Fallout 3 - Retrospective @ Eurogamer

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Eurogamer has new article looking back at games that defined this generation, and Fallout 3 was one of them.

For many years the Fallout community was a strange place to lurk. An airtight vault, where denizens in musty blue uniforms would desperately bang on the inside of its thick metal door for attention. Day in. Day out.

They dreamt of a shared isometric past and the brown tint of forgotten wastelands. In truth, however, the prospect of the Van Buren project - a true Black Isle Fallout 3 - had died with the studio that created it.

Hope faded, and the water chip malfunctioned: the countdown to oblivion was well underway.

Their salvation was unexpected. Bethesda descended from upon high, and vowed to recreate Fallout in its own image. Underdog-rooters everywhere high-fived, Vault Boy gave a cheeky thumbs-up and there was much rejoicing.

The old guard Fallout faithful, however, feared 'Oblivion with Guns'. As it would turn out, perhaps, rightly so. The Bethesda takeover was like watching wads of foreign cash being injected into your favoured ailing football team - suddenly expected to play in front of bigger crowds, display fancier footwork and dispense with a long-maintained little-league mentality.

Fallout 3 however (alongside the likes of X-Com) came from the right place - a design team energised and invigorated by the approval of their teenage selves. It used the past as an intelligent stepping stone towards modern mass-appeal roleplay and, arguably, eased the passage of kickstarted re-apocalypses like Wasteland 2.

Today, even a half-thought dedicated to a post-Skyrim Fallout 4, running on the next generation consoles and modern PCs, can lead to a permanent and debilitating state of arousal.

Ron Perlman makes a habit of stating "War, war never changes" - it's his opening gambit at dinner parties. He must know, however, that it isn't true. War had to change, and Fallout had to change with it if it were ever going to survive outside the vault. The fans it left behind, the hardcore who thought it tainted by exposure to the outside world and cast it out, were saddened. That can't be denied. The way Fallout 3 strode out, blinked beneath an unfamiliar sun and went on to thrive, however, genuinely made it one of the greatest experiences of this generation.
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Excellent article and covers all the bases for me. I can't find anything I really disagree with in it.
 
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I really liked the Fallout transition of F3 and New Vegas. I never understood people who critizised the new approach. It was a fascinating and cool thing to be in the Fallout-verse in Ego-perspective and not mere isometry. Not to speak of having Qui-Gon as dad. XD

The coolest thing was of course to be in post-WW3 Washington with all the very familiar places, even though I never was in America, I guess everyone knows the place. I always wished to see Berlin in a Fallout-setting, but alas, given it's US based game publisher I assume that will remain a dream. ^^


Still, story-wise I liked New Vegas and it's various DLCs better. No clue why Obsidian is always so bashed by some. Often I liked their takes more than the original. Like KOTOR2 or Baldurs Gate 2 I think.
 
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Fallout 3 however (alongside the likes of X-Com) came from the right place - a design team energised and invigorated by the approval of their teenage selves. It used the past as an intelligent stepping stone towards modern mass-appeal roleplay and, arguably, eased the passage of kickstarted re-apocalypses like Wasteland 2.

The latter is is an interesting point. It would be doubly ironic then if the diehards came to view Wasteland 2 as the true successor to the original Fallout. Ha!

No clue why Obsidian is always so bashed by some.

Me either. Gamers can be ultra picky I guess.
 
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"The fans it left behind, the hardcore who thought it tainted by exposure to the outside world and cast it out, were saddened."

Saddened is an understatement. I cried myself to sleep for several weeks. Well, not really, but kind of. Now I smile myself to sleep thinking of Wasteland 2.
 
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joxer must not be awake, we haven't seen his typical bash post of all things Bethesda. Hopefully, Captain Predictable won't disappoint. Maybe the cigarettes got him….

Fallout 3 was amazing. The first time I saw the White House and Washington Monument it actually stunned me for a few seconds. Just imagining if something like this really happened, what would the USA become in reality.
 
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Saddened is an understatement. I cried myself to sleep for several weeks. Well, not really, but kind of. Now I smile myself to sleep thinking of Wasteland 2.
You also cried yourself to sleep because Windows 95 were superseded by never OSs? Or that games have only one disk nowadays? :)
Someday somebody will write a paper about computer age equivalent of Amish…
 
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Are you trying to insult me or are you trying to be funny? Because you actually managed to do a little bit if both, although you missed the point.

Look at it like this, if someone took your favourite game, and announced they we're making a sequel. The only problem is your favourite game is a FPS, and the sequel they're making is a puzzle game.

Even if it turns out the greatest puzzle game ever made, would't you be disappointed?
 
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I just wanted to (as Brits would say) "pull your leg a bit". Sorry if it didn't come across quite right. And I do understand your point. DA:O/ DA2 fiasco raises its ugly head again. Or Ultima VII and Ultima VIII…
 
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I just wanted to (as Brits would say) "pull your leg a bit". Sorry if it didn't come across quite right. And I do understand your point. DA:O/ DA2 fiasco raises its ugly head again. Or Ultima VII and Ultima VIII…

No worries, and I agree on the games you mentioned. But DA2 at least feels like the same genre as DA:O, and DA:O feels like the same genre as Baldurs Gate even though it never reached the same level of fun in my opinion. Fallout 3 however is a first-person action RPG, and a really good one at that. But Fallout 1 and 2 are isometric turn based tactical RPG's, which is a totally different genre. The atmosphere of Fallout 3 is good, maybe even great, but the mechanics are nothing at all like the earlier games. And I love my mechanics...
 
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While I absolutely love Fallout 3, I can completely agree with you tomas. Fallout 3 is very much inspired by the earlier Fallouts, but it isn't anything like them when it comes to playing.

Still, nobody else had bought Fallout and the license had been idle for years. I'm glad Bethesda brought the genre to life again. If it wasn't for Fallout 3 and FNV there might not be a Wasteland 2. Van Buren was a poor attempt to make another game; good devs, bad business decisions.

Bethesda's massive success in the crpg field has breathed new life into the genre and there are more companies trying to make crpgs now than there has ever been before. Crpgs are very hard to make well. The more people that try, the more chances we get a good game.
 
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Bethesda's massive success in the crpg field has breathed new life into the genre and there are more companies trying to make crpgs now than there has ever been before. Crpgs are very hard to make well. The more people that try, the more chances we get a good game.

Agreed.
 
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