Review Edward R Murrow's Dissertation on Fallout 3

[notnats]

While this thread entertains me, definitely even more than the FF7-debacle, I fear for the future. Will there be enough material left for ten pages more? I think you should leave some arguing for later, just in case you run out.

COME ON, THREAD!! YOU CAN DO IT!! TEN MORE PAGES, TEN MORE PAGES!!

Should be easy, the Dart Gun alone has enough substance for at least 20 more pages.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I am... shocked, amazed, inspried, and at the same time utterly nauseated by the endurance and stamina you guys have shown in this pissing match.

I applaud you gentlemen, I applaud you all.

I think it's quite obvious that neither Dark Underlord nor I really give a shit about Fallout 3 in general and the railway rifle in particular. What you are witnessing is an EPIC, IMMERSIVE, and quite possibly the NEXT-GENERATION-like battle of good and evil. The fate of the entire universe depends on the outcome. Serious business, guys.

 

[Vault Dweller]

BG1 was mostly about the story.

BG1? Mostly about story? Are you sure we played the same BG1?
BG1 that i remember was about exploring big world made of conjoined locations.

You followed a scripted story. While there were some optional locations, you were always directed where to go and what to do next. Locations were unlocked and added to the map when it was time for you to go there.

Just because you liked exploring and looking at pretty backgrounds doesn't mean that game was about exploring.

 

[Hamster]

You followed a scripted story.

Scripted story automaticaly strips the game from magical "it's about exploring" excuse?

Locations were unlocked and added to the map when it was time for you to go there.

So GTA is not a sandbox game?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I don't want to speak for Saint because he's more than capable of doing that himself if he wants to. All I can say is what I understand the Codex to be, is that angry site that demands more from RPGs. If I recall correctly the original conversations with Deathy, who had the idea for the site, were all about setting a high standard for RPGs and wanting that high standard. It was about reviewing games to that high standard, not whether they were good games or not but whether they were good RPGs. What made them good RPGs? What makes them bad RPGs? It wasn't about going "Hey, this is an awesome sandbox game", it's all about whether it's an awesome RPG.

My opinion of Fallout 3 is basically the one time low expectations paid off. Bethesda did a much better job with it than I was expecting them to do. That's not to say I don't have problems with a lot of things in Fallout 3, but there are a heck of a lot less issues with Fallout 3 than I was anticipating.

Would I have liked it to have it's isometric view? Probably, mainly because I liked the table-top feel of the first. The same thing goes for the hex grid, turn based combat, and so on.

Is VATS flakey? Yeah, it is. The AP system just seems wonky. I would have liked it more if they'd used the little LED lights where one light is one AP a la Fallout as opposed to the graduated percentage scale. Jet is supposed to add APs, but it mainly seems to just make APs generate faster from what I can tell. I can't punch people more times in the face when I'm on Jet, but I seem to be able to punch them more often. I don't like not being able to target people's body parts in melee. I don't like not having special attacks for melee like Fallout had. That said, VATS works better than I was expecting because I actually use it.

Are the quests decent? Some of them are. In fact, some of them are pretty decent. The main quest is too scripted, too cut scene-y, and too linear. There's multiple ways of getting a lot of the clues which trail you along, but it's always the same thing over and over again. But the quests are generally better than I was expecting.

The dialogue can be irritating and I don't like the fact that everything is voiced. There are a lot of speech tags. I've seen tags for Karma, attributes like Strength and Intelligence, speech generated by Perks, and so forth. I don't like the fact the Speech skill is a roll of the dice, but oh well. I also hate the swearing. There's too many characters who F-Bomb regularly for the setting. One or two F-Bombs in the game would have been fine, but the fact every character is "fuck this!" and "fuck that!" and "fuck you!" is just lame as hell. There's a big list of Fallout slang from the design docs for Fallout. There's no reason why Bethesda couldn't have used that instead.

Karma seems a bit goofy. There's a few times where I've gained and lost Karma that I wouldn't have guessed would be associated with an action. But hey, that's about any game with good and bad actions. I'm not really happy that Karma seems to be hidden and you can't see the karma traits.

I'm really not happy with the Supermutants, Brotherhood of Steel, Enclave, DOG MEAT(!), and so on all being in the game. I would have liked it better if Bethesda had gone their own route with the game with new creatures, factions and such. Harold, I don't mind. Harold is the Forrest Gump of the Fallout universe. He's always around when something big happens. If Deathclaws had made it that far east, across the entire country, they would have taken over. They're too good a predator not to have wiped out entire species along the way. I'd say this is my biggest beef with Fallout 3 really.

The art content for Fallout 3 is way, WAY better than I was expecting. Look at Fallout Tactics and then look at Fallout 3. I was half expecting Fallout Tactics in terms of art design, and got Fallout's art in 3D instead. That makes me happy.

If Fallout 3 had been isometric and turn based, I'd say it would have been easily better than Fallout 2.

