Review Fallout 3: Enjoy boring combat & role-playing without stats

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Fallout 3

Two Fallout 3 reviews up. <a href="http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/12/05/fallout-3-getting-dull-after-50-hours/">The first from MTV about its boring combat</a>:
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<blockquote>Combat is a central part of “Fallout 3,” and while combat becomes easier and easier as you go on, once you reach level 20, it’s less than irrelevant: it’s just plain boring.
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If Bethesda allowed me to earn more specialized perks, it might make combat more compelling — something, anything to make me want to fight, rather than running away. Tracey John suggested switching to a new set of weapons.</blockquote>
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Make the game harder for you in order to find more interest. <a href="http://news.softpedia.com/news/Fallout-3-Suffering-from-Dissociative-Identity-Disorder-99388.shtml">Up next is a thing at Softpedia</a>:
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<blockquote>The big draw to Fallout 3 is, paradoxically, not the fact that it's a Fallout game. To those who really loved the first two titles in the series, Bethesda's game could come across as being untrue to the cannon and the standard of excellence already established. Fallout 3 is great because it shows the modern gamer why the role playing title can be enjoyed without worrying about stats, gear or very long dialog tree.</blockquote>
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Behold the future of gaming, where nothing really matters and thinking is done for you. Why, I hear that in Fallout 4, Bethesda will be removing dialogue altogether and you'll just choose words from a list. <a href="http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?image=realf3dialogue1vf2.gif">What an improvement that would be</a>!
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Spotted @ <a href="http://www.nma-fallout.com">NMA</a>

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Re: Fallout 3: Enjoy boring combat & role-playing withou

<a href="http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?image=realf3dialogue1vf2.gif">What an improvement that would be</a>!

 

[poocolator]

Can't believe people are still playing and reviewing this POS. I'd have to be stranded on an island with nothing but my computer and fallout 3 installed to play it again.

 

[Lurkar]

Every time someone mentions the "modern gamer," they do it after or before saying something hilariously insulting about it. And yet those "modern gamers" eat it up. It's like they're standing with their eyes wide and gleaming, chanting "Yes, hurt me more! Hurt me MORE!"

 

[Mr. Teatime]

I have stopped playing FO3 about 2/3 through. I expected to finish it but I've kind of lost interest. The most prominent interest killer I guess was the combat - way too much of it and I've never liked combat heavy RPGs.

 

[Lingwe]

Yet, today's player who has little time at their disposal can get a good feel of Fallout 3 in no more than 30 hours.

Wait so did people all sit around with nothing to do but play computer games 10 years ago? Cause if not then claiming that 'today's gamer' has little time is pointless.

10 years ago:

"Hey boss I'm not coming into work today"

"Why not?"

"I got this game I want to play. You don't mind if I take tomorrow off either do you?"

"Nah, I got a game I want to play as well. We'll just close up the office for the next few days so everyone can go home and play games"

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I have stopped playing FO3 about 2/3 through. I expected to finish it but I've kind of lost interest. The most prominent interest killer I guess was the combat - way too much of it and I've never liked combat heavy RPGs.

I beat it, mainly because it draws to a close shortly after finding your dad. I tried to play a game with a bad character shortly afterwards, but lost interest pretty quickly. I played Fallout and Fallout 2 through several times after getting them just to see what else I could find in the games or try to finish things different ways. I think the main thing that caused me to lose interest in the second play through attempt is the lack of endings for the locations. The location endings from Fallout and Fallout 2 actually fueled my drive to play through both games a few times, trying to see what the good and bad endings were for the towns.

 

[PennyAnte]

It's like they're standing with their eyes wide and gleaming, chanting "Yes, hurt me more! Hurt me MORE!"

And what's so wrong with that?

 

[jsaving]

Fallout 3 is great because it shows the modern gamer why the role playing title can be enjoyed without worrying about stats, gear or very long dialog tree.

Is this a joke?

 

[Tintin]

Just like how the best FPS games show us that first person shooters can be enjoyed in third person without guns.

 

[Longshanks]

Yet, today's player who has little time at their disposal can get a good feel of Fallout 3 in no more than 30 hours.

