Fallout 3 Fallout 3: Post-play impressions and reviews

[HiddenX]

Bethesda is the opposite of hardcore rpg gaming

1.) because VD said it is to easy - I play on "Hard" - nevertheless I can kill every guard in the tutorial with with the greatest of ease

2.) After the beginning they tell me I can change all my attributes - choices WITHOUT consequences - I hate this.

Fallout or not Fallout -> I fear here comes Oblivion again -> 200 wasted playing hours.

... back to Far Cry 2 Multiplayer Online

PS:
fighting in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was H.A.R.D.

 

[Prime Junta]

2.) After the beginning they tell me I can change all my attributes - choices WITHOUT consequences - I hate this.

I disagree on this point. It would be highly annoying to have to replay the beginning every time you wanted to experiment with a different character build. This whole interactive character generation thingy is a Bethsoft signature feature, and it pretty much requires this twist.

Of course, there's no reason they couldn't have done a plain ol' fill-in-the-sheet character generation thing either. But I kinda like the... what's the word again... "immersiveness" of the in-world approach.

 

[Dhruin]

Bethesda is the opposite of hardcore rpg gaming

1.) because VD said it is to easy - I play on "Hard" - nevertheless I can kill every guard in the tutorial with with the greatest of ease

2.) After the beginning they tell me I can change all my attributes - choices WITHOUT consequences - I hate this.

Fallout or not Fallout -> I fear here comes Oblivion again -> 200 wasted playing hours.

... back to Far Cry 2 Multiplayer Online

PS:
fighting in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was H.A.R.D.

Don't be concerned about either of these. It has plenty of other flaws but this is a genuine RPG. The tutorial is segregated and doesn't represent the actual game (other than the general look and feel, of course). I thought the game was pretty easy at first but it didn't take long to be facing multiple super mutants (etc) and get my ass owned without care.

On the second, this is so you can restart from that point when you replay, which is a nice feature. From then on, you're stuck with you're choice.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Well, it sounds like I will be getting it. The reviews are near unanimously good to very good and more importantly indicating that it's an actual RPG. And even critical minds like VD, BrotherNone and Dhruin seem to agree. In addition the modding animals at the TES forums have started modding this game even before the bloody CS is out. I just love these guys. So I guess I'll put FO3 on my xmas shopping list
Thanks to everyone contributing to the various discussions on this game, it was very useful to me.

 

[HiddenX]

The main problem with Morrowind and Oblivion:
After 10 - 15 gaming hours you are godlike, if you're godlike character-building makes no more sense (Auto-Leveling made things even more meaningless).
I played through both games (Morrowind ca. 400 hours and Oblivion ca. 200 hours) in search for a challenge I rarely found them. I enjoyed them as an easy action adventure but not for the character building.
The last Bethesda-games in which you need to powerplay to survive and build a powerful character were Battlespire and Daggerfall.

 

[Prime Junta]

The main problem with Morrowind and Oblivion:
After 10 - 15 gaming hours you are godlike, if you're godlike character-building makes no more sense (Auto-Leveling made things even more meaningless).

I agree.

However, FO3 doesn't have the "jump up and down to level up" mechanic -- it has a traditional "level up and assign points" mechanic. I don't know (yet) how well it's balanced, but normally that would lead to genuine character differentiation. I don't know if powergaming is necessary to win (probably not), but it's quite likely that experimenting with different builds will lead to different gameplay experiences -- stealth/melee/firearms/speech, etc.

 

[Remus]

I will order the game as well, maybe this weekend together with few other titles. With an active modding community, the few problems such as console friendly interface will be corrected soon.

 

[Maylander]

I find it very well balanced actually. You might run out of ammo a lot, which can cause a lot of trouble, but this is the Wasteland - you're supposed to run out of ammo. Other than that, it's fairly challenging if you play a realistic "roleplay" character (as in, not a powerhouse), and it certainly has quite a few choices with consequences.

In my opinion, this is the best game Bethesda has made so far (my previous favourite being Morrowind).

 

[woges]

I voted acceptable, the open wasteland is the best part of the game for me. The NPCs and story writing have got nothing on the likes of Bloodlines as far as I'm concerned. Maybe playing a bastard is more interesting?

 

[CarcusRex]

Bethesda is the opposite of hardcore rpg gaming

1.) because VD said it is to easy - I play on "Hard" - nevertheless I can kill every guard in the tutorial with with the greatest of ease

It IS just the tutorial, you know. Have you ever played a game where the tutorial was anything really challenging?... You know this part of any game is not about challenge... like all tutorials, it's just to get you familiar with the feel for the mechanics and the combat... nothing more. I mean, your just a lowly, 19 yr old, lvl 1 punk... if the devs wanted to apply 'reality' to this part of the game, you'd be dead before you even started the game... going up against a platoon of experienced armed guards. I don't know why you let this bother you.

