SF Debris plays Fallout 3

Why would you request someone to put themselves through such torture? Granted, Fallout 3 is miles above 4 but it still isn't a good Fallout game. A modded New Vegas playthrough is one you should have recommended.
 
RangerBoo said:
Why would you request someone to put themselves through such torture? Granted, Fallout 3 is miles above 4 but it still isn't a good Fallout game. A modded New Vegas playthrough is one you should have recommended.
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Probably to continue my reputation as the one poster onboard this board who actually likes Fallout 3.
 
I know. I don't begrudge you for that Phipps. I like games that many here would consider trash. It's just Fallout 3, much like Oblivion, did not age well. Especially if you compare it to New Vegas. There is a reason why New Vegas still has a ton of modders and players even after 10 years while Fallout 3 is kind of forgotten.
 
RangerBoo said:
I know. I don't begrudge you for that Phipps. I like games that many here would consider trash. It's just Fallout 3, much like Oblivion, did not age well. Especially if you compare it to New Vegas. There is a reason why New Vegas still has a ton of modders and players even after 10 years while Fallout 3 is kind of forgotten.
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Eh, I don't discount that New Vegas is a better game. I just liked everything in New Vegas that Fallout 3 did. My like of the latter is due to the fact that Fallout 3 reflected the kind of bleak, desolate, and sad world I wanted Fallout to represent. A place that was blasted with radiation, filled with Raiders, and utterly without hope. Yes, it had a lot of silly in it but I actually felt it was a game where your quest to rebuild felt meaningful.

SF Debris seems to be going with a fairly standard playthrough but given he's already played F3 and loved Oblivion, I do expect it to be a mostly positive review.
 
CT Phipps said:
Eh, I don't discount that New Vegas is a better game. I just liked everything in New Vegas that Fallout 3 did. My like of the latter is due to the fact that Fallout 3 reflected the kind of bleak, desolate, and sad world I wanted Fallout to represent. A place that was blasted with radiation, filled with Raiders, and utterly without hope. Yes, it had a lot of silly in it but I actually felt it was a game where your quest to rebuild felt meaningful.
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But that wasn't Fallout though. Fallout was about society rebuilding and what new world that these factions are creating and how the player would help or hinder those factions.
Granted, there wasn't a ton of hope in the original Fallout's (there was more hope in New Vegas) but that was because it was more or less about the bleak and cut throat nature of humanity and the politics of the many factions like NCR, the New Reno crime families or Vault City during a time of rebuilding and expansion.
All the things you listed that you wanted from Fallout would have worked if the game took place 10 or 20 years after the Great War. When humans were just beginning to leave the vaults and the Wastes was filled with lawlessness and chaos with no one around to bring order. Problem with 3 is that it takes place 200 years after the Great War and there are already factions out West like the NCR, Legion, Followers, Desert Rangers, Brotherhood, Shi, Vault City and Mr. House's Three Families that have built some form of lawful and civilized society to the Wastes. Not to mention many of these factions were able to create new forms of tech to help them better navigate in a post-post apocalyptic world. Such as with growing food in the worlds new arid climate, creating new meds or creating functioning economies.
3 really makes you stretch your suspension of disbelief. Especially after playing New Vegas and learning what went on in the West during the time of Fallout 3 and seeing how a frontier wasteland like the Mojave has more going on then a wasteland that takes place in the old worlds capital.
 
RangerBoo said:
But that wasn't Fallout though. Fallout was about society rebuilding and what new world that these factions are creating and how the player would help or hinder those factions.
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Yes, that was Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. I played them both. The thing is that you can mix up the formula with the third game. I wouldn't want every part of the setting to be Fallout 3 where it looks like the entire Capital Wasteland is on the verge of extinction due to the Raiders, radiation, and Super Mutants but as an alternative to things 'getting better' everywhere else then it's not a bad way to reintroduce the setting.

Granted, there wasn't a ton of hope in the original Fallout's (there was more hope in New Vegas) but that was because it was more or less about the bleak and cut throat nature of humanity and the politics of the many factions like NCR, the New Reno crime families or Vault City during a time of rebuilding and expansion.
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I think that essentially what I strongly disliked is the lack of urgency that some people seem to want from Fallout. That things are getting better rather than worse. Part of what I liked about New Vegas is the idea that the Legion are a threat that could actually make things MUCH WORSE for the future and potentially destroy NCR. It's a real threat like the Master's army that has the potential to annihilate all of humanity (because he doesn't realize that his plans are flawed on a scientific level). Ditto the Enclave that could end all life everywhere.

