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Fallout 3 - Codex Opinions Thread

Rivo

Novice
Joined
May 11, 2006
Messages
91
I killed the overseer the first time, she was pissed. Got the signal later on the game, went back inside. Sabotaged the reactor, the overseer tried to kill me but I fleed. Everybody went crazy and ran out the vault. Never seen anyone after that.

I saw somewhere that Amata later can be found talking to some enclave troopers. They are interogating her and then kill her. If you shoot the enclaves, she just panics and flees forever. Epic.
 

Starwars

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
2,829
Location
Sweden
I finished it at about 68 hours. I explored nearly everything. I used a level uncapper and made it to level 28. It is an interesting game worth a second play-through as somebody with less moral fiber. However that is a pretty good example of C&C that I ran into, that nobody has really mentioned:

When leaving Vault 101 originally, you can choose to kill the current overseer. This is what I did. Later on in the game, this apparently has some real adverse consequences as the newly selected overseer drives the vault into total chaos splitting people into two factions. You end up receiving a distress signal from Amata later on asking you to come back and help them (later on you return to Megaton and pick up the signal). Upon my return I ended up killing the new overseer as well in an effort to support Amata's "rebel" group that wanted to open the Vault to the world. Upon completion of the quest, she becomes the new overseer and declares that since you have now killed two overseers in a row, you are to be banned from the Vault forever.

I would be interested to see if this quest even comes up if you choose to allow Amata's father to survive at the beginning. If it does come up, I would be interested in seeing how different it is. Has anybody been through the other side of the quest line?

EDIT: I also used a mod to replace the entire soundtrack with tracks from Fallout 1 and 2. Best mod ever.

The game is good for one playthrough. Replaying it is a very samey experience even if you basically play a flipside character. The Vault 101 quest is exactly the same just that the old Overseer is there instead of hte new one. Also, I don't think you can ever return to the Vault again no matter what you do and who you decide to help.
That's still one of the better quests though.

The game is lacking in consequences. There are plenty of choices to be made, but most of them don't feel like they matter at all. Especially since the game is lacking an ending slide.
 

Saint_Proverbius

Administrator
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2002
Messages
11,476
Location
Behind you.
Solomon Doone said:
I am also curious as to why the Capital Wasteland is a desert and not a frozen wasteland in it's own right, given that nuclear war produces a ton of particulates; the point is moot though, since it's in the previous games as well.

Fallout is from a 1950s point of view of nuclear war.

After reading this thread, I decided to get Fallout 3 since a lot of people have been saying it's a good game. I don't see it. The vault thing was horribly boring. It's a neat idea, but either it's not a good idea in practice or Bethesda just did a bad job of it. Either way, they should have just made it optional since you can change everything when you escape anyway.

I got to Megaton, talked to all the people. I told Burke to piss off. I found Silver and let her go. Night set, and I'm just pretty darned bored with the game with less than five hours in to it. I didn't even fire it up last night when I got back from work.

With most decent games, I look forward to getting home and playing for a few hours before bed. Mass Effect made me itching to get my work done and head home to get in a few hours. I don't get that with Fallout 3.

The combat system is a little wonky. Can you not target body parts with melee in VATS?
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
Solomon Doone said:
In Fallout 2 the president basically says that the rest of the world is in the same shape as America anyways,

Never take what NPCs beyond face value, Europe collapsed well before the Great War and was not part of it.


a nuclear war isn't exactly a local thing, either, since it produces fallout that kills living organisms (Both macro and micro) that produce oxygen.

And yet we survived several ice ages, direct hits of meteors and we still alive ...

Also you only need to look at Chernobyl to see we radiation is not as lethal as EVERYTHING DIES, in fact in the Fallout Universe the FEV virus just mutated after being vaporized by a nuclear explosion and did just fine so you can write up the survival to the FEV if you REALLY need a excuse.
 
Joined
Sep 8, 2008
Messages
11,313
Location
SPAAAAAAAAAACE...
Project: Eternity
I bought Fallout 3 from Steam yesterday and I already regret it (buying it from Steam I mean). It played fine yesterday, I played to the point where I leave the Vault, it seems to be as expected an amusing but rather mindless action-with-stats game. Today I want to start, and Steam tries to do some sort of update that will take apparently 14 hours to complete. I've tried setting Steam to "do not force update" and ran it in offline mode and everything, but nothing helps, IT MUST DO THIS UPDATE. Reminds me how awful I thought Steam was back when I only had dial-up. I thought maybe now on a 16 MBit line I would be fine, but no... Thank you Steam for reminding me what a dumbass I am for buying from you. I will remember this fondly.
 

