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[Frankie]

Originally Posted by red_avatar

If you had asked him, he'd told you it was your moment, not his - that's why he didn't want to go in.

I didn't ask him. He should have told the charcter his opinion though, another thing that would have needed some refinement. Sure the script-writer can come up with blah-blah about the differences of lethal radiation A and lethal radiation B if the main character HAS to die if wants to go out in a glowing blaze of glory, but at the moment it seemed reasonable to employ the supah mutie's remarkable radiation resistance.

Besides radiation was rather like a decoration than a real factor. The only time the character got seriously radiated was when I did it on purpose. Otherwise I had a ****load of rad-aways, so when he had the itch I quickly applied one. In a blasted area, you should be bombed with radiation all the time.


Mods can adjust all this stuff mentioned, the sad thing is that it should have been the job of the devs. Morrowind was a great game, but since that I always have the impression that their hit releases were made with careless haste. Shiny at first sight, then you find out tons of its drawbacks.

[red_avatar]

Originally Posted by Frankie

I didn't ask him. He should have told the charcter his opinion though, another thing that would have needed some refinement. Sure the script-writer can come up with blah-blah about the differences of lethal radiation A and lethal radiation B if the main character HAS to die if wants to go out in a glowing blaze of glory, but at the moment it seemed reasonable to employ the supah mutie's remarkable radiation resistance.

Ah but you COULD still talk to him and ask him and he gave his explanation. Your father had just died and it was obvious that your character wanted to die for your father's project as well rather than risk someone else. It's also mentioned that the radiation is extremely high - most likely higher than what Super Mutants can withstand (you speak of realism of radiation but heavy radiation incinerates particles so no living organism could withstand it).

Originally Posted by Frankie

Besides radiation was rather like a decoration than a real factor. The only time the character got seriously radiated was when I did it on purpose. Otherwise I had a ****load of rad-aways, so when he had the itch I quickly applied one. In a blasted area, you should be bombed with radiation all the time.

I've heard this argument many times and while you do have a point, it's still a rather weak one. For starters, many craters DO have radiation. But let's take a look at more realistic radiation.

STALKER is probably the only other game that has radiation as invisible nemesis and while I loved the game, I do see that the brain scorcher zone was too much trial and error. Stepping two feet ahead would see you suddenly bathing in heavy radiation which is realistic but it means having to quickload unless you want to run out of anti-rad in no time.

Real radiation is quite different from what you may believe. While craters would most likely have a bigger amount of radiation, you need to take into account that metal absorbs radiation and holds it for a very long time. Basically, just about every metal item in Fallout 3 would be heavily radioactive. And guess what: there's TONS of the stuff. Imagine receiving a constant dose just by wearing armour and a weapon. It wouldn't make for a nice game. That's why, for example, you're not allowed to wear any jewellery when you visit Chernobyl and Pypriat (something which I plan to do this fall).

Fallout 3 is still a game after all and realism has its limited when you want to keep it fun. STALKER was a far more tense game - a gritty dark and realistic game in many ways - but Fallout 3 is a lot lighter. It wouldn't have fit the game. Don't forget FO1&2 didn't have high radiation sources either.

Originally Posted by Frankie

Mods can adjust all this stuff mentioned, the sad thing is that it should have been the job of the devs. Morrowind was a great game, but since that I always have the impression that their hit releases were made with careless haste. Shiny at first sight, then you find out tons of its drawbacks.

Bethesda simply keeps it a streamlined game. The result is that the mod community has an incredible amount of room to play and I'm convinced that this is part of Bethesda's strategy. Oblivion was a LOT weaker than Fallout 3 in its vanilla form so it desperately needed mods. Fallout 3 has its flaws but at least it's interesting and fun to explore. There's tons of room for new locations including tons of new quests as well though and I see this as a positive thing. I know how annoying it is to mod for games which are already packed - like Deus Ex for example.

[hibikir0984]

For me Fallout 3 was the best attempt in recent times to blend FPS with RPG since Deus Ex, though Deus Ex is still a much better game.

However unlike Deus Ex, Fallout 3 (PC) is much more open to modification which can allow for some user changes that take some of the sting out of the imperfections and create experiences the developers themselves never thought of. This quality is one more developers should pay attention to instead of just pumping games out to X360 and PS3.

I think the best part about the game was the quirky general store owner in Megaton.

[Blood-Pigggy]

Originally Posted by red_avatar

Ah but you COULD still talk to him and ask him and he gave his explanation. Your father had just died and it was obvious that your character wanted to die for your father's project as well rather than risk someone else. It's also mentioned that the radiation is extremely high - most likely higher than what Super Mutants can withstand (you speak of realism of radiation but heavy radiation incinerates particles so no living organism could withstand it).

