Go buy Fallout 3!!

[FlippyD]

So now it's time for the second most awaited RPG of 08' (imo). Fallout 3 was released today and I'm surprised nobody's made a thread about it! The game is fucking SICK!

But first...

Backstory on the Fallout universe and games.

I've been a big fan of the series (and Interplay) since Fallout 2. I was concerned 3 wouldn't be as good because I fucking hate Oblivion (the only RPG that punishes you for exploring and leveling up. And throws in an unnecessarily complex stat system to boot.) Fallout 3 thankfully, has all the accessibility and charm of the previous games with some added stuff that surprisingly doesn't suck.

Cool stuff:

Fallout 3 has a VATS system (Vault-Tec assisted targetting) where, like in Fallout/Arcanum/NWN you can spend action points every round to preform attacks. These attacks can be aimed at the arms, legs, chest or head and you can preform various effects based on your skill, the range of the enemy, the weapon you have, etc. Like in Vagrant story, taking out an enemie's legs makes him or her slower, you can shoot a gun out of an attacking mutant or preform a devastating head shot that spews brain matter, eyeballs and lost jawbones everywhere.

Oh yeah, this game is gloriously violent, and that's coming from a guy who prefers the cartoony charm of Serious Sam and TF2 to games like Resident Evil or Manhunt.

The amount of things you can do is staggering, and despite the game's main quest being a short 20 hour jaunt, completing every other quest in the game can take you over 100 hours...

And that's not including every path available to you in completing quests. Sometimes you might sneak behind a ghoul and put a grenade in his pocket to kill him, sometimes you might talk him into leaving and he may help you later in another quest. Many quests roll together in different ways, never being fetch quest-ish, but weaving a story.

Speaking of which, one of the things I hate about most WRPGs is rolling a charismatic smooth talking character who sucks balls at combat and thus is impossible to use in most quests due to a lack of martial skills (unless I can hire mercs or party members depending on the RPG.) In Fallout 3 every skill can be used in combat in one way or another, and they're actually pretty useful. There's also an abundance of weapons available when you start, and so long as you're not totally stupid you'll be able to hold your own well enough.

Not only that, but the skills are varied, really fun and wildly original. One skill, "Mysterious Stranger" causes a random lone gunman in a trench coat with a .44 calibre rifle to appear and shoot one enemy dead, then wander away with a lonesome spaghetti western tune singing in the breeze. Another one gives you bonuses to killing sleeping people, women (for men, called "Lady Killer"), or men (for the girls.) You can also make a male or female character of several (four >:/) races and a retarded number of customization options.

You can own real estate, have a faithful dog companion and wander about making all kinds of moral decisions, never really "right" or "wrong." Sometimes choosing what seems like the right option can lead to bad things, and the bad options lead to good things. Kind of like Fable, but since it isn't made by Peter Molyneux it'll actually deliver.

The only downside is Bethesda Soft sucks donkey balls when it comes to animation. So the characters sometimes move stiffly. Also expect to be able to kill an NPC, brutally in the middle of town and not have any other NPCs give a damn... Or break out their rocket launchers and flame throwers and blow the shit out of you... Y'know... Hard to tell.

Also the game is big and expensive, but if you're not careful you'll fucking die. I started wandering around and exploring a ruined city, when all of a sudden furries with mounted turrets and flamethrowers fucking jumped me for getting to close to a mailbox. It didn't feel like a cheap death because it was funny and interesting (plus the game autosaves like mad, so no worries.)

That's it, now go buy it!

 

[Venetia]

I bought it!!!!!!!!!! =O!!!!!!!!!!

i havent had a chance to play it yet but i will either tonight or tomorrow and get back to you!!!!

to much good games right now!!!!! @_@!!!!

 

[Twirly]

to much good games right now!!!!! @_@!!!!

FUCK THIS IS SO TRUE  :pissed:

 

[Dargor]

I'm getting the collector's edition tonight! with the pipboy lunch box :D

 

[Lorddarkfrog]

yeah its a pretty sweet game go into slow mo and watch everyones heads explode! lol, he is right about the good games I have been addicted to fable 2 and recently beat it I am planning on a second playthrough.

 

[Prexus]

I.. actually beat this in a single sitting. Yes, it was an 8 hour sitting, but it was a single sitting no less. I, clearly, didn't do much of the sidequests. I was pretty intent on just getting the storyline completed, but by god it was fun.

Nothing more satisfying than melting the face of a Super Mutant with a plasma rifle.

