Fallout 3 - Retrospective @ Resolution Magazine

Dhruin · April 25, 2010

UK site Resolution Magazine has a retrospective piece on Fallout 3. The author explains why it didn't work for him, despite loving Oblivion. Here's the intro:

Let’s go back in time a couple of weeks. It’s the end of the month. Saturday. My bank account lies in ruins. A trip into town to trade some games beckons. I rummage through the pile, trying to sort out anything that might fetch me a fair rate of exchange. Fallout 3 stares back at me, dusty and neglected. I pick it up, hesitate, put it back. I’ve been meaning to return to it for months now, and I promise myself yet again that I will, and soon. Then I wonder: “why?”
I pick it up again, my resolve clear.
I feel as if it’s somehow my fault that I don’t enjoy Fallout 3. I feel as if I haven’t made enough effort. Everyone else seems to like it. Forum threads are heaving with praise, critics gush over its never-diminishing returns. I feel like the lone voice of dissent, the guy standing there saying, “Look! The Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.”

More information.

Prime Junta · April 25, 2010

"I didn't like it 'cuz it was too hard, and I didn't know where to go."

Whatevz, dude...

(I lost interest too, but not for those reasons.)

SveNitoR · April 25, 2010

He had problems aiming? I guess he played the Xbox 360/PS3 version?

It seems he did not like the atmosphere. It was too dark for his taste.

sfury · April 25, 2010

I didn't like the atmosphere too - it was too grey and dull for my taste. Compare that to the sometimes maniacal humor of the orginal series and that would answer why FO3 bored me to death sometimes.

JDR13 · April 25, 2010

"Perhaps I just prefer my games to be shinier, lighter, fluffier excursions: ones that lie glittering in my pile of games, winking at me, alluring and infinitely more inviting than the iron grimness of Fallout 3.”

Lighter? Fluffier? Maybe he just prefers pillow fights over gun battles….

kalniel · April 25, 2010

Seriously, kudos to him for admitting it's just his personal preference for something brighter. It's praise for the game really if the atmosphere does come across to the reviewer.

joxer · April 25, 2010

I feel as if it’s somehow my fault that I don’t enjoy Fallout 3.

He is not the only one with that problem…
I played it, finished it and still think that the game sux and is worse than it's predecessors.

souha13 · April 25, 2010

Myself I truly enjoyed that it was significantly darker than the original series. Especially Fallout 2 had ridiculous humor that destroyed the atmosphere for me.

Trelow · April 25, 2010

I loved it, and hated Oblivion.

Arhu · April 25, 2010

kalniel said:

Robot Unicorn Attack!

Saxon1974 · April 25, 2010

Geez I actually installed a ton of mods that make the game harder. I guess the game is just not his thing. I think the game has many issues but not the ones he mentions. He sounds more like a new generation "I like games that do everything for me and tell me where to go" type gamers.

Ergonpandilus · April 25, 2010

Too hard?! I also installed bunch of mods in second run to make it harder.

Come on, you can max out Small Arms and relevant attributes by level 5 or so. That's why I actually god bored with it.

PegasusOrgans · April 26, 2010

Ok, heres an easy diagram of most RPG fans on here
Fallout 1>Fallout 2>>>>>>Fallout 3>>>>>Oblivion

Seriously, the guy loves Oblivion.

holeraw · April 26, 2010

This is interesting:

I loved Bethesda’s previous offering, Oblivion. Fallout 3 uses the same engine. But something just doesn’t sit right with me and Fallout.

Unless this is a simple statement of an irrelevant fact, I'm led to understand that the writer expected to like FO3 as much as he liked Oblivion because they both used the same engine - in fact I notice that he doesn't give any other reasons why he expected to like FO3 so I understand that the fact that both used the same engine is the one and only reason, which is… interesting.

Also:

just prefer my games to be shinier, lighter, fluffier excursions: ones that lie glittering in my pile of games, winking at me, alluring and infinitely more inviting than the iron grimness of Fallout 3.

I actually agree with that. Fallout 3 presents a world so devoid of hope that is certainly not a pleasant or satisfying place to be in any extend. It has people living in garbage not even bothering to improve their existence by something as trivial as patching the hole on their doors or painting a wall or sweeping their floor… and all that centuries after the bombs fell - it doesn't really make me feel that this is a world worth fighting for.

Fallout 1&2 manged to overcome this problem by showing people trying to rebuild a society and also because of their wacky humor which made the wasteland more of a place that you wanted to spend your free time in.

kalniel · April 26, 2010

holeraw said:
Fallout 1&2 manged to overcome this problem by showing people trying to rebuild a society and also because of their wacky humor which made the wasteland more of a place that you wanted to spend your free time in.

I think it's more likely that Fallout 3 is far more immersive than Fallout 1&2, and if you're someone who suspends disbelief while playing RPGs, especially first person ones, then I can easily see how Fallout 3 would be more depressive.

holeraw · April 26, 2010

kalniel said:
I think it's more likely that Fallout 3 is far more immersive than Fallout 1&2, and if you're someone who suspends disbelieve while playing RPGs, especially first person ones, then I can easily see how Fallout 3 would be more depressive.

Actually that wouldn't be the case with me since I found myself a lot more immersed in the first game (and that's not a 'nostalgia' thing - I played all three games for the first time one after the other). I just found fallout 3 too grim to be fun… desperate people with no 'plan' and too much over the top violence purely for violence's sake. If the wasteland is supposed to be a place where people are struggling to survive what I saw was a place where people try to die while taking with them as many as they can.

Prime Junta · April 26, 2010

I wasn't bothered by the grimness of FO3 as such. It was more the meaninglessness -- nothing seemed connected to anything else, and nothing you did seemed to make any difference. It lacked the feeling of a functioning, organic, complete world that FO1 and (to a somewhat lesser extent) 2 had, and just felt like a sandbox set up for you to play in.

Greymane · April 26, 2010

Interesting viewpoints. I love Fallout 3, I love Oblivion. I didn't like Morrowind at all but liked Daggerfall, and never played Fallout1 or Fallout2. Just goes to show, different strokes for different folks.

crpgnut · April 27, 2010

I had to think about it but I'm Modded Oblivion>>Oblivion>>Daggerfall>Fallout3>Morrowind>>Fallout>>>>Fallout2

Morrowind and Fallout 3 both suffer from a highly negative society. In Morrowind, you're absolutely hated by the populace for not being a native. N'wah and Fetcher was a typical greeting if someone didn't actually draw a weapon on you. Fallout3 overcame some of its negativity with humor, which placed it slightly ahead of Morrowind in my book.

I'm not sure I'll ever play a game as fun as Oblivion is when modded to my specific tastes. I didn't really find Fallout to be very hard though. I just played on normal. I very rarely mess with the difficulty slider in games.

JDR13 · April 27, 2010

I thought Morrowind was much better than Oblivion personally. I hate how they dumbed down the skills in Oblivion, and made combat more dependent on the player's reflexes.

To be fair though, I haven't played Oblivion since it was released. I've been meaning to try it with all the DLCs and a level scaling mod.

Fallout 3 - Retrospective @ Resolution Magazine

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