Fallout 3 My Fallout 3 Thoughts...

Just finished Fallout 3. To cut to the chase I really liked it. I logged 92 hours, finished 24 quests and visited most of the locations. I could tell I visited and ransacked many quest locations but that's the nature of an open ended free roaming game. Really that's the way it should be. I ended up dropping out of VATS towards the end since ammo management was becoming less critical and well... its fun.

SOME SPOILERS!!!

In no particular order - here are the things I really enjoyed:
1. unique locations encouraging exploration
2. interesting plot with interesting factions. I loved the Enclave.
3. Three Dog announcing my exploits (good and bad)
4. discovering the crashed you know what
5. discovering radio signals
6. being called a mother loving commie by robots
7. the mix of 50's and 40's music
8. blowing shit up at night, creating mushroom clouds out of derelict vehicles!
9. Dogmeat and Hawkes!
10. gratuitous dismemberment, especially after taking the gore perk. Blowing apart bodies with the 44 outside of VATS is legend!
11. the first part of the ending (aka the giant you know what). See #8 regarding blowing shit up!
12. honest dread of Deathclaws and the first time I saw the yao guai
13. ordinance rationing
14. the scaling system we very well balanced
15. atmosphere!!!

In no particular order - things I didnt like:
1. The final ending was both anti-climatic and well.... lame.
2. Molerats
3. extra weapon reload animation sequences
4. Karma system. It should have had real meaning ie. raiders/slavers/talons allow you in while the Citidel / outcasts start shooting on sight.
5. not doing enough with the hunters and regulators

I suggest you try at least Broken Steel and Point Lookout among the DLC's. Broken Steel fixes the ending and the level cap, Point Lookout is the best one.

Definitely a fun game ... agree on the DLC - I've played all of them but those two make the most difference. I don't think you can get them for a bargain, though.

Pretty sure you can work with the slavers and what not if you're evil enough.

I agree with all your points. I really enjoyed the game; it was one of the best I've played in several years.

Like was said above, if you get Broken Steel, it'll let you play past the mediocre ending and raise the level cap to 30. Good quest, too.

Anderson said:

it was one of the best I've played in several years.

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Well, I understand many people have different taste than I but I don't quite get people who like Fallout 3. I mean - this game is totally broken and unplayable in my opinion. That's why I'd like to ask you what did you like in this game and why (and do you play with some huge mods or not?)

Konjad said:

Well, I understand many people have different taste than I but I don't quite get people who like Fallout 3. I mean - this game is totally broken and unplayable in my opinion. That's why I'd like to ask you what did you like in this game and why (and do you play with some huge mods or not?)

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"Best game in years"... how many classic RPG titles can you mention from 2006 and beyond?

I say F3 is one of the better in the 2006-2010 era, but that reward doesn't really say much if you look at the competition.

JemyM said:

"Best game in years"… how many classic RPG titles can you mention from 2006 and beyond?

I say F3 is one of the better in the 2006-2010 era, but that reward doesn't really say much if you look at the competition.

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Hmm... let's see... I'll take that by 'classic' you mean 'good':
The Witcher, Eschalon Book I, Risen, Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights 2, Mask of the Betrayer, Mysteries of Westgate.

And more games not necessary good but surely better than FO3 in many aspects are (including action-rpgs and FPS like FO3 is):
Jade Empire, Mass Effect, Divinity II, Storm of Zehir.

There are probably much more but I played just these from 2006-2009. I'd say FO 3 is nothing in comparison to these (even to Mass Effect, which is IMO pretty bad).


Anyway as I said - the game is totally broken and I don't see anything good in it, that's why I want to know what people like in FO3.

Konjad- see extensive list in original post

Big part of the game for me was the exploration of a ruined DC, which it totally delivered on. Loved that.

Topic maker just said he liked FO3 while JemyM said FO3 is one of the best games recently released.

