Fallout 3

Anyone giving this a shot?

I have been playing this obsessively while my internet is down, and it is just plain awesome. It is not like Fallout 1/2, the style of game has completely changed. In saying that it is a strong, entertaining game in its own right.

It has a lot of "OMG" moments, like when you snipe a grenade while its still in a Raiders hand, followed by body parts flying all directions. Or throwing a grenade at a group of Raiders and hearing "Oh Shit, RUN!" just as it blows.

I have been having a blast playing this the last few days, the depth of the game is quite impressive. You can build your own weapons, which can be pretty damn powerful or just plain cool(Fire sword anyone?).

Anyway, thought I would share as I am enjoying the game a lot and figured anything worthwhile deserves a mention.


-Sabba

Yeah I've been playing it. While the title of 'Oblivion with guns' is so very, very true, I still find it enjoyable. More so than Oblivion, in fact, because it does improve on a lot of areas that brought Oblivion down.

There's not a lot of weapon diversity though, while there is at least one weapon to fit every niche so to speak... At least one sniper, one rifle, one smg, assault rifle, pistol, shootgun, etc... There isn't much else. And the guns don't feel very 'fun' or special because you'll always find someone else out there with the same weapons as you. The weapon creation system seems gimmicky because you can go through the game sifting through all the no-value junk used to create weapons, only to be able to make 5 or so... Few of which are even worth using or profitable to sell.

The AI is horrible... It seems all Bethesda did when they were painting over Oblivion was change the graphics and left the old AI. So the enemy will most of the time charge at you as if it was still trying to plant a mace in your skull. No seeking cover, no hiding, occasionally running away when severely injured... Besides that, it's a beeline straight for you. Which makes combat (and dropping a mine and hiding around a corner) far easier than it should be. In fact, on the normal settings, this game has yet to challenge me.

A few fun little quests, a few tedious ones... It passes the time and is able to be enjoyable but we'll see if anyone is still playing it a week later.

all very good points, although it is called fallout 3, its not a very 'fallout' game (this is not because of the combat) its no where near as funny as fallout 1&2. i think its the best single player game this year, but this review says it all......http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/420-Fallout-3
also the ending for this made me RAGE soooo fucking hard Jesus even out of the 10 endings i played (out of the 200 or what ever) they were the worst i have seen..... DO NOT FINISH THIS GAME. i loved it till the ending.... like raven rock was fucking SICK!!!!! but the end UGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH *vomits with rage*

Hubnester wrote:

Yeah I've been playing it. While the title of 'Oblivion with guns' is so very, very true, I still find it enjoyable. More so than Oblivion, in fact, because it does improve on a lot of areas that brought Oblivion down.

I played the shit out of Oblivion as well as Fallout 2 and, to a slightly lesser extent, Fallout 1 and Tactics. I've only spent 10 hours or so with this game so far, but I can't really agree with your stating that it's Oblivion with guns in any aspect bar that the AI is, as you've stated, similarly retarded, and some of the conversation feels a little samey.

For one, the vast wastelands are, to me at least, always awe-inspiring and regardless of weather and time of day or night, it always just looks fucking great. What's more, the various little "dungeon crawl-esque" areas in the game are varied and, generally, at least fairly interesting. By that, I mean the areas that are for the most part unrelated to quests and are just there to add meat to the game while you're wandering around and to give you some phat loot to equip. To me, every goddamn cave, every goddamn oblivion gate and every goddamn Aelied (or whatever) ruin in Oblivion looked and felt exactly the same, and the stupid leveled loot and enemies meant that you were either always challenged (if you had the diffuculty up), always fighting something at your level (if you left it on medium) or always winning effortlessly (if you put it down to an easier level). In Fallout, you can actually find enemies that challenge you enough to keep it entertaining, but then if you stray over that ridge too far or go down into that subway station you'll be able to find mutants to hand your ass to you, or rat things that just eat cold steel and die. These variations make the game play very differently to Oblivion, in my eyes at any rate.

There's more to it, but I wont go into it now. I've rambled long enough.

when you get to exploring the 'ughhhh' subways you realize that its not THAT varied, other than that they are very original and cool. but when going on a very long walk (about 3 hours real time) and i only found a few but the things i found were FUCKING awesome (did some one say bomb storage area) this shows that they put more thought into it rather than copy and pasting shitty dungeons. also i don't EVER see super mutants any more (whats with that?). for the most part random encounters are lame with nothing happening, BUT then when i was wondering around on a hill, i heard a noise it was LOUD. i looked up to see a verti-bird skim over my head and land in a clearing close by, then the shit hit the FAN... it was an enclave detachment, killed them (as you can kill any thing when your level 20 and have telsa power armor and guns that do 60+ damage) but as a random encounter it was awesome.

Quote :

I played the shit out of Oblivion as well as Fallout 2 and, to a slightly lesser extent, Fallout 1 and Tactics. I've only spent 10 hours or so with this game so far, but I can't really agree with your stating that it's Oblivion with guns in any aspect bar that the AI is, as you've stated, similarly retarded, and some of the conversation feels a little samey.

The animations are basically copy/pasted, the stiff unnatural actions of NPCs are the same, the combat is essentially the same (plus guns), the landscape feels the same, the general mechanics of the game are the same.

Fact is, Fallout 3 could have gotten away with being an Oblivion mod. They feel exactly alike.

Hubnester wrote:

The animations are basically copy/pasted, the stiff unnatural actions of NPCs are the same, the combat is essentially the same (plus guns), the landscape feels the same, the general mechanics of the game are the same.

Fact is, Fallout 3 could have gotten away with being an Oblivion mod. They feel exactly alike.

What? "Fact is"? The way something feels is totally subjective. I was with you until you said your opinion was fact. Yes, some of the movements of the NPCs are pretty stiff and unnatural, I noticed this the most during conversation, but it didn't feel like they were copypasta to me.
In Oblivion all of the different people also were just the same face with a slightly different concave on the nose or slightly "longer" windswept hair or some other unnoticeable difference, and the fact that the majority of NPC clothes were whole-body pieces didn't help to stop them all from looking the same either. Again, I haven't played it all that much yet, but it seemed to me like there was more effort to putting variation into the people's makes in Fallout 3 as well. Although it may just be inherent from the game's nature; there aren't legions of identically dressed and voices guards/mages/dark-brotherhoodians all hanging around in the same places at the same time, which always worked against Oblivion when you met three Imperial Guards chillin' and illin' with the same brown armor and the same voice actor. You can't help but feel like it was a half-assed effort when they basically call attention to their samey design.

I never got that impression from Fallout 3 though. You blow into Megaton and the sheriff seemed to have some genuine character-specific character. Burke oozed character! I even loved the way he was dressed; it seemed like Bethesda made use of the era they were re-creating and had some fairly inspired costumes to fit in, while looking stylish and appropriate for the character to boot. Etc etc etc. This all just comes down to personal preference yada yada yada.

The fact I was referrin to wasn't 'Fallout 3 is similar to Oblivion'.

That referred to the idea that Fallout 3 could have existed as an Oblivion mod. Which it could.

And obviously there are going to be cosmetic changes such as the ones you mentioned. Remember that Oblivion was released over 2 years prior to Fallout 3.

Fallout 2 could've existed as a Fallout 1 mod too. It was on the same engine albeit slightly upgraded and released a couple years later. I dunno, I mean, I guess I can't argue that it could've been an Oblivion mod, but at the same time, the changes seem to give it more credit than just 'Oblivion with guns', a tag I really just can't stand.