Vault Dweller
Commissar, Red Star Studio
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2003
- Messages
- 28,038
MRY, thou art a scholar and a gentleman.
A discussion of whether or not such-and-such element of FO2 or FO1 is "logical" or "plausible" based on real-world standards is the wrong question. Both games are full of magic and pulp science. The issue is that in FO1, for the most part (not counting Easter eggs and a few small exceptions), these elements are thematic and consistent with the specific pulp genre the game is trying to evoke. With FO2, I'm less concerned with whether we can gin up a just-so story for why NCR has grown so fast or how Reno supports its economy. Instead, the question is, how do Prohibition-era gangsters in a pseudo-Las Vegas, gauss technology in NCR, Scientologists, kung-fu, time travel, etc. enhance the core themes and develop the mood of a post-apocalyptic setting.
By stuffing the setting with big, thriving cities and the kind of parasites that a big, thriving society has (Scientology, a pornography industry, etc.), it undermines the sense of marginal, frontier, risk-of-oblivion feel that is critical to the genre. Aspects of San Francisco feel more like cyberpunk than post-apocalyptic. Etc.
- Remember what the mortality rate for kids was in the Middle Ages? Why do you expect it to be any different in a post-apoc world? No antibiotics, vaccination, basic meds, plus natural hazards, not to mention raiders and radiation. 6 kids? You'd be lucky if 2 make it to adulthood. In fact you'd be lucky if women don't die during the second or third childbirth.
- Life expectancy of 60 years? In the middle ages it was around 35.
Another thread like J_C's?
I do think that part of what many people find endearing about Fallout is that it has a sort of "tight" small indie game feel to it (though they might not describe it in those terms). It really is an obvious "B project" with a certain indie-like amateurish quality to it.
But like many indie games, it gets better later on, as the developer grows more confident and ambitious with his craft. Play until Junktown and the Hub and tell us if you've changed your mind.
Fallout doesn't even remotely have the right elements or the right amount of right elements (Cybernetics/Noir/advanced but downtrodden controlled by corporations world/anti authoritarian motives) to be considered a Cyberpunk game.
Infinitron, Infinitron never changes. Still talking out of his ass.
Are there people here who played F1 first time after F2 and like F1 better?
Except for:
- Remember what the mortality rate for kids was in the Middle Ages? Why do you expect it to be any different in a post-apoc world? No antibiotics, vaccination, basic meds, plus natural hazards, not to mention raiders and radiation. 6 kids? You'd be lucky if 2 make it to adulthood. In fact you'd be lucky if women don't die during the second or third childbirth.
- If there is enough food? That seems like a big IF right there.
- Life expectancy of 60 years? In the middle ages it was around 35.
You painted some kinda cottage life utopia not a harsh post-apocalyptic world.
How many surrounding villages and small towns would it have to swallow to have 700,000 people?
There was no stuffing.A discussion of whether or not such-and-such element of FO2 or FO1 is "logical" or "plausible" based on real-world standards is the wrong question. Both games are full of magic and pulp science. The issue is that in FO1, for the most part (not counting Easter eggs and a few small exceptions), these elements are thematic and consistent with the specific pulp genre the game is trying to evoke. With FO2, I'm less concerned with whether we can gin up a just-so story for why NCR has grown so fast or how Reno supports its economy. Instead, the question is, how do Prohibition-era gangsters in a pseudo-Las Vegas, gauss technology in NCR, Scientologists, kung-fu, time travel, etc. enhance the core themes and develop the mood of a post-apocalyptic setting.
By stuffing the setting with big, thriving cities and the kind of parasites that a big, thriving society has (Scientology, a pornography industry, etc.), it undermines the sense of marginal, frontier, risk-of-oblivion feel that is critical to the genre. Aspects of San Francisco feel more like cyberpunk than post-apocalyptic. Etc.
Sure he is, when conforming to your views while you just skip over any counter argument that doesnt feel too nice or too easy. As usual.MRY, thou art a scholar and a gentleman.
I feel you, but you didn't even mention the most annoying part: the controls are so incredibly fucked up, it's unbelieveable! It's probably the only game more annoying to play on the controls-side than DA:I.I'm playing Fallout for the first time. Vanilla, patched, with the resolution mod, but no other changes to the game. I'm at the raiders base now, but so far, this game has been a disappointment at worst and underwhelming at best.
Let's start with Shady Sands. You have the entire eastern map where there is no one unique to even talk to except a farmer who has two forced lines. Not only that, there is nothing to find, nothing to do, not a single quest. In the western map, you have a woman who explains how to play the game, and you get free XP for talking to her. Then there is Seth whose only purpose is to point out the only two quests in the area, Ian who you can recruit, and then Aradesh and Tandi, who again point out the same quests. There is a doctor who doesn't do anything except heal your character and manufacture antidote.