There's serious stakes.

All the things you listed that you wanted from Fallout would have worked if the game took place 10 or 20 years after the Great War. When humans were just beginning to leave the vaults and the Wastes was filled with lawlessness and chaos with no one around to bring order. Problem with 3 is that it takes place 200 years after the Great War and there are already factions out West like the NCR, Legion, Followers, Desert Rangers, Brotherhood, Shi, Vault City and Mr. House's Three Families that have built some form of lawful and civilized society to the Wastes. Not to mention many of these factions were able to create new forms of tech to help them better navigate in a post-post apocalyptic world. Such as with growing food in the worlds new arid climate, creating new meds or creating functioning economies.
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Eh, I understand why they changed it because Fallout 76 shows that there's very little really urgency in a prequel. Who cares what happens in West Virginia if we know that there's so much that's going to happen elsewhere? While people may hate the idea that the BOS and Enclave could travel across the country (despite Lewis and Clark managing it in the 17th century without power armor), I think it at least felt the idea the timeline was moving forward.

3 really makes you stretch your suspension of disbelief. Especially after playing New Vegas and learning what went on in the West during the time of Fallout 3 and seeing how a frontier wasteland like the Mojave has more going on then a wasteland that takes place in the old worlds capital.
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I think the biggest failure of Fallout 3 is it doesn't fill in the timeline of the past 200 years when it could have and that's just bad worldbuilding. The thing is that I don't believe humanity is going to get out of the Dark Age it's put it in for at least a thousand years. All of the resources that would have allowed them to rebuild society were already spent by the time of the Great War and it will take centuries to have the nuclear radiation go away. You can't rebuild oil, gas, or coal plants because all of that is gone. Also, other infrastructure will collapse.

I didn't like the fact there's ruins still left unpicked over in the Capital Wasteland but I don't think there's any need to believe that the governments and societies built in the aftermath were slaughtered. Groups like Caesar's Legion, Raiders, or wannabe tyrants like Ulysses or that guy from Van Buren burning the civilizations that rose in the meantime. Chris Avellone correctly stated that in the dog eat dog world of Fallout that it's very probable for evil Karma to win and keep humanity at each other's throats.

But it's not really about the timeline that I like Fallout 3, it's just the bleak dystopian atmosphere that I enjoyed. I feel like Fallout 3 is one of the few games that implies this war was HORRIBLE and had real consequences. Fallout 1 and 2 are great but sometimes feel too much "fun" to really give weight to what happened.
 
CT Phipps said:
But it's not really about the timeline that I like Fallout 3, it's just the bleak dystopian atmosphere that I enjoyed. I feel like Fallout 3 is one of the few games that implies this war was HORRIBLE and had real consequences. Fallout 1 and 2 are great but sometimes feel too much "fun" to really give weight to what happened.
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I don't understand your love for misery. I mean, misery can be good for world building and setting a mood but too much of it can turn off a player and destroy any motivation they have towards playing the game. If the only dialogue you got from New Vegas was about everyone going on about getting raped, killed and oppressed by both the Legion and the Fiends then I don't think New Vegas would be as beloved with people. Video games are much different then movies or books in that you have to have some degree of fun for the player in order to motivate the player to completing the game and experiencing the story. Nobody wants to play misery porn.
 
RangerBoo said:
I don't understand your love for misery. I mean, misery can be good for world building and setting a mood but too much of it can turn off a player and destroy any motivation they have towards playing the game. If the only dialogue you got from New Vegas was about everyone going on about getting raped, killed and oppressed by both the Legion and the Fiends then I don't think New Vegas would be as beloved with people. Video games are much different then movies or books in that you have to have some degree of fun for the player in order to motivate the player to completing the game and experiencing the story. Nobody wants to play misery porn.
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Well that's the thing here that you single-handedly reverse all that. Maybe it's a Power Fantasy that Three Dog is constantly singing your praises for saving the day by retrieving the Constitution, killing all the Slavers in Paradise Falls, and retrieving a little boy that you deliver back in your home. However, by the end of the game you have managed to bring back hope to a place that was utterly doomed.