 

[Ausir]

If Deathclaws had made it that far east, across the entire country, they would have taken over. They're too good a predator not to have wiped out entire species along the way. I'd say this is my biggest beef with Fallout 3 really.

According to Matt Norton, lead designer of Fallout 2, the deathclaws were a pre-war military genetic engineering experiment, so they could conceivably be found on both coasts without the need to make it from one to the other.

 

[trais]

If Fallout 3 had been isometric and turn based, I'd say it would have been easily better than Fallout 2.

While F2 have it's own share of silliness, F3 has way more stupid or retarded things scattered around it's claustrophobic wasteland.
And even with changed perspective and reworked combat (it's just horrible and frustrating the way it is now, and I think VATS is only a minor problem compared to it's other aspects) it wouldn't be even on the same league with F2. It might be enjoyable game then, but nothing more.

 

[Kingston]

If Fallout 3 had been isometric and turn based, I'd say it would have been easily better than Fallout 2.

Oh whattefuck?

 

[DarkSign]

If Fallout 3 had been isometric and turn based, I'd say it would have been easily better than Fallout 2.

Oh whattefuck?

Someone should make this happen with existing mod technology.

 

[MetalCraze]

If Fallout 3 had been isometric and turn based, I'd say it would have been easily better than Fallout 2.

Oh whattefuck?

D. of the C. ya mon.

 

[Tintin]

I am intrigued by this plot twist.

 

[Twinfalls]

All I can say is what I understand the Codex to be, is that angry site that demands more from RPGs. If I recall correctly the original conversations with Deathy, who had the idea for the site, were all about setting a high standard for RPGs and wanting that high standard. It was about reviewing games to that high standard, not whether they were good games or not but whether they were good RPGs. What made them good RPGs? What makes them bad RPGs? It wasn't about going "Hey, this is an awesome sandbox game", it's all about whether it's an awesome RPG.

And that's why I posted Chefe's review as official content!! ohbutitwasforthelulzreallyuhhuh

 

[Vault Dweller]

Teh plot definitely thickens.

Scripted story automaticaly strips the game from magical "it's about exploring" excuse?

Excuse? Different sub-genres are focused on different things. That's why it's hard to put different games like Darklands, Fallout, Wizardry 8, Daggerfall, Icewind Dale, Torment, Diablo, etc under one roof.

Exploring means going anywhere you want whenever you want. It doesn't mean "unlocking location B, checking it out, unlocking location C, etc".

So GTA is not a sandbox game?

If you really can't understand what sandbox games are and what makes them different from other games, I don't think I can help you.

 

[DefJam101]

In a sandbox game you can ride around the countryside on a horse, killing hookers?

 

[Twinfalls]

Oh boy.....

You were wrong. Mmmkay?

Again, it's very simple.

-Neither VD or I have the full information on the amount and kind of speech checks.
-I threw out numbers casually, he took them extremely literally.
-He argued based on the literal notion, whereas I didn't.
-Thus it looks like I'm wrong to you.

Listen you denial beserker - you were wrong. There are tons of checks, and most of them are not 'gimme more money'. Most are in fact 'I can get the quest done more quickly' checks. I've also encountered medical, repair, explosives quest checks. And those are just the skills I had high enough. The fact you wrote 'there are scant other checks apart from gimme more money' indicates exactly what VD and I have criticised your piece about. You rushed it.

And the bottle cap mine.

I tried using a few, and just like other mines, enemies didn't seem to trigger them. Maybe it was because I had low explosives skill or maybe more physics glitches. Though if a mine doesn't blow up, it's not very useful. I explained why I didn't have success with it, so it's not a piece of misinformation to the readers. Maybe I am just inept with the mines, but it certainly isn't wrong in the way 2+2=7 is, although you seem to think it is.

The schematics are not 'radically useless'. You were wrong. PERIOD. FFS

They weren't 'actual vampire people'.

Actually they were. "Actual vampire people" are not the same thing as "actual vampires", though you just jumped to that conclusion.

Shutup. By saying 'actual' and nothing more, you clearly implied actual vampires. You clearly hadn't talked to the quest NPCs right through when you wrote that. Once again, rushed. No amount of weaselling will get you out of this.

Take it like a man, Murrow.

Hell, in some cultures vampires are mythical undead, in others they're lawyers. This isn't wrong.

Yeah ok, what you were clearly implying was they were lawyers. FALLOUT 3 SUCKS, IT'S GOT ACTUAL RAYMOND BURR PEOPLE! HARRY HAMLIN AND SUSAN DEY COMIN' AT YA!! ALAN DERSHOWITZ ATTACK!

Oh....and thanks for automatically lumping me in with the brainless Bethesda bashers because I'm highly critical of their work. Real classy.

Ummm... projecting much?

 

[Vault Dweller]

No amount of weaselling will get you out of this.

Take it like a man, Murrow.

Do what the lady says, Edward.

 

[Gragt]

We need more Raymond Burr in Fallout games.

