Review MCA Wades in to the Wake of the Fallout TV Show

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Chris Avellone; Fallout; Fallout TV Show

The venerable Chris Avellone, who doesn't have nearly as nice hair as I do but still better than Josh Sawyer's hair, has posted the first chapter of his review on the Fallout TV Series. The first part talks about the characters, and gives a few glimpses of what's to come. There's also several asides, like reasons to discount the review, a few things about the original games, some tidbits about who might enjoy this though that may be unintentional, and a whole lot more!

My feeling was, starting with Episode 5, things started going downhill and the problems grew. I think this is natural because the opening episodes focused more on immediate predicaments, but as the series and world opens up and the full motivations for the cast become more apparent, the larger questions start showing up, and those don’t have good answers.

Now, I’m going to talk a little about lore, retcons, and older Fallouts vs. the series, and these don’t have good answers, either — and may be answers you don’t want to hear.​

Of course, the lore stuff is teased, but will be in the second part of this review. Why drop the good stuff first, right? Of course, if you're waiting for a massive dump of lore issues, freestyle style, there's this playlist from Creetosis. It's about 16 hours, and there's a lot of mostly reactions to things, but there's some solid lore punching as well. They also talk about how awful the writing is.

Thanks to agris for giving me the push to decide to post this. I was heavily on the fence about it. But then I realized that not all members of the forum have access to the forum where most of this is discussed. For reasons? Who knows.

 

[Tyranicon]

Avellone spends way too much time justifying his review. Bro, we're reading your shit because we know who you are.

But some funny parts:

In many ways (start lighting torches, pitchforks come later), this whole series reminded me of the final season of Star Trek’s Picard.

If you haven’t seen it, Season 3 of Picard is a masterclass in fan service, gives the audience arguably everything they’ve ever wanted, and is wildly entertaining.

It is also a largely terrible, random story that had me smh repeatedly. The craftsmanship outside of fan service moments felt non-existent and non-cohesive.

Was Fallout entertaining?

Yes.

[...]

This means if you watch the series and play Fallout 4 or 76, chances are, you’ll feel right at home.

On Craftsmanship — is Fallout a good, thoughtful, well-paced series whose plot respects its own internal lore, its own dramatic payoffs, and uses foreshadowing effectively cinematically and narratively?

Nope.

[Fallout 1] was pretty damn good. And that voice cast! Dammmmn.

However, Fallout 2 and what followed — the console game Brotherhood of Steel — weren’t as good. I’d argue they hurt the franchise more than people “blame” Fallout 3, 4, and 76 for doing.

In fact, if Bethesda hadn’t bought Fallout, I seriously doubt there would have been another Fallout, let alone at the scale of F3, F4, spinoffs, T-shirts at Target, and the TV series. While it’s easy to give that stuff the finger, it’s testament that a franchise in the right marketing hands can grow to something none of us would have expected… because at the last stages of Interplay, there was no confidence that that level of popularity would ever happen vs. the company going out of business.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

it’s testament that a franchise in the right marketing hands

I think this sums it up right here. The big problem with Interplay towards the end is that they went from desperate towards the end of Bryan Fargo's reign to Herve Caen buying them who only had an interest in taking those French tax dollars and making as much personal money as possible off the dying corpse of a once great software company. Interplay lost their exclusive Star Trek license, they were losing their exclusive D&D rights, they released a lot of decent games in the last years of the 1990s but a lot of them had lukewarm sales despite being classics like MDK and Sacrifice, and you can see some quick turn around games making their way in to the releases. Hell, Interplay published Jagged Alliance 2, the Descent series, and a lot of other great things.

 

[MrBuzzKill]

Major game devs are usually very open-minded, so this is a sure sign for me never to bother watching the series.

Or maybe Chris is more frank now that, sadly, he doesn't have to worry so much about upsetting potential employers?

 

[Grunker]

The fact that he had to watch 5 episodes of this to start wondering whether it was shit is condemning of his ability to judge quality

 

[Tao]

The serie is woke garbage but without the "in your face" girlboss bullshit. Still is a mid show at most imo. No wonder normies, gen z, and the rest of retards enjoyed it like if it was the second come of Christ: it was like watching Bethesda rapin the Fallout IP again but in a new format.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The venerable Chris Avellone, who doesn't have nearly as nice hair as I do but still better than Josh Sawyer's hair

 

[Zarniwoop]

He's right about Picard though. All memberberries and no actual coherent story.

