Review Oblivion better than Fallout 3, better RPG than FPS

[DarkUnderlord]

No there isn't, the whole concept is abject fail. That the wig (or whatever) is stupider is moot. Basic attire (i.e. not power armor) shouldn't affect your stats. I mean if wearing cool looking shades is going to give you +1 Ch, surely wearing some bad ass looking T51 should give you over 9000 Ch for looking cool & intimidating, rite?

No, but it does give you +4 Strength douchebag. Armour has increased your stats in Fallout since the original. What it hasn't done is increased your skills through the magical power that if you look like a Doctor, you somehow become more skilled at being one. There's a line there somewhere between skill and stat boosts that make sense and those that are designed for the mentally retarded.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

Of the 60 hrs I spent on Oblivion I now totally now regret all of it. At least in Fallout 3 there's some C&C and dialogs. Whilst they're not good, they're there.


Oh yeah, I prolly should be commenting on this crazy apparell affecting stats crap, but to be honest, it bores me to death.

 

[Data4]

Oh yeah, I prolly should be commenting on this crazy apparell affecting stats crap, but to be honest, it bores me to death.

This happens a lot. A thread will start off interesting, and then slowly it devolves into what amounts to a "u! / no u!" argument between a couple of people that goes on for pages and pages and pages.

 

[NiM82]

No there isn't, the whole concept is abject fail. That the wig (or whatever) is stupider is moot. Basic attire (i.e. not power armor) shouldn't affect your stats. I mean if wearing cool looking shades is going to give you +1 Ch, surely wearing some bad ass looking T51 should give you over 9000 Ch for looking cool & intimidating, rite?

No, but it does give you +4 Strength douchebag. Armour has increased your stats in Fallout since the original.

I know reading is hard and all, but I did make the specific point that the problem was with basic (i.e. no physical means to boost your stats) attire, then cited PA as an obvious exception, italicising 'power' to emphasise why. But whatever (It's +3 btw for PA, just to be pedantic).

What it hasn't done is increased your skills through the magical power that if you look like a Doctor, you somehow become more skilled at being one. There's a line there somewhere between skill and stat boosts that make sense and those that are designed for the mentally retarded.

I agree, but that line surely starts with generic shades that make any and every character suddenly more charismatic.

 

[flabbyjack]

*Dexterity* Leap forward and snap the Dustman's neck before he can raise an alarm.

No. FO3 stats are a joke. Aside from stat increasing items there is also a lvl 1 perk(You get a perk every level) that increases a stat by one point, you can get this perk ten times Many of the stats are downright useless, so it's easy to max the few that matter(INT, end, str).

The image of Mel Gibson in his black leather jacket riding down the highways of the Armageddon is almost synonymous with the post-apocalyptic setting. A similar jacket could be found in both Fallout 1 and 2, though I’ve yet to see it pop up in play through Fallout 3.

A unique set of leathers are available in Vault 101, plus there's leather littered around the wasteland as 'leather armor' ... wtf stupid review.

NPCs still don't comment if you wander the wasteland in Power Armor, everything seems so... static.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

Oh yeah, I prolly should be commenting on this crazy apparell affecting stats crap, but to be honest, it bores me to death.

This happens a lot. A thread will start off interesting, and then slowly it devolves into what amounts to a "u! / no u!" argument between a couple of people that goes on for pages and pages and pages.

I won't comment, sometimes I derail Thread Topics too. There is a tiny, tiny part of me that is kinda proud of Betheduh. They've just made their very first Role Playing Game!

 

[Data4]

Oh yeah, I prolly should be commenting on this crazy apparell affecting stats crap, but to be honest, it bores me to death.

This happens a lot. A thread will start off interesting, and then slowly it devolves into what amounts to a "u! / no u!" argument between a couple of people that goes on for pages and pages and pages.

I won't comment, sometimes I derail Thread Topics too. There is a tiny, tiny part of me that is kinda proud of Betheduh. They've just made their very first Role Playing Game!

I guess you never heard of Arena and Daggerfall-- both were fairly decent RPGs. Or at least they pulled the masquerade off pretty well. Of course the similarities between the Bethesda of the 90's and Bethesda of today are about equal to Fallout 3 vs. Fallouts 1 & 2.

 

[Chefe]

Codex Logic:
Arena = Good
Daggerfall = Great
Oblivion = Crime Againt Humanity

The funny part is they're all basically the same game. Morrowind is the odd man out.

 

[Data4]

Codex Logic:
Arena = Good
Daggerfall = Great
Oblivion = Crime Againt Humanity

The funny part is they're all basically the same game. Morrowind is the odd man out.

