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

[Wirdschowerdn]

I too would have rated it a 6/10. But after reading MCA's fun review with his many insights, the show now dropped to a 4.5/10.

Well done, Chris!

 

[Melcar]

Links to the review seem to be broken.

 

[Lemming42]

I mean Fallout 1 was. It 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.

This is important to point out because I think there’s some kind of illusion out there that Fallout at Interplay was going amazingly well and keeping the franchise “on track”.

It absolutely wasn’t, and it was definitely experiencing the same lore breaks and inconsistencies that fans bring up about more recent Fallouts.

It's cathartic to hear him say this because it's the fairly uncomfortable opinion I've come to over the years as well. If there'd been no Fo2 in 1998 and Bethesda had come out with their own "Fallout 2" in 2008 which was identical to Fo2 in every way except for being in Gamebryo, people would have rightly ripped the writing, setting, locations, and inane tone to shreds, and called it an insult to Fo1. To borrow Avellone's own term from this review, "entertaining but not good" sums it up.

Although I think it's obvious that Fo4 (and probably 76, never played it) were what finally killed the franchise off; Fo4 seems to be the blueprint that codified the new aesthetic and tone for the whole franchise, which is total dogshit. The 3/NV era was kind of holding together and coming up with interesting ideas, even if you could spend all day making criticisms of the writing and direction of both of those games. Fo4 just feels like a soulless corporate-made product in a way that no previous Fallout game, even BoS, does.

EDIT: This part is also fascinating:

The big ones I’ll address later on in Part 2 of the Review are the Vaults, the nature of Ghouls, the literal Power infrastructure in the wasteland, and some major themes like capitalism (which was never part of the original Fallout premise despite what you may think — capitalism equaling evil is a very modern shout topic, and it’s not surprising that Hollywood leans on that for a big reveal).

There do seem to be a couple of fairly generic criticisms of capitalism nestled away in Fo1 to me (mostly in the form of Vault-Tec, who clearly build broken crap that doesn't work and presumably charge people a lot of money for it, hence the water chip breaking, Vault 12's door not closing, etc), but it's definitely not front and centre, nor is it something that the game overtly states at any point. In the wake of the TV series, a lot of people online were like "A Fallout Amazon Prime show?! The series famous for criticising capitalism is now a capitalist entity!!!" and, no matter how much I strained my brain, I could never think of any overt critiques of capitalism in Fo1, or even Fo2/Fo3 for that matter (barring the joke terminal entries in Fo3 about how all the food companies have no safety or quality standards, and how one is a Chinese spy operation).

 

[gruntar]

I mean Fallout 1 was. It 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.

This is important to point out because I think there’s some kind of illusion out there that Fallout at Interplay was going amazingly well and keeping the franchise “on track”.

It absolutely wasn’t, and it was definitely experiencing the same lore breaks and inconsistencies that fans bring up about more recent Fallouts.

It's cathartic to hear him say this because it's the fairly uncomfortable opinion I've come to over the years as well. If there'd been no Fo2 in 1998 and Bethesda had come out with their own "Fallout 2" in 2008 which was identical to Fo2 in every way except for being in Gamebryo, people would have rightly ripped the writing, setting, locations, and inane tone to shreds, and called it an insult to Fo1.

Although I think it's obvious that Fo4 (and probably 76, never played it) were what finally killed the franchise off; Fo4 seems to be the blueprint that codified the new aesthetic and tone for the whole franchise, which is total dogshit. The 3/NV era was kind of holding together and coming up with interesting ideas, even if you could spend all day making criticisms of the writing and direction of both of those games. Fo4 just feels like a soulless corporate-made product in a way that no previous Fallout game, even BoS, does.

Interesting ideas in Fallout 3 ? That game is nothing more than a ripoff of ideas and plot points from previous two games, unskillfully mashed together to create a laughable mess. Ok, there is one thing they added to Fallout lore - a life like androids, possibly dumbest, most unfitting idea for Fallout I could think of.

