Fallout 3 - Codex Opinions Thread

[Solomon Doone]

Well, you did get the choice to make Lyons go in in your place.

It still doesn't change that practically nothing has a bearing on the ending up until that point.

 

[Shagnak]

HALP ME

Okay, after the disappointing ending I went back to an earlier save to some more exploring and mop up some quests and visit "noteable locations" I missed.

Questions: Where on earth is the base of the Brotherhood Outcasts? And where do I find Dogmeat?

I guess I could google this shit but I likes to talk with my boyz.


Anyway...I think the game does okay at being a post apoc exploration game. I'm enjoying that aspect.

But a lot of the quests, oh dear.
[SPOILAR ALERT]
The Oasis/Harold stuff was pretty dire. At the end when you magically "catch" Harold's mutation as a reward, well, let's face it - the writers were in Oblivion fantasy mode with that one. They really wanted to say "you receive the divine blessing of St Dude-in-a-Tree" but had to dress it up all "post-apoc"-like.

And I finally went back and disarmed the bomb at Megaton and got the key to my house from the Sheriff's boy (the Sheriff died in a scuffle with Burke).
Oh dear oh dear. If I had bothered getting this way back near the beginning of the game when the opportunity arose it would have removed a lot of the challenge. Now I'm teleporting (and let's face it, that is what it might as well be) between Megaton and other locations to accumulate items for fullfilling those weapon schema. And rads? Who gives a fuck. Teleport back to Megaton and instantly have it all removed by the med station in my house. Too easy to abuse, so after making my weapons I guess that's yet another thing I'll have to wipe from my memory in order to maintain enjoyment.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Well, you did get the choice to make Lyons go in in your place.

It still doesn't change that practically nothing has a bearing on the ending up until that point.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly defending it. Shitty, shitty ending. It was just in response to "what a crock of shit, I'd have pushed someone else in there".

 

[Shagnak]

Re: HALP ME

Questions: Where on earth is the base of the Brotherhood Outcasts?

Doh. It's closer to Megaton than I thought.
At first I thought it was that Fort to the west near Vault 112, but that appears to be Talon's main base.

 

[MasPingon]

I do think Bethesda made some good attempts at fitting the theme of Fallout to Fallout 3, a lot better than Fallout 2

Wat?!

 

[Claw]

So. I finally played Bethout. Not for long though, I recalled I got an item description mod to install. So far I can say I can see why many people are less negative than I would've expected. The beginning it pretty daft and is terrible to watch, but as far as actual gameplay goes, it's just pretty bland and inoffensive. It's over quick and doesn't warrant a second thought. The Vault really does look nice too.

He is right.

No, he's wrong. The nature of the consumers is the problem.

The sad thing is, I've been killed a few times by packs of vicious dogs. Yup, vicious dogs give me more trouble than packs of Supermutants.

Sounds like Gothic 3.

Oh yeah, Liam Neison's voice acting sucks donkey dick. He drones on like he didn't want the job to begin with. For a big name actor, he did a worse job than a lot of the foreign language import game voice actors have done. He should have been sacked.

Yet everyone and their dog keeps praising him, even Yahtzee. I don't get it.

 

[xuerebx]

Just found this:

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index ... 896755&hl=

This was pretty cool I must admit. That guy sure knows his morse codes! Still haven't found all the signals though.

 

[Imbecile]

I gotta admit that I'm really rather liking it at the 20 hour stage. VATS works a lot better than I expected, and the quests seem to be a lot better designed than Oblivions, with multiple stages and some kind of attempt at multiple solutions (though how much they affect the outcome is another issue).

I think what I like most is that the desire to explore is back. It was what I liked about Morrowind, but was missing from Oblivion.

Two questions.

What the fuck is supposed to happen at the Anchorage Memorial?

Also, How do we know how many APs the guns use, and what their range/accuracy/actual damage is? It makes it kinda hard to gauge how decent the weapons actually are.
The sawn off shotgun for example seems awful, whereas the Hunting Rifle seems quite effective, but I have no idea why. I don't have a problem with guessing the weapons stats this way, but it just seems a bit odd.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Not that I disagree, but I would be very curious to read your thoughts on this matter.

Fallout 2 starts with some silliness in the Temple of Trials, has theme towns rather than a consistent setting for the area, all the damned pop culture references everywhere, the incredible need to make intelligent versions of all the Fallout monsters, and so on. Fallout 2's always seemed like a game designed by a bunch of people remotely located from one another who spent the day thinking, "Wouldn't it be KEWL if..." without any central person to tell them, "Um, no, it wouldn't."

Bethesda started from scratch on the content and nailed the art direction for the most part. In terms of art content, Fallout 3 really does feel like walking through a Fallout game. Even the Museum of Technology with the space vehicles were a hell of a lot better than the space shuttle in Fallout 2. The promo material for the game fit the setting, like the advertisements for Vault-Tec and such.