ToddMcF2002 said:

3. Three Dog announcing my exploits (good and bad)6. being called a mother loving commie by robots
7. the mix of 50's and 40's music

In no particular order - things I didnt like:
1. The final ending was both anti-climatic and well…. lame.
2. Molerats
3. extra weapon reload animation sequences
4. Karma system. It should have had real meaning ie. raiders/slavers/talons allow you in while the Citidel / outcasts start shooting on sight.
5. not doing enough with the hunters and regulators

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I definitely agree with those points,as for the rest..my opinion of F3 is about the same with most of the old Fallout puritists at NMA.

Konjad said:

Topic maker just said he liked FO3 while JemyM said FO3 is one of the best games recently released.

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I can see a lot more than that when I look at the first post.

Konjad said:

Well, I understand many people have different taste than I but I don't quite get people who like Fallout 3. I mean - this game is totally broken and unplayable in my opinion. That's why I'd like to ask you what did you like in this game and why (and do you play with some huge mods or not?)

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Todd covered it pretty well. I'd add a few misc things to his list:
- the quality and length of the sidequests
- Liberty Prime's dialog
- the draw distance
- the writing/construction on some of the subquests (e.g., "Oasis")
- the interlude where you were transported into a 50's sitcom landscape
- the last 3 DLC

It's hard to explain why you liked a game, to someone who did not. It's sort of like explaining a joke -- the other person may understand, but he still doesn't laugh.

Anderson said:

It's hard to explain why you liked a game, to someone who did not. It's sort of like explaining a joke — the other person may understand, but he still doesn't laugh.

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Exactly. There's some games that are quite popular around here that I don't like at all. For example, I personally never understood the love for KotOR. No big deal though, different strokes for different folks.

Anderson said:

Todd covered it pretty well. I'd add a few misc things to his list:
….
- the interlude where you were transported into a 50's sitcom landscape

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OHHH I forgot about that one! That was brilliant, no question. And I did make Timmy cry lol that little bed wetting bastard. Broke up the marriage too.
Saying that vanilla FO3 is "broken" is patently absurd. That's what I played, and yeah it crashed occasionally but that's about it.

Did anyone visit the Scrapyard and night and just light everything up with massive explosions? Pump up the volume, stand on the train and just fire bullets at everything in a 360 degree arc and watch massive shrapnel storm, lights and mushroom clouds. You can pretty much leave the whole place burning afterwards. Totally brilliant!

Konjad said:

Topic maker just said he liked FO3 while JemyM said FO3 is one of the best games recently released.

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It is. If you were around the 90-95 era or the 98-04 era in which awesome RPG's were released in a rate that haven't been reached since, you would know that the recent five years have been a lackluster.

Out of the games you mention I would say only The Witcher and Dragon Age beats the mark. MotB, MoW and SoZ are expansions, meaning they cash in on what's already been sold for those who bought it, putting down very little effort since the engine has already been built. Mentioning JE and ME makes me question your judgement considering each heavily cuts down the RPG experience in attempt to make a Beat Em Up and a Shooter. They were made for a mainstream console market. I really can't come up with a better title to reward "worst mechanics in a mainstream RPG" than ME. FO3 ends up almost oldschool in comparison. I have yet to play Divinity II and Risen, but judging from the opinions I read on RPGWatch and in reviews they aren't classics. Eschalon is an indie game, I am concerned with what the grand companies publish.

So yeah, judging form the competition in the past 5 years, FO3 was among the better RPG's out there. It's most evident flaw is the struggle to make scaling in a free-roaming game enjoyable, meaning you will quickly run into a level cap, no challenge, no need to find better equipment situation. Also it's structure for the main quest is poorly done railroad. Besides that it had atmosphere that few RPG's accomplished and went back to the "each place has it's own story" formula which rewards exploration. Where as most mainstream games cut away the stats, FO3 reintroduce them, but they are barely used.
In the end, you can pour down quite a lot of hours into it and it's experience stick with you when you turn off the screen.

