The Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3

[Athelas]

The fun, atmosphere (...) of Fallout 3

Maybe this wasn't the right choice of person to write a scathing critique of Fallout 3.

 

[Jar Jar Shanks]

Ridiculous. Three Dog's rich dialog and memorable character model made that game.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

The fun, atmosphere (...) of Fallout 3

Maybe this wasn't the right choice of person to write a scathing critique of Fallout 3.

This. You have to be a special kind of autist to notice nobody leaving near the river but somehow miss the fact that the game is fucking boring.

 

[Zombra]

Personally, I find criticism of a subject's failures much more credible when tempered against praise of its (relative) successes.

As for "choosing" who should have done the article, it's not like the guy has a stable of writers each with pros and cons. It's his blog that he writes, and he wanted to complain about a certain aspect of the game, so he did. It's OK if you disagree with him about the things he liked, but that doesn't detract at all from his indictment of F3's writing.

 

[SCO]

Are you one of the people who played through Fallout 3[4] without noticing any of these problems? That’s fine. Lots of people clicked through the dialog without listening, or listened to the dialog without thinking too much about it are dumb.

Improved

 

[Athelas]

Personally, I find criticism of a subject's failures much more credible when tempered against praise of its (relative) successes.

As for "choosing" who should have done the article, it's not like the guy has a stable of writers each with pros and cons. It's his blog that he writes, and he wanted to complain about a certain aspect of the game, so he did. It's OK if you disagree with him about the things he liked, but that doesn't detract at all from his indictment of F3's writing.

World atmosphere is strongly tied to writing (at least for me), which is why that particular remark came across as odd to me.

 

[Metro]

If anything NV had better exploration because you didn't have to fuck around in subway tunnels half of the game.

 

[Zombra]

Exploration in FNV was great and kept it real, FO3 was just random crap sprinkled around nonsensically and stuff that would've been long-salvaged.

Sure, but "really real realism" isn't the only thing that can be fun. There are good times to be had blundering around in a nonsense theme park. I don't pretend that F3 had verisimilitude, but there was still fun to be had, even great fun.

One can admire the costume design or cinematography of a movie, or even the standout performance of a single actor, even if the script and direction are shitty. By the same token, Fallout 3 can be enjoyable if one can get past all the things about it that are horrible, thoughtless, and insulting to the player.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

The problem is that Fallout is not a theme park, is an actual wasteland.

 

[Animal]

I don't understand how people like New Vegas.

Both FO3 and NV are somewhat competent shooter/rpgs/hiking simulators, but none remotely captures the mood and richness of the classic fallouts' experience.

New Vegas is utter shit with a handful of lifeless npcs trying to be funny and devoid of any interest.

FO4 is going to be another shit, with better graphics and forced humor attempts.

 

[Curlbrah]

Fallout 3 can be enjoyable if one can get past all the things about it that are horrible, thoughtless, and insulting to the player

I never understood this way of thinking. There are a million games out there that don't need me to overlook their flaws to be enjoyable.

Rich lore, vibrant characterization, and consistent themes of New Vegas, but the gameworld looks bland, there are invisible walls[6] everywhere, and it crashes all the time.

There it is, I waited for Shamus to reveal his retardation eventually. Took him surprisingly long.

 

[Zombra]

Fallout 3 can be enjoyable if one can get past all the things about it that are horrible, thoughtless, and insulting to the player

I never understood this way of thinking. There are a million games out there that don't need me to overlook their flaws to be enjoyable.

Right now we have a glut of better* RPGs out there, sure. In 2008 this was not the case. Don't get me wrong, I would never recommend F3 today. My fault for not using the past tense in the post you quoted.

*Not flawless, though. Every game needs to be forgiven its flaws. F3 just has a lot more than most. If you can name me 5 RPGs that are above criticism, I'll eat my keyboard.

 

[Orma]

Give zombra a bethestard tag

 

[Zombra]

Give zombra a bethestard tag

Spoiler

 

[DraQ]

By the same token, Fallout 3 can be enjoyable if one can get past all the things about it that are horrible, thoughtless, and insulting to the player.