Yeah, let's just put every fucking military ship in the universe in orbit of Earth at the same time AND give them each a networked AI control system that can lock out even the local input from the crew. And do all this for no good reason. I mean, there is literally nothing that could possibly go wrong.

In fact, if Bethesda hadn’t bought Fallout, I seriously doubt there would have been another Fallout, let alone at the scale of F3, F4, spinoffs, T-shirts at Target, and the TV series.

Imagine actually thinking that this would be a bad thing. Typical Reddit-tier argument - oh don't criticize this latest pile of shit and be sure to pre-order the extended DLC cut, else they might stop making these piles of shit altogether.

 

[Sweeper]

But then I realized that not all members of the forum have access to the forum where most of this is discussed. For reasons? Who knows.

Yeah, weird that. Personally I blame Infinitron.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

here's this playlist from Creetosis.

This gotta be a joke right?

I asked that walking tumour for his critique for New Vegas like 5 years ago and he said "I will make it", and nothing since.

I almost gone to his "hoose" in Alberta, Canada to slap his whore mother for her mistake not aborting that retard.

Kreenosis is as credible as my dog's shit this morning. Only the the advance-retard heed his propaganda.



Anyway, it must have been very disappointing for many of you how Chris Avellone review was Tame, a thinly veiled love letter to Fallout 1. The retards are now cornered to complaining about "lore". Because arguing that the "TV Show is bad" is too retarded.

Also the usual "This X person (creator of art) must have been very stupid for not noticing how bad y is, unlike me!". A Codexian. Saying that. LMAO. Swallow some buckshot, please.

 

[Kev Inkline]

In fact, if Bethesda hadn’t bought Fallout, I seriously doubt there would have been another Fallout, let alone at the scale of F3, F4, spinoffs, T-shirts at Target, and the TV series.

Imagine actually thinking that this would be a bad thing. Typical Reddit-tier argument - oh don't criticize this latest pile of shit and be sure to pre-order the extended DLC cut, else they might stop making these piles of shit altogether.

Oh the edgyness! To me this is just a neutral observation, maybe even a fact. I don't read it as him as saying it's either good thing or bad thing they followed from Bethesda's acquisition of Fallout rights.

 

[Zarniwoop]

In fact, if Bethesda hadn’t bought Fallout, I seriously doubt there would have been another Fallout, let alone at the scale of F3, F4, spinoffs, T-shirts at Target, and the TV series.

Imagine actually thinking that this would be a bad thing. Typical Reddit-tier argument - oh don't criticize this latest pile of shit and be sure to pre-order the extended DLC cut, else they might stop making these piles of shit altogether.

Oh the edgyness! To me this is just a neutral observation, maybe even a fact. I don't read it as him as saying it's either good thing or bad thing they followed from Bethesda's acquisition of Fallout rights.

Read the rest of the quote. He's clearly implying it's A Good Thing(TM) that more games were made and it became popular.

 

[Hydro]

He’s too cuck to call it what it is — shite

 

[Froila]

In fact, if Bethesda hadn’t bought Fallout, I seriously doubt there would have been another Fallout, let alone at the scale of F3, F4, spinoffs, T-shirts at Target, and the TV series.

Imagine actually thinking that this would be a bad thing. Typical Reddit-tier argument - oh don't criticize this latest pile of shit and be sure to pre-order the extended DLC cut, else they might stop making these piles of shit altogether.

Oh the edgyness! To me this is just a neutral observation, maybe even a fact. I don't read it as him as saying it's either good thing or bad thing they followed from Bethesda's acquisition of Fallout rights.

Read the rest of the quote. He's clearly implying it's A Good Thing(TM) that more games were made and it became popular.

It's logical. After all, he is one of the authors of this IP. And the fact it is alive and kicking should make him happy.

 

[Sinder Velvin]

Read the rest of the quote. He's clearly implying it's A Good Thing(TM) that more games were made and it became popular.

He's just being diplomatic (but is still being accused by zoomers of being salty towards Bethesda).

Wait to see what score he actually gives the show in part 2.

 

[Wunderbar]

Provolone is cucking and shitting on his own legacy again.

"Oh fallout 2 was a terrible game! fallout 3, 4 and even 76 are so much better. the show is wildly entertaining. pls hire me Todd".