 

[Lemming42]

Interesting ideas in Fallout 3 ? That game is nothing more than a ripoff of ideas and plot points from previous two games, unskillfully mashed together to create a laughable mess. Ok, there is one thing they added to Fallout lore - a life like androids, possibly dumbest, most unfitting idea for Fallout I could think of.

I find some of the side quests interesting conceptually - Tenpenny Tower, Oasis, and Stealing Independence being the ones that spring to mind, all of which feel to me like they have a Fallout 1-style sense of strange surrealness (an ornate, opulent tower standing alone in the middle of a barren wasteland, a grove of life in the middle of death which ironically can only be sustained through horrific suffering, and an AI that's been fighting a simulated War of Independence for centuries after the USA itself has died). I have criticisms of the way specific characters are written within these quests and the way certain ideas are put across, but I think they feel much closer tonally to Fo1 than most of Fo2 does, I think they're more creative than about half the stuff in New Vegas, and I think they're all self-evidently better than anything in Fo4.

There's probably not much point going into it for the hundredth time though, it's been 16 years since Fo3 came out and people have already made up their minds. My point was just that I agree with Avellone that everything after Fo1 is wonky to various degrees, and that I think Fo4 is the point at which the franchise lost any remaining value. Fo3 has a wealth of problems, not least the entire main quest, but I think it still has value despite its flaws in the same way that Fo2 and NV do (even if most people might consider it the worst of those three).

 

[Zerth]

Glad to read he ain't pulling his punches towards mainstream pozzed writing. I disagree with his take about Fallout 2 actually harming the franchise compared to bethesda's, but I understand why he thinks as such given the glaring flaws Fo2 has that everyone knows.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

There do seem to be a couple of fairly generic criticisms of capitalism nestled away in Fo1 to me (mostly in the form of Vault-Tec, who clearly build broken crap that doesn't work and presumably charge people a lot of money for it, hence the water chip breaking, Vault 12's door not closing, etc), but it's definitely not front and centre, nor is it something that the game overtly states at any point. In the wake of the TV series, a lot of people online were like "A Fallout Amazon Prime show?! The series famous for criticising capitalism is now a capitalist entity!!!" and, no matter how much I strained my brain, I could never think of any overt critiques of capitalism in Fo1, or even Fo2/Fo3 for that matter (barring the joke terminal entries in Fo3 about how all the food companies have no safety or quality standards, and how one is a Chinese spy operation).

I mentioned it in the main thread on the TV show, which some people don't seem to have access to read, but Fallout is in no way a criticism of capitalism. There's no way to say it is. The most advanced location in Fallout that sprang up after the Great War is the mecca of capitalism, The Hub. It's the largest city in the game, it has entertainment facilities like the bar and casino as well as a library, multiple shops, it set the currency for the region which enables the Crimson Caravan to trade easily with other settlements, and so on.

A lot of the Commiefags on reddit even seem to admit that there was very little anti-capitalist stuff in the original game, but then point to the vault experiments in Fallout 2 as an example of anti-capitalism. This completely glosses over the fact that it was the government who wanted the experiments and Vault-Tec was a government contractor. Vault-Tec never really showed any interest in space stuff, which was the explanation of the vault experiment thing despite very few of the vault experiments making much sense in that context. The TV show retcons all this by saying the corporations got together and decided to do the experiments, when it was actually the U.S. Government that wanted to do those experiments. The government ordering the experiments makes way more sense considering the it was well known at the time of the development of the original games that the U.S. Government had done several experiments on it's people after World War II. The Tuskagee Experiment, the LSD experiments, Project Mockingbird, and so on all should ring some bells.

Ok, there is one thing they added to Fallout lore - a life like androids, possibly dumbest, most unfitting idea for Fallout I could think of.

It was a shit one off idea in Fallout 3 that they turned in to a mess of a plot in Fallout 4, which shows that maybe Bethesda should do design docs since the synth lore stuff is all over the place in that game. Like Nick Valentine's personality and such coming from the brain scan of a pre-war cop while also showing people being replaced in the wasteland discovering their own synths in the wasteland, synths not having to eat or drink or sleep yet no one seems to notice the synths in the wasteland being any different from people, and so on.