 

[Alex]

(...snip)
Kinda no. You were reviewing the game. You weren't supposed to breathe through it, missing shit and replacing it with false assumptions. Your job, when you decided to write that review was explaining little Timmy what the game was like and helping him form an accurate opinion of the game and decide whether the game is for him.

How would you rate your effort? I know I'm giving you a hard time, but that's because you could have done so much fucking better. I expected more from your review. Better style, better flow, better arguments, more open mindedness and less bias.
(snip...)

I know it probably is pretty stupid of me to nose in this discussion again, but I have a small comment here. If I get you right, the reason of your posts VD is simply to show Edward where you think his review was lacking, supposedly so that he can do better on a future one, correct?

If that is the case, I really think that you should have added to your comments on his review what you thought he did right. Don't get me wrong VD, I understand you probably have a lot more experience in dealing with people than me. And maybe this wouldn't go well with your posting style or something. But in my limited experience, criticism where you don't show any good points not only tend to be way harder to swallow, but can also make the criticized one a bit lost, as they might not have a good idea of what they did right.

Anyway, this is the Codex, and this kind of idea is probably seem as fagotry or some other swear word stolen from the cool 13 year old kids. Just thought I would post my 2 cents before this thread ends up dead for good.

While this thread entertains me, definitely even more than the FF7-debacle, I fear for the future. Will there be enough material left for ten pages more? I think you should leave some arguing for later, just in case you run out.

COME ON, THREAD!! YOU CAN DO IT!! TEN MORE PAGES, TEN MORE PAGES!!

YOU can do it, Andy. All you need to do is come up with a long post where you detailed explain why Fallout 3 is better than Fallout 1. All the text wall builders will begin to reply against you. This would normally be one or two pages worth of text max, but if you use arguments where people here can't agree with each other, maybe you can get them to start replying to each other instead of replying to your original post!

If you can get Edward, VD, DU, Twinfalls and NN each on separate sides on the issues, this could go on for some 30 pages! Heck, it might even reach critical mass and reach the number of pages of the best thread ever!

P.S. Andy. is that Smith the Horse on your avatar?

 

[Hamster]

So GTA is not a sandbox game?

If you really can't understand what sandbox games are and what makes them different from other games, I don't think I can help you.

I know what a sandbox game is, and i am pretty sure that having some location locked is present in many of them. GTA is the first thing that comes to mind. So why having some locked locations unavailable from the start prevents BG1 from being a game "about exploring , killing and looting"?

Different sub-genres are focused on different things. That's why it's hard to put different games like Darklands, Fallout, Wizardry 8, Daggerfall, Icewind Dale, Torment, Diablo, etc under one roof.

Yes, with clearly defined sub-genres it works well. But apparently we have a disagreement about the sub-genre of BG1.

 

[Vault Dweller]

So GTA is not a sandbox game?

If you really can't understand what sandbox games are and what makes them different from other games, I don't think I can help you.

I know what a sandbox game is, and i am pretty sure that having some location locked is present in many of them. GTA is the first thing that comes to mind. So why having some locked locations unavailable from the start prevents BG1 from being a game "about exploring , killing and looting"?

The game had 7 chapters, for God's sake. That alone clearly marks it as a story-driven game, which is the opposite of sandbox.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

All I can say is what I understand the Codex to be, is that angry site that demands more from RPGs. If I recall correctly the original conversations with Deathy, who had the idea for the site, were all about setting a high standard for RPGs and wanting that high standard. It was about reviewing games to that high standard, not whether they were good games or not but whether they were good RPGs. What made them good RPGs? What makes them bad RPGs? It wasn't about going "Hey, this is an awesome sandbox game", it's all about whether it's an awesome RPG.

And that's why I posted Chefe's review as official content!!

Yep¹. As Chefe says in his review:

Thankfully, and unexpectedly coming from Bethesda, choices are not “ghost” choices. That is, two choices don’t end up giving you the same response. Choices are also filled with skill checks. The whole game is filled with numerous skill checks for practically everything you do, along with dice rolls to accompany them, but dialog is where it is most apparent and most thoroughly used.

You, the proverbial role player, will enjoy the varied way you can respond to NPCs and the how you can shape the world through your actions. You might even find a hard to make choice here and there about whether to go with your guts or to go with what you know is right.

The game is perfectly fine with the player choosing the wild dialog options, but as soon as things get back to the real world, it doesn’t want you to go off track. Once a script ends, it ends, and the game doesn’t want you running it anymore. This is perhaps the biggest difference between Fallout 3 and its predecessors.

But above all, it’s a post nuclear role playing game.

¹ ...and also knowing we had Section8's review on the way.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Edit: Page 11 is now officially open for business!

No, it's Ed's. I didn't post a large negative post about F3 before actually trying it for myself, I kept an open mind.

So if everything Edward heard about Fallout 3 before he played it, made him think it was bad and he said so publicly, and then all of that was confirmed when he played it, he's prejudiced? Does this mean the only way Ed could wrote a non-prejudiced review is to come out in praise of Fallout 3?