To discuss this game on the level of a Fallout game, I would say it is much weaker than Fallout 1 and 2. A lot of what makes Fallout is the skills. I never found a necessity to level any skill other than the weapon skills, and then later the Speech skill simply to make the game go faster. I never had a need to stealth by something, preferring to ream everything I saw thoroughly. Once I got the Scrounge perk, I was able to keep my munitions up high enough that I never had to resort to melee/unarmed combat. I never once had to unlock something that I couldn't unlock some other way, or go around. I was never forced to hack a computer. I think you can see where I am going with this.

I would have liked to take my normal approach with Fallout games, get a big club, go heavily Melee Weapons, and use Stealthy skills like Security and Sneak to avoid as much combat as possible. But there was just no need for it, and it was made evident fairly early in the game that it wouldn't be an issue. I was expecting to have to use at least SOME of my skills before leaving the vault, but nope.

I don't think that the Combat system attributed negatively towards it being a Fallout game, though, like most people think. You could shoot off arms, legs, heads, etc. even without the VATS system (which I very rarely ever used except to clear out large groups of enemies later in the game) which made it all that much more fun.

I also found that social interactions with characters left a lot to be desired. Bartering when selling/trading was so... automatic. It didn't feel very fun. It just seemed like a Min/Max stat rather than an ability. Although I did make almost all of my Caps from selling gear, even with a .. 25ish Barter skill it made me plenty of money (since I never bought anything except Stim-Packs.)

I also never used the Workbench. I had schematics for a few things. Rock-It-Launcher, Shishkabob, etc. and was regularly picking up the materials to make them, but just.. didn't. Never felt a need to, hell, I don't even know WHAT they make. I was mainly picking up the motorcycle parts and lawnmower pieces because I thought that at some point I might be able to use them to repair a Motorcycle to travel around the world map with. I have to gripe, though, about traveling across the map. I don't like the Fast Travel feature of the Oblivion engine. I especially don't like that it made its way into this game. Even Fallout 1/2 had a car that sped up the travel time between places. I may have missed it, to be honest, though. Stranger things have happened especially since I was rushing through the storyline.

I was pretty liberal about flat out killing people, I don't know if other people were. I found that not too many NPCs were able to defend themselves well enough.

Spoiler

I killed the guy in Megaton who asked me to detonate the bomb, before I even reported him to the Sheriff. One would assume that the Sheriff, or SOMEONE, would be angry or confused about this. But when I went to talk to the sheriff on my way out of town, and saw that I could report the guy, I did so. The sheriff just ran to the bar, went inside, and got locked up.

It's a shame that the best weapon in the game you literally get to use on two enemies, and only if you suffer their fire long enough to loot it and equip it. I found that kind of GHEY. I suppose I could just ignore the impending event and have gone and done endless amounts of side quests but somehow I don't think I could have left that room... and if the engine let me, it was a stupid idea.


All in all I liked the game. I think it did capture the essence of Fallout enough to satisfy fans, but it is definitely an Oblivion clone, hands down.


Oh there was one more thing that bothered me about this game. I never, EVER, got a companion. Every time I came across one, and asked him to join, my Karma was wrong. Either they wanted it neutral or evil, and I was good, or vice versa. My karma changed a lot since I just did whatever made the most sense, not caring about "doing it the hard way" just to maintain good or evil. It was SUCH a piss off.

 

[Venetia]

nice review, prex, that's some good info

the only thing I see in disagreeing with you on is fast travel, I LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE fast travel, and I'd actually consider it a huge detriment to remove it.

because, i mean ... if you want to run somewhere instead of fast travelling ... just do it? it's not like the game is forcing you to fast travel.

 

[Prexus]

You are somewhat correct in saying that, but somewhat wrong as well. I want FAST TRAVEL. I just don't want INSTANT fast travel. Like Flight Paths in World of Warcraft, it's fast travel, but it's not just a loading screen. You fly across the terrain and it shows you something.. It's a gameplay feature.

Fast Travel as it stands in Oblivion/Fallout3 is not a gameplay feature, it's a gameplay skipper.

I want fast travel in Fallout 3 where you can hop on a motorcycle and drive, or some sort of mass transport like a train or something.

I admit to using the fast travel system, but there are lots of times when I ran just because I hadn't seen that stretch of terrain in a while. But fuck the hero runs slowly.

Spoiler

It was so annoying following your dad back from Vault 112 to Rivet City...

 

[Venetia]

ohh, ok, yeah, I see what you mean there.

 

[FlippyD]

I'd agree with you Prexus, but I was also comparing this game to Arcanum and V:tMB, which have fast travel options like that. I however wished they had the fast travel thing like in Arcanum, where you can still get into random battles between where you are and where you want to go. I seldom used fast travel (only when I couldn't be arsed to travel past the same stretch of terrain again), but it feels really cheap.

