That said, Fallout 3 is a game for all Fallout fans. This is, of course, because any true fan of the original series would have had their expectations sink so low that any good feature of the new game would have to be seen as a positive surprise.
Not me. My expectations were not overly high, but I certainly expected better than what we got. Fallout 3 always had several natural advantages over Oblivion, given there were certain Fallout aspects that could not be completely avoided - various ways to complete quests, skill checks, deeper dialogue trees, greater focus on characterisation, consequences to actions...
So, my expectations were for Fallout 3 to be a game that catered to my tastes much more than Oblivion did. What I got was a tweaked Oblivion with mostly poorly implemented Fallout features on the side. The skill checks were nice, but poorly written, lacking in consequences and real character build differentiation. Much of the dialogue was so poor, that I'd have preferred there were less of it, even down to Oblivion levels, at least for that game they knew what direction they were going in. Given that the alternate modes of quest completion came with very few, if any, consequences (even for Megaton), they were really rather superfluous. The skill checks, given how poorly they were implemented in most instances, detracted rather than added to my experience, especially as again, the consequences were almost non-existant, and that many of the checks had weak effects, and seem to have just been thrown in with little thought. The game's biggest Fallout related weakness is the lack of consequences. This was particularly noticable given that they did go the Fallout route in setting up many a consequence, but never going through with it, much less satisfying than a game that just stays well away. So, as with the dialogue, Fallout 3 suffers from dual influences, it is being pulled one way because it's supposed to be a Fallout game, but cannot bring itself to carry through, as an Oblivion-like game is where the audience and money is at, and is "what we do well".
Fallout 3, with all the attempts at putting meaningful stat-checks in dialogues, providing quests with various outcomes and ways of finishing them, a few locations designed with inspiration, and some small - yet important - very good features like the quest-related audio bits definitely shows promise. I'm glad Bethesda didn't think "we won't introduce stat checks into dialogue, because that's not what we do well". Yes, they don't do it very well, yet. But they tried, and I'm sure they learned something in the process. Some parts of the game show that with more practice, Bethesda should be capable of delivering a fully-fledged cRPG experience.
I disagree, and hold almost the opposite view. Do you really think the stat checks in Fallout 3 is Bethesda trying? A 12 year old could have made a better effort than many of them in terms of writing. Then we have the lack of consequences. What is the point of so many checks if they lack these? NWN2 had even more, but it was not a great roleplaying experience. No, to me it's clear they did not try, and that it's further confirmation they will not do anything other than TES-like games. They definitely added some Fallout elements to their game, but it was never at the expense of their standard formula, and it is crystal clear which of the two competing philosophies was dominant in the development of Fallout 3.
A deeply disappointing game. I have much more faith in the quality of talent at Bethesda than some others, and believe they could have produced a much better game were they not so tightly constrained to a particular model. Unfortunately, I see no signs that these constraints will be loosened any time soon. The success of Fallout 3 will only strengthen them.
%27aiq_the_Liar