But if he did that, wouldn't he be ignoring his own opinion which, after all, is what a review is supposed to be about? Play a game and write your opinion on it, right? (Actually the definition of review itself is fun "a critical article or report", go look up the definition of critical for more fun). In Edward's opinion, the schematics were useless. In Edward's opinion the quests were mostly bad. In Edward's opinion, Stealth was poorly done oh and by the way, he added in lots of reasons in the review for why he reached these conclusions. I'm sure he could've added in more.

ESF-worthy. "But...but...but it's my opinion so you can't say that I'm wrong!!!"

...but just can't get over the fact he said "actual vampire people". Which incidentally, doesn't make any sense because we all know vampire's aren't people. Who's ever referred to "Vampire People"?
...
People are alive and they don't drink blood!

This is THE best (not top 5!) ever attempt to win on technicality. I bow to your skills.

Actually, the exact words there were "you started replying but realized that it's pointless". Nice to know you see the point now.

After you went to all the trouble to organize your post and present it so nicely? Replying was the least I could do.

Yes, my good sir, it is actually hard to accept. Useless, like I said before, is too strong a word, especially in this context:

"Repair is all about weapon and armor maintenance and building the radically useless schematic weaponry. To be fair however, weapon degradation is completely ridiculous, so it does see a lot of use. But the secondary ability, schematic weaponry is pretty useless. Schematics come into play mid-way through the game due to their nature as mid-level quest rewards, and by the time you can make them, they're mostly obsolete being underpowered, and made useless by the abundance of ammunition for conventional weaponry."

I can practically taste the venom.

Here Naked Ninja, see what I was talking about? We have a classic case where someone is ignoring all the points and focussing on just one tiny word they disagree with. You can see how Vault Dweller skips right passed the part where Edward throws in the "pretty" adjective ("pretty useless" means not quite the same as just "useless" on itself).

I see. I guess you are really low on arguments if all you have left are adjectives. "He didn't really trash it because he said "pretty"! Why can't you see it?!!"

He then hops, skips and jumps over the fact that the schematics are mid-level quest rewards, meaning you get them mid-way in the game at which point "they're mostly obsolete being underpowered" and made useless "by the abundance of ammunition for conventional weaponry".

It's wrong but who cares, eh? They are not quest rewards, they are not mid-level (you can buy the first one in Megaton), they are neither obsolete nor useless as was proven 20 times already, and the ammo thing was addressed at least 10 times.

I salute you for not giving up and keep posting the same stuff over and over and over again. If you keep doing it long enough, you are bound to win!

:determination:

For example, here's what someone else said about ammo availability in this very thread:

Scarce means rare. FO3's ammo is anything but.

Which applies to the railway rifle ammo as well.

Here's what someone else said about the schematics weapons combat potential:

I didn't say it was the best.

See how these people agree with Edward and yet their prejudice blind-sights them to the points Edward was actually making?

Your position is based on a false assumption that you can use "the best" weapon all the time and thus don't need back ups. I explained it a few times already, but you don't want to listen. I understand. Arguing is more fun.

Someone did the same thing to Oblivion once too. Their review is here. You can just feel their prejudice seeping through. They've taken quotes which they used to develop an opinion before the game was released and compared them to what the actual game was, rather than playing the game for what it was.

That's an unsupported and false assumption that you are trying to pass for a fact, hoping that nobody would notice.

Filled is just far too strong a word to use. These kind of words creates an assumption that the goal of this person is not to provide an analysis or a detailed opinion on Edward's review, but to tear Edward a new one. It's almost like they're "arguing for the sake of arguing". A noble goal, I agree, but I expect a better style.

Unlike you, I can accept criticism and acknowledge mistakes. "Filled" was definitely a wrong word to use. Sorry, Edward. I should have said "contained".

So why didn't you do that for your Oblivion review? EvoG and may others at ESF have all said "Oblivion is great at what it set out to do", it's "fun for what it is". So why didn't you judge it on what it was, rather than what you wanted it to be? Why did you set out to tear it a new one?

I did judge it for what it was. It was a shitty sandbox game, disliked by many Morrowind fans.

Personally, I think it's justifiable to go into a review after a certain type of game. Particularly here at the RPGCodex where we are after those "one in a century" games that can really call themselves RPGs. This isn't the "Open sandbox, 5 stars!" Codex. If you came here expecting a good review of GTA, you'll be sorely mistaken.

You may want to check ToEE and KOTOR reviews then. And do something about that Chefe's Fallout 3 you so proudly posted.

"I suppose this [skill checks] is a marked improvement for Bethesda, but they're still 10 years behind the curve on this, and I don't rightly see any point in going easy on them."
Which is a statement you agree with, correct? Are they or are they not 10 years behind the curve?

It's true that what Bethesda did in FO3 was done 10 years go. However, it wasn't embraced or accepted by the industry. Neither the Witcher nor Mass Effect nor Gothic nor Eschalon had dialogue skill checks. The way I see it Bethesda has just joined an exclusive club and they should be praised for it, not snubbed because they are late. That's definitely a "better late than never" case.