 

[AndyS]

The capitalism stuff reminds me of all those people who insist that Alien is anti-capitalist because, y'know, THE COMPANY and Brett and Parker bitching about the "bonus situation" while ignoring the freaking monster prowling around and indiscriminately murdering everyone. It's the sort of desperate, overreaching hyperbole in so much discourse today. It's like having a full course meal and insisting that it's not the drinks, appetizers, entree, or dessert that matter, but the spices sprinkled on the veggies that define the whole thing.

 

[deuxhero]

Ok, there is one thing they added to Fallout lore - a life like androids, possibly dumbest, most unfitting idea for Fallout I could think of.

It was a shit one off idea in Fallout 3 that they turned in to a mess of a plot in Fallout 4, which shows that maybe Bethesda should do design docs since the synth lore stuff is all over the place in that game. Like Nick Valentine's personality and such coming from the brain scan of a pre-war cop while also showing people being replaced in the wasteland discovering their own synths in the wasteland, synths not having to eat or drink or sleep yet no one seems to notice the synths in the wasteland being any different from people, and so on.

Worse, gen 3 Synths have human brains and DNA, yet nobody seems to care about or realize this in-game when it should be the big thing about them.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Worse, gen 3 Synths have human brains and DNA, yet nobody seems to care about or realize this in-game when it should be the big thing about them.

This is also what I was talking about with the Nick Valentine and the guy versus his synth replacement thing. There's absolutely no consistency with the synth lore in the game. Do they need a brain or not, because that's clearly not the case if there's a guy and his replacement arguing over which one is the real guy. Will the brain scan do since Nick seems fine? And if so, how did they get the brain scan of the guy arguing with his synth replacement without that guy knowing it? Or how did they do it with everyone else they replaced? Or were those the brain synths? You run across a synth version of your character, which -Holy Fuck!- throws a wrench in to synth brain thing and also fucks up the big plot twist towards the end.

This is why Bethesda needs to get over themselves and get someone in charge of writing instead of leaving it up to the game designers particularly when you don't want to do a design doc. There's clearly at least three different people with three different ideas on how synths get their personalities and memories.

Also, on that note, how retarded is the Railroad to work closely with synths and never noticed the replacement shit going on? It's not like we're talking about a huge area with a gigantic population. If you're getting around the area which the job would require, at some point, you have to notice that the synth you're helping escape looks like someone you've already met.

The capitalism stuff reminds me of all those people who insist that Alien is anti-capitalist because, y'know, THE COMPANY and Brett and Parker bitching about the "bonus situation" while ignoring the freaking monster prowling around and indiscriminately murdering everyone. It's the sort of desperate, overreaching hyperbole in so much discourse today. It's like having a full course meal and insisting that it's not the drinks, appetizers, entree, or dessert that matter, but the spices sprinkled on the veggies that define the whole thing.

There's clearly something missing upstairs with these people. If anything, you can argue things like Aliens and the Vault-Tec thing should be anti-corporatism, which is not necessarily the same as anti-capitalism. But these people lack the awareness to realize that while they're huffing their own farts to their Marxist one-liners and slogans to realize that nearly everything they do pushes corporate agendas. They're the very model of modern day useful idiots.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Inconsistent Lore: The Importance of POWER
Does this show drive home the lack of power and the importance of a faction’s control of it, making the cold fusion reveal incredibly dramatic in the final episode?

Nope.

(...)

I did think Moldaver and the shots of the Enclave should have done more to make this point about power and infrastructure more grounded and more important — I mean, was there the implication that the Enclave already had this limitless power if Wilzig stole it?

I think Chris missed quite a bit with all this section.

The first being that Navarro was a refueling base for the Vertibirds. Navarro was actually an oil refinery as well, which is a nice thing to have if you also have an oil rig like The Enclave has. However, the big elephant in the room is - how the Hell is the Brotherhood maintaining and flying Vertibirds in 2277+ when they don't have the fuel to fly them? Also, since Bethesda retconned them to being pre-war when it makes way more sense the way it was. The Enclave would have plenty of oil for what they do, their base was the last working oil rig. So, with the retcon, why did the United States military develop a flying machine that runs on something there's very little of left in the world when they had fusion power? This is another example of Bethesda changing something on a whim and not being smart enough to think it through.

