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Fallout Is Fallout: New Vegas a worthy Fallout game?

Is Fallout: New Vegas a worthy Fallout game?


  • Total voters
    521

Ol' Willy

Arcane
Zionist Agent Vatnik
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But what conflict? I thought they were already fully accepted community members with representation in law enforcement and the local industry and almost everyone loved them? Why was there need for bloodshed at all.
Apparently, these people were just some mad racists who wanted to exterminate all "impure humans".

While having no beef with ghouls for some reason
 

LarryTyphoid

Scholar
Joined
Sep 16, 2021
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2,233
I wonder what "No Mutants Allowed" thinks of the mutant racism themes that came into the series after the creation of their website.
 

MuffinBun

Educated
Joined
Jul 9, 2022
Messages
135
It's an important theme, irreplaceable in Fallout universe.

Since there's intelligent humanoids that are not humans, it's inevitable that the developers explore the idea of co-existence.
You didn't notice "dindunuffin" being written all over the Broken Hill quest line?

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/fallout-2-pacifist.137727/#post-7259870

Cool to have a playthrough on KKKodex, I can quote myself
I just looked up your playthrough, very nice. That Broken Hill arc is truly odd. It is as if it was written by a person of completely different views, as a satire, but then all is presented as if it was completely genuine.
 

agris

Arcane
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6,760
Fallout released October '97, Cain announced FO2 in December the same year. FO2 released October of '98. Someone might have better knowledge than me, but I don't think they started working on FO2 prior to FO's release because nobody at Interplay thought it was going to be a hit.

0F60B442-E300-4827-AE53-E8941AF2CEF2.jpeg


Funny enough, this probably contributed to the quality of PST, given the team’s contributions to Fallout 2.
 

Bigg Boss

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Joined
Sep 23, 2012
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7,528
I wonder what "No Mutants Allowed" thinks of the mutant racism themes that came into the series after the creation of their website.
Nothing really. Most of the far left faggots were driven off but I am sure they would have a strong opinion on it.
 

laclongquan

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Joined
Jan 10, 2007
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Searching for my kidnapped sister
It's an important theme, irreplaceable in Fallout universe.

Since there's intelligent humanoids that are not humans, it's inevitable that the developers explore the idea of co-existence.
You didn't notice "dindunuffin" being written all over the Broken Hill quest line?

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/fallout-2-pacifist.137727/#post-7259870

Cool to have a playthrough on KKKodex, I can quote myself
I dont know what you mean by that.

I do know that the BH humans were being jackass and idiot about it: Their economy base on the exports of Uranium ores, mined exclusively by Super Mutants, refined by the ghouls. And humans want to kill or driven off all the SM and ghouls? What? They dont like money?

You can see that Marcus take lessons from BH. He limit the number of humans in Jacobstown, to the amount of 1, an ex-Enclave scientist who are doing important research to the SM. No ghouls. Goodbye to the idea of coexistence~
 

Risewild

Arbiter
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Mar 23, 2018
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Australia
Fallout released October '97, Cain announced FO2 in December the same year. FO2 released October of '98. Someone might have better knowledge than me, but I don't think they started working on FO2 prior to FO's release because nobody at Interplay thought it was going to be a hit.

View attachment 26753

Funny enough, this probably contributed to the quality of PST, given the team’s contributions to Fallout 2.
Feargus said that at the start of 1998, Interplay considered Fallout 2 to have been in production for half a year already. But Feargus also says (right after that) that basically, the whole Fallout 2 game only had 9 months to be made.

These two things kinda contradict each other. If Fallout 2 was already in production before Fallout was even released, then how come they only had 9 months total to make the full game at the start of 1998?