Also I raised my speech skills high early on and I've talked my way out of a lot of situations, or charmed people to get what I wanted. Haven't had to use stealth hardly at all.

And you can get Dogmeat, who's an NPC who joins you no matter what your alignment.

Spoiler

He hangs out at the scrapyard south of Minefield.

And I found the FPS mode was way to finicky, but I used both FPS and VATs for most situations with no problem. It sucks that I'm a better shot IRL than my character.

 

[Prexus]

Yeah I know there are companions, just the ones that I came across in the main storyline don't join you unless you hold a specific alignment.

 

[Prexus]

FYI I have to take back a lot of what I said about the skills. While they still seem like stats, when doing optional stuff, they are really quite necessary. I actually had to grind out levels and gear to get enough Science and Lockpicking to get into the Fort... delicious... delicious Fatboy...

 

[Venetia]

@_@ jesus ...

This feels EXACTLY like playing Oblivion. It's The Elder Scrolls V: Fallout.

I mean everything, from the lack of expressions in the faces, to the way people talk, to the movement and fighting, to every single keystroke, to the fact that women can't have long or even NICE LOOKING hair for some dumb reason, to the music. It just doesn't have elves, furries, or the color green

i am still digging it though!!!

Spoiler

The parts where you're toddling around as a little baby cracked me up bigtime.

 

[FlippyD]

I have to say the music is very much like older Fallout games. The haunting horns and militaristic drums with interspersed 1950s lounge music.

Mechanically it's like Fallout, but the VATs system makes it different enough to me. Now visually it IS Oblivion with guns.

Lastly, if you can find me a western RPG where women can have long, pretty and unconventional hair then I'll give you 100 bucks (you don't want your long pig tails to get caught in a mutant slaver's net out in the wastes now do you?)

 

[Prexus]

I admit that it is a lot like Oblivion, but only in the way it plays and controls, not in the way it looks. Aside from ugly gear, anyways. There is a lot more interesting features in the vast terrain (surprisingly since its a wasteland and Oblivion was supposed to be a sprawling countryside,) and more "unimportant" things laying around in the world. Also, the interior dungeons are MUCH more entertaining than GenericTombDungeonA, GenericMonestaryDungeonX. Every location has a PRETTY DECENTLY unique interior. Some things, like the metro stations, and the grocery stores, are pretty stale. But Fort Constantine, Ravenrock, etc. are all VERY INTERESTING.

Also I love all the real world monuments.

 

[Venetia]

Lastly, if you can find me a western RPG where women can have long, pretty and unconventional hair then I'll give you 100 bucks (you don't want your long pig tails to get caught in a mutant slaver's net out in the wastes now do you?)

By long I mean, maybe like not cut to look like a dude? The feminine faces in this game are SLIGHTLY better, but it's still really hard to have a good looking character and since you lived your whole life up to that point in your room basically, there's no real reason why you couldn't have some nice hair :/. The seductress is the closest to kempt but it's pulled back so far it looks dumb as shit. I have the slick-back hair which is ALRIGHT I guess but I look like a dude from the back

Yes, I am actually a little peeved about this ;o (sue me, i like playing pretty people!!!! im video game vain!!!)

 

[FlippyD]

lol, never touch mass effect then ^_^

 

[Prexus]

Yeah I was about to say. There are NO decent looks for females in Mass Effect.

Oblivion you could actually make some very girlish looking characters, even on guys. Although if you go in depth with the facial structure editor in Fallout3 you can make some nice faces, Ven is right in saying that there are no real female hairstyles. Except the 'Raider' styles... which confuse me, since why would someone in the Vault have that kind of hair. I'd understand if you were getting your haircut later in the game at your suite but to start with that hair makes little sense.

 

[FlippyD]

Well, there's some Dolly Parton styles that I like and are kinda cute. But yeah, there aren't any long or girly hairstyles. But the game really isn't one I'd expect to see them in. Even in the Vault, it's cramped and everyone's required to work hard. There's lots of complex machinery everywhere, etc. You really wouldn't want your hair to get stuck in a robot's buzzsaw.

That said, Fallout 1 and 2 did feature characters with longer hair. I just chalk it up to Bethesda being lazy.

Spoiler

http://www.fanmadefallout.com/IMG/news/fallout_3_by_bethesda_admiral_jimbob_rpgcodex.gif[/img]

^^^ That's from a fanmade game^^^^

 

[psiclone]

I rented the game last night, and yea. It's pretty cuu. The best part so far (I JUST got out of the Vault), is when I used the VATS to blow some guy's head off, and my girlfriend was watching, she's like "omfg that's so gross." Thank you, Bethesda.

Spoiler

I killed the Overseer cause he wouldn't give me the key and passcode. Is this bad?