So, while I agree that Bethesda did what was done before, I disagree with the Edward's "rightly see any point in going easy on them" conclusion.

However, when games that are part of a series come out, we'll compare them to the rest of the games in that series. That makes sense. Like we didn't compare Fallout: Tactics to Fallout 1 & 2 so much (it happened but not to the degree it's been done for Fallout 3). But compare Fallout 3 to Fallout 2? Sure. Compare Gothic 4 to Gothic 3? Absolutely. Compare #N to #N - 1? Done.

You are missing my point. You are stuck on the number. "It says "3" so damn right I'll compare it to the first two games!" Does that fucking number define everything for you and take away the need to think whether or not the game has much in common with the first two?

Why shouldn't we be critical? After all, we were with Oblivion when that failed to meet the promises that were made.

It's different. During Oblivion development Bethesda lied just about everything. That had to be pointed out. With Fallout 3 Bethesda was a lot more honest and straightforward, starting with that "we aint gonna do what we don't do well" quote. It doesn't get any more honest than this.

The ammo is everywhere. All types of ammo. However, your guns eat ammo quickly because super mutants, radscorpions, etc take a lot of ammo to kill. Especially in the shooter mode.

Just posting this again to be really sure that there is loads of ammo everywhere for every weapon, so that you'll certainly be using the best weapons you have available without any issue.

* patiently* Ammo isn't rare. You'll find it everywhere. However, when you start using it, it will be used up and you'll have to switch to a different weapon until your primary weapon's ammo is restocked.

Edward's point appears to be that even so, there are still better weapons. For example, he didn't single out only the Chinese Assault Rifle, he's also listed "Old Painless (1), Lincoln's Repeater (2), The Kneecapper (3), The Terrible Shotgun (4), A-23's Plasma Rifle (5), Firelance (6), Alien Blaster (7) and Blackhawk (8)" among others that also Shannow listed.

Didn't I explain that? Please reread my previous posts to you and to Edward.

In short, you appear to have had very difficult combat because you hadn't found the better weapons yet. While Edward had "piss-easy" combat because he was able to find the superior weapons earlier on.

Will you please take a look at the stats? While some weapons are better than the Railway Rifle, they are not much better. In my example above I used a Chinese Rifle with 50 damage. Most weapons listed above have a lot less to offer.

Certainly doesn't appear to be enough to worry about 3 extra shots. Critical Chance I'm also assuming is still based on Luck, meaning someone with high-luck and a critical chance * 3 is more meaningful than someone with low Luck? Of course, you still also have to hit a critical.

Each point of Luck is 1% critical chance. Finesse adds 5%. Survival Expert adds another 3%. I had 15%. Times 3 turns that into impressive 45%. Like I said, definitely not useless. I have no problem with someone preferring different weapons, but I have an issue with reviews misleading people with false assumptons.

For fuck's sakes. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, there are other things to weapons than just critical chance? The Chinese Assault Rifle for example has a really shit critical chance and yet according to some people, it's even better than the Railway Rifle and in fact is the best weapon in the game.

I'm not trying to prove anything about the chinese rifle. I'm trying to prove that the railway rifle isn't useless and is a fine backup weapon.

Edward didn't use the rifle, so he didn't notice it. He compared the "main" damage to that of other guns and assumed that it sucked. It's very fucking simple, so why are we arguing about it?

... because your prejudice has seen you get hung up on a simple thing which Edward justified perfectly well. And by justified, I mean you agree with him. Again, ammo is scarce, fighting a lot of monsters who use weapons so you'd use theirs, weapon break-down, finding better weapons etc...

Uh...what?

So what you're really saying is, you just disagree with Edward's choice of top 5 guns...

I don't really care what Edward's top 5 weapons are as these things are subjective. I'm saying the railway rifle in particular and other schematics in general are not useless and weak attempts to pretend that they are have failed to impress anyone.

For all the reasons Edward outlined, the Railway Rifle does sound pretty useless to me:

• By the time you can make them, they're mostly obsolete being underpowered;
  Made useless by the abundance of ammunition for conventional weaponry.

I explained a gazillion times why these reasons are false assumptions. It looks like you are not going to listen because your mind is already made.

Which means Shannow didn't get a high enough skill to make a 100% Railway Rifle until late in the game, rendering it useless.

But all the other weapons he managed to keep in mint condition somehow. You understand my point, don't you?

It's also interesting that you keep pulling out stats to say how bad the weapons are, saying it's "hardly a better weapon" and yet Shannow found it to be better when he actually used it...

It's interesting that you rate subjective experience ("I liked them more!") higher than simple and easy to understand facts (weapons' stats).

According to Edward, combat isn't that difficult. Several people have said you just have to run backwards when you run out of AP.

