RPGWatch Feature: Fallout 3 Retrospective

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Mogwins has provided us with an article were he takes a look back at Fallout 3.

Every music fan has a story of a much-loved artist who fell from grace upon hitting the big time. They're often deemed to have "sold out", or had their creativity compromised by the restrictions of a major label. Of course, many of these tales are simply I-knew-them-first elitism, while others are just the result of an artist's new direction no longer gelling with a fan's personal taste. Some of these stories, however, ring true: Mass-market appeal is often achieved at the expense of the very quirks and rough edges which were central to the original appeal. Assessing the quality of both music and games is intrinsically subjective, but any personal history makes merit-based judgement even more difficult...
More information.
 
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Tbh I like New Vegas kinda more. Not sure why so many bashed it, just because it was from Obsidian.
 
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Tbh I like New Vegas kinda more. Not sure why so many bashed it, just because it was from Obsidian.
I actually enjoyed both. Though I will admit I like NV more also.:)
 
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Yep, Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns.

Fallout: NV is a good-faith attempt to create a real Fallout game, given the limitations inherent in the format imposed by the new license owner. And it did a really good job of it.
 
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Oh, I see it's that time of the month again.

This time, I'll refrain from adding my say :)
 
Tbh I like New Vegas kinda more. Not sure why so many bashed it, just because it was from Obsidian.

Here and in many other places I see it regularly praised over FO3. And it sold really well. It received some deserved flak for bugs, but overall it was well received, I'd say.
 
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Yep. FO 1&2 & NV >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> FO3.

Or at least that's what we're evidently supposed to believe.
 
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The beginning of FO3 blows everything that ever happened in the Fallouts out of the water in terms of atmosphere. The rest of the game didn't live up to this, but it convinced me that Bethesda could have made a great original sci-fi RPG without the Fallout license.
 
Fallout 3 is not a bad game, it's only problem is, that two of the best games ever made are the prequels…

I prefer to play it with these mods:
Fallout Wanderer's Edition
-> Increased challenge.

DarnifiedUI
-> This replaces the native, console-centric UI with one better suited to a PC display

some other good mods.
 
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I haven't completed FO3 and haven't even started New Vegas (part of the looming mountain of backlog titles) but I agree with Mogwins regarding the exploration. I really enjoyed my trips across the wasteland - it felt dangerous at least in the early game, I assume like in all Bethesda games you eventually become too powerful? And there was always something on the horizon I wanted to check out. Last time I felt that need to carefully circle a place at a distance to observe if there was anything moving inside, and wondering whether I have enough supplies to go in had been in Morrowind.
 
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Bought the game in a Steam sale more than a year back. Started, quit in 2-3 hours out of boredom…

Tried again a few months later adding FWE + Marts Mutant mod and a boatload of graphical improvements and tweaking, played oh around 80 hours minimum…

Moral of the story: DO NOT play unmodded ;)

Seriously though the World design and post apoc tinkerer/explorer gameplay enhanced by FWE is what makes this game for me. If you enjoy exploring scrounging and tinkering in a setting that is perfectly matched for such gameplay then this is a game you will enjoy (probably as greatly as I did). It also can be made to look about an order of magnitude better than FNV. (edit: Completely agree with mogwins on this aspect as implied, obviously :) )

If you wanna play a good RPG with decent writing go play Fallout NV instead! ;)

P.S While I am partly being willfully facetious there is no doubt to my mind how much more I like FNV as an RPG… Still very very enjoyable games both…
 
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Both are good. Though I did not like the ending in F:NV. It was kind of stupid. Might be different though for other choices.
 
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Yeah, this was written pre-F:NV. I don't know how well it came across, but my intended angle was that if you can forget for a moment that the "FO" in "FO3" stands for "Fallout," adjust your expectations and just take the game entirely on its own merits, you can have a lot of fun with it.

Now, in retrospect to this retrospective, F:NV goes some way to bridging the gap between FO1/2 and FO3. Which, for me, makes it a far better game.

EDIT: @GhanBuriGhan. Yeah, you're spot on. The game is far more enjoyable at the beginning when you're underpowered and scavenging the wasteland for anything to give you a slight edge over your enemies. Once you've fully tooled up, which happened midway through the game for me, there's very little incentive left for exploration, as unique items and NPCs are few and far between. Which is basically the same problem I had with Skyrim.
 
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I use Arwen's mod and whatever feature of FWE will play nice with it and it made the world a VERY harsh place indeed. For years I called FO2 the best RPG I ever played but I have no hate for (modded) FO3. I certainly don't consider it OB with guns because none of my playthroughs felt like OB at all
 
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EDIT: @GhanBuriGhan. Yeah, you're spot on. The game is far more enjoyable at the beginning when you're underpowered and scavenging the wasteland for anything to give you a slight edge over your enemies. Once you've fully tooled up, which happened midway through the game for me, there's very little incentive left for exploration, as unique items and NPCs are few and far between. Which is basically the same problem I had with Skyrim.

That is true of all the Fallout games. In FO1/2 once you have power armor and gauss rifles the rest of the game (combat wise) is pretty trivial. Aimed eye shot and you get single shot kills on almost everything.
 
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I guess I'm a bit 'bass-ackwards' as a player. I tried FO 1 & 2 and couldn't get into them. Then I tried FO3 and it was love at first play. I could move and explore the way I wanted to instead of feeling shackled. I thought the story line and many other features were quite well done. I've played the vanilla game and also with some of the mods mentioned above. Both have their pluses and minuses. FO:NV is fun, but for me it's not as much fun as FO3.
No, I'm not a fan of FPS or shooters in general. The Gothic series, G1,2, and 3 are still my favorites. Arcania had some moments, but sucked ultimately. Risen was -- different.
 
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That is true of all the Fallout games. In FO1/2 once you have power armor and gauss rifles the rest of the game (combat wise) is pretty trivial. Aimed eye shot and you get single shot kills on almost everything.
True, though there's still interesting stuff and NPCs to find. And that "combat plateau" occurs much later in the game in FO/FO2 than FO3. I was basically invincible 1/3 of my way through FO3.
 
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I was basically invincible 1/3 of my way through FO3.

That seems to be a trait of Bethesda games in general not just FO3. One of the mods I used reduced my XP gain by around 60%. That went a long way towards keeping it challenging for most of the game.

I also played on the hardest of the five difficulty settings. In retrospect though, all that really did was turn late-game enemies into ammo sponges, epecially the super mutants.
 
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I also played on the hardest of the five difficulty settings. In retrospect though, all that really did was turn late-game enemies into ammo sponges, epecially the super mutants.

Situation was even worse in Point lookout(only flaw to best DLC for FO3 imo) where average inhabitant could take 4-5 times more damage than super mutant overlord.It too way too much ammo for even simplest encounters.
 
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