That's not to say there aren't things I don't like, such as the GNR DJ and all the damned swearing. Mayor McCreary's dialogue was ridiculous. I didn't really like the idea of replicants in Fallout 3. Feral ghouls annoy me. The list goes on.

At the same time, which is worse.. Feral ghouls or.. Talking spore plants? The ghouls in parts of Necropolis will attack players on sight, but at least they don't run. I'd be happy if they were slower and weren't mindless, but it beats smart radscorpions playing chess.

I didn't like the Arefu stuff much. The idea of vampires, even people who think they're vampires, is a just a bit much. It's even a little odd that you need a perk to gain many hitpoints from blood packs as opposed to drinking water.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Not that I disagree, but I would be very curious to read your thoughts on this matter.

Fallout 2 starts with some silliness in the Temple of Trials, has theme towns rather than a consistent setting for the area, all the damned pop culture references everywhere, the incredible need to make intelligent versions of all the Fallout monsters, and so on. Fallout 2's always seemed like a game designed by a bunch of people remotely located from one another who spent the day thinking, "Wouldn't it be KEWL if..." without any central person to tell them, "Um, no, it wouldn't."

My thoughts exactly. I posted this on our forums awhile ago:

"Fallout 1 is a well focused game. It's perfect. Everything is well designed, well thought-through, makes sense, and fits the theme and the setting. The Master, the "villain" of the game, isn't really a villain (he thought that he was doing the right thing), which is why it's possible to defeat him without a fight.

Fallout 2 is a "mix of everything" game. It's a game designed by a bunch of 13-year olds following the unbeatable "won't it be cool if the game had...." principle. It has huge gangsters with tommy guns running casinos, it has yakuza with samurai swords, it has so many weapons that you can switch to a new gun every 5 min, it has more lulz than the Codex, it has a king-fu fighting town, it has scientologists with celebrities, it has tribals, aliens, drug dealers, talking deathclaws, and even real GHOSTS. The game's a joke.

The main villain is a stereotypical "I kill everyone for the lulz" villain who looks like a giant robot. (the 13 year olds strike again!) You can't reason with him. The only way to beat the game is to fight him.

Overall, I feel that FO2 locations, NPCs, and quests are clearly inferior to FO1. While FO2 is better than most games (mostly due to being a sequel to a great game), it failed to deliver the quality of the original."

Bethesda started from scratch on the content and nailed the art direction for the most part. In terms of art content, Fallout 3 really does feel like walking through a Fallout game. Even the Museum of Technology with the space vehicles were a hell of a lot better than the space shuttle in Fallout 2. The promo material for the game fit the setting, like the advertisements for Vault-Tec and such.

Yep. The promos are great. I wish they nailed the 200 years since the war atmosphere though.

PS. Any chance to see your review one day?

 

[Drakron]

Oh yeah, Liam Neison's voice acting sucks donkey dick. He drones on like he didn't want the job to begin with. For a big name actor, he did a worse job than a lot of the foreign language import game voice actors have done. He should have been sacked.

Yet everyone and their dog keeps praising him, even Yahtzee. I don't get it.

Well he sounds bored and lacks emotion but if you look at sitcoms of the 50's he does sound a lot like the "father" characters of those sitcoms.

That is why I think he nailed it, the "bad" acting is because he is nailing a 50's typecast.

 

[A user named cat]

Damn, this is already at 26 pages? Well, way too much to go through so I'll just slap another post here. I've given the game another go, and am now about 15 hours into it. I still stand by a lot of the negatives I pointed out before and the game has its share of bugs and problems (had to use console to resurrect Mariarty because he somehow died and vanished). But I am enjoying it on hard mode and it's challenging to keep your wallet fat without being a thieving asshole.

I really hate the Oblivion engine though, game could've been way better if they used something else where there wouldn't be tons of clipping problems and better animation. I'm also sick to fucking death of VATS and the camera positioning itself in the worst possible ways (in walls, extremely close, facing wrong way, etc.). Someone really needs to mod that and make the slow-mo skippable. Hell, it'd be great for someone to mod VATS to just turn it into a full blown turn based system. I also can't stand the repair system and the retarded hacking mini-game. I'm sure all that stuff will be modded in a year or so though.

 

[Shannow]

@SP: It's called Oblivion with gunz for a reason. Don't try breaking the game by meleeing.

The end is only satisfying if you larp it:

Spoiler

Lyons:"One of us must sacrifice himself."
Me:"I'd send in Fawkes, but if you'd rather commit suicide, be my guest."
Lyons:"So much for chivalry." *pathetic stupidity*

And why am I suddenly some fantasy hero in the end-slides?

The most positive thing about the game is that you can rapidly reach the end as soon as it becomes boring...
70/100 without the last 4th or so of the main quest. 50/100 with the whole main quest.