Supermutants are ENTIRELY immune to radiation, this is an effect of the FEV which neutralizes deadly contaminants within the body, repairs cells, and replenishes them upon death. A Supermutant wouldn't suffer any cancerous growths with high radiation dosage because the DNA that's altered by radiation in order to cause the spastic growth would immediately be repaired by the FEV which "fixes" damaged or irregular cells. This is why Supermutants are sterile, because the gametes of reproductive cells are only "half cells" which FEV "fixes".

If radiation kills the cell, then FEV simply rejuvenates it, however, this is probably not the case as the Supermutants are simply immune to radiation because of FEV.

This is all within the Fallout universe, where steady dosage of radiation transforms human beings into Ghouls and other creatures into massive or altered forms of their original selves, hence radscorpions, mantis, and giant ants.
This is also a good time to mention that Fallout 3 breaks canon with Moira when she becomes a Ghoul, normals become Ghouls after an extended period of time while exposed to low to mid-levels of radiation. Moira becomes a Ghoul when a nuclear bomb explodes while she's in the nearby vicinity, not only would this kill her (Fallout canon or not), but she would just get radiation sickness and die according to Fallout's traditional treatment of radiation, this is why your character in Fallout 1 dies from radiation poisoning in the Glow if he isn't properly prepared, or why in general radiation simply damages your stats and kills you, Ghouls are formed by very long extended periods of radiation exposure, not simply application of massive dosage.

What's even worse is that Colonel Autumn survives the radiation when your father activates the Project. Naturally, you can see him inject something into himself when it happens, probably Rad-X or Rad-Away, but how does this explain your death even when you're hopped up on a ridiculous amount of Rad-X? Bethesda attempts to form shortcuts in the plot then completely ignore any concessions they have made towards future plot devices, which creates plot holes.
I can't imagine that you'd consider Fawkes' excuse to be anything other than heinously stupid, "It's your destiny". What is that? Obviously it isn't since you can send Sarah Lyons into the chamber, or several of the other NPC companions (except for Charon of course, who is, once again, immune to radiation), yet Fawkes spouts some poorly written nonsense?

It's a cop out, a really bad one too, also your argument makes no sense. Bethesda shouldn't tell you your character's motivations, you should do so, if they want people to honestly believe that you are truly the character within the game, then his motivation and decisions should be left to himself, not what the game decides it should be. I don't care for RPGs that try to make you the character, I honestly prefer the detachment you carry in most RPGs, it simply serves the ruleset and ideals carried with RPGs better, but if Bethesda wishes to create a player defined RPG, then they should leave decisions and intentions to the player, which goes along with what I said regarding the shoddy Karma design in an earlier post.

Originally Posted by red_avatar

I've heard this argument many times and while you do have a point, it's still a rather weak one. For starters, many craters DO have radiation. But let's take a look at more realistic radiation.

STALKER is probably the only other game that has radiation as invisible nemesis and while I loved the game, I do see that the brain scorcher zone was too much trial and error. Stepping two feet ahead would see you suddenly bathing in heavy radiation which is realistic but it means having to quickload unless you want to run out of anti-rad in no time.

Real radiation is quite different from what you may believe. While craters would most likely have a bigger amount of radiation, you need to take into account that metal absorbs radiation and holds it for a very long time. Basically, just about every metal item in Fallout 3 would be heavily radioactive. And guess what: there's TONS of the stuff. Imagine receiving a constant dose just by wearing armour and a weapon. It wouldn't make for a nice game. That's why, for example, you're not allowed to wear any jewellery when you visit Chernobyl and Pypriat (something which I plan to do this fall).

Fallout 3 is still a game after all and realism has its limited when you want to keep it fun. STALKER was a far more tense game - a gritty dark and realistic game in many ways - but Fallout 3 is a lot lighter. It wouldn't have fit the game. Don't forget FO1&2 didn't have high radiation sources either.

I've already said that the Fallout series has its own definition of radiation, it's not even to bar realism or to improve gameplay, radiation in Fallout is based on the general concept of radiation to the average uninformed human being in the 50's, an anomalous, mysterious, and dangerous thing. As such, the radiation in Fallout follows the typical 50's stereotypes, enlarged monstrosities, humans with their flesh melted off that now bask in radiation, a post-apocalyptic future brought on by the use of nuclear weaponry and so on.