Running backwards always helps when multiple enemies are unloading their assault and laser rifles in your direction with deadly accuracy.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Certainly doesn't appear to be enough to worry about 3 extra shots. Critical Chance I'm also assuming is still based on Luck, meaning someone with high-luck and a critical chance * 3 is more meaningful than someone with low Luck? Of course, you still also have to hit a critical.

Each point of Luck is 1% critical chance. Finesse adds 5%. Survival Expert adds another 3%. I had 15%. Times 3 turns that into impressive 45%.

38,5875%.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

*snore*

 

[DarkUnderlord]

No, it's Ed's. I didn't post a large negative post about F3 before actually trying it for myself, I kept an open mind.

So if everything Edward heard about Fallout 3 before he played it, made him think it was bad and he said so publicly, and then all of that was confirmed when he played it, he's prejudiced? Does this mean the only way Ed could wrote a non-prejudiced review is to come out in praise of Fallout 3?

But if he did that, wouldn't he be ignoring his own opinion which, after all, is what a review is supposed to be about? Play a game and write your opinion on it, right? (Actually the definition of review itself is fun "a critical article or report", go look up the definition of critical for more fun). In Edward's opinion, the schematics were useless. In Edward's opinion the quests were mostly bad. In Edward's opinion, Stealth was poorly done oh and by the way, he added in lots of reasons in the review for why he reached these conclusions. I'm sure he could've added in more.

ESF-worthy. "But...but...but it's my opinion so you can't say that I'm wrong!!!"

Vault Dweller, Page 3, third paragraph:

Built a 100% Railway Rifle. Used it for two enemies and put it away since it wasn't as good as smuggler's end, laser rifle, eugene, combat shotgun, sniper rifle, plasma rifle or the special smg.

In your opinion. In my opinion, it's an excellent weapon.

There are those double standards again. Is it so hard to accept that Edward found the weapon useless for the reasons he outlined? Apparently it is for Vault Dweller.

...but just can't get over the fact he said "actual vampire people". Which incidentally, doesn't make any sense because we all know vampire's aren't people. Who's ever referred to "Vampire People"?
...
People are alive and they don't drink blood!

This is THE best (not top 5!) ever attempt to win on technicality. I bow to your skills.

Love how you ignore the sarcasm in that remark. I was referencing your argument at the "useless" schematics by getting hung up on the word "useless" and ignoring Edward's point, like how Twinfalls ignored the point Edward was making with the Vampires.

Oh, sorry, I have to say "People who actually think they're Vampires" because I'm not allowed to take horrible short-cuts like that.

Actually, the exact words there were "you started replying but realized that it's pointless". Nice to know you see the point now.

After you went to all the trouble to organize your post and present it so nicely? Replying was the least I could do.

Here's the fun part about that post. You quoted only the first part and dismissed the rest because you were so busy raging that I'd said the Railway Rifle is the "easiest" weapon to repair, which is a claim I never made. At all. In fact, you went on and on about a point that was never raised. When I point it out? Dead silence. I like how once you've been completely trounced over an issue, you ignore it and just pretend it never happened. I guess that's VD's blind determination for you. God forbid you ever admit you got it completely wrong.

Maybe if you concentrated less on the snide remarks (something you've never actually done well) and focussed more on the actual issues at hand, you might get somewhere instead of just contradicting yourself as you flap around in some kind of mad rage? Think of it as part of your education.

Yes, my good sir, it is actually hard to accept. Useless, like I said before, is too strong a word, especially in this context:

"Repair is all about weapon and armor maintenance and building the radically useless schematic weaponry. To be fair however, weapon degradation is completely ridiculous, so it does see a lot of use. But the secondary ability, schematic weaponry is pretty useless. Schematics come into play mid-way through the game due to their nature as mid-level quest rewards, and by the time you can make them, they're mostly obsolete being underpowered, and made useless by the abundance of ammunition for conventional weaponry."

I can practically taste the venom.

Here Naked Ninja, see what I was talking about? We have a classic case where someone is ignoring all the points and focussing on just one tiny word they disagree with. You can see how Vault Dweller skips right passed the part where Edward throws in the "pretty" adjective ("pretty useless" means not quite the same as just "useless" on itself).

I see. I guess you are really low on arguments if all you have left are adjectives. "He didn't really trash it because he said "pretty"! Why can't you see it?!!"

Remember folks, this is coming from the man who's very first reply had the ESF Gold Standard line of replying to a quote with only the word "Incorrect", without any justification. It's like a Volourn puppet show. How he got his hands on two so life-like VD and Twinfalls puppets I'll never know.

Oh and a man who makes up his own arguments when he's failing: "Easiest!"

Here's what someone else said about the schematics weapons combat potential:

I didn't say it was the best.

See how these people agree with Edward and yet their prejudice blind-sights them to the points Edward was actually making?

Your position is based on a false assumption that you can use "the best" weapon all the time and thus don't need back ups.

Actually, nope. Edward already said himself that the Hunting Rifle did less damage than the Railway Rifle (IE: Not "the best" weapon) but was more available making it easier to repair and meaning you had more ammo for it around, rendering the Railway Rifle pretty useless in his eyes.

