Fallout Underwhelmed by Fallout :(

[Infinitron]

Problem with the FO2 haters is that you tell them you want more quest density and they interpret that in the worst possible way. "You want boring filler content! You want gangsters with fedoras and scientologists! YOU DECLINER!!"

No, dummies, we want a world where we can rat the Doctor in Junktown to the mayor, that's all.

 

[MRY]

Doing your best to save your shitty village when the world IS rebuilding and GECK is no longer a Thing Of Great Importance doesn't make as much sense.

Strongly disagree. It's true that as executed, the game did everything possible to make you hate the village and the concept of going back to save them. But the idea that you would make a priority of safeguarding the well-being of your culture and immediate and extended family despite the fact that there's better stuff out there isn't crazy; it's a pretty ordinary human behavior. Of course lots of people pull up stakes and assimilate in a more successful culture (and some small percentage of people would use a magic box to help the most people, rather than the people closest to them), but plenty of people go to a more successful culture, gather goods (e.g., money, education), and then go back where they started to help their family/town/what have you. The problem with FO2 is that it gives the player absolutely no reason to have attachment to the village; the contrary, the game makes the village as stupid, tedious, offensive, unfun to the player as possible, so that you'd rather never go back, let alone engage in kung fu fights against aliens on their behalf. Also, of course, I'm pretty sure that giving the GECK to your village will just lead to its being conquered by someone who wants nice land, but, hey, no one thinks that far ahead.

That's not to say FO2 doesn't have big logic problems; it's pretty clear that the world is going to be just fine by that point, so the Enclave's behavior makes no sense. It's like the Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series: within a couple years, things have gone from frontier hell to more advanced than the old civilization. Meh.

--EDIT--

Read your quoted language as "doesn't make much sense" -- i.e., I left out the "as," which changes the meaning significantly. Correctly read, I agree with you: in both scenarios, you have the save-the-homeland rationale, but in FO1, saving the Vault seems the most plausible route for saving civilization. If nothing else, you want the Vault to survive long enough to supply a stock of educated, healthy people to assist the rebuilt civilization once it gets stabilized; but it's far too early to gamble that this batch of political entities are the ones that will make it. Probalby better to see if the Republic will hang together before throwing in with them.

 

[AMG]

Are people ITT seriously defending Fallout 1 not providing motivation for protagonist to do what he does, because living in a bunker seems more appealing to them ?
I think some people need to stop reading Grimoire thread, because it seems to have adverse effect on their psyche.

 

[Roguey]

It's fantastic how Styg managed to out-Josh New Vegas thanks to not being beholden to the mass market or busted systems from a predecessor.

The writing likely won't be as good, but that's okay as long as it's good enough.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Problem with the FO2 haters is that you tell them you want more quest density and they interpret that in the worst way. "You want boring filler content! You want gangsters with fedoras and scientologists! YOU DECLINER!!"

No, dummies, we want a world where we can rat the Doctor in Junktown to the mayor, that's all.

Yeah, but the point is that Fallout 2 could have delivered better reactivity, quest design and C&C (which it all did) without all that lulzy, fantastical herpa-derp. Would New Reno be less amazing in terms of faction play, quest design and C&C if it was toned down a bit?

 

[King Crispy]

Roguey, I didn't one-troll you for the obvious bait you tried to lay there, I one-trolled you for slithering out of your PoE-thread-cage. Get back in there.

 

[Infinitron]

Yeah, but the point is that Fallout 2 could have delivered better reactivity, quest design and C&C (which it all did) without all that lulzy, fantastical herpa-derp. Would New Reno be less amazing in terms of faction play, quest design and C&C if it was toned down a bit?

Sure, but Fallout 2's flaws have been hashed to death on these forums. What hasn't been discussed is Fallout 1's flaws, except the most obvious ones ("bad combat").

 

[Perkel]

Are people ITT seriously defending Fallout 1 not providing motivation for protagonist to do what he does, because living in a bunker seems more appealing to them ?
I think some people need to stop reading Grimoire thread, because it seems to have adverse effect on their psyche.

Hell its awesome outside. Slavers, supermutants, crazy wildlife, people who would kill you for less that a bottle of water.

Meanwhile in vault which at that time still wasn't some experimental vault had everything awesome. Order, peace and quietness.
Oh did we already discuss time traveling in FO2 ?
It is the same reason why i hated kings in FNV. They were FO2 shittick same as roman style armors and weapons for you know who in FNV

 

[Perkel]

They should change a tittle for FO2.
The post apocalyptic comedy roleplay game with fake audience clapping and laughing after you encounter each of those shitty references.
It would probably fit in into lore considering FO2 just took every shitty idea and made it cannon

 

[Vault Dweller]

If nothing else, you want the Vault to survive long enough to supply a stock of educated, healthy people to assist the rebuilt civilization once it gets stabilized; but it's far too early to gamble that this batch of political entities are the ones that will make it. Probalby better to see if the Republic will hang together before throwing in with them.

Precisely.