Wait so did people all sit around with nothing to do but play computer games 10 years ago? Cause if not then claiming that 'today's gamer' has little time is pointless.

10 years ago:

"Hey boss I'm not coming into work today"

"Why not?"

"I got this game I want to play. You don't mind if I take tomorrow off either do you?"

"Nah, I got a game I want to play as well. We'll just close up the office for the next few days so everyone can go home and play games"

Possible reasons: ageing demographic, more competing entertainment (particularly of the electronic kind), reduced attention span (though, related to more options).

Though, I disagree that games are simpler and shorter primarily because the "modern gamer" has less free time. I'd say the main reason is that they are now much more mainstream. Most anything produced for the mainstream will be simple. The industry's not yet mature enough to have formed strong niche markets (or at least not to produce games for them), or for a significant number of developers to value quality over profit. Games are still largely seen as short term fun for the adolescent or adolescent-minded (little different to summer blockbuster movies), until this changes, most games will suck.

 

[Drakron]

Can you figure out why the MTV criticism is stupid?

 

[ghostdog]

After a while the combat got ridiculously easy on normal difficulty and I switched to "very hard", at that level of difficulty each time you pick a lock or hack a computer you receive a much bigger amount of experience than before. This makes you reach the level cap very fast and in a game where the main quest is rubbish and the dialogs and NPC's are retarded, I lost all my motivation to continue. It's incredible how Bethesda managed to fuck up the balance of the game again.

 

[poocolator]

Bethesda's games are full of poor design. I'm starting to think that either A) they have absolutely no worthwhile talent or B) they're incredibly inexperienced having made poor decisions hiring employees with no real game development background. It's like the rich little asshole in school who has absolutely no redeeming qualities.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

They do have ability and talent. They are very good at certain things. But I do think they got the balance wrong with the level cap - not that the issue affected me (beyond being aware not to take Swift Learner).

I'd commend Bethsoft for developing the dialogue and story and some excellent C&C in the sidequests. But the writing still needs work - which will come if they keep trying - and the combat got tedious, though I doubt combat is something they'll change. Even if they don't change the mechanics, less of it would be nice.

Elaborating on my earlier reasons for stopping playing, the combat did play a major role but also the writing quality meant that there were few NPCs I cared for and after a while my reasons for playing kind of dried up. The best parts were earlier on when I was scavenging and exploring ruins, I think.

Special mention must go to the Tenpenny Towers quest consequence, though - when you apparently resolve everyone's issues then, well, SOMETHING happens (not spoiling). That was excellent and I hope Bethsoft recognise and build on it.

 

[Thrasher]

To keep it interesting, you need to roleplay a naked passive nature lover, who wears no armor, and runs and hides from anything aggressive.

EDIT: Oops she does wear a thong, available in a mod coming to you soon!

 

[bhlaab]

They do have ability and talent. They are very good at certain things. But I do think they got the balance wrong with the level cap - not that the issue affected me (beyond being aware not to take Swift Learner).

I'd commend Bethsoft for developing the dialogue and story and some excellent C&C in the sidequests. But the writing still needs work - which will come if they keep trying - and the combat got tedious, though I doubt combat is something they'll change. Even if they don't change the mechanics, less of it would be nice.

Elaborating on my earlier reasons for stopping playing, the combat did play a major role but also the writing quality meant that there were few NPCs I cared for and after a while my reasons for playing kind of dried up. The best parts were earlier on when I was scavenging and exploring ruins, I think.

Special mention must go to the Tenpenny Towers quest consequence, though - when you apparently resolve everyone's issues then, well, SOMETHING happens (not spoiling). That was excellent and I hope Bethsoft recognise and build on it.

Even though the writing wasnt the best, interacting with characters was fun enough. Take a look at megaton, for example. Even though the main power of the atom quest is presented lamely ("hey stranger sure you can fuck with our giant bomb no problemo") it's still fun because you can get quests ranging from major to minor from just about 80% of the people there, some of those quests introduced conflicts of interest, you could even break into moriarty's computer and dig up dirt on all the residents (could that angellic billy pilgrim guy really be a rapist?) It made for a neat, surprisingly Fallout-like experience.