 

[Roguey]

Imagine actually thinking that this would be a bad thing. Typical Reddit-tier argument - oh don't criticize this latest pile of shit and be sure to pre-order the extended DLC cut, else they might stop making these piles of shit altogether.

Fallout 3 by Troika funded by Activision would have been preferable to the Fallout 3 we ultimately got.

Of course Avellone is glad Feargus didn't win the bidding war either.

 

[Sinder Velvin]

Provolone is cucking and shitting on his own legacy again.

"Oh fallout 2 was a terrible game! fallout 3, 4 and even 76 are so much better. the show is wildly entertaining. pls hire me Todd".

He said nothing of the sort. He's saying the lore problems that people are complaining about started with Fallout 2.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Read the rest of the quote. He's clearly implying it's A Good Thing(TM) that more games were made and it became popular.

Initially, it was a good thing, because we got New Vegas. Flash forward until today, we have an obviously butthurt Bethesda doing everything they can to fuck over anything they didn't make with the IP, which was the good stuff. His point that we got more Fallout made a lot more sense after Fallout 3 with New Vegas than it does today.

Honestly, you have to question how good that is currently when you look at what Bethesda has been doing. Fallout 4 was Bethesda attempting to do world building in Fallout and it's inconsistent even within it's own narrative setting. Everyone in Diamond City hates synths, but then there's Nick Valentine who no one seems to have a problem with. There's no way you can look at Nick Valentine and not know he's a synth. Nick Valentine got his personality from a brain scan of a cop before the war, so how did they get the personalities of the people they're replacing? There's that random encounter where there's the synth and the guy that synth is modeled from and you're supposed to pick one, so how did they get that guy's personality? So synths don't need to eat, drink, or sleep yet there's no way to tell a level 3 synth from a human? And that's just the synths. I could keep going with the inconsistencies with fusion cores, teleporters(what the Hell, Bethesda?), and so on.

He's right about Picard though. All memberberries and no actual coherent story.

He's right about Westworld as well. The first season was decent, even good in parts, but every season that followed it was progressively worse.

The serie is woke garbage but without the "in your face" girlboss bullshit.

I'm pretty sure they were going to go with the girlboss thing and then backed off of it. There's a montage in the first episode showing all the stuff the main character was super good at and then it's never seen again. But yes, it's very much woke garbage. There's a tranny in the Brotherhood, every relationship is interracial, Lucy is supposedly naive but also a complete whore, there's the dressing down of the ghoul before the war exclusively by non-white characters, the only good, "strong" white male character in the series is a manlet, all the communist bullshit, and so on.

 

[luj1]

Why even post this? Ofc he aint gonna say a bad thing about it, duh

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Why even post this? Ofc he aint gonna say a bad thing about it, duh

He did. He says quite a few negatives about it. Tyranicon even quoted the part where he said it wasn't a well crafted show.

 

[Gregz]

He’s too cuck to call it what it is — shite

/thread

 

[luj1]

Fallout 3 by Troika funded by Activision would have been preferable to the Fallout 3 we ultimately got.

Van Buren would have been too

 

[thesheeep]

I liked the series a lot more than I thought I would.
It's not perfect, but worlds better than I had any hope it would be after utter trash like Witcher or Halo.
I especially like that it sets up a setting post NCR - because let's be honest, if NCR succeeded, that'd basically be it for the setting.

Not that he's wrong with most criticisms, but if anyone expected the series to adhere more to F1 than F4 or 76, they must have gotten brain damaged at some point between here and F1 release. I was surprised the series acknowledges anything prior to F3 at all.
I also find it quite pedantic to point out even the tiniest of possible plot holes, like, come on, have you watched TV series before? Though tbf, he also says he's just being pedantic about some points of his and they aren't major deals.
All in all, the series is... solid. A 6.5/10 - with potential in both directions, obviously.

 

[Tyranicon]

I especially like that it sets up a setting post NCR - because let's be honest, if NCR succeeded, that'd basically be it for the setting.

I will say that keeping that status quo is beneficial for SELLING PRODUCT™, not necessarily good for the quality of the setting, story, writing, whatever. In fact, in most cases, it hurts it a lot.

Good stories require change. Nothing is more interesting than seeing all the various parts of a setting adapt to a new axiom.

Othewise you're stuck making slop like Star Wars and trying to justify horrible writing to sell toys. Muh Palpa came back.

Lol what the fuck is that shit.