Incline Of the Big Three, which is your favorite? (Fallout, PS:T, Arcanum)

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

On an aesthetic level I’d go with Fallout over Arcanum. Arcanum needed the talking heads and descriptive text which further painted a more immersive picture of what was happening in the world; those two things felt like odd omissions for Arcanum given how much Arcanum feels like a follow up to Fallout. I personally also like where Fallout is coming from more from a purely visual aesthetic place. Like I like loved all that stuff Fallout is mixing together in a blinder, (‘50s mascots, post apocalyptic movies, pulp sci-fi art, City of Lost Children, 12 Monkeys, Art Deco art and architecture, ‘50s B movies, Robert Kinoshita’s designs) and I liked it long before Fallout, so Fallout ended up being one of those kinds of games (or just things in general) where when it comes along it feels like it was bad specifically for you.

But gameplay wise every about Arcanum is better. The combat actually isn’t better, but the other stuff is all vastly deeper than Fallout with many more options in how to go about doing something.

 

[ArchAngel]

Ah people that keep trying to push Arcanum as one of the greatest cRPGs while pushing out BG. It never worked and it will never work.

 

[Arbiter]

It's a shame the game could not be made in co-operation with Bethesda Softworks. What I mean is influenced by Morrowind. Just imagine if the sheer amount of dialogues and quests in Morrowind could be in Fallout.

Fallout 1 was released 5 years before Morrowind so at most it could have been influenced by Daggerfall released 1 year earlier. I personally prefer the small hand crafted world of Fallout to procedurally generated Daggerfall.

 

[Arbiter]

For me it's FO > PST >> Arcanum

FO wins over PST due to sci-fi setting and SPECIAL that features a lot of non-combat skills (though some of them were barely usable in F1). PST is a close second simply because I prefer sci-fi to fantasy and PST is more linear and unfortunately features proto-romances.

Arcanum was an ambitious project but I believe that developers bit more than they could chew. Everything therefore feels unfinished and spread too thin. Let's not forget that Arcanum features at least 1 romance, not doubt due to BG2 influence. Production values aren't great either by 2001 standards.

 

[Laz Sundays]

Fallout if it was a matter of life'n'death. But it's not, it's personal, and heart chooses Arcanum

 

[PapaPetro]

PS:T
Made me think about ontology.
Made me learn what ontology meant.

 

[Harthwain]

I personally prefer small hand crafted world of Fallout to procedurally generated Daggerfall.

I'd say it's possible to have a mix of both.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Ah people that keep trying to push Arcanum as one of the greatest cRPGs while pushing out BG. I never worked and it will never work.

 

[ArchAngel]

Ah people that keep trying to push Arcanum as one of the greatest cRPGs while pushing out BG. I never worked and it will never work.

Yes, you get a grammar Nazi reward.. and I should be careful to edit all the little mistakes.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Well, if “It” is what you meant your post is just stupid now.

 

[Beans00]

I personally prefer small hand crafted world of Fallout to procedurally generated Daggerfall.

I'd say it's possible to have a mix of both.

With the exception of ARPG's which need randomly generated content for replayability, I'd disagree with this.

IMO a hand crafter world is always superior.

 

[Gahbreeil]

Fallout 1 was released 5 years before Morrowind so at most it could have been influenced by Daggerfall released 1 year earlier. I personally prefer the small hand crafted world of Fallout to procedurally generated Daggerfall.

Merge Fallout 1 and 2 so that it is one storyline. Your choices in the first half of the story affect the second half. Triple the quests and dialogues. Zoom the map in a bit so that more locations fit in. I didn't mention Daggerfall since it is irrelevant to my opinion.

 

[Harthwain]

With the exception of ARPG's which need randomly generated content for replayability, I'd disagree with this.

Actually, I think an RPG would benefit A LOT from having a lot of replayability and different interactions due to different combinations of skills/abilities/items. It would also benefit from having hand-crafted content mixed with procedurally generated content to provide variety, while keeping the "main story" intact. Or you could go deeper and have different possible scenarios pulled randomly each time you start a game, to increase replayability even within the main storyline itself.

Hand-crafted stuff may seem superior, but it has its own problems.

 

[CHEMS]

Arcanum is the most replayable and best written crpg of its time. I love fallout, but fallout's lore is ass while arcanum's is top tier

 

[DemonKing]

Went Fallout.

Arcanum's combat is too janky and PST more of a book than a game (yes Fallout also had janky combat but there was always something endearing to me about Ian unloading a clip into the back of my character's head).

 

[Konjad]

Went Fallout.

Arcanum's combat is too janky and PST more of a book than a game (yes Fallout also had janky combat but there was always something endearing to me about Ian unloading a clip into the back of my character's head).

You mean 95% eye shots? Yeah, fallout combat was amazing, the serial eye shooter simulator.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I hear getting shot in the eyes is a pretty painful place to get shot.

 

[Haplo]

Indeed shooting for the eyes is effective. And fun.

BUT its far from the only viable or only OP combat focus.

You can destroy enemies with barrages from Heavy Guns (a bit less convenient due to weight/cost, but whatever).
You can absolutely slay them in melee or unarmed combat, which is very deadly indeed.

Also you can't shoot for the eyes from game start, you need to level up that combat skill first. And have high Perception to actually do that at range, rather then Point-Blank.
Before you achieve high skill, you can't do that from afar or with poor light... Its a beautiful system.

 

[anvi]

The big 3 lol

 

[anvi]

Of the big three hottest chicks ever, who is your favorite?

 

[Laz Sundays]

O tempora, o mores.

 

[CHEMS]

Went Fallout.

Arcanum's combat is too janky and PST more of a book than a game (yes Fallout also had janky combat but there was always something endearing to me about Ian unloading a clip into the back of my character's head).

You mean 95% eye shots? Yeah, fallout combat was amazing, the serial eye shooter simulator.

Not to mention all those different 10 AGI builds

10 AGI sniper, 10 AGI power fister, 10 AGI submachine gun, 10 AGI luck fast shot...

 

[Max Damage]

Arcanum wins for me for the character creation screen alone, it's one of the games I start up even if just to spend some time thinking what kind of monstrosity I'm going to emerge next.

 

[SkyFlyer97]

They basically all have sub-par combat. Fallout can have its moments with combat, but I found it tedious the majority of the time. In terms of writing, world, and story, P:ST crushes the other 2, so the choice has to be P:ST. The quest design and choice in Fallout is also fairly overstated. A lot of the time, it is either kill this person/animal, and occasionally you get to choose which faction to do that for. The non-combat skills being used to complete quests rather than combat is definitely the exception to the rule as well. In the end, the C&C ends up being for the ending slides, which isn't that great either.

 

[luj1]

Temple of Elemental Evil