Originally Posted by red_avatar

Bethesda simply keeps it a streamlined game. The result is that the mod community has an incredible amount of room to play and I'm convinced that this is part of Bethesda's strategy. Oblivion was a LOT weaker than Fallout 3 in its vanilla form so it desperately needed mods. Fallout 3 has its flaws but at least it's interesting and fun to explore. There's tons of room for new locations including tons of new quests as well though and I see this as a positive thing. I know how annoying it is to mod for games which are already packed - like Deus Ex for example.

Fallout 3 is only interesting and "fun to explore" to the casual gamer, quite honestly, with its boring level cells (repeating over and over), juvenile design and the fact that it's all too easy to outclass anything in the game at early levels (not to mention get the best equipment, reach level 20 and max out the only useful skills early on) all combine to make the game a tedious exercise in walking around, killing things, and looting.
I had more fun doing that in Ultima VI, which is more than a decade old now and features an unpolished combat system, not to mention less interesting loot.

Stream lining is entirely different from dumbing down which is entirely the case with Fallout 3. SPECIAL is neutered for God's sake, try to make a 1 Charisma character in Fallout 1 or 2 and speak to anyone expecting to get somewhere, try to make a 1 Endurance character and survive a single engagement without pumping yourself full of stims, try playing a 1 Strength character and play with the constant penalties to firing or swinging any weapon because you're such a massive pansy. Setting any stat lower than 3 in Fallout 1 or 2 meant you were in for a tough time in some form in another.

Fallout 3? I beat the damn thing with 1 Strength, 1 Endurance, and 1 Charisma without breaking a sweat, and somehow my Speech still ended up maxed out (thus not missing a single Speech option), hundreds, literally hundreds of excess stimpaks I never required at all, proficiency in Energy Weapons and Small Guns, despite the fact that my 1 Strength should make me a massive pussy that couldn't handle the recoil on the weakest weapon. This character would be crippled in Fallout 1 or 2.
But those penalties are a good thing, it means your characters are unique, one character can't excel at everything, in Fallout 3, that is not the case, as long as you max out a skill or get it to a very high level (which is so easy to do it doesn't even require much effort) you'll be perfectly fine at whatever you want to do.

This means that every character is eventually the same, instead of being able to do three different things that no other character could as in Fallout 1 or 2, your character in Fallout 3 is maybe limited to one at the most, you didn't max out his Science skill, boo hoo, now you can't use those "liberally applied" Very Hard computers scattered about, but enjoy having the ability to do practically anything else as long as it doesn't involve a rare and useless skill check.

Fallout 3 is an embarrassment of an RPG, the stats mean nothing, thus the mathematical probabilities that define a unique character do not exist. The choice and consequence is completely bizarre and illogical, littered with worthless NPCs, bad writing, and a lack of definition on the player's intention which all serves to offer lukewarm segments of mediocrity. The game is so unprofessionally made that I'm amazed that it was put out on shelves, much more amazed that anyone would consider the game to be something good.

[Panthro]

Cant argue with B-P can ya?

I should be getting this as a gift at some point, because I really would like to see how it compares.

Having extensive experience in the original two games will perhaps colour my opinion slightly.

[red_avatar]

I'd just like to pick up on these two points, for the first, I had assumed it was like that to make sure you weren't a superhero throughout, the fighting was supposed to be very difficult, and all the same rules applied to PCs and NPCs.

That's a very poor excuse for entirely random and unpredictable deaths. That. Should. Never. Happen. Full stop. It's one of the gravest gaming sins you can make. NEVER make you lose the game based on pure chance NEVER NEVER EVER EVER EVER. Well you get the point .

Realism has NO place in a game if it detracts from it - I already gave the radiation as example. Would you like a game where you contracted a deadly disease by accident, making you die without you being able to do anything about it? Well it's realistic but it it has no place in a game.

About the skills:
The computer skill was practically useless as well except for a few times and then it was hardly essential. I think one of the few times I actually could use it was near the end of the game. Combining combat skills is a bad idea as well - the game pushed people into using melee weapons at the start and if you focussed on another skill, it took a long time before you actually found proper weapons for that skill. That's poor game design - face it. The start is pretty damn dull until you got some proper guns. I died half a dozen times while fighting against those plants in the garden because my melee skill was so low for example.

The healing skill: add the doctor skill as well. You don't KNOW it will be useless. Many games have as best skills a healing skill (KOTOR for example) so how would you know? There's plenty of better ways to get healed up and I did end Fallout 1&2 with a gazillion stimpaks as well (*small dig at Blood Piggy*).

[Panthro]

Originally Posted by red_avatar

NEVER make you lose the game based on pure chance NEVER NEVER EVER EVER EVER. Well you get the point .

...Well it's realistic but it it has no place in a game.