Unfortunately megaton was THE ONLY FUCKING TOWN IN THE GAME.

Oh, sure, you can find little places like the ghoul underworld where everybody stands in place all day and you can get a whopping one quest from the locals.
So the rest of the game's sidequests were spread with millions of miles in between and amounted to fedexing and murdering. None of the characters mattered because there was nobody around for them to interact with, no more digging up backstory about them because theyre just in some shack in the middle of buttfuck.

Gee, I wonder why all the previews focused specifically on megaton.

 

[poocolator]

To keep it interesting, you need to roleplay a naked passive nature lover, who wears no armor, and runs and hides from anything aggressive.

I take it by "roleplay" you mean this kind: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Roleplaying
which would be easier to do in Oblivion since the NPCs didn't have dialogue with your main character, letting you put words into their mouths. In Failout 3 however, the NPCs are designed with actual dialogue options, however poorly implemented, which limits the "roleplayability."

At least in Oblivion, playing a slutty, flirtatious floozy of a bitch, I could pretend to be hit on by bar patrons, whereas in Failout 3, not a single man was interested in bedding my slut and I couldn't even roleplay them hitting on her convincingly, either. Not that I would want to, or ever have. Honest. Well, maybe a little when I was bored out of my mind.

 

[HardCode]

Even M&B, which you guys all love, beats Fallout 3 on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/genre/RPG/

I love it ... no-budget indie beats multi-million dollar production.

 

[poocolator]

Even M&B, which you guys all love, beats Fallout 3 on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/genre/RPG/

I love it ... no-budget indie beats multi-million dollar production.

Well back in the day when I tried out M&B, I ended up playing it for longer than I did Failout 3. Sure it didn't have certain (a good number, actually) RPG components down pat, but it did innovate with combat, so much so that I played it almost exclusively for that reason. I can't say the same for Failout 3 which had almost nothing redeeming. I even gave up exploring the "world map" of the "capital wasteland" because I realized I won't be A) running into new (real) towns, B) encountering convincing NPCs and C) combat was a huge fucking drag.

 

[quasimodo]

I'm using a mod that greatly lowers the rate of XP gain, by limiting it mainly to quest solving and location discovery. I think I will need to do all the quests and find 90% of the locations to get to level 20. So far it has made the game a lot better.

 

[poocolator]

Lower XP gain so you'd have to snore your way through even more combat? No thanks. I played the game the way it was released and no amount of modding will ever change the bore factor. Well maybe a mod which completely revamps NPC dialogue, adds actually interesting quests, and perhaps a few more real towns will help muffle the bore factor a tad. It'd still be a terribly-designed POS in my opinion and I have received much more enjoyment from Morrowind.

 

[bhlaab]

Even M&B, which you guys all love, beats Fallout 3 on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/genre/RPG/

I love it ... no-budget indie beats multi-million dollar production.

...on the pc

givng them all the more reason to make fallout 4 even less in tune with what hardcore pc rpg fans want

 

[bhlaab]

To keep it interesting, you need to roleplay a naked passive nature lover, who wears no armor, and runs and hides from anything aggressive.

I take it by "roleplay" you mean this kind: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Roleplaying
which would be easier to do in Oblivion since the NPCs didn't have dialogue with your main character, letting you put words into their mouths. In Failout 3 however, the NPCs are designed with actual dialogue options, however poorly implemented, which limits the "roleplayability."

At least in Oblivion, playing a slutty, flirtatious floozy of a bitch, I could pretend to be hit on by bar patrons, whereas in Failout 3, not a single man was interested in bedding my slut and I couldn't even roleplay them hitting on her convincingly, either. Not that I would want to, or ever have. Honest. Well, maybe a little when I was bored out of my mind.

That's fucking ridiculous, the whole point of a computer rpg is that you don't have to do the roleplaying bits. What Oblivion has forced you to do is roleplay as a LARPer

 

[poocolator]

It's an excuse by mindless Bethsoft worshippers (and I mean worshippers as in irrational prostration before all things Bethesda, extolled as holy scripture) to legitimize the "RPG" label used to categorize and advertise Oblivion (and similarly, Fallout 3).