 

[Heresiarch]

The most positive thing about the game is that you can rapidly reach the end as soon as it becomes boring...

Can't agree more. I got bored to death and was tempted to drop the game altogether, but I wanted to see how bad the ending is myself. I was at the "find the GECK part" at that time, so I went to do that, and it's like: visit a easy dungeon -> immediatly forced to visit another dungeon -> Call of Duty: The Galatic Colossus -> GAME OVER. If I didn't waste time to do the meaningless exploration, I think the whole main quest can be finished within two hours.

What I hate most is due to my slow mind, after 60 hours of playing I finally realized almost all the exploration and treasure hunting and choices has been pointless. You don't need more powerful weapons, because combat is shit, enemies are weak, and you can get the best guns and armor doing some quests in the DC ruins. Schematic weapons are fun, but never too useful because quest reward weapons are way more powerful anyway. Side quests are meaningless because it doesn't affect ending and even the damn world at all except the stupid 3dogshit radio which is just repeating annoying shit over and over.

In some way this game is even worse than Oblivion. At least you have your own statue, you can have more houses, and people always call you "HERO OF KVATCH!" "THE NEW CHAMPION!!1". While in FO3 your final fate seems just eat shit and die.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Fallout 2 is a "mix of everything" game. It's a game designed by a bunch of 13-year olds following the unbeatable "won't it be cool if the game had...." principle. It has huge gangsters with tommy guns running casinos, it has yakuza with samurai swords, it has so many weapons that you can switch to a new gun every 5 min, it has more lulz than the Codex, it has a king-fu fighting town, it has scientologists with celebrities, it has tribals, aliens, drug dealers, talking deathclaws, and even real GHOSTS. The game's a joke.

Yeah, it's almost like playing Wasteland and expecting it to be Fallout 0. The setting may be post apocalyptic, but it's fairly different and very disjointed if you're expecting Fallout. Now, if you want to assume Fallout 2 is like it is because the Chosen One is eating a diet consisting mainly of mutated peyote, then it might make sense because he's hallucinating his way through the entire thing.

Like it or not, Fallout 3 actually seems to be the first game bearing the name since Fallout which actually seems to make a really good attempt at a consistent world with the first game. That's not to say there aren't funky things in it which I've mentioned. I'm just saying you can tell there was some effort to make a homogeneous world consistent with the Fallout setting.

Yep. The promos are great. I wish they nailed the 200 years since the war atmosphere though.

Yeah, there are a few places where they seem to have missed the idea that Fallout is from a 1950s pulp point of view as if someone in the 1950s had made a setting about a nuclear war far in the future. Three Dog and all the swearing are jarring for this reason.

PS. Any chance to see your review one day?

Maybe. Depends on how much free time I get over the next few months.

 

[Claw]

I have to say, the game is bloody fun despite all its problems. VATS is alot better than I would've expected too, and I'm still tempted to blow up nuclear cars just for the fun of it.

And after a dozen hours or so of searching and trying mods, I believe I am finally ready to start playing properly.


Oh, and biggest disappointment so far? Killing two Brotherhood Outcasts with a car and not being able to wear their bloody power armor. They were armed with bloody SMGs, too.
I did encounter another one with a Gatling Laser, but no car nearby.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Shittiest, SHITTIEST ending ever.

Multiple choices for endings? Multiple pseudochoices more like, what a crock of shit, I'd have pushed someone else in there. Fail as fuck - 5/10.

The worst part about it, though, is that there are no settlement endings. WHAT THE FUCK? Seriously, that's the fucking payoff for all the choices you make. There's no excuse for this. None.

 

[Monocause]

A week after finishing FO3 I just realised that:

1. My opinion of the game gets worse and worse with each passing day after the playthrough (and no, I'm not reading Codex FO3 threads, too much headache). Many things that felt decent during gameplay became meh at best and overwhelmingly ridiculous at worst. Since it's my purely subjective opinion, I'm not posting any examples as it probably would just be counterproductive.

2. I'm quite sure that I won't be replaying it. Unless, of course, some excellent mods will surface.

3. I'm VERY happy that I've torrented FO3 instead of buying it; would be a terrible loss of money. I could spend twenty bucks on that one, but fifty? Fuck, not a chance. Fuck all this 'piracy and support developers and pirates r fags'. You release an overpriced subpar product and assure that the players don't have a chance to determine whether the game's any good or not BEFORE buying it (thanks to gigantic hype and no demo), I'm torrenting your game. I judge FO3 entertainment value somewhere around 20-25 bucks and not a penny more. Maybe I'll buy it when the price drops, but I'm not sure.

