Fallout 3 vs Fallout 4

[Beans00]

Bethesda games are a good litmus test for people who are too lazy to read or go outside. Even the biggest bethesda shills, regardless of which of their games they like. Don't usually try to defend their gameplay.
Completely empty and shallow experiences, where the only positives are exploration and 'lore'(for morrowind anyways).


Fallout 3 was like.... Fallout 1-2 in first person with severe brain damage. The amount of fan service they shoved into that game, while making everything so much dumber is a pretty big accomplishment.
Fallout 4 was good for incels so they could pretend to have a dead wife and a son.

If anyone thinks fallout 4 had good shooting gameplay... IDK how to help them, at that point they need to play some actual shooters.

 

[Ash]

Retrospectively I think Fo3 was the last game where you could really feel Bethesda putting a lot of effort and love into the project - whatever people think of the end result, there are things in Fo3 that can only have been the result of a team genuinely trying their best, even if their talents might be judged harshly at times. You can really feel their excitement coming through in the quests and the variety in the world design.

I like Skyrim but it doesn't have the same feel, and Fo4 onward just feels soulless to me.

Yeah, I'm not going to go as far as Falksi calling it good, but Bethesda clearly put some effort and passion into Fallout 3. Skyrim is where the cynical, soulless design rears its head, and it has only become more overt in Fallout 4, 76, and Starfield.

You forget Oblivion exists? Both Skyrim and Oblivion are the very definition of bland and soulless. It's tragic how many fans those games have, but then again a lot of terrible bland sellout ARPGs are adored.

 

[9ted6]

For me 3 feels like Bethesda misunderstanding Fallout and 4 feels like them deliberately spiting it.

 

[Butter]

Retrospectively I think Fo3 was the last game where you could really feel Bethesda putting a lot of effort and love into the project - whatever people think of the end result, there are things in Fo3 that can only have been the result of a team genuinely trying their best, even if their talents might be judged harshly at times. You can really feel their excitement coming through in the quests and the variety in the world design.

I like Skyrim but it doesn't have the same feel, and Fo4 onward just feels soulless to me.

Yeah, I'm not going to go as far as Falksi calling it good, but Bethesda clearly put some effort and passion into Fallout 3. Skyrim is where the cynical, soulless design rears its head, and it has only become more overt in Fallout 4, 76, and Starfield.

You forget Oblivion exists? Both Skyrim and Oblivion are the very definition of bland and soulless. It's tragic how many fans those games have, but then again a lot of terrible bland sellout ARPGs are adored.

You're mostly right that Oblivion is very bland, but some of its constituent parts show signs of passion. I'm going to cite the UI.

Ignore the usability for a second. Yeah, it's a console UI and it doesn't show enough information and the text is laughably huge. But look at the icons for the items and for the different submenus. Look at the skeuomorphic design that makes it look like parchment, and the font that looks like somebody's handwriting. Somebody at Bethesda wanted this to look good and to look like it belonged in a fantasy RPG.

Compare it to this garbage that somebody slapped together in an afternoon:

 

[.Pixote.]

I waited 15 years before playing F3...and I didn't really miss much.

The games starting quests (an intro into the retarded vault) is really disappointing, leaving the vault is such a relief. The quality of the writing and quest are really lacking. FNV puts it to shame in that area, and I can see why Bethesda were embarrassed by Obsidians superior work.

I have to give credit to the folk that built the environment, they are probably the most talented bunch in the team, but why is there so much trash in that world (so unnecessary).

The combat is meh - the game is too easy (I played it on hard mode). The Deathclaws in F3 are pathetic, now the Deathclaws in FNV are true monsters easily killing you with one or two hits.

Travelling through DC is frustrating, having to use a network underground tunnels is annoying. The ruins of DC itself is really nice ( I choose to play without any mods, other than patches to get the purest version of the game). I had no issues with the colour palette, I actually liked it.

After about 20 hours into the game my enjoyment started to take a big hit, and the ending was atrocious (the main quest was crap). I enjoyed the game the most just running around the world and finding new locations.

Choice and consequences were poorly designed, many quests were very simple events - unmemorable. The game is the 'Cadburys chocolate' of the RPGs, just a very average experience. 6/10.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Yeah it ain't that good, the base game. It suffers from Bethesdaitis: the only interesting parts of the game are either sidequests and random places you just walk into, or are parts of the DLC. The Pitt and the swamp DLC were okay.