The argument is a tired one, and you of all people should know it, Chefe. Oblivion was a disappointment because the improvements on the series were superficial at best and implemented poorly, blah blah blah...

Hopefully, the improvements on their formula with FO3 can translate over to TES. I just hope the person writing the dialogue knows some writing fundamentals at least. You know, like "how to", etc.

 

[Claw]

I agree, but that line surely starts with generic shades that make any and every character suddenly more charismatic.

Maybe, but at least it has some justification, even if it's far-fetched. How does a wig add to intelligence? A fedora that proves your sneaking skill? Huh? I do believe more than one line was crossed here.

 

[elander_]

Hopefully, the improvements on their formula with FO3 can translate over to TES. I just hope the person writing the dialogue knows some writing fundamentals at least. You know, like "how to", etc.

I don't know. They will probably get the bright idea of importing Karma or some sort of Godly alignment system that knows all and then it would be even worst.

I agree with the article in which the quest paths of the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves were much more interesting than the writing in Fallout 3 only because the writers didn't have to satisfy any good/evil barometer and also because no choices are better than horrible ones.

In fact we did had some limited but well done choices in the Thief and Assassin paths. We could use stealth, environment manipulation or fight all the way. If the stealth mechanics wasn't broken it would be all right.

 

[MetalCraze]

Oblivion better than Fallout 3? Seriously?
Holy shit how rearded must those poeple be.

Fallout3 is better than Oblivion in that it got a bunch of dialogues written in 3 minutes and c&c on a par with bioware's ME.
That doesn't make it any less shitty than it is.

Hopefully, the improvements on their formula with FO3 can translate over to TES. I just hope the person writing the dialogue knows some writing fundamentals at least. You know, like "how to", etc.

Oh for fuck's sake - there were no improvements - Beth just tried to ape original Fallouts and failed miserably - but only because FO3 has stuff like poor C&C certainly means it is an improvement. Failure = Improvement now. It's like saying that ME is an improvement from BG2 just because main character was poorly voiced.
When I read FO3's dialogues it makes me wish FO3 had Oblivion's one word X/Y/Rumours shit.

But Fallout3 really did something to the Codex.
The Codex before FO3: "If you can't do shit right don't do it"
The Codex after FO3: "Oh it is shitty but it is in the game! Halleluja!"

 

[FalloutBR]

No there isn't, the whole concept is abject fail. That the wig (or whatever) is stupider is moot. Basic attire (i.e. not power armor) shouldn't affect your stats. I mean if wearing cool looking shades is going to give you +1 Ch, surely wearing some bad ass looking T51 should give you over 9000 Ch for looking cool & intimidating, rite?

Try showing up somewhere driving a Ferrari, even in real life you're sure to get a charisma boost...

 

[Data4]

Oh for fuck's sake - there were no improvements - Beth just tried to ape original Fallouts and failed miserably - but only because FO3 has stuff like poor C&C certainly means it is an improvement. Failure = Improvement now. It's like saying that ME is an improvement from BG2 just because main character was poorly voiced.
When I read FO3's dialogues it makes me wish FO3 had Oblivion's one word X/Y/Rumours shit.

But Fallout3 really did something to the Codex.
The Codex before FO3: "If you can't do shit right don't do it"
The Codex after FO3: "Oh it is shitty but it is in the game! Halleluja!"

I use the word "improvements" loosely. Having actual sentences to say, rather than walking up to someone and blurting out "Rumors!" is a little better. Going through the motions of having skill checks instead of a "choose the pie chart" minigame is a little better.

Then again, this IS Bethesda we're talking about. It's impossible for them to follow through with improvements. They're like 3 chefs who are on the brink of making the best hot fudge sundae in the world, and then one of them says "Hey, what if we cover it in brown beef gravy, with little sprinkles made out of shit?" The other two agree wholeheartedly, while their PR guy says "We just felt it was the right thing to do. It's the way we've been doing it for years here."

 

[MetalCraze]

Actually Fallout3's writing made me think that those chefs got their hands growing out of their asses.
Surely it doesn't take much work to write something like "I''ve killed the raiders" instead of "Raiders"? Just fire up NWN editor and you will find that making branching dialogues of a poor quality can be quite easy and fast. Just throw in random unrelated stat checks that make no sense and you're all set. Fallout 3 gives an impression that those things were made on the fly and there never was any real designer's work behind them.
(but I wonder how much work did all those [charisma] and [intelligence] dialogues take - they sound like those stats were bugged and locked at 1)
The shooter part of F3 was also ruined by having too boring shooter gameplay - dumb AI that just stands there or runs at you asking to be shot together with the game constantly forcing you into the boring VATS during harder moments certainly didn't help.