Sort of like how the Vault Dweller got, perhaps excessively, messianically worshiped for their stopping of the Master.

You can play an evil karma character in Fallout 3, even wipe out the Brotherhood after the Enclave but it's not nearly as satisfying.
 
RangerBoo said:
Why would you request someone to put themselves through such torture? Granted, Fallout 3 is miles above 4 but it still isn't a good Fallout game. A modded New Vegas playthrough is one you should have recommended.
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Based on the schedule on his site, Chuck's uploading part 0 of his New Vegas review as well in December 2020. I guess he's comparing the two games. Hopefully he gets the few mods needed to patch the game but seeing as he is playing Fallout 3 on PC, he may put in the effort.

CT Phipps said:
Sort of like how the Vault Dweller got, perhaps excessively, messianically worshiped for their stopping of the Master.
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To be fair, the only ones that worshipped him was his tribe. He was remembered as a NCR hero at best and his memoirs do highlight his failings (i.e Ian and Dogmeat's deaths, being unable to save Necropolis the mutants etc.).

EDIT: The fact no one really talks about how the Master's Army in future games in the West Coast does show how the setting has moved on and advanced albeit with new problems.
 
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CT Phipps said:
You can play an evil karma character in Fallout 3, even wipe out the Brotherhood after the Enclave but it's not nearly as satisfying.
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Kind of depends on the player. Some people will argue that the evil options in 3 were not as well thought out. Why would you destroy the Brotherhood base if you couldn't side with the Enclave? What would have been the gains you would have gotten from that? Paradise Falls was a bit better as for enslaving people you got caps and what not which at least added a motivating factor for the slaving mechanics.
In New Vegas the evil options were a bit better. It is obvious that the Legion is the evil karma faction. However, Caesar gives more of a reason for evil align players to side with him. Such as telling them that they will have a place by his side in his new world where the strong will trample over the weak. To a cruel and evil character, Caesar deal would sounds reasonable.
Also, the evil option for the Enclave in the vanilla game was terrible. You find out that you weren't born in the Vault thus are not a pure human which would would mean that the virus Eden gives you will also kill you too. Why would you put a virus in a water supply that will kill you too? Just because someone is evil doesn't make them suicidal.
 
I'm aware of the flaws of Fallout 3 truly and have since come around to the fact that the writers of Fallout at Bethesda are either people who have been utterly ignored or the fact that Skyrim and Fallout 3 are unimportant cogs in an otherwise soulless corporate machine. However, when I played Fallout on Xbox 360 12 years ago, it was an eye-opening experience that introduced me to the joys of post-apocalypse gaming. I played the original Interplay games but was either not old enough or not well-versed enough in using my imagination to really become absorbed in the world that was created.

The things I do remember about the game, though that stick with me to this day?

* Vault 101's claustrophobic dirty industrial feel and the people you're essentially stuck with.
* The first magical moment of seeing the Wasteland outside Vault 101.
* The Beyond Thunderdome-esque feel of Megaton with its weird community around a nuclear bomb.
* The genuinely scary feel of moving among the DC Metro tunnels with the feral ghouls hunting you at every turn.
* The early scavenging and exploring that felt so rewarding with no idea what lay beyond the corner.
* My first "Raider Raid" with the attack on the supermarket.
* The crazy fire-breathing ant experiment that introduced the 50s science fiction element.
* Tranquility Lane, just Tranquility Lane

Maybe I was easily impressed but one thing the game did for me was that it managed to slowly introduce Fallout's various elements to a relative newcomer to the franchise and immerse me in the dark and weird world. Am I more aware of the game's flaws than I was originally? Oh yes, I could talk about how I feel like you need a way to skip past the tutorial level and many other mods as well as the horrible character models plus relative barrenness of Fallout 3. However, I feel like the game's mood and atmosphere remain top notch. I don't think any subsequent game, even New Vegas, quite matches the sickly green filter world of the Capital Wasteland.
 
RangerBoo said:
Kind of depends on the player. Some people will argue that the evil options in 3 were not as well thought out. Why would you destroy the Brotherhood base if you couldn't side with the Enclave? What would have been the gains you would have gotten from that? Paradise Falls was a bit better as for enslaving people you got caps and what not which at least added a motivating factor for the slaving mechanics.
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I would assume that the Lone Wanderer who wipes out the Enclave and then the Brotherhood does so because without either, there's nothing stopping him from being the sole power remaining in the Wasteland.

