Fallout 3 stats.

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Originally Posted by Atheist

I found relatively many energy weapons in the game, especially now at the end of the game. Alot of laser rifles.

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Two things put me off about this.

1. Atheist was able to get to the end of the game in such a short time. Presumeably you didn't bother with the side-quests?

2. The fact that the game has an "end" at all. That's the best thing about Oblivion, the game goes on as long as you want it to.

This sounds like the "Mass Effect" effect. That game had so many potentially brilliant features but was badly let down by the idiotic plot and also the way the game just stops and becomes unplayable even if you've still got outstanding side-quests to finish. If F3 does that too then I shall just have to hope that Santa brings me a copy for Christmas because there's no way in hell I'm spending money on it myself :D

I'm sorry to go on about Oblivion all the time but in my humble opinion it is the best video game ever made, by a long way. Anything else that is released in the same genre had better be pretty earth-shatteringly brilliant.

Indeed. I didnt ignore the side quests totally, I did some of them, then went on with the main missions, I had no idea the main missions where so short so I never though it'd end that abruptly.

The game has quite an endy end! You get to the epilogue, then the credits and then back to the main menu. There's no way to continue playing after finishing the game other than loading an earlier saved game. I dont think games like these should be that way. Sure, it works for games like Half-Life 2, but games that builds around "freedom" shouldnt just end like that. I want to continue exploring the world! :mad:

That is actually a good thing. I played them, they where good for there time but fans wanted an isometric turn based jobby for the next game too. Thats not what made the game good it was its story etc.

And even if the original authors do not like it Fallout 3 is the only way the series survived because very few people would play an isometric tiled game these days for 60 dollar, euro, pound or whatever.

Even RTS games are moving away from it.

Fallout 1 and 2 were phenomenal because of their story and open-endedness. It was a complex RPG, you had stats, skills, perks and an inventory to manage. You got NPC followers. You had a Karma system for when you were being good/bad that affected outcomes in the game. Dialogs were complex and detailed, some quests lead you across the map and back. Other dialogs would happen early in the game, but you wouldn't see the repercussions till very late.

It was totally open ended. You could go anywhere, follow the main story quest or ignore it completely (though the first game, the "main quest" you had a time limit to do in, after you were done, the whole second half of the game was totally free and open.) You also had a lot of open-ended goals. the get me some Power Armor from the first game is a good example. There was pretty much one way to get power armor in the game and there wasn't any quest-line to give it. You had to figure it out for yourself through dialogs and exploration.

The combat was also strategic. It wasn't real-time, it was turn-based. Everything ran on Action Points like the V.A.T.S. in Fallout 3. Movement took up AP, shooting took up AP, etc. When you ran out, it was the next person's turn. You didn't care it was Diablo-style isometric because 3D hadn't matured enough in those days for anything else.

Thus, years later, Fallout 3. It's still open ended. It's still a great RPG. The 3D is beautiful and I think the way the game was meant to be. V.A.T.S. is an incredible blend of the original strategic/targeting of the original games and FPS. The storylines are good. Honestly, I don't see what the Fallout 1 and 2 crowd are whining about. I played the originals hardcore and love Fallout 3.

Not to say Fallout 3 doesn't have it's bugs and ugly problems. I blame these on Bethesda though who have a LONG history of doing things half-baked (Daggerfall for instance, at release, it was impossible to complete the main quest! Check out the Wiki on it) and lacks the polish seen on games like Deus Ex, System Shock 2, BioShock and things like the Final Fantasy series. Even the original Ultimas were more polished than any title Bethesda has ever released.

Fallout 3 suffers from the same things. I see empty shelves that light up "take Pre-War Casualwear" but lack the models of them (or are "inside" the shelf models), I do a quest in Big Town and help the people "fix the robots in the junkyard" only to find there are no robots in the junkyard. I walk into Megaton and NPCs fall to their deaths as they get loaded in before the ground underneath them (I lost Nova, Lucas and Walter that way). I stumble into dialog talking to people for quests I'm not on, and my character acts as if he knows what the hell they're talking about. It's like walking into the middle of a conversation. I haven't a clue what the person is babbling about as a player, but apparently, my character does.

It's THIS stuff I complain about. Add to that:

• The way-too-slow recharging of the AP bar mid-combat
• The cardboard NPCs who can't keep their two-lines of spoken dialog to themselves every time you pass them
• The option of only one other gun-toting companion, compared to previous games where you could have a party
• The lame companion AI (I've had my companions die because there's no option to tell them "Do NOT charge in, do NOT advance on the enemy" without parking them way behind you and totally out of combat because they will chase the fleeing enemy down and get killed by mines and added aggro)
• The clunky FPS combat while waiting for AP to come back
• The horrible pathing problems (I see busted fence, I climb onto it and drop 1 foot to the other side. My companion runs about a half mile in the other direction leaving the fenced area via an actual opening, gets aggro and gets himself killed. Companions don't understand dropping and jumping.)

The game is simply 3 to 6 months too early. Then again, it seems every Bethesda release is this way. It completely lacks the standard of refinement an "A" game should have. In my opinion, for a game like this, these bugs are unforgivable. Every other "A" game has good pathing, decent AI, smooth combat, and quests that work. Fallout 3 should be no exception.

I agree, I think bethesda should take a little longer on their games. To be honest some of the community mods that come out are better that the BES stuff. Dont get me wrong we are talking about a company that does things big and that sometimes means the little things get forgotten about but I would rather have half the explorable world if it means it will be more polished, less bland and a lot more varity!

I just wish the game was fun :D I cant say its caught my interest to sit and play it for more than 2 hours straight.

I havent played fallout 1 nor 2 so I dont know how they where, but myself I find it hard not to compare it to Oblivion.

I do think that is becaus it feels more natural to explore a mythical scene than it is a new age scene, I mean post apocaliptic does seems to be just a mess of gren, brown and grey where as oblivion is an ADD suffers dream.

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Originally Posted by DeanMc

I do think that is becaus it feels more natural to explore a mythical scene than it is a new age scene, I mean post apocaliptic does seems to be just a mess of gren, brown and grey where as oblivion is an ADD suffers dream.

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True. I remember being able to just stand and watch the view in oblivion. Whereas in fallout 3 im almost always using the fast-travel thingie to avoid seeing it all :D

Yeah, well collecting herbs game me a good reason not to fast travel in oblivion but there was no such feature in Fallout.

My criticisms for the game:

Graphics could be better, at least for the 360 version I played. It's not as good as Bioshock or Gears of War.

It'd be better if there were more monsters too.

Also, maybe fighting in the middle between two groups (large battlefield) would be interesting. Maybe even fighting a gang of robots.