The computer skill was practically useless as well except for a few times and then it was hardly essential.
...the game pushed people into using melee weapons at the start
...I died half a dozen times while fighting against those plants in the garden because my melee skill was so low for example.

The healing skill: add the doctor skill as well. You don't KNOW it will be useless.

To say the games have no flaws or balancing issues would be silly, and there are several things which I would have changed if I had been in charge.

You may dislike the luck-based death, but you could avoid danger to a certain extent, and there were tactics in play to minimize death by random-number-god. Worst example I saw was in (I think!) The Aethra Chronicles, where you could be killed by a random act for no reason. Made you Save Now, Save Often!

I think the melee aspect could have been avoided if you couldn't find so much damn ammunition in the middle + end of the game, but of course it was partially necessary for the Big Bad, which in itself was an avoidable flaw. I'd also point out that those beginning missions are totally avoidable, you choose the work you do. Also, there are at least two places to get a gun in Klamath, so that's not so much of an issue. This was never meant to be a kill-everything game, so you have to appreciate running away! It does feel very wrong at times though. I think they wanted to give the impression you were but a grain of sand on a beach, but it is a very harsh beginning in many respects.

I tended to play a diplomat, so the Doctor and Science skills for me were there purely to open up alternate dialogue trees (which they do quite well), and allow for a few different quest resolutions (mostly science here, can only really think of one doctor example).

I guess balancing is truly the hardest thing to do in a game, especially when you want to give the player as much freedom as possible in a particularly harsh and tough world. I'm one of those perverse people who find such peculiarities nice, but dislike being forced into big tough fights when I'd rather talk or run away. I'd have preferred less combat, or at least less combat with gun toting persons.

Anyways, I've rambled on, and possibly contradicted myself, and certainly lost my chain of thought, but I can appreciate your point of view, I hope you can appreciate mine, if you can dig it out of my demented ramblings.

[red_avatar]

What you say is all true but in doing so, you just confirmed my point . People who play the game the first time simply can't know any of the things you said. How do they know they aren't to invest points in melee? How are they to know you can find weapons in town X? How can they know they're not supposed to take on certain missions? People who have replayed the game will have a much better experience because they know the pitfalls and know the best skills to pick according to how they want to play. THAT was my point .

[Panthro]

I guess I was more used to fending for myself, I first played Fallout 1 in the middle east, where I had a pirate copy which had no movies or manual, so I was dumped in the first rat cave with no explanation, and I managed fine (not that one persons experience should be extrapolated into a generalisation!). In fact, I am currently replaying Ultima Underworld, which gives you absolutely no hints about what to do unless you read the manual (and even then, it may be sketchy, I haven't read it in a long while).
I guess these days its expected to be able to pick up a title and play without much hassle, but that wasn't always the case for whatever reason back in the day.
Oh and, it is possible to complete the game with Melee weapons, the Super Sledge being a favourite of mine.

[_r.u.s.s.]

Originally Posted by red_avatar

What you say is all true but in doing so, you just confirmed my point . People who play the game the first time simply can't know any of the things you said. How do they know they aren't to invest points in melee? How are they to know you can find weapons in town X? How can they know they're not supposed to take on certain missions? People who have replayed the game will have a much better experience because they know the pitfalls and know the best skills to pick according to how they want to play. THAT was my point .

From Pigggy:

How? Because they play the game for thirty minutes and realize melee is worthless, they play it for ten and they will understand that certain skills have no purpose because they're absolutely useless.
The fact is, unlike Fallout 1 or 2 where you can pick a skill and have it be useful from the start, such as Melee, Unarmed, Small Guns, or even Big Guns and Energy Weapons if you manage to stumble across the right merchants, Fallout 3 has worthless skills straight from the beginning, and this is entirely obvious when you decided you really wouldn't be using Endurance your first time through as a primary stat yet manage to beat up five heavily armed security guards with your bare fists and a baseball bat when your unarmed and melee skills are incredibly low.

You didn't prove any point, the only thing you managed to prove is that like most people who ignore Fallout 3's faults you seem to think that just because you can't pin down the game's exact problems and systematic failures then somehow it isn't truly a problem.
I've had enough of people telling me to ignore problems simply because they're "not a big deal" or because of some semantic bull**** nonsense they spew out of their mouth, then they act big because they think that their RPG neophyte ideals are somehow superior to the knowledge of someone who has been playing the genre since he was a god damn toddler and couldn't speak English. I've played every single Ultima, Wizardry, Might & Magic, Goldbox, Infinity Engine, Bard's Tale and countless rogue-likes, I've played most of them multiple times, I've kept an innumerable amount of notebooks, stat calculations, hand drawn maps and self written guides in order to maximize my playing potential.
Sure the average gamer won't be able to see Fallout 3's problems, but that doesn't matter, they exist, they ruin the entire game the instant you catch the slightest whiff of them. There is nothing redeeming about Fallout 3, it's a dead-on-arrival chunk of steaming ****.