Next, you've grown up in a vault all your life but this has ZERO effect on your character. Nothing seems to be a surprise for you, it doesn't even come up in dialogue. At least in Fallout 2, the tribal origin of your character played a part in character interactions in Klamath.
Then there are all the shitty dungeons filled with absurdly easy trash combat... Vault 15, radscorpion caves, the vault 13 exit.... Vault 15 was another disappointment, with nothing to do except kill some trashy rats, although I did like the ambiance/atmosphere overall.
Then I get to raiders, and I find characters like Petrox and Talya with copypasted dialogue, none of which flows even remotely like a conversation. And so much of the dialogue is just broken. For example you can ask Diana to repair your equipment without even finding out that she is the camp armorer first. Really amateurish stuff.
So far everything I have played does not even compare to the first couple of rooms in PST's mortuary.
Just play the game in 720p, if you go up to 1080p it becomes a game for ants.
Come on, tell me how I'm wrong. Again and again, people in this thread have said: "Fallout 1 is tight." "Fallout 1 is elegant." "Fallout 1 has a strong core vision that Fallout 2 lacks."
These same characteristics are used to describe indie games as compared to AAA games, all the time.
The things Matt said in that thread was piss in the ocean compared to the drivel you and Grunker were posting there.J_C trying to make up for his famous thread, I see
My take was that the 50s setting was employed because the core books in the post-apocalyptic genre came out of that duck-and-cover era (e.g., Earth Abides (1949), Alas, Babylon (1959), A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960)). In other words, the era was fitted to the genre, rather than being the central point. (I suppose they could've used the 1980s as an alternative jumping off point, relying on the MADD/Reagan era, The Road Warrior, and The Postman . . . .)And most of those elements you mentioned above do fit with the alternative history retro 50s pulp setting that Fallout is and always was.
Tried to play, but couldn't. The truth is, I don't have the time, patience, character to play real RPGs any more. All I can do is live in the past and you won't even let me do that in peace.But i bet you creamed all over NV in glorious first person!
I feel like you're arguing just to argue. The main antagonist is named after the hero of In the Line of Fire. The leaders of the villainous faction are characterized by Clinton and Quayle jokes. Quayle jokes?! As a kid who grew up in DC in the 80s, I appreciated them, but that would basically be like The Master dancing the Macarena in the final encounter. Nothing in San Francisco is thematic: "its population consists mostly of the Shi, who are the descendants of the crew of a Chinese submarine that crashed there, and of the members of a religious cult known as the Hubologists." The Scientologists have a two-map area with custom map art and multiple quests. The kung fu triads are an even more elaborate area. No one is pillorying the game for the Pinky and the Brain Easter egg or the Mike Tyson joke; those were throwaway. But main quest line areas and central characters are goofy in FO2.Scientology was a minor short side-quest contained in a small side location. Irrelevant to the core of the game as much as any Easter egg in F1. Kung-fu was just a little addition to hand to hand combat skill. Was there any other meaning to it except increasing your to-hit chances, giving you an ordinary or two kicks more? Did it affect anything else? Was it "kung-fu" in any other way then just a name?
I dont even remember any time traveling - another small side quest somewhere?
Agreed. Fallout 2's setting fits much more with Wasteland. But it's not Wasteland 2; it's Fallout 2. Wasteland is gonzo -- almost from the getgo you're fighting a mutant Peter Rabbit or whatever -- but I would actually say that within its gonzo-ness, it never undercuts the player's buy-in. Things start of absurdly exaggerated, and if anything get slightly more serious as it goes.And if you really want to split hairs then a bit more whacky feeling and style of the game can be contributed to Wasteland roots of Fallout games.
I strongly prefer LoS based FoW over a circle because it's more natural.The high res patch has a pseudo-IE fog of war mode, yes. I don't like the way it works, though, because the uncovering of the fog of war is based on line of sight instead of a circle around your character. Think characters popping into view as you turn corners, and weird black blind spots remaining on the map after you've explored it.
I don't know where this 700k comes from, but i would state that this 4k would be between 2%-20% of the NCR population, if we assume the middle ages city to village population distribution. So between 200k and 20k would be a good number.
Founded eighty years ago, the NCR is now comprised of the states of Shady, Los Angeles, Maxson, Hub, and Dayglow.
Approximately 700,000 citizens are pleased to call NCR home.
Are there people here who played F1 first time after F2 and like F1 better?
I'd really like someone to point me out to some 50's sci-fi where the themes are gangesters and chinamen doing chinamen things.
So, you people who think these are just perfect in Fallout, because hey they knew about them in the 50's and obviously in Fallout you can just throw in everything people knew in the 50's, tell me, what do you think about real-life weapons in Fallout? Perfect fit, amirite? I'm still wondering why they were missing in the first place!