don't excuse Fallout 2's faults in the setting just because it's bigger and has more quests.

I agree with you on Fallout being better than Fallout 2...gameplay is the same and that is where one might start looking for inconsistencies in the setting to decide the level of awesomeness of each game...unfortunately Fallout 3 doesn't qualify for the bare minimum to be judged as a Fallout rpg in my mind...