 

[Lemming42]

Choice and consequences were poorly designed, many quests were very simple events - unmemorable.

People say this but I never get it. I wrote a post earlier in this thread comparing some Fo3 quests to Fo1/2 quests and Fo3 doesn't really come up short; the sidequests often have a bit more going on than the average Fo1/2 quest in terms of alternate routes opened up by player skills, and c&c within the quest itself, sometimes on subsequent quests, and often in the wider game world outside it.

Obviously the tradeoff is that there's only like fifteen sidequests or whatever, which is clearly way too few and the game feels a bit sparse, so the quests that are relatively straightforward like Agatha's Song and Reilly's Rangers stick out a bit more.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The quest with the synthetic human is mostly open and with a lot of unmarked, "figure it out by yourself" kinda objectives. Almost like Morrowind's. There's some others that take relatively interesting twists and turns but yeah, the game is tiny.

 

[Just Locus]

far harbor is genuinely good,

I can't entirely agree, it shares many of the same problems that the original FO4 does, but because it does some things better than what base FO4 and its subsequent expansions had to offer, then it is good on its own merits. It's not, it's better than Fallout 4 which is already a bar below rock bottom.

 

[Ryan muller]

far harbor is genuinely good,

I can't entirely agree, it shares many of the same problems that the original FO4 does, but because it does some things better than what base FO4 and its subsequent expansions had to offer, then it is good on its own merits. It's not, it's better than Fallout 4 which is already a bar below rock bottom.

i liked far harbor, it actually explored the synths living within human society thematic in a more cohesive way. i liked Dimas as a character and overall found quest design quite cool due to more CnC, the island design and most of its progression. it added perk checks either which was cool and the conflict had a bunch of different resolutions that felt enough to feel like a satisfying final point for everything.

I didnt like any of 3's dlcs

and from NV i only liked OWB and Dead money, so theres that.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

The answer is: None.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I have to give credit to the folk that built the environment, they are probably the most talented bunch in the team, but why is there so much trash in that world (so unnecessary).

There's quite a bit of evidence that Bethesda couldn't figure out the year that Fallout 3 was going to be set in until close to release. There's quite a few locations which make no sense that they're 200 years after the Great War, like Little Lamplight. I'm guessing a lot of that trash is there because they thought it might be earlier in the timeline than where it wound up.

The Deathclaws in F3 are pathetic, now the Deathclaws in FNV are true monsters easily killing you with one or two hits.

You can actualy kill the Deathclaw at the beginning of Fallout 4 with a pool cue. The attack animation for the pool cue is faster than the flinching animation of the Deathclaw. It takes a while, but it's easy to pull off without taking any damage once the flinching starts.

I remember deciding to try to go North from Goodsprings to get to Vegas the quick way the second time I played it. I figured I could just dodge and run. Boy, was that a mistake.

After about 20 hours into the game my enjoyment started to take a big hit, and the ending was atrocious (the main quest was crap)

Once you get the GECK and run across The Enclave, which basically follows the script of Fallout 2, yeah. It's pretty lackluster.

As badly as they botched the factions from Fallout and Fallout 2 in Fallout 3, I'd argue that the factions in Fallout 4 are significantly worse. The Brotherhood is the same Brotherhood from Fallout 3, just a few years later and they're completely and tonally different. The Institute is retarded considering there's quite a bit of evidence that they're trying to replace humans with Synths in the area which makes no sense considering how early they are in civilization development. You can even run across a Synth version of your character, which makes ZERO sense once you hit the big plot twist in the game. The Railroad is also pretty damned retarded considering the Synth plot and how all Synths have that Synth module which no one is sure exactly what it does. There's absolutely no way that they work with Synths as much as they do and haven't noticed the "replacement" stuff. The Minutemen are the only obviously "good" faction, but they're either too lazy to do anything or utterly inept because you have to do everything for them.

It's not a matter of there being "shades of grey" or something with the factions to where they all have flaws or cons, either. They're just all stupid or evil or both. There isn't a good choice or even picking the "lesser of the evils" because every single faction sucks. There's no reason to pick any of them other than the game says so. You're better off just killing them all and doing everything yourself. But I'm thinking Bethesda somehow knew this because there's a few members that are "essential" for at least part of the game.

 

[Decado]

The Skyrim UI looks like an app you would use to buy contact lenses.