Kotaku - Fallout 3 Isn't Really An RPG

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Once again Kotaku stirs the pot by saying Fallout 3 isn't an RPG .

Link - http://kotaku.com/fallout-3-isnt-really-an-rpg-1725444327
Fallout 3 doesn’t follow the same basic formula for open-world sandbox games that has produced some truly great games, from Grand Theft Auto V to The Witcher 3. But what if Bethesda wasn’t making an open-world sandbox RPG at all?

When Grand Theft Auto III released in 2001, it was a revelation. Sure, open-world games had existed prior, including Rockstar’s own Body Harvest, back when Rockstar was still known as DMA Design. But it was GTA3 that changed the landscape of gaming forever. In a post-GTA world, it seemed like everyone was scrambling to make open-world games. By the seventh generation, it seemed like every major publisher had a game influenced by Grand Theft Auto.

Open-world games work something like this: the player exists in a large, 3D world, tackling it from a third-person perspective. Players travel between various points to complete or engage in missions. Many of the games feature cars, and those that don’t often include other means of quick traversal, like parkour or grappling hooks. The world map is peppered with icons for additional activities not relevant to the main story, many of which are repeated throughout the world, most often in the form of various challenges and minigames. Most of the people you encounter in the game world don’t have lives of their own—they disappear as soon as you get far enough away from them.
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Kotaku is an odd site really…
For example their journalists are obsessed with cheats and cheating in Sims 4 which makes one wonder if they really enjoy it or are trying to be sarcastic (as the game probably has more cheats than actual content).

We know that GTA, any, is not RPG. Also is not sci fi, nor postapoc world.
As such it shouldn't be mentioned in the article, yet again, it's made the base of the case.

And we know, for sure, that Gothic was released at least 6 months before GTA3. Sure, it's not sci fi nor post apoc, but at least *is* RPG.
 
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That.. didn't even make sense.

1) The term "RPG" is not properly defined in the article, so it's hard to know what is or isn't an RPG. I've always felt that Oblivion was closer to GTA than it was to most RPGs, as it completely lacks consequences, but FO3 is most definitely an RPG. At least according to my own definition of the term.

2) GTA3 defining what an open world game is? Quite a few open world games existed long before that, and I'm fairly certain Bethesda based Fallout 3 primarily on their own stuff (Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion).

3) To say that TW3 and GTA work the same, but Fallout is somehow different doesn't add up at all. I'd say TW3 is further away from GTA than Fallout is, as it isn't really a proper "sandbox" at all - your role in the world is very much defined, and you can never be anything but a Witcher.
 
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Why take Kotaku seriously? They're incompetent beyond the norm - which is pretty bad.
 
DArtagnan said:
Why take Kotaku seriously? They're incompetent beyond the norm - which is pretty bad.
Click to expand...

So they have succeeded at being outstanding ... just in a dubious way! :) Yeah, bizarre article that was obviously clickbait, but more readable than I expected.
 
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JDR13 said:
Idk… I'm not that impressed by what I've seen of FO4 so far.

I'd be happy if it's similar to FO3 as long as it's moddable.
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o_O
Anyway what I referred to is the phenomenon of shiting on previous releases in order to underline how awesome the new game will be. Kotaku is just another drone for Bugtseda to use.
 
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Edgy said:
o_O
Anyway what I referred to is the phenomenon of shiting on previous releases in order to underline how awesome the new game will be. Kotaku is just another drone for Bugtseda to use.
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haha - yeah, Oblivion was the BEST GAME EV4R ... until it came time to do previews for Fallout 3 - and then it suddenly became a festering turd, with the same exact people on the same exact sites using things that they praised in Oblivion reviews as critiques aboutu what Fallout 3 does better ...
 
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txa1265 said:
haha - yeah, Oblivion was the BEST GAME EV4R … until it came time to do previews for Fallout 3 - and then it suddenly became a festering turd, with the same exact people on the same exact sites using things that they praised in Oblivion reviews as critiques aboutu what Fallout 3 does better …
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That seems pretty much par for the course on the internet.
 
Maylander said:
That.. didn't even make sense.

1) The term "RPG" is not properly defined in the article, so it's hard to know what is or isn't an RPG.
Click to expand...
Not really. The article defines what Fall Out 3. This cancels the requirement to define RPG in the way the article addresses the question. As long as the article characterizes FO3 as something else than RPG, nothing to care about knowing what a RPG is.

This, of course, is irrelevant for people who think that everything is subjective, or that RPGs are defined. In that line of thought, FO3 can a RPG and something else at the same time.
Actually, following that line of thought, a product can be a RPG and not a RPG at the same time.

That is not the line taken by the article, though. Therefore defining FO3 as something other than a RPG is enough.
Edgy said:
o_O
Anyway what I referred to is the phenomenon of shiting on previous releases in order to underline how awesome the new game will be. Kotaku is just another drone for Bugtseda to use.
Click to expand...

Much more an article surfing on the hype of FO4 release annoucement.
The article reads stuff like Bethesda do not release RPGs, they release immersive sims. Added to other arguments, nothing indicates that the article excludes FO4.
They might change that point with an article like "bethesda's released a RPG at last" after FO4, until that point...
 
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