Pegultagol

Erudite
Joined
Feb 4, 2005
Messages
1,183
Location
General Gaming
I believe you cannot target individual body parts in melee. Fallout 3 I somehow find a rather disjointed experience so far, as opposed to how I found Mass Effect to be sterile and very clinical exercise in RPG design. The game does not really tell you what to do, and exploring the vast expanse of rolling browns and ruins is at first not very compelling. But there are always places to go, as in markers placed on maps, so checking them out turn to be a rather engrossing experience as it emulates the risk and rewards of adventure; you really have no idea what to expect, what to avoid or proceed further in these situations. That is what I find refreshing about the game so far.

As for Steam, I also bought the game on it, and 14 hr 'update' seems like the game is installing itself again. Have you contacted Steam about this?
 

Andyman Messiah

Mr. Ed-ucated
Joined
Jan 27, 2004
Messages
9,933
Location
Narnia
Pegultagol said:
But there are always places to go, as in markers placed on maps, so checking them out turn to be a rather engrossing experience as it emulates the risk and rewards of adventure; you really have no idea what to expect, what to avoid or proceed further in these situations. That is what I find refreshing about the game so far.
I feel the exact opposite. Whenever I found a new building to enter, and it isn't part of a settlement, I KNEW that it was filled with raiders/supermutants and decorated with gorebags and blood and hanging bodies on fire or not on fire and fuck all kinds of shit and it bored me to death. Copypaste, the Bethesda way.
 

Claw

Erudite
Patron
Joined
Aug 7, 2004
Messages
3,777
Location
The center of my world.
Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
Steam mainly sucks because it's ridiculously expensive.

Seriously, Fallout 3 costs more on Steam than buying from Play.com - Oh, wait! I forgot the sales tax! Yeah, the price on Steam without sales tax is higher than the full price at Play.com.
What the fuck? Why is physically sending me a DVD cheaper than downloading it?
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
Claw said:
Steam mainly sucks because it's ridiculously expensive.

Seriously, Fallout 3 costs more on Steam than buying from Play.com - Oh, wait! I forgot the sales tax! Yeah, the price on Steam without sales tax is higher than the full price at Play.com.
What the fuck? Why is physically sending me a DVD cheaper than downloading it?

I think it has something to do with an inventory somewhere. Things being moved around into different people's inventories.
 

Shagnak

Shagadelic
Joined
Sep 6, 2003
Messages
4,637
Location
Arse of the world, New Zealand
Saint_Proverbius said:
The vault thing was horribly boring. It's a neat idea, but either it's not a good idea in practice or Bethesda just did a bad job of it.
Agreed. It was as dull as fuck.
I think the fault was the execution though.

Saint_Proverbius said:
I got to Megaton, talked to all the people. I told Burke to piss off. I found Silver and let her go. Night set, and I'm just pretty darned bored with the game with less than five hours in to it.
It improved for me once I got away from Megaton and did a bit of exploring. After a while I found I actually wanted to explore, something that Oblivion never did for me.
Overall I'm enjoying the game, but there are some truly banal quests there. That "vampire clan" quest-line must surely be the nadir.
The giant ants one was a nice homage to "Them!", however. ("Nice" as in "nice it was there", rather than any judgment that it was particularly well written)

Saint_Proverbius said:
Can you not target body parts with melee in VATS?
Nope :(
HTH seems a little neutered compared to guns.
 
Joined
Sep 8, 2008
Messages
11,313
Location
SPAAAAAAAAAACE...
Project: Eternity
OK, I redownloaded FO3 and now everything is in German. Despite me setting the language to English. Which means I will NOT PLAY THIS because the fucking translations make me physically cringe. Fucking Steam. I hope somebody burns down Valve headquarters right to the goddamn ground.
 

Claw

Erudite
Patron
Joined
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Messages
3,777
Location
The center of my world.
Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
That's funny, I bought the Orange Box at a store because it was cheaper than Steam, but then I downloaded the English version with my License. That was pretty cool.
Isn't there like, a language setting you can change?
 
Joined
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SPAAAAAAAAAACE...
Project: Eternity
There is, and everything except FO3 installs and plays in English. But then, I also forgot that the German version is insanely cut violence-wise (no flying limbs, no blood). So even if I get the language changed, I will likely not see the normal game but rather a stunted one -_-'
 

SuicideBunny

(ノ ゜Д゜)ノ ︵ ┻━┻
Joined
May 1, 2007
Messages
8,943
Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
Saint_Proverbius said:
The vault thing was horribly boring. It's a neat idea, but either it's not a good idea in practice or Bethesda just did a bad job of it.
bad job. they fucked up by making it nothing more than an unavoidable dungeon with some random, completely disconnected, and obsolete scenes of entirely unoriginal everyday life, that serve as cosmetic fluff for the character editors only.

a continuous segment with more c&c, showing the vault as a self-contained microcosm working on its own principles, would have worked better.
 

jagged-jimmy

Prophet
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Messages
1,550
Location
Freeside
Codex 2012
Freelance Henchman said:
There is, and everything except FO3 installs and plays in English. But then, I also forgot that the German version is insanely cut violence-wise (no flying limbs, no blood). So even if I get the language changed, I will likely not see the normal game but rather a stunted one -_-'

I dunno maybe they fixed this somehow by now, but but but...playing a censored game on english setting is like a blood-patch.
I had a german Half-life with robots (!) instead of marines and green blood and such shit... I toggled the language to english and voila! uncut bloody entertainment.