9 months is the right amount of time for Fallout 2 to begin production and be released in October 1998 if the game starts being made in January 1998. So this means one of two things:
  • Feargus was joking about the whole "Fallout 2 starting production before Fallout was released", by saying that Interplay considered that to be true, but it wasn't.
  • The "development" of Fallout 2 before Fallout was released was just people thinking of what to include or change if they ever made a sequel, and no real development was actually made.
  • Feargus is lying about only having 9 months to make the full game or about the development starting before Fallout was released.
That Wikipedia part about the development is wrong, it wasn't Fargo who said that the development of Fallout 2 started before the release of Fallout, it was Tim Cain. But his words are confusing and vague about that. Here's the part of the article used for the source provided:
Before the original had even released, however, work on the sequel began. “Fallout really caused a buzz in the studio about six months before it was released,” Tim explains, “QA staff were coming in nights and weekends, on their own time without pay, to play it. So Fallout 2 was started even before Fallout shipped.”
This is pretty confusing. What does QA coming on their own spare time and without pay to playtest Fallout have anything to do with the development of Fallout 2? If they were busy fixing the stuff testers were finding, how did they have time to start production of Fallout 2? They were a small team, to begin with, how did they have time to patch Fallout 1 and work on Fallout 2?
One way this could make sense is that since Fallout was so popular with the QA, this created the first Fallout "fandom" and this led the developers and/or testers to start thinking about Fallout and what could be in a sequel. This "Fallout 2 was started even before Fallout shipped" could be just how people were talking, thinking or feeling about the first game and how they would start expanding its lore and world and whatever. It was the need to have more Fallout after the game was played and beaten.

Of course, it could also mean what it says, that since Fallout was so popular with the testers, the developers actually started to make Fallout 2. Which would mean that Feargus was lying about making the whole game in 9 months.

You can see that Marcus take lessons from BH. He limit the number of humans in Jacobstown, to the amount of 1, an ex-Enclave scientist who are doing important research to the SM. No ghouls. Goodbye to the idea of coexistence~
There's also Calamity, Dr. Henry's ghoul research assistant.
I think about replaying FNV from time to time.
Instead I watch my friend repeatedly crash while playing it on Steam.
I get the same impact.
Then your friend doesn't keep up with the modding times. Or just uses old, outdated and/or broken mods. In the last 5 years or so, FNV modding evolved so much that you can play FNV for hours without a single crash. There are so many engine bugs fixed now that the crashes only usually happen because of bad mods and/or bad modding practices.
 

Ol' Willy

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Of course, it could also mean what it says, that since Fallout was so popular with the testers, the developers actually started to make Fallout 2. Which would mean that Feargus was lying about making the whole game in 9 months.
Although we should take into account that Fallout 2 uses almost the same engine and most of the graphic and sound assets are the same.

There are funny moments like when cannibal table from Fallout 1 - used only in one location - was used as a regular table with food in Fallout 2
 

user

Savant
Joined
Jan 22, 2019
Messages
835
FNV was a wonderful rpg. Different from the originals, but great. And with mods it could become much more tactical than vanilla allowed.
It's nauseating how badly they fucked the series up with Fallout 4 though.
 

__scribbles__

Educated
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The Void
New Vegas is an above-average RPG with moments of brilliance, and it's a shame that it was stuck with the technical legacy of Fallout 3. It could've been to Fallout 2 what Fallout 2 was to 1.

nvm, I tried replaying it and it sucks
 
Last edited:

agris

Arcane
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6,760
New Vegas is an above-average RPG with moments of brilliance, and it's a shame that it was stuck with the technical legacy of Fallout 3. It could've been to Fallout 2 what Fallout 2 was to 1.
If only Obsidian were a different studio, made up of different people, with a different conceptualization of good, and didn't inherit the technology of Bethesda, and were given more time, and people bought more copies, and the press was less mean about bugs.

If only, they were so close!
 

__scribbles__

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If only Obsidian were a different studio, made up of different people
Who would be a better pick? Obsidian is the intuitive choice as a bunch of people from Black Isle worked there, but they're far from perfect. What studio and people would've done a better job?
with a different conceptualization of good
Well, what does "good" mean for you, and how would that translate into an ideal version of New Vegas?
and didn't inherit the technology of Bethesda
Yeah, the Gamebryo engine plays terribly. Modders have done some interesting stuff on it though.
and the press was less mean about bugs
They weren't mean enough, IMO. The game was unplayable on launch, and even now a decade after the game is shaky at best on a good day. Mods exist, but you shouldn't have to mod a game to make it playable.
 