If you can't see that Edward trashed the game instead of reviewing and criticizing it, if nothing clicked in your mind when (if) you read that pre-review post, then you're either dishonest or blind.

Someone did the same thing to Oblivion once too. Their review is here. You can just feel their prejudice seeping through. They've taken quotes which they used to develop an opinion before the game was released and compared them to what the actual game was, rather than playing the game for what it was.

That's an unsupported and false assumption that you are trying to pass for a fact, hoping that nobody would notice.

If you can't see that Vault Dweller trashed the game instead of reviewing and criticizing it, if nothing clicked in your mind when (if) you read that pre-review post, then you're either dishonest or blind.

Filled is just far too strong a word to use. These kind of words creates an assumption that the goal of this person is not to provide an analysis or a detailed opinion on Edward's review, but to tear Edward a new one. It's almost like they're "arguing for the sake of arguing". A noble goal, I agree, but I expect a better style.

Unlike you, I can accept criticism and acknowledge mistakes.

I'd like the acknowledgement about that crap you spun up over "easy vs easiest" when I never made such a claim. You know, something about you acknowledging your mistake rather than ignoring it and hoping no-one will notice. I'd also like to point out that you've only acknowledged this mistake when you were called on it. What's the matter, not man enough to admit it in any of the 11 previous pages? Edward's already acknowledged that he may have used too harsh a word on page 5:

Maybe I was wrong in calling schematic weapons radically useless, and was a little extreme, but I suppose that's a mistake everyone can make.

Oh look, it would appear Edward's a bigger man than VD. He can even do it without the snide remarks. As for people making mistakes, we all know Vault Dweller does. He's been making them through-out this thread.

"Filled" was definitely a wrong word to use. Sorry, Edward. I should have said "contained".

Will you also admit that in your review of Oblivion, when you stated "Some perks are plain useless, like the Mercantile perks" that you were incorrect? The Mercantile perks aren't "useless". Sure it's certainly not "the best" but it has a use like being able to sell any item to anyone at Journeyman which is certainly a very useful Mercantile Perk. Here's a YouTube video showing someone levelling up the Merantile (seems like an awful lot to through for some useless perks). Here's a thread where someone's using it as a major skill to get the perks. Some people disagree on its level of usefulness and sure not the best, maybe not even top 5 but certainly not useless!

So why didn't you do that for your Oblivion review? EvoG and may others at ESF have all said "Oblivion is great at what it set out to do", it's "fun for what it is". So why didn't you judge it on what it was, rather than what you wanted it to be? Why did you set out to tear it a new one?

I did judge it for what it was. It was a shitty sandbox game, disliked by many Morrowind fans.

... and yet here you are comparing the game to Jedi Academy in your review:

Now, some comparisons [of Oblivion] with Jedi Academy are in order. The game and the physics thing beg for some interesting and interactive with environment and/or opponent spells. Even spells similar to Force Push, Pull, Grip, etc would have improved combat significantly, but for now we are stuck with a more traditional vanilla spells repertoire that doesn't do an action game any favours. (I'm eagerly awaiting those ""It's an RPG! Duh!" responses. I know. Silly me).

You can't compare Oblivion to Jedi Academy VD! Jedi Academy isn't an open sandbox RPG!

There are those double standards again. Vault Dweller's allowed to compare specific aspects of a game to other games that did something better before and justify his expectation that those types of features would be in a game. Edward does it though, and the Holy Knights of Vault Dweller are up in arms, laying siege to the castle gates.

However, when games that are part of a series come out, we'll compare them to the rest of the games in that series. That makes sense. Like we didn't compare Fallout: Tactics to Fallout 1 & 2 so much (it happened but not to the degree it's been done for Fallout 3). But compare Fallout 3 to Fallout 2? Sure. Compare Gothic 4 to Gothic 3? Absolutely. Compare #N to #N - 1? Done.

You are missing my point. You are stuck on the number. "It says "3" so damn right I'll compare it to the first two games!" Does that fucking number define everything for you and take away the need to think whether or not the game has much in common with the first two?

Right so the whole setting, Fallout being an RPG series, Fallout 3 being a role-playing game doesn't matter? I'm sorry, can I get a list of games we are allowed to compare to each other? For example, can I compare Jedi Academy to Oblivion, even though they're absolutely nothing alike? According to Vault Dweller I can when it suits my position. But when Vault Dweller decides to FLIP-FLOP on himself, it's not allowed.

Gosh, news posting must be cursed. The minute you get kicked off staff around here, you seem to get a severe case of the FLIP-FLOPs.

Why shouldn't we be critical? After all, we were with Oblivion when that failed to meet the promises that were made.

It's different. During Oblivion development Bethesda lied just about everything. That had to be pointed out. With Fallout 3 Bethesda was a lot more honest and straightforward, starting with that "we aint gonna do what we don't do well" quote. It doesn't get any more honest than this.