I think Steam just downloads games according to your language setting (Version).
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"After reading this thread, I decided to get Fallout 3 since a lot of people have been saying it's a good game. I don't see it."

What did you expect? Most people are dumb. You should always go by your instinct, logic, intellegence, etc. Espicially when it comes to games which basically are a matter of personal taste anyways.
 

Barrow_Bug

Cipher
Joined
Mar 11, 2008
Messages
1,821
Location
Australia
I'm playing a lot of it and enjoying it for what it is, but man some things are really broken. Take the Radi-ain't A.I. for example. I'm in Rivet City early on a Sunday morn so I decide to stop by this Church everyone's talking about. I think "Okay, let see how this works, I've heard everyone has breakfast and then goes to Church". Fuck, what a mess. The moment I walk in, EVERYONE bursts into moronic conversation, with themselves, each other, me. You name it, everybody was chit-chatting.

All the while, the poor old padre sermonizes on. I wanted to see how the characters react to the Church thing, no luck there. And to cap it all off I talk to the plucky young woman who works in the cafeteria, who welcomes me to the cafeteria (Christ, we're in a Church) and then asks what I want to eat....fuck, come on!

It was utter fail. Why can't Bethesduh WRITE? How is it these guys can't implement non-linear design in a game that is open world? Fuck me.
 

Hazelnut

Erudite
Joined
Dec 17, 2002
Messages
1,490
Location
UK
Shagnak said:
Well, fuck me.
That was a particularly shit ending.

Yup! I saw loads of posts saying the the ending was terrible before I finished it, but I still couldn't quite believe just how awful it was.
 

Heresiarch

Prophet
Joined
Mar 8, 2008
Messages
1,451
Hazelnut said:
Shagnak said:
Well, fuck me.
That was a particularly shit ending.

Yup! I saw loads of posts saying the the ending was terrible before I finished it, but I still couldn't quite believe just how awful it was.

Wow, I'm really looking forward to the ending. Ppl don't spoil it plz.

I'm over 65 hours now (LOL U HAV N0 LIFE) and having 107 places explored. And I must say the 0blivionish copy & pasted dungeons is really killing the game for me. Now I whenever I discover a new place I would check out if there's any interesting content in it on the wiki site before bothering with it.

Now I all I want to do is finish the Oasis quest, explore Fort Constatine for a certain armor, and finish the main quest - I really want to see how epic and legendary the ending is and SoZ is already on the horizon.
 

Demiath

Novice
Joined
Aug 18, 2008
Messages
19
Unlike a lot of people, I can't bring myself to care strongly about Fallout 3 in any way. It's an OK but shallow action RPG (maybe "tactical FPS" is a better description) with a reasonably enjoyable combat system, decent but uninspiring environments, slightly boring dialogue and a rather weak story and ending. I don't hate the game and I don't love it either. It's a somewhat updated version of Oblivion - which is nice because Oblivion needed fixing - but at the end of the day, Fallout 3 just leaves me thinking "well, this isn't too bad, I guess I could play this game for a little while longer...if it wasn't for all the laundry I must get done". Indifference is the only feeling that remains a week after having finished spent less than 30 hours with the game.
 

Topher

Cipher
Joined
Dec 5, 2007
Messages
1,860
Barrow_Bug said:
to cap it all off I talk to the plucky young woman who works in the cafeteria, who welcomes me to the cafeteria (Christ, we're in a Church) and then asks what I want to eat....fuck, come on!

This has been one of my biggest disappointments with the game so far... every NPC behaves like this, can they not fucking tell that there not a fucking work? I frequently walk past an NPC and hear them proceed to proffer their wares, never mind the fact that I'm nowhere even close to their shop???

Fallout 3 is a shooter first and foremost, it blends RPG elements (less successfully then Deus Ex IMO) and doesn't take advantage of most the benefits you can have with a FPSRPG (again like Deus Ex did with customizable weapons, Fallout 3 doesn't even have different ammo types ala System Shock 2 or even Fallout 1-2). Essentially both Deus Ex and System Shock already showed developers many of the mechanics that can work very well when making a FPSRPG and Bethesda was simply too lazy to implement them at all. A weapon upgrade system would have been 10x better then the current weapon creation system.

Like in every genre Bethesda dabbles in... they've got a lot to learn and I have no doubt that they never will.
 

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