CyberWhale

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Can't find the original thread, but I've head a dream about me and my childhood friend playing some kind of F:NV remake and it was gorgeous looking. A combination of photorealistic graphics while still retaining the style. Much more colorful, though. Still clunky as fuck.
 

Firesworn

Novice
Joined
Sep 6, 2019
Messages
16
When I played NV on release, I felt it was excellent, and likely a Fallout title worthy of that name; having recently played it again with all DLC, I am convinced.

Thematically, everything clicks, everything works, and everything feels like the setting is moving forward without losing track of what came before. When a series changes hands, temporarily or otherwise, it's not uncommon to find the new studio trying to work with what they know or falling into the trap of trying to make it "their own", while only looking at the more salient elements of the games that came previously. You might recall Metroid Prime, where Retro Studios carefully studied Super Metroid and, barring an element or two, successfully captured Nintendo's still - somewhat - unmatched lightning in a bottle. Fast forward to Prime 2: Echoes and there was now a "Light" and a "Dark" world, and a nonsensical hunt for Sand Keys, Dark Agon Keys, Swamp Keys, Dark Torvus Keys, Cliff Keys, etc., which was nothing more than the duller aspects of Zelda metastasizing in space. By Prime 3: Corruption, the joke was on us: there was Samus, falling through space, shooting Ridley in "action-packed" sequences, and a terrible ending montage where she accepts the role of heroine, which was a lot more damaging to the idea of her character than Team Ninja's Other M.

Notice how in Fallout 4, you now have the "concept" of "synths", which kind of hilariously flies in the face of how the setting was created. That's what doesn't feel Fallout, not New Vegas. Vegas not only respects the name but carries the torch. Obviously, Sawyer's love for history would materialize in something like the Legion; but this was already known at the time of Van Buren, which is where it began. I really dig Sawyer's work and am at times reminded of Yasumi Matsuno. Both know their history; Matsuno directed Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together for the Super Nintendo which, if you never played, is a wonderful turn-based game with an intricate historic background, where choices and consequences could drastically affect the story's outcome. At one point you're asked by your superior officer to kill several peasants to make it look like the opposing army was responsible. For a 1995 16-bit console game, that's... pretty rad. But the core idea is one of war, change, choice, and consequence; I can't think of many other developers, or designers, who have a penchant to work with these specific themes. Matsuno does, or did, though I don't think he approached these themes after Crimson Shroud. Sawyer is another. In his case perhaps less about war itself, but the engines that drive it, the escalation, and the motives; in a timeline where people building a city around a nuclear bomb is accepted as "sensible" and dialogue such as "Have you seen my dad?" receives numerous GOTY awards, he's a keeper.

I'll say Honest Hearts was a tricky proposition because admittedly I'm not big on exploring tribal backgrounds. They can make for good fiction (and generally do in Honest Hearts) but you'll excuse me if at least one of my eyes twitches at the sight of another quest involving gathering "sacred roots" to prepare "a drink" that will "reveal truths", and then sends me off to kill "an evil or troubled spirit". But Graham was a sight to behold, and Follows-Chalk had some nice quips. I get the feeling the DLC could have been more, however, but I'm not sure of what. It does feel Graham could or should have, earned more time under the spotlight, especially with that fascinating background of his.

Dead Money risks being my favorite one, and that has a lot to do with the writing. All of the characters really come to life; with the exception of Dean Domino, whose raison d'etre seemed a bit finicky at the end, it shines through and through. Unlike Honest Hearts, which had the mendacity of doing things like spawning 3 Giant Geckos in my face as soon as I left a cavern, then proceeded to murderfuck me because they were untargetable until I walked 2 or 3 steps away from said cavern's entrance, it felt challenging all the way, but always surmountable. At times I was reminded of Bioshock, or should I say, how Bioshock might've been if it was well-written. Yes, yes, Art Deco and stuff: it's pointless. You could have Brutalism on a volcano or Baroque on Mars for all I care (and I would), but if your writing doesn't go beyond a tutorial with an Irish accent, you can drown along with the rest of the Splicers. Dead Money is the only other DLC which I think could explore its setting a bit more. The idea of the holograms, somewhat condemned to repeat themselves, to replay themselves between a state of misery and attrition, is wonderful.