My conclusion? People who don't recognize Fallout 3 as the crap game it is are the people who can't tell good games from the bad, people who go to Abandonware sites and private torrent trackers and think that everyone game is good because it's old and they can't understand the scale of quality in relation to a time period.
They're lost, it's like telling a Danielewski fan that James Joyce is better, they don't have any perspective. This is why gaming journalism is filled with absolute idiots, morons who were raised on crappy shooters on the PSX along with mediocre console RPGs and stupid worthless "cRPG" trash such as Planescape: Torment which are hollow shells of what the genre used to be.

Call me conceited brosef, but I've been through the whole stringer, played chock loads of P&P games as well, even wargames. I can tell what's wrong with an RPG from a slight glance, I can dissect them like a crime scene investigator on a murder case. And who is the suspect here? Bethesda, and they murdered Fallout and replaced it with a shifty character who happens to be completely abysmal at imitating his boss' victim.
Somehow you see fit to put words into my mouth as well, such as saying I complained about unrealistic radiation? Are you god damned kidding me? That was quoted directly from you nincompoop. If you're going to argue at least don't contradict yourself like a confused didactic prairie bird.

And don't you god damn ever accuse me of wearing "rose-tinted glasses", and don't you ever dare using such trite overused cliches ever again. Christ, you tell me I'm backwards.
I'm not blinded by nostalgia. Fallout 1 and 2's problems were excusable, they were bugs, they were unfinished quests and a few messy critical hit rolls. They weren't cache issues such as Fallout 3's abysmal caching which actual requires the player to manually, MANUALLY, in two thousand and ******* nine, clear the cache. Not only that, but none if its issues completely ruin the SPECIAL system as Fallout 3 does, there are no worthless denominators that defy the developer's goal of replayability. Fallout 3 has no replayability whatsoever, this would be obvious if you weren't bound by the "hurr hurr, new clothes make me special" disability that plagues so many superficially obsessed RPG "fans" these days.
Not only that, but somehow you seem to think that I'm complaining about realism in regards to the real world, yet you seem to ignore all my points about Fallout 1 and 2's verisimilitude, once again you shove words into my mouth and parade around on your Argonaut while searching for the blessed Golden Fleece that is defeating me with hollow jabs recycled from GameFAQs where the eternal newbies dwell and relish their tautly moronic discussions regarding realism in relation to the real world.

Fallout 3's treatment of Fallout 1 and 2 elements makes no sense, that's the end of it. There's no argument whether or not it's realistic because it "wouldn't happen in real life".

Then, you up the ante by assuming that I'm one of the jackals who panders to his own degraded sense of consumer loyalty by professing that mods will somehow fix all my woes regarding the game. They won't, I payed $60 for a piece of **** developed by a "professional" game studio, not for their abomination and a handful of poorly made mods by a gang of retrograded carpetbaggers who wish to make a name for themselves by excreting utter nihilism in the form of crappy mods.
Everything in Fallout 3 is dumbing down. At least you could die in the originals if you weren't paying attention. At least you could read the god damn manual if you wanted to learn what the skills did, ah, reading the manual, yet another long lost virtue of PC gaming.

You can't ever convince me that Fallout 3 is a better product, even as it is, even if you disregard it's predecessors, even if you actually read my post in its entirety and didn't ignore every single one of my major points, like, well, I don't know, how I said Fallout 3 is a massively inarguably odious black fiend of desecration in comparison to its competition. Mass Effect destroys Fallout 3, so does The Witcher, so does Drakensang, for god's sake, even Two Worlds is better than Fallout 3.

And guess what Red Avatar, most people who picked Medicine in Fallout 3 didn't know it would be useless, they didn't know that when they played the game a second time through on the Very Hard difficult because Normal was for ******* babies that it would be just as useless. They didn't know that their 1 Strength, 1 Endurance character would end up with a surplus of 300 weightless stimpaks that he would actually only use once or twice every three hours.

That's twice as worse as Fallout 1 and 2's apparent disregard towards the player's initial knowledge of the game's mechanics. Don't compare the games, Fallout 3 isn't a Fallout game, it doesn't even play the same, so how could you compare them at all? You said it yourself, it went isometric and turnbased to first person and real time, not to mention to stupid-half-assed-FPS-piece-of-junk-that-plays-like-ass-in-comparison-to-Deus-ten-year-old-Ex.

Stop contradicting yourself, and stop trying to tell me how this damn genre works.