You want challenge... go out into the wastes, and before going to Megaton, just roam around a while. You'd better have a lot of stimpaks. I did just that. I died quite a few times... although, in the end, I did get to Megaton with a sniper rifle and a flamer, which I'm woefully unskilled to use well yet, and I arrived with just two bars of HP left... the walking dead, hehehe...

 

[Dhruin]

I agree with you but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have written a better scenario for the tutorial that at least made some reasonable sense. Shouldn't the overseer and/or guards own my newbie ass, which teaches me the perfectly reasonable point that you won't necessarily be able to cake-walk over everything you see? Instead, the tutorial teaches you that everything can be killed without difficulty or consequence and then sets you free in an open gameworld where you could wander into a camp of super mutants and get mini-gunned straight down.

It's a pedantic point but this isn't a technical hurdle - it just takes some common-sense writing.

 

[CarcusRex]

You'll get no argument from me that the dialogue mechanics and story flow offer little to no measure of common sense. The writers were sorely lacking in this department, not only in the tutorial, but throughout the game. But the implementation of a tutorial, as adopted in most games today, is not at all about teaching you how to survive in the gameworld, what to expect from the inhabitants, and preparing you for how you should approach the world, it's simply about familiarizing the player with the controls, etc...

I just don't see the need for heady critisizm when it comes to the silly tutorial not being challenging enough. But that's just my opinion. The way I see it, the challenge lies beyond the Vault.

As for the dialogues, I'm not so much unhappy with the content of the scripts, it's just that Bethesda didn't use much logic or sense in how they use the dialogues. Player responses take too much for granted, and many times don't seem to flow with the proceedings.

But the game has it's moments. I can't say it's horrible in any way. Just a little moronic at times.

 

[Corwin]

Beth$oft has never had decent dialogue in any of their games!!

 

[xSamhainx]

oh come on, like you wouldnt ask some random stranger that walked into a bar to set off a nuclear warhead in the middle of town? ='.'=


Some of it's kinda lame, but most of the time the greatest offenders are people that just come off as total assholes, without any provocation. Then again, everyone is having a real bad day in the greater scope of things...

 

[Prime Junta]

Beth$oft has never had decent dialogue in any of their games!!

True, and by Bethsoft's standards FO3 dialog is actually rather good. Unfortunately, FO standards are rather higher than Bethsoft standards.

But how hard can it be to find some writers who can... you know, write?

 

[Jaz]

Beth$oft has never had decent dialogue in any of their games!!

Umm, I thought dialogue in Redguard and even Battlespire was pretty good. Haven't ever met a more annoying bunch of self-righteous virtual pricks than the denizens of the Battlespire, my character and her replies included.

After reading all of the posts down there
| I feel an urge to play FO3 after all, despite the setting.
|
|
v

 

[JDR13]

I feel an urge to play FO3 after all, despite the setting.

The setting is one of it's strong points. Of course if you don't like post-apocalyptic.....

 

[Maylander]

The writing in FO3 is miles ahead of Oblivion though, and the characters you meet feel so much more like actual people than the idiots in Oblivion. One thing I like is that some of the chatter you can overhear as you pass by actually makes sense, instead of "Have you heard anything about the king of thieves?" - "I bought an apple today".

That being said - Black Isle had the best writers in the business. Comparing that writing to anything else isn't really fair.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

That being said - Black Isle had the best writers in the business. Comparing that writing to anything else isn't really fair.

Oh it's entirely fair. It's something to aspire to. Sooner or later something will come along to surpass it, even if it doesn't look so right now. Computer/Video Gaming is a terribly young medium - by the time its as old as the printed word, or even film, I hope it will have created its own fair share of storytelling masterworks, hopefully.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Shouldn't the overseer and/or guards own my newbie ass, which teaches me the perfectly reasonable point that you won't necessarily be able to cake-walk over everything you see? Instead, the tutorial teaches you that everything can be killed without difficulty or consequence and then sets you free in an open gameworld where you could wander into a camp of super mutants and get mini-gunned straight down.

It's a pedantic point but this isn't a technical hurdle - it just takes some common-sense writing.

Agreed. What makes it worse is you can explain the fact that the guards are a cakewalk fairly easily. Just add in some dialogue explaining that the guards are vault volunteers who have never actually seen any REAL action, kinda like security guards at the mall, and it helps explain why a fit, young adult could beat them fairly easily, at least in melee.

Only played about 5 hours, but my finding is that the tutorial level/megaton was actually the worst part of the game, it seems to be getting better as I venture out further.