Problem with the FO2 haters is that you tell them you want more quest density and they interpret that in the worst way. "You want boring filler content! You want gangsters with fedoras and scientologists! YOU DECLINER!!"

Well, fuck, son, OF COURSE more quality content is better than less quality content. Any game, including Fallout, could be vastly improved by adding more quests, characters, and things to do.

Fallout is a very tight game that does a lot of things well (probably by maintaining that tight focus, unlike, say, Arcanum that tried to nail everything at once). Fallout 2 could have been a better game had it maintained the setting and the atmosphere, instead of going for MOAR shit taken straight from a 13 year old kid's wish list.

 

[Infinitron]

Fallout is a very tight game that does a lot of things well (probably by maintaining that tight focus, unlike, say, Arcanum that tried to nail everything at once). Fallout 2 could have been a better game had it maintained the setting and the atmosphere, instead of going for MOAR shit from a 13 year old kid's wish list.

Your problem is that you value form over function. Fuck the setting and atmosphere, I want more intricate quests and locations, and Fallout 2 delivers. It is not just MORE CONTENT. The content is in fact - in terms of structural complexity, not in terms of setting/theme which is subjective - BETTER.

 

[Gregz]

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.

Noone likes all the games on our list, or even half of them.

Codex Top 70

Just go down the list from the top until you find something you like. You can always come back to Fallout another time.

 

[NotAGolfer]

So does that mean that if they could get more shitty pop culture references it would be better ?

There are obiously amazing things in FO2 but problem is that at the same time you have fucking boxer night with fucking mike. Even designers of FO2 agreed that putting so much references was a mistake of young designers.

FO1 feels like actual post apo game after very fucking mean nuclear bombardment.
FO2 feels like nukes payload wasn't enough and it established bunch of shitty cannon lore.

Even mechanically it changed a lot. Sure ton of guns is awesome but in Fallout 1 when you found your first shotgun it felt like christmas and birthday at the same time to only realize that ammo cost more than your life.

In F2 it is basically "meh"

Getting the Gauss rifle in FO2 doesn't feel meh, on the contrary. Same for combat shotgun, plasma rifle, upgrades of it and other weapons... This game is huge, and it's fun.
regarding the tired "immature cultural references pulling me out of muh immershun" bullshit:
I never took FO1 serious, always thought it was just as pulpy as the second game. Sure, some jokes in FO2 were plain dumb, but why the ?
Did it really have a negative impact on your enjoyment of the game? It's not like the game fell apart because of them, the Enclave stuff and the power struggle between the different factions worked great and kept me intrigued til the very end.
A postapoc setting where society as we know it ceased to exist is the perfect opportunity to just run wild and come up with lots of crazy ideas about all kinds bizarre stories / communities / regimes.
What I didn't appreciate about FO2 was how black and white it all was. Not necessarily the factions, because most of them had some good things going for them, but the quest decisions. Most of the time it was very clear which course of action was the goody two shoes one and which was moustache twirling evil, which is lame.
But then again gameplay is the thing I care most about, and since the RPG progression curve of FO2 is fucking fantastic (even though the combat mechanics are not) I can deal with the shortcomings.

 

[Nikaido]

Your problem is that you value form over function. Fuck the setting and atmosphere, I want more intricate quests and locations, and Fallout 2 delivers. It is not just MORE CONTENT. The content is in fact - in terms of structural complexity, not in terms of setting/theme which is subjective - BETTER.

"Fuck the setting and atmosphere" while talking about games types that completely break down when you take those away. Fallout isn't a dungeon crawler. It doesn't have enticing gameplay if you don't have an interest in the roleplaying itself. What's the point of "intricate quests and locations" if you feel repelled by the appalling writing? do you actually think of dialogue trees and c&c as a form of gameplay in itself where you can derive fun no matter what is contained within?

The more I look at your posts the more I feel like you're one of those rare actual cases of asperger, not a self diagnosed one, just the real deal. Do you pass the time by counting the number of toothpicks in a box?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Noone likes all the games on our list, or even half of them.

Codex Top 70

Just go down the list from the top until you find something you like. You can always come back to Fallout another time.

Too reasonable, too boring. I think I like you better when you are drunk and angry.

 

[tuluse]

Strongly disagree. It's true that as executed, the game did everything possible to make you hate the village and the concept of going back to save them. But the idea that you would make a priority of safeguarding the well-being of your culture and immediate and extended family despite the fact that there's better stuff out there isn't crazy; it's a pretty ordinary human behavior. Of course lots of people pull up stakes and assimilate in a more successful culture (and some small percentage of people would use a magic box to help the most people, rather than the people closest to them), but plenty of people go to a more successful culture, gather goods (e.g., money, education), and then go back where they started to help their family/town/what have you. The problem with FO2 is that it gives the player absolutely no reason to have attachment to the village; the contrary, the game makes the village as stupid, tedious, offensive, unfun to the player as possible, so that you'd rather never go back, let alone engage in kung fu fights against aliens on their behalf. Also, of course, I'm pretty sure that giving the GECK to your village will just lead to its being conquered by someone who wants nice land, but, hey, no one thinks that far ahead.