4. The game's enthusiastic reception by the 'casual gamers' shows how fucked up game industry has become. It's similiar to Hollywood now - they make an action title with Bruce Willis that is almost exactly the same as another action title with Sylvester Stallone, and hyped people go to cinemas and exclaim how they've been thrilled and immersed. It did hit the codex also - it's a wonder that a game as mediocre as FO3 made people to post gazillions of times, be it positively or negatively.

 

[kris]

Bethesda started from scratch on the content and nailed the art direction for the most part. In terms of art content, Fallout 3 really does feel like walking through a Fallout game. Even the Museum of Technology with the space vehicles were a hell of a lot better than the space shuttle in Fallout 2. The promo material for the game fit the setting, like the advertisements for Vault-Tec and such.

On a pure art side it looks nice with all unique locations and so on.

But you need to ignore some things:
- That the game is on the east coast.
- That it is supposed to be 200 years after the bombs.
- That almost everything is hostile by default.
- All the gore-porn with mutilated bodies hanging and lying around everywhere.

 

[Ausir]

That the game is on the east coast.

What's wrong with it being set on the East Coast?

 

[Mech]

A week after finishing FO3 I just realised that:

1. My opinion of the game gets worse and worse with each passing day after the playthrough (and no, I'm not reading Codex FO3 threads, too much headache). Many things that felt decent during gameplay became meh at best and overwhelmingly ridiculous at worst. Since it's my purely subjective opinion, I'm not posting any examples as it probably would just be counterproductive.

2. I'm quite sure that I won't be replaying it. Unless, of course, some excellent mods will surface.

3. I'm VERY happy that I've torrented FO3 instead of buying it; would be a terrible loss of money. I could spend twenty bucks on that one, but fifty? Fuck, not a chance. Fuck all this 'piracy and support developers and pirates r fags'. You release an overpriced subpar product and assure that the players don't have a chance to determine whether the game's any good or not BEFORE buying it (thanks to gigantic hype and no demo), I'm torrenting your game. I judge FO3 entertainment value somewhere around 20-25 bucks and not a penny more. Maybe I'll buy it when the price drops, but I'm not sure.

4. The game's enthusiastic reception by the 'casual gamers' shows how fucked up game industry has become. It's similiar to Hollywood now - they make an action title with Bruce Willis that is almost exactly the same as another action title with Sylvester Stallone, and hyped people go to cinemas and exclaim how they've been thrilled and immersed. It did hit the codex also - it's a wonder that a game as mediocre as FO3 made people to post gazillions of times, be it positively or negatively.

I don't think you just realized all that, you tool.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

On a pure art side it looks nice with all unique locations and so on.

But you need to ignore some things:
- That the game is on the east coast.
- That it is supposed to be 200 years after the bombs.
- That almost everything is hostile by default.
- All the gore-porn with mutilated bodies hanging and lying around everywhere.

Well, there's a lot I don't like about Fallout 3 as well. I've mentioned it's silly that the East Coast is identical to the West Coast. It's really silly that the Brotherhood of Steel, who were struggling in Fallout 2, had enough resources to march across the wasteland and inhabit the Pentagon. Vault-Tec having FEV is silly. Deathclaws in the East are silly. One of the reasons the West Coast was the way it was is because West Tek was nuked and the FEV was irradiated and released in to the air. It doesn't make much sense at all that the East Coast is about the same as the West Coast.

I don't see where the 200 years after the bombs is a problem, but the fact it's 20 years after Fallout 2 and the Brotherhood sent people to Washington is odd.

Yeah, I don't like the subway dungeons. Most things in Fallout and Fallout 2 were hostile though. Well, with the exception of Fallout 2 where you had friendly deathclaws, friendly spore plants, etc.

Fallout and Fallout 2 had a lot of bodies laying around also. Of course, the corpses disappeared in Fallout and Fallout 2. They don't tend to vanish in Fallout 3 as quickly.

My point was that there seemed to be a lot more care taken with the style of buildings, a lot of the science, and so on than I was expecting. Walking around in Fallout 3 seems like walking around in the Fallout universe. The Museum of Technology was really well done if you skip passed the Supermutants.

 

[Monocause]

I don't think you just realized all that, you tool.

Actually, I did. I haven't given the game's worth any thought while playing. Also, I didn't follow the gamers' reaction until now since I wasn't interested. And it's obvious that I didn't know that I'll think of the game less a week after a playthrough and that I didn't know that I won't be replaying it.

 

[Suchy]

Oh, and biggest disappointment so far? Killing two Brotherhood Outcasts with a car and not being able to wear their bloody power armor. They were armed with bloody SMGs, too.
I did encounter another one with a Gatling Laser, but no car nearby.

Don't worry, with VATS you can just pistolhead him to death.

 

[kris]

That the game is on the east coast.

What's wrong with it being set on the East Coast?

Apart from the things saint mentioned, it should look a bit different. those are quite different places, I been to both. But basically they taken the barren and hot irradiated california and pressed it into washington metro area. complete with the people and organisations from there.