 

[elander_]

Then again, this IS Bethesda we're talking about. It's impossible for them to follow through with improvements. They're like 3 chefs who are on the brink of making the best hot fudge sundae in the world, and then one of them says "Hey, what if we cover it in brown beef gravy, with little sprinkles made out of shit?" The other two agree wholeheartedly, while their PR guy says "We just felt it was the right thing to do. It's the way we've been doing it for years here."

Gold

 

[Cuther]

you know skyway, the more I play f3 (didn't buy it at least) the more I can see your point.

I still think there is something interesting in this game, but there is too much mediocrity everywhere, covering all of the game. Mediocre looking world (well, sometime there are "whoah" moments, but most of the time is brown and gray dullishness), mediocre combat, mediocre labyrintic ruins filled with monsters, mediocre quests, bad writing, bad ia and interaction between characters, and so on and so on.

And most of all this game is pretty much oblivion. Same problems, same gameplay mechanics, same poor quests... a few poorly thought stats check in quests and everything is great.

This game is 80% per cent of the time a snorefest. I wish they made this a Fallout: the free roaming fps game instead of fallout: the freeroaming shitty rpg game. I would have played the fuck out of a good post apocaliptic shooter with good shooting mechanics and animations

Well, I'm still going to play it for another bit, I still have to see things like tranquility lane, the cannibals village, and so on.

 

[The Lawnmower]

The Theives Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests were the most interesting thing about Oblivion. AND THEY WERE PRETTY BORING; they're only of note because they were less boring than everything else in Oblivion.

If nothing in FO3 is even as good as those quests, then that's pretty damning.


At first I was like 'Bethesda are making FO3? Hello Oblivion with Guns'.
As the game came close to release it was Oblivion with Guns confirmed.
Then the game came out and everyone started raving about how great it was and how it was better than Oblivion and I thought 'Hmmm, maybe it's not so bad. Apparently it's an improvement on Oblivion; maybe I'll pick up a copy.'

But then I thought, 'Hang on, everybody raved about Oblivion as well. Probably the exact same people who are raving about FO3. And what they think are improvement on Oblivion are probably not improvements on what I think were the fundemental flaws of ES4 (namely dullness and lack of substance).'

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I'm gonna trust my initial instinct and not blow my money on this game.

 

[Cuther]

"dullness and lack of substance" pretty much nails my experience with both the oblivions. They're big games for the sake of being big.

Honestly, I can see the appeal of a game like this. A non linear, freely explorable world sounds interesting even if the world itself is just barely non-awful.

But if you hated oblivion, you will hate f3. It's basically the same game.

 

[Sarvis]

I agree, but that line surely starts with generic shades that make any and every character suddenly more charismatic.

Maybe, but at least it has some justification, even if it's far-fetched. How does a wig add to intelligence? A fedora that proves your sneaking skill? Huh? I do believe more than one line was crossed here.

The Fedora is brown. Nearly everything in the wastelands is some shade of brown. Ever hear of camouflage?

 

[tonkemaskin]

“But Justin, you must be playing this on a Commodore 64! Lrn2upgradenubkkthx!” Not so much, actually. I have a high-end PC with dual-SLI graphics cards and can run Crysis at max setting just fine – yet mobs in Fallout 3 do not materialize until they are five to 10 yards away from me. Sure, they can shoot at me from much farther away, and I see this hail of bullets coming at me and I don’t even know where it’s coming from.

I wonder if this guy has found out that you can set the view distances in the game options. At 15 enemies pop up so far away that damaging them is next to impossible even with a powerful rifle.

 

[Balor]

I agree, but that line surely starts with generic shades that make any and every character suddenly more charismatic.

Maybe, but at least it has some justification, even if it's far-fetched. How does a wig add to intelligence? A fedora that proves your sneaking skill? Huh? I do believe more than one line was crossed here.

The Fedora is brown. Nearly everything in the wastelands is some shade of brown. Ever hear of camouflage?

Simply brown-colored does not camouflaged fedora make, old Sarvis.
Even having a proper 'stealth suit' would be stupid, unfortunately... because it would automatically allow you to pickpocket people beter! Thanks to skills being lumped together - favourite Bethesda business.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Sarvis was sarcastic. Nearly everyone on the Codex is sarcastic. Ever hear of sarcasm?

 

[Volourn]

"Ever hear of sarcasm?"

Is that sarcasm?

 

[Balor]

Sarvis is always serious. He got his dumbfuck title (it's removed now - and I always thought that it was too harsh), for pretty much that, unless I'm mistaken.