Old World Blues is fun and snappy. I liked the Sink's appliances, though obviously, the heads of Big MT take the cake here. But it ends up being the DLC that least "did it" for me, possibly due to things like the repeating challenges (for the Stealth Suit, for instance). It showcases that you can at least do something interesting, thematically and design-wise, with that dead horse of an engine it's saddled to, but I can't help thinking it might've worked better in some other scenario. Maybe a murder mystery, where the case gets more convoluted and the clues harder to find on subsequent trials? Something to think about, at least.

Lonesome Road is great all around; I felt the way in which the Courier's and Ulysses' stories crossed each other, to a point of (almost) no return, was exceptional (and ED-E's background development was pretty cool, too). I'm uncertain of how I'd score it; maybe on par with Dead Money, stronger in some aspects, weaker in others. At first, I was taken aback by the linearity, but in the end, made peace with it. This is where the road ends, where the American Dream runs out of America; extensive choices and consequences and quests might risk losing that focus, that peculiar kind of thematic investigation. Again, I made peace with it. It's fine. One thing the DLCs lead me to notice is that, at the end of the day, these characters end up being the driving force of the stories, and part of me still pines for a role-playing game where my own characters manage to carve a story as intricate and long-reaching as those of Elijah or Ulysses.

So yes, New Vegas, especially with the DLC, is one of the best Fallouts. With no nostalgia on my part, the Master remains an excellent antagonist, and the first Fallout still has, overall, a better "sense" of a very specific kind of adventure or journey through a very specific kind of setting and world. Fallout and New Vegas would be my choices for the better Fallout games; Fallout 2 comes third, if only because there's still quite good stuff among the murk and the muck. Does Vegas have issues? Sure. From a technical perspective alone, New Vegas went from smooth sailing to maddening sessions at times, freezing and crashing when traveling, when auto-saving, when walking, when sleeping, when it was 12:27 in the afternoon and a tumbleweed was rolling by, when nothing, when everything. The kicker is that it mirrors my experience with Fallout 3 as well, which borked itself repeatedly. But Obsidian tends to get the bulk of the complaints on performance hits, for some reason.

I think it's important to remember that some things are very much artifacts of their own time; Fallout's permanence on the collective memory of a given player group or role-playing grognards (I use the term sweetly here) is a given how it captured a certain spirit back then, a certain glimpse into what RPGs could be like. There was nothing quite like it; despite the similarities, even Wasteland felt like a distant memory after emerging from Vault 13. But there's no mistaking it, really: as well fleshed out as they seemed, Fallout and Fallout 2 also have some perfunctory writing and trite character development. This is more noticeable in the sequel, I think, which has that roller-coaster feels smeared across its design, and this, in turn, also reflects on some of the characterizations. Yes, you remember Marcus and Byron, but how much is that due to a handful of interesting lines, the marvel of looking at their animated faces, and the fact that by those elements alone they would obviously stand out from a gameworld almost exclusively comprised of non-descript sprites who trafficked in floating text and boorish pop culture references to pantomime life? Vegas' are developed much deeper, and, perhaps more importantly, in a more credible way than some of the series' stalwarts.
 

huskarls

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Joined
Aug 7, 2016
Messages
108
Gameplay wise its just skyrim with guns and skillchecks, but I wouldn't say its totally unrelated like FO3 or BG3 because it retains a post-post apocalyptic setting that progresses the grand plot. The latest wastelands and ATOM didn't feel like fallout either with a turn-based post apocalyptical setting, too campy, not lethal enough, not enough options to influence the world
 

smaug

Secular Koranism with Israeli Characteristics
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Absolutely not. It has nothing in common with Fallout aside from the post-apocalyptic setting.

It also has unbelievably awful gameplay with the worst inventory system I’ve ever seen in a game and horrid graphics.
 
Joined
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Man, Todd has gotten old.
It's the effect of evil acts. The soul corruption leaks out. Just the same as how every president or prime minster looks 15 years older than they should be when they leave office. Todd's going to look 120 by the time he's 65.
 

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