Chris Avellone starts to touch on this, but he doesn't seem to flesh it out. Cold fusion being some dramatic things makes no sense, nor does the resource war anymore, since Bethesda made every single car fusion powered in Fallout 3 and 4. Judging by the amount of nuclear bomb cars in Fallout 3, fusion tech was pretty damned wide spread during the resource war(which also makes the vertibirds needing an oil refinery as a refueling base make even less sense if they were pre-war). To add to the "wide spread" feeling, Fusion Cores are all over Fallout 4. In just the Nuka-World expansion alone, there's 19 of them to be obtained and that doesn't count the vendors that sell ammo having up to five Fuson Cores for sale at any given reset of their inventory. There's also 14 more in Far Harbor, that little fishing village. This is over 200 years since the Great War, no less. There's so many in the main game, there's no way I'm going to add all those up.

The last thing is that the GECK advertisement in the Vault Survival Guide says clearly that the GECK runs on Cold Fusion, and it was published and put in every single vault in January of 2077. Meaning that most every vault had two cold fusion reactors in brief case form. I know what some of you are thinking, "So what? Vault-Tec bought Cold Fusion from Moldilocks." Yeah, they did according to the TV show, but they bought the technology to hide it from the government to prolong the resource war. So, if that's true, then why did they mass produce cold fusion tech for every GECK, shove a couple of them in every single government contracted vault, and then advertise it in a book they published that was also in every single government contracted vault? That's probably the shittiest way to hide the technology from the government.

 

[deuxhero]

Only mention Vertibirds power source I'm aware of is from New Vegas, where Daisy uses the vague "fuel" as a limit for flight time. Even if they are gas powered, it could be explained by biodiesel. That's old tech that's explicitly in Van Buren and New Vegas, and most military engines are diesel based (relatively easy conversion).

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Only mention Vertibirds power source I'm aware of is from New Vegas, where Daisy uses the vague "fuel" as a limit for flight time.

Dick Richardson, President of The Enclave, Fallout 2.

{250}{prs45}{Simple. Navarro is an isolated base. Our vertibirds have a limited range. They refuel there.}

Even if they are gas powered, it could be explained by biodiesel.

It takes 250 pounds of corn to make one gallon of corn oil. You'll then need methanol as well, which I guess you could ferment the mash from the oil production, but you still need to make that. The corn oil and the methanol get to go through their process and will produce slightly less than a gallon of biodiesel. This is a fantastic idea in a world where industrial agriculture exists, but you're not going to get far on one gallon of fuel. Meanwhile, that one gallon of fuel is enough food for one person for almost three months assuming they're willing to eat just corn that entire time.

Also, helicopters don't run on typical diesel. They use either AvGas or JetA. Only one of those is "similar" to diesel, but still not diesel. But let's say it works just like diesel and you can freely use one or the other. AvGas is for piston engine helicopters, which is a leaded, high octane gas. Turbine helicopters use JetA, which is similar to diesel. The big problem with turbine power is that you're going to use a lot more fuel at lower altitudes than higher altitudes, and vertibirds tend to be low altitude. A turbine helicopter will burn around 12 gallons or so per hour, which is nice because the numbers divide evenly. That nearly three months of food for one person translates to 5 minutes of flight time. Enjoy!

 

[deuxhero]

Didn't know Richardson line. Still, doesn't really say the fuel has to be gas, and the New Vegas base is also a refueling base, and that is considerably far away from the oil even when the rig did exist. Maybe the "fuel" is actually the "coolant" that keeps popping up in the background?

 

[Kev Inkline]

It's cathartic to hear him say this because it's the fairly uncomfortable opinion I've come to over the years as well. If there'd been no Fo2 in 1998 and Bethesda had come out with their own "Fallout 2" in 2008 which was identical to Fo2 in every way except for being in Gamebryo, people would have rightly ripped the writing, setting, locations, and inane tone to shreds, and called it an insult to Fo1. To borrow Avellone's own term from this review, "entertaining but not good" sums it up.