Given that I felt strange temptation for stabbing myself in the eyeballs so that I would exsanguinate and it would all end when trying to play Oblivion - all that because of dialogue alone - I'll pass.

 

[Lemming42]

I never understood this way of thinking. There are a million games out there that don't need me to overlook their flaws to be enjoyable.

Same reason Bethesda have such success - nobody else really makes games quite like theirs with the same degree of sandboxiness and mod-ability. If there was anybody else making games the same way and doing it better (which wouldn't be too hard), people wouldn't waste so much time on Fallout 3. Case in point, the Fallout 3 modding community dried up significantly after New Vegas came out.

 

[Orma]

Give zombra a bethestard tag

Spoiler

that's not me, try harder nerd

Spoiler

 

[m_s0]

FO3 ... somewhat competent shooter/rpgs/hiking simulators

For a second there I thought I'd gone completely fucking insane.

 

[Zombra]

Ormagöden

Spoiler

 

[Animal]

FO3 ... somewhat competent shooter/rpgs/hiking simulators

For a second there I thought I'd gone completely fucking insane.

What I meant is that, if you look at the games as unrelated to fallout and just some crap you can walk around in and shoot at other crap, they are probably ok.

I just wanted to clearly state NV is shit too, because those lines about New Vegas in the article seem to place it on a different level.

 

[hoverdog]

I never understood this way of thinking. There are a million games out there that don't need me to overlook their flaws to be enjoyable.

Same reason Bethesda have such success - nobody else really makes games quite like theirs with the same degree of sandboxiness and mod-ability. If there was anybody else making games the same way and doing it better (which wouldn't be too hard), people wouldn't waste so much time on Fallout 3. Case in point, the Fallout 3 modding community dried up significantly after New Vegas came out.

I thought so once. However, the fact that most of the bethtards bashed New Vegas (which is in a completely other league when compared to F3) for its story ( ), exploration and whatnot made me reevaluate my position.

Fact is, most of Bethesda's fans wouldn't recognize a decent game even if it rammed them in the ass.

 

[DalekFlay]

If anything NV had better exploration because you didn't have to fuck around in subway tunnels half of the game.

This.

Every time I (try to) play Fallout 3 I am reminded at how insane a decision it was to make a third of the game's overworld basically a dungeon, which also requires more dungeons to travel through. It's insanely tedious, especially since FO3 combat is tedious and spammy to begin with.

 

[Sceptic]

The fun, atmosphere, exploration, and [relative] stability of Fallout 3, or…
Rich lore, vibrant characterization, and consistent themes of New Vegas, but the gameworld looks bland, there are invisible walls[6] everywhere, and it crashes all the time.

This is such an odd comparison to make. There was nothing atmospheric about FO3, the Disneyland approach that they carried over from Oblivion destroys any shred of possible atmosphere, never mind the weird, weird mental state you'd have to be in to like the game's "exploration". Then there's the usual hilarity about FO3's stability, in a game that was notorious for crashing every 30 minutes, on an Xbox. And again never mind accusing FNV of invisible walls, considering how hilariously blatant they were in FO3.

If you're going to tamper your criticism with praise, you'd better be sure your praise is actually valid.

 

[Levarious]

gonna give a quest mod that tries to change the main quest a shot only because it does this in a non dramatic my purifier way.

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/18182/?

 

[BGMD]

If you're going to tamper your criticism with praise, you'd better be sure your praise is actually valid.

I don't think it's actually Shamus saying this, he says literally sentence before it's a false dichotomy and to not fall for it sentence later. It's just something F3 defense force always brings up and when confronted with statement that NV is superior game, as they need to bring it down somehow with vague pulled from the ass statements like "exploring the wasteland wasn't as much fun in NV, F3 has much better world". This is a major one, you'll always hear it. Except they go even further and saying that story in F3 is much better because "cared more 'bout muh dad" or "moar epic moments", even that it *felt* like watered down version of F3, more like big expansion pack and so on...