If you were around the 90-95 era or the 98-04 era in which awesome RPG's were released in a rate that haven't been reached since, you would know that the recent five years have been a lackluster.

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I'm playing cRPGs since 1999, and I can say that there was more cRPG games yet it doesn't mean in modern times cRPGs are nearly non-exist. There are still plenty of them.

Mentioning JE and ME makes me question your judgement considering each heavily cuts down the RPG experience in attempt to make a Beat Em Up and a Shooter.

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I thought FO3 is a shooter like Mass Effect and action game like Jade Empire. Am I wrong? Most of the time I played it I was shooting at the enemies, and just from time to time I talked to NPCs (but dialogues are so dumb I did nott even want to).

They were made for a mainstream console market.

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Exactly. Just as FO3.

Please again read my post, I think you skipped very important part of it:

And more games not necessary good but surely better than FO3 in many aspects are (including action-rpgs and FPS like FO3 is):

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Saying that vanilla FO3 is "broken" is patently absurd. That's what I played, and yeah it crashed occasionally but that's about it.

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I wasn't talking about technical side of a game. I meant combat, dialogues etc.

Konjad said:

I'm playing cRPGs since 1999, and I can say that there was more cRPG games yet it doesn't mean in modern times cRPGs are nearly non-exist. There are still plenty of them.

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Back in those years you were forced to pick titles because there weren't enough time to play em all. The recent five years I have spent gravedigging those years to fill out the empty void between releases. There's only a couple of major titles each year. I even had to begin to buy consoles to fill out time between titles. One could say only one out of five games I play theese days are new. I also have begun playing other genrés.

Konjad said:

I thought FO3 is a shooter like Mass Effect and action game like Jade Empire. Am I wrong? Most of the time I played it I was shooting at the enemies, and just from time to time I talked to NPCs (but dialogues are so dumb I did nott even want to).

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FO3 is firstperson, but you need a mod to make it into a shooter. Without the mod you are better off relying on VATS. Even if your crosshair is above a target, you will miss if your skill roll fails.
ME and JE do not allow you to pause the game and queue attacks, which you can in games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, ME only allow you to queue powers.

You mention the dialog. Wouldn't you agree that ME was a definite step down from previous games from bioware? ME simplified dialogue by removing the multilayered options, streamlined it into left = ask for information, up-right = good, down-right = evil, right = neutral. The black/white take on morality have annoyed me since KOTOR, I prefer real moral choices where there's no obvious good/evil choice.

Konjad said:

Exactly. Just as FO3.
Please again read my post, I think you skipped very important part of it:

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I cannot agree that FP is a sign of consolification. First FP makes sense in a roleplaying game. It made sense in Ultima I and it made sense in Dungeon Master. You see what your character see, just like in a traditional pen and paper roleplaying game. Second, VATS completely remove the label "action RPG".

Also, I hate to play FP games on consoles.

Now please compare the skill system in ME/JE with FO3. Mechanically, FO3 is simplified compared to FO1/FO2, but it's skill system is more advanced than a game like Oblivion, ME and JE. KOTOR was definitely streamlined for controls, but the depth of the Star Wars d20 mechanics is a rare sight in modern RPG's in general.

FO3 still sucks though. Frustrating and boring. Can't say I haven't played those type of games before. Vegas will be the same shit all over again; my only hope for it is that they tie in the real FO setting/story, which will make it somewhat enjoyable on a story telling level.

I liked F3 for the same reason I liked Morrowind, exploration. They both have an interesting world for me to explore. F3, for me, is pretty much what i hoped Oblivion to be. The Oblivion world just felt bland and uninteresting while Morrowind felt different, new and vast.

As a big fan of the first two fallouts I didn't expect much out of F3 except that the world should prove interesting to explore, and it did, so I'm happy. Hopefully obsidian can improve the writing and gameplay for new vegas.