In New Vegas the evil options were a bit better. It is obvious that the Legion is the evil karma faction. However, Caesar gives more of a reason for evil align players to side with him. Such as telling them that they will have a place by his side in his new world where the strong will trample over the weak. To a cruel and evil character, Caesar deal would sounds reasonable.
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I've always felt that Caesar's Legion can be sided with as a complaint about the fact that Fallout 3 didn't let you side with the Enclave. I feel like they never should have allowed Colonel Autumn to have an opinion different than Eden because that opened too many questions but the developers either ran out of time, ran out of budget, or just became too enamored of their own "The Lone Wanderer sacrifices themselves like Jesus" to realize it didn't make any sense. There's a reason that, Pre-Broken Steel, the ending to Fallout 3 was considered one of the worst endings of all time and only got eclipsed by Mass Effect 3 in the gaming consciousness.

While they put the effort into Caesar's Legion, I sometimes wonder why they bothered because it's not really a faction that most evil players would side with if you're going to be getting into roleplaying. I mean, maybe if you're a hardcore Luddite misogynist character you might want to but most purely self-interested characters will find Mr. House or Independence to be better endings. Even if you're purely Chaotic Evil, you'll hate the Legion because they'll kill you for drinking alcohol or using Chems. Caesar's Legion is the absolute worst for having "fun" even if you're a violent psychopath.

Also, the evil option for the Enclave in the vanilla game was terrible. You find out that you weren't born in the Vault thus are not a pure human which would would mean that the virus Eden gives you will also kill you too. Why would you put a virus in a water supply that will kill you too? Just because someone is evil doesn't make them suicidal.
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Their attempts to do a "greatest hits" of Fallout 1 and 2 led to some mistakes. I feel like the game might have been better if John Henry Eden had been the "good" part of the Enclave while Autumn wanted to poison the Purifier. That way you're possessed of a very solid ending for good or evil. You want to stop the Enclave because they will kill you.

Simple.

Also making Autumn a die-hard racist against mutants means he has no reason to spare or ally with you.

But I do think the "poison the Wasteland" option only exists because they wanted you to have the freedom to be pure evil even if it makes sense. Also, if you weren't paying attention, maybe you assumed you'd be immune due to growing up in the Vault.
 
CT Phipps said:
I don't think any subsequent game, even New Vegas, quite matches the sickly green filter world of the Capital Wasteland.
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What is funny is that a lot of people hate the green filter in Fallout 3. There are a ton of mods on the Nexus that get rid of the green filter. To be fair, a lot of people also hated the orange filter in New Vegas. Wish they would stop adding filters into the games. It just doesn't look good.
CT Phipps said:
While they put the effort into Caesar's Legion, I sometimes wonder why they bothered because it's not really a faction that most evil players would side with if you're going to be getting into roleplaying. I mean, maybe if you're a hardcore Luddite misogynist character you might want to but most purely self-interested characters will find Mr. House or Independence to be better endings. Even if you're purely Chaotic Evil, you'll hate the Legion because they'll kill you for drinking alcohol or using Chems. Caesar's Legion is the absolute worst for having "fun" even if you're a violent psychopath.
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This is why I see the Legion as more of a "Lawful Evil" faction. Much like in D&D where people would wonder why selling your soul or worshiping the Lords of the Nine Hells is a good idea the same argument can be made as to why evil players would side with the Legion. Lawful Evil characters are about order and hierarchy even if it means oppressing the masses. A Lawful Evil character can take one look at the disorder and chaos in the Mojave and believe that a force like the Legion is needed to cull the weak and control the masses in order to bring law and order to the Wastes. House, for all his faults, wouldn't do something so cruel as he is more pragmatic and distastes slaver societies. While Yes Man is too chaotic for a Lawful Evil characters liking.
 
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CT Phipps said:
"Why save the world when you can rule it?"
-James Bond, Rogue Agent

:)
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Well if you go on Steam and search for the ending that most people got it is the Yes Man ending. Sounds about right. Most people hate corrupt governments and tyrannies and also believe that the world will be better off if they were in charge.
 

SFDebris's first part of his New Vegas playthrough is out now.

EDIT: Smart man, using the GOG version. Also, should there be another thread for his New Vegas playthrough seeing as this discussion is for the Fallout 3 one?
 
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