Twinfalls said:
yet omitted all the stuff the game does well.
SuicideBunny said:
the game is moronic, but the fact that most quests have multiple ways to solve them is a huge fucking step-up from oblivion.
which is pretty much the only well done thing in the game, imo.
the rest is nothing special
Your major gripe about the dialogue etc is just a sweeping generalisation which does not capture how the game actually plays.
it's not my major gripe. i have no major gripe, other than the game crashing like an abomination once you accumulate enough ingame hours. the reason why it's not a good but only ok game is the incredible amount of otherwise small things that add up.
and as far as the validity of said point goes..
nearly every perk/stat/skill related option omits your actual display of said knowledge, instead reducing it to a generic answer, with the [blah] being the actual but otherwise omitted display of said knowledge, effectively making it a just a small step-up from topical conversation.
"[master trader]" vs "[master trader] let me run the caravan, i'm quite good at those things." doesn't really make that much of a difference, especially considering that most games with checks in dialogues actually incorporate the display of said knowledge into the text for flavor and atmosphere, something entirely lacking in this game, and said thing is most evident in per dialogue options that require a completely different relationship between the player character and npc, like the black widow perk. seeing black widow options between normal ones is almost comical, but it might be just me, since i took all the dialogue affecting perks like black widow, child at heart, master trader, and some others i forgot.
the other dialogue options are again very short, even when it doesn't make any sense for them to be so, which i guess is to allow fast skipping over multiple choices without spending lots of time reading through walls of text.
all in all the dialogue feels very topical because of the short options, and really fails to convey atmosphere, rather seeming to be a hasty cover for the underlying stat-checks.
don't get me wrong, i do appreciate the fact that as a black widow you can convince burke to leave megaton alone, but the actual way you do so is pretty stupid.
The fact is, you are over-reacting in the negative, simply because of the title of the game.
i couldn't care less what it's called, it still is not a very good but ok game, and the fact that it says fallout somewhere on the cover doesn't affect that.
if i do compare it to fallout, i do so because it's appropriate, for example both being post-apocalyptic games allows for comparisons as to how differently they present the world, or the fact that both have a crashed ufo encounter makes the comparison of those pretty valid as well... which i guess is a good way to describe why fallout 3 is not a very good game.
so let's compare the crashed ufos. in fallout, the crashed ufo is a standard flying saucer with two dead out of the book greys, a plague marking it as property of area 51, a very good unique weapon, and a photo of elvis.
it's both classy, and absolutely over the top, which, together with the fact that it's a special random encounter and pretty hard to come across, even with the required perks, makes it instantly recognizable as an easter egg, something disconnected from the game world at large.
in contrast, fallout 3 has the crashed ufo as a permanent part of the game world, with you picking up the radio signal between two locations not far from each other, and when zeroing on it (forgot: the radio signal as a radar is nice too. they should have used it more often, skipping the radio stations alltogether), you find a crashed somewhat but not quite saucer-like ufo with a dead green alien in a rad armor, who seems to have crashed through the windshield, the single best non-unique weapon in the game (nearly every shot crits, instantly killing whatever you shot at, there are more blasters in the game, and there's a random encounter that simply drops a unique version of it from the sky, which does an absolutely unneeded 20% more damage with max skill), and that's it.
no fluff or over the top humor playing on various conspiracy theories to make the encounter seem like an easter egg, instead making it appear to be an actual part of the world, especially when considered together with the fact that you can find multiple alien blasters, while the alien stuff is not referenced in any other way in the game (none that i found, at least), or a homage to fallout, but without understanding that the specific designs of the craft or aliens in fallout were absolutely intentional, and quite effective, trying to make this one more unique by changing them, achieving the exact opposite.
one encounter makes you at least smirk, the other is just a flavorless power-up.
the only atmospheric encounter i had so far in the game was picking up a signal after restoring a radio tower from someone calling for help for his sick child, then finding the location and the remains of the occupants, and that was only atmospheric because it happened to be my first (exact same thing happens at every other tower, only the messages are different).
other good examples of why fallout 3 fails in the "very good" category are the birthday party in v101 (or the rest of v101, for that matter), or the "super-hero" conflict.
you have no influence on the events that lead up to the party, in fact, those are left entirely in the gray, but your only option to comment on them is to be genuinely surprised or lie. there's no "[perception|intelligence] blah <truth>" option, even though it would make sense, and it wouldn't be more work since it could lead to the same outcome as the lie. i cannot but wonder if the reason why it's not there is that said dialogue is not included in order to actually present multiple ways to approach a problem, or set a proper mood for the game and allow you to actually roleplay your character, but simply to show off that they now have skill checks in dialogues.
then we have the conflict, where the bartender mentions that he heard from one of the caravan traders that the antagonizer was a girl living on a nearby farm that was overrun by ants. common sense told me to question the traders for the location, and search said farm for clues into the girls past, possibly usable in the dialogue with her, but no, neither do the traders offer any information at all, nor is there a farm with usable clues (there are some farms, not related to the antagonizer though). another perfect opportunity for atmosphere wasted.
then we have the rest of vault 101, which while being ok in terms of dialogue miserably fails in many other regards, especially the inaccessible/100 lockpicking doors, the pure mockery that is your father's safe (requiring 50 lockpicking, 45 is the max you can reach, i think), or in terms of environment responding to your actions, like whateverhernamewas freaking out when you kill her father, but not at all reacting when you choose to give your weapons to him, and are slaughtered in front of her very eyes, and other such things. the only things of any consequence in the vault is whether you kill the overseer or let him live, which is pretty meh too.
the exploring is kinda meh as welll, since there's hardly anything unique in most of the locations. if you are lucky you'll find a bobblehead (which are pretty stupid on their own) or a unique weapon, but most locations don't have that, or anything in terms of flavor text, and even look the same, which just makes them spots for ammo/money/xp farming, and nothing more.
tl;dr version: lots of wasted potential, still a step-up from oblivion, but no fucking way a very good game.
raziel014 said:
Turns out, Fallout 3 isn't Oblivion with guns huh? Neato.
it's oblivion 2 with guns.