I think you're touching a point here, I for one am ready to except zaniness of F2 to some extent because how it's represented and the tech used - isometric 3rd person pov with pre-rendered backgrounds. To give an example, the Elvis impersonator club in FNV is an absolute bore and actually irks me, whereas I believe it might had been somewhat amusing in F1/f2 engine. Actually Mafia in New Reno feels far less out of place than Omertas or whatever they were called in FNV.

What I'm saying, you can't separate writing from the overall representation and tech/medium (engine) used - that is to say 'identical to Fo2 in every way except for being in Gamebryo' is actually very much different.

 

[Lemming42]

New Reno feels horribly out of place and jarring to me. I do think it's a fair point that the isometric perspective and sprite-based/pre-rendered art makes some things easier to stomach but maybe that's just down to a level of detachment and abstraction that isn't offered by Gamebryo (and, of course, the fact that Gamebryo generally looks and performs like shit and makes it hard to take anything represented in it seriously, especially given the AI).

Another thing that acts against 3/NV might be voice acting - Fo2 had the benefit of mostly being text, which means you can just kind of skim over the worst parts of the dialogue, and when there is a voice actor, it's generally a professional doing a decent job. Meanwhile 3 and NV have like four voice actors, two of whom clearly aren't interested and aren't even trying, which makes everything stand out more. Imagine fully-voiced San Fran from Fo2, where every voice actor is Jeff Baker or Liam O'Brien. Nightmare.

I do suspect that the main reason for Fo2 getting a pass for so much shit is that it was released a year after Fallout on the same engine, and ostensibly (though not really) by the same devs. There's also the fact that Fo2 is funny as fuck even though it's mostly inane shit that makes no sense, whereas people find 3/NV boring and irritating more than amusing. But regardless, I think if Bethesda had released the exact same game a decade later, even down to being isometric, people would have ripped it apart.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Imagine fully-voiced San Fran from Fo2, where every voice actor is Jeff Baker or Liam O'Brien. Nightmare.

I'd be happy with Keith Szarabajka as the narrator for anything, though, even if it was a phone book.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Didn't know Richardson line. Still, doesn't really say the fuel has to be gas, and the New Vegas base is also a refueling base, and that is considerably far away from the oil even when the rig did exist. Maybe the "fuel" is actually the "coolant" that keeps popping up in the background?

So, the guys living on the last oil rig that was producing oil decided to convert an oil refinery on the coast in to a refueling based for their vertibirds because they were using something other than oil based fuel for their vertibirds?

And just for the record, pretty much all ICEs need coolant or some type, especially the bigger they get and the more RPM they run at. Now, in the case of a military jet, because the fuel is stored in the wings with all that surface area and the speeds those jets run at cause a lot of air mass flow, the oil and fuel are used to cool the engines. Same thing goes with the air intake having a really high air mass flow which helps with cooling as well as providing the oxygen needed for combustion.

Vertibirds don't have gigantic wings, and I'm pretty sure they don't travel close to the speed of a jet. However, they are prop based, so you're still going to have a high air mass flow just by their nature of propulsion. The engines are directly behind those props, so they might not require an extra coolant at all considering they push enough air through the propellers to keep them in the air. Air channels will increase drag, but it beats dealing with coolant leaks, powering a pump, and so on.

To give an example, the Elvis impersonator club in FNV is an absolute bore and actually irks me, whereas I believe it might had been somewhat amusing in F1/f2 engine. Actually Mafia in New Reno feels far less out of place than Omertas or whatever they were called in FNV.

I didn't mind The Kings other than the fact they all looked alike. Which, I guess, is the point. I thought it was a nice nod to Vegas itself, considering how many various forms of media with the setting of Vegas also include Elvis impersonators at this point. The only thing that I would have liked, and you'll hate this idea, is that none of them could be recruited as a follower. Although, I'm not sure what kind of protection a rhinestone encrusted jumpsuit would provide against anyone except The Fiends.