Vault Dweller saying Bethesda are honest? FLIP-FLOP. These are the the kind of "honest" guys Vault Dweller appreciates:

Bethesda Softworks announced today that it will develop and publish Fallout 3 -- a sequel to the highly popular Fallout role-playing game franchise.

[Our goals are] To return Fallout to RPG prominence. To do the series justice while also bringing it into the current day. This is as big for us as an Elder Scrolls title, so we're not going to skimp on it.

The reason we wanted to make a Fallout game in the first place, was just how much we loved the first game. But we weren't the ones online posting all the time about a game from 97. Think about that...8 years later and they still haven't gotten a decent Fallout RPG, and people keep shoving crap at them. I'd be pissed too. I'd be wary of the new guys from Bethesda too. Hopefully when they see our game they'll give it a shot.

By the way, you know who said "We're not going to suddenly do a top-down isometric Baldur's Gate-style game, because that's not what we do well"? Pete Hines. You know what Vault Dweller thinks of Pete Hines? Here's what Vault Dweller said in this very thread about him on Page 5:

Proof? I hope you won't quote Pete "The Father of Lies" Hines.

... and what does VD do above? He quotes Pete Hines. So which is it VD, is Pete "The Father of Lies" Hines a trust-worthy source to quote or not? Seems to me like you're spinning whatever bullshit you can to suit your position at the time.

FLIP-FLOP.

* patiently* Ammo isn't rare. You'll find it everywhere. However, when you start using it, it will be used up and you'll have to switch to a different weapon until your primary weapon's ammo is restocked.

Yep. This is one of the reasons why Edward found the schematic weapons pretty useless. "By the time you can make them [they're] made useless by the abundance of ammunition for conventional weaponry".

In short, you appear to have had very difficult combat because you hadn't found the better weapons yet. While Edward had "piss-easy" combat because he was able to find the superior weapons earlier on.

Will you please take a look at the stats? While some weapons are better than the Railway Rifle, they are not much better. In my example above I used a Chinese Rifle with 50 damage. Most weapons listed above have a lot less to offer.

Vault Dweller when it suits his argument #1: Will you please take a look at the stats? While some weapons are better than the Railway Rifle, they are not much better.

Vault Dweller when it suits his argument #2: I didn't say it was the best!

Vault Dweller when it suits his argument #3: Not everything is black and white. Some weapons are superior only under certain conditions (enemy type, scale level (i.e. regular super mutant, brute, or master), number of enemies, distance, weapons' supply, etc). I don't think anyone can say "this here is the best gun; get it and you would never need another one".

Certainly doesn't appear to be enough to worry about 3 extra shots. Critical Chance I'm also assuming is still based on Luck, meaning someone with high-luck and a critical chance * 3 is more meaningful than someone with low Luck? Of course, you still also have to hit a critical.

Each point of Luck is 1% critical chance. Finesse adds 5%. Survival Expert adds another 3%. I had 15%. Times 3 turns that into impressive 45%. Like I said, definitely not useless. I have no problem with someone preferring different weapons, but I have an issue with reviews misleading people with false assumptons.

Interesting, so someone with a 1% critical chance * 3 = 3%. Said someone would certainly play the game and discover that, lo and behold, such a weapon was radically useless for them. So to make the Railway Rifle useful, you not only have to have a high enough repair, collect junk, find the schematics and have enough ammo for it, you also need to have chosen 3 Perks and super-high Luck... or you know, you could just up your Small Arms skill and use any one of the other weapons... or just get Energy Weapons... or just get Big Guns. Seems like a lot of hoops to go through to make a weapon even remotely useful (as even with all of that, it still only just manages to get in the top 5). And also assuming you find out in-game the Railway Rifle has a * 3 Critical Chance.

I'm not trying to prove anything about the chinese rifle. I'm trying to prove that the railway rifle isn't useless and is a fine backup weapon.

Provided you jump through all the hoops that make it useful. So if you haven't jumped through all those hoops, you'd find it pretty useless, right? So not only do we have ammo considerations and repairability but we also have available Perks and your starting stats. I mean no wonder you found combat so hard, you obviously wasted a lot of points on Luck instead of just trying to hit something in the first place.

Which means Shannow didn't get a high enough skill to make a 100% Railway Rifle until late in the game, rendering it useless.

But all the other weapons he managed to keep in mint condition somehow. You understand my point, don't you?

Well, you managed to keep the Railway Rifle in mint condition somehow. Apparently stuff isn't all that rare in Fallout 3. Edward himself said he had no issue sourcing easily available Chinese Assault Rifles and Combat Shotguns so it certainly doesn't seem to be an issue. You even never had an issue finding all the ammo you needed for the Railway Rifle, so no, I'm not surprised Shannow found everything he needed for the weapons he found better to use.

According to Edward, combat isn't that difficult. Several people have said you just have to run backwards when you run out of AP.

Running backwards always helps when multiple enemies are unloading their assault and laser rifles in your direction with deadly accuracy.

... said the man who found combat hard and "death easy".