That's not to say FO2 doesn't have big logic problems; it's pretty clear that the world is going to be just fine by that point, so the Enclave's behavior makes no sense. It's like the Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series: within a couple years, things have gone from frontier hell to more advanced than the old civilization. Meh.

The problem is that the player doesn't have any real attachment to the village. So it makes sense for the ingame character to care, but not the player. The player's entire experience is a bunch of people living in huts who can't figure out to move into the huge stone temple next door. In a game like Fallout where you have near complete freedom to do whatever you want, this is even worse than it usually is in video games.

Read OP, didn't see anything too outrageous.

It'll be great when Underrail is released and Fallout can be relegated to the dustbins of antiquity, an experimental curiosity.

Underrail while taking Fallout game play and improving basically every aspect of it, does not do the same with Fallout world design. No open world, no world map, etc.

 

[Perkel]

Did it really have a negative impact on your enjoyment of the game? It's not like the game fell apart because of them, the Enclave stuff and the power struggle between the different factions worked great and kept me intrigued til the very end.

Fell apart ? No. Like i said FO2 has many + but it is filled with impurities. Fallout 1 like some people said already keeps its tone in check and uses humor as contrast to bleak word which only fuels it. FO2 on other hand doesn't do that and at some point you don't know if you should take FO2 quest seriously or to loathe like in sitcom.

Time traveling, kungfu city, talking animals and the more you play it the harder it is to actually appreciate good quest because like i said you don't know if you should take something seriously or this is another one of those comedy quests.

 

[NotAGolfer]

Lulz > Sirius Engaging Stories anytime

Also 4th wall breaking is common these days, everyone does it.

 

[agris]

Why, it looks better than playing with the original resolution, which is stretched on HD monitors. It is not meant to be played this way, but there is no better alternative.

I know I'm late to this party, but unstretched 960x600 (for 16:10) or 960x540 (16:9 plebs) is gorgeous in these old 640x480 games. Never more than 1440x900, which I only use in IE games.

 

[Forest Dweller]

First, a "more of the same" sequel hardly counts. Second, it doesn't do anything better. It simply piles up more shit (moar guns! kung-fu! a kung-fu city! gangsters in suits and fedoras! aliens! scientologists! ghosts! giant robots! Yakuza with katanas! talking deathclaws!), while breaking everything that could be broken (the setting, the character system, balance, etc) and calls it a bigger game.

But they did much more. They expanded the C&C to where towns were interconnected instead of being isolated areas like in the first game. There was the entire NCR/Vault City/New Reno power-struggle which could be felt in virtually every settlement, and the ability to tip that balance. There were many more quests which ocurred over multiple settlements. There was better implementation of skill checks and more opportunities for all of them.

How can any of this not be seen as "better?"

Also, more of the same IS better, if the quality is the same. Most of the quests had as much, if not more, of the reactivity and potential solutions as Fallout 1. Not to mention better writing.

As for the game being silly, so was Fallout 1. Not to the same degree, but I could never take retro-scifi seriously. Not when the game was made in 1997. It was already a type of pop-culture homage. In this way Fallout 2 also expanded on the original.

 

[laclongquan]

To any of you complaining about no attachment with the old dumb barb village

Have you ever, I dunno, visited Arroyo after you left?

Things become notably worse the more time you spent outside. To the point that mutt you save at the start of the game just gone to the Big Great Pot Heaven. People beg you to do it faster.

Oh sure, the relatives are nothing to write home about. But each visit just pull on grandfather's bone on mah face.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Favorite thing about Fallout 1 was the mutants, discovering them, fighting them, the characters, their backstory, their goals, the areas where they're located, no Fallout 2 characters compare to Lou and the Master imo.
Super mutant master race.

Infinitron you damn autist, you need to argue with your bellyfeels like the rest of us, which game had you more immersed?

 

[Darkzone]

Of all the bullshits that goes around on the Codex this one always strikes me as the undisputed king, it's like people only played the first 20 minutes of each game. That would be literally the only way for FO1 to be the superior one, as the temple of trials sucks.

Yes that is clearly an argumentation from stupidity without a substance. Make Arguments not empty sentences. FO:2 is bigger, but not better. I love them both equally, but the more i look at them, the more i come to my conclusion. This expresses itself also in this feeling that after playing FO:1 i have this inner demand for more, while FO:2 only ends for me.
FO:1 has more a far better atmosphere and a story that stays close on the vault and the revolving plot, without any WTF.

Well, fuck, son, OF COURSE more quality content is better than less quality content. Any game, including Fallout, could be vastly improved by adding more quests, characters, and things to do.

Sometimes more is less. To understand this is very important.

 

[NotAGolfer]

FO:2 is bigger, but not better.

Storyfags.
Storyfags never change.

 

[pippin]

I don't know what worries more. This kind of threads (it's not like I'm not a shitposter, but anyway), or the fact that in 20 years there's a big fat chance forums will have threads like "underwhelmed by Skyrim" and people will barely remember what FO was