Also, a battle of The Kings vs The Fiends would have been fun if for nothing else than the spectacle of it, especially if The Kings "dressed out" for it.

 

[deuxhero]

Didn't know Richardson line. Still, doesn't really say the fuel has to be gas, and the New Vegas base is also a refueling base, and that is considerably far away from the oil even when the rig did exist. Maybe the "fuel" is actually the "coolant" that keeps popping up in the background?

So, the guys living on the last oil rig that was producing oil decided to convert an oil refinery on the coast in to a refueling based for their vertibirds because they were using something other than oil based fuel for their vertibirds?

Eh, sounds kinda like expecting conquistadors to be all blinged out all the time because they were all about acquiring gold and silver and controlled the most productive mines.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Eh, sounds kinda like expecting conquistadors to be all blinged out all the time because they were all about acquiring gold and silver and controlled the most productive mines.

You do know the difference between practical and aesthetic? Because your analogy suggests that you don't. It's more on par with building a driveway out of cement because you own a cement factory and live in a beach house with a gypsum mine on the property.

 

[Lemming42]

The thing that winds me up about the Kings - other than that they're annoying as fuck - is that there's no way you'd take Elvis for a deity. It makes no sense considering the amount of extensive extant records of Elvis (that have been protected from nuclear devastation thanks to House), not to mention the number of pre-war Ghouls hanging around.

I get that the King doesn't literally think Elvis was a god but the whole concept still hinges on him not knowing who Elvis actually was and instead considering him to be some prophet-like figure (who was "worshipped"), and there's just no way that'd be the case. Beatrix lives down the street and she was alive before the war, she's like twenty fucking meters away and she can just tell him outright who Elvis was. It's the kind of shit that might work in Wasteland but feels too ill-justified for Fallout.

 

[Zeriel]

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?

It had journos applauding it for being "brave" enough to insert politics into a TV show in 2024. That's really all you need to know.

 

[Tyranicon]

Shill media applauding the slop media that pays their bills.

Basically every award show ever too.

 

[Roguey]

I get that the King doesn't literally think Elvis was a god but the whole concept still hinges on him not knowing who Elvis actually was and instead considering him to be some prophet-like figure (who was "worshipped"), and there's just no way that'd be the case. Beatrix lives down the street and she was alive before the war, she's like twenty fucking meters away and she can just tell him outright who Elvis was. It's the kind of shit that might work in Wasteland but feels too ill-justified for Fallout.

People used to come here to learn about him, to dress like him, move like him. To {stressed} be him. If that's not worship, I don't know what is.

The logic checks out.

 

[deuxhero]

The thing that winds me up about the Kings - other than that they're annoying as fuck - is that there's no way you'd take Elvis for a deity. It makes no sense considering the amount of extensive extant records of Elvis (that have been protected from nuclear devastation thanks to House), not to mention the number of pre-war Ghouls hanging around.

I get that the King doesn't literally think Elvis was a god but the whole concept still hinges on him not knowing who Elvis actually was and instead considering him to be some prophet-like figure (who was "worshipped"), and there's just no way that'd be the case. Beatrix lives down the street and she was alive before the war, she's like twenty fucking meters away and she can just tell him outright who Elvis was. It's the kind of shit that might work in Wasteland but feels too ill-justified for Fallout.

The King merely describes Elvis as "the coolest of the cool" and explicitly states the gang took the iconography because it was the biggest, flashiest, mostly intact building around than any particular reverence for the guy. He even concedes they'd have used it even if were a dog food factory. They're an inverse of the Legion: Where as Edward explicitly aimed to model his society on the Roman Empire to be successful like the Roman Empire, the Kings built a reasonably successful gang and adopted a random symbol they thought was cool. No goofier than say... US Navy aircraft squadron VAQ-209 using Darth Vader as their logo or any of the many street gangs that use their home street as their name. If a ghoul told them "You know that guy was just a super popular musician right?", The King would probably just respond "So you're telling us he was super popular?"