Fallout Series: Because Arguing Never Changes

I believe it's mostly the fact that Bethesda didn't speak up about whether to distribute their games on GOG, rather than just not doing it altogether.

Maybe they might give a similar treatment to that of the older Elder Scrolls games; distributing these games for free to coincide with or get close to Fallout 4's release, or even as part of some anniversary, but then again, we'll see...

Anyways, sad to see them go from there, seeing that this is where I got my early Fallout games.

edited 1st Jan '14 1:48:33 PM by EarlOfSandvich

You know, even though Fallout fans do have have legit complaints about Fallout 3, I feel it also had real improvements over 1 and 2.

That they made it into a FPS is mixed, but 3 got rid of tile-based movement which I think is great, and also made exploration more open. And 3 gave you the option to extensively customize your appearance, instead of choosing from 3 presets.

So I just matched a lot of Fist Of The North Star. An I can't help but think that it would easily lend itself to being an awesome Fallout campaign. Though the writing might be a challenge; who can fit so much Testosterne Poisoning and Tender Tears into one story?

Warning: the following video is kinda spoilery.

I think Liam Neeson's character in 3 might have been an expy of Toki, while Caesar seems like an eviler expy of Raoh.

edited 10th Mar '14 11:44:34 AM by TheHandle

(There's a dozen Fallout threads around but this seems the main one for the old games.)

I'm getting through Fallout 1 (without patches or mods, I just don't trust myself or my computer to tinker). I can say that as an interactive game, it shines. The world feels coherent, there are fantastic elements but they are restrained, the graphics are good (though the talking heads can be creepy).

There is a problem with story bottlenecks that are easy to miss. I had to consult online guides quite a few times early on (though mostly to avoid getting killed). I caught on that Necropolis carries a water chip, but the isometric layout made me completely miss the only entrance to the vault until the second time I visited (by which point the mutants had killed everyone so fixing the water pump was moot, I still don't know where to get that fuse). The point is, there may be a lot of choices, but there are also some things you have to do (against a time limit) and they should be more obvious.

I think the story might have been better without the macguffinish water chip, and instead the fading radiation level makes the newest generation clamour to leave. So the Overseer appoints someone to scout the surrounding area and people. You are given the choice of how much to open up the vault, and whether they relate to other communities as benefactors, leaders, conquerors, equals and so on.

I notice that there is no hint of the Enclave and the Vault Experiment that becomes important in later games. Without having played Fallout 2, the idea sounds badly off, but it does explain why no-one has contacted the vault to start civilisation again (if civilians have been housed in one, surely the government was too). Also, they talk of how the radiation has died down and it's desolate because it's a desert (as I understand, later games show the world as if the bombs had just fallen). Ghouls and mutants have more to do with the FEV than radiation (they could have expanded on it, with biological weapons being used on a wide scale and untested remedies issued to civilians).

However, as a videogame...

Oh my word this is the clunkiest, most unintuitive interface I have ever fought against. Simple things like walking into a building require several tedious steps. Much of it is because of the variety of options (you have to specify each time which one to use) but I could make a long list of things that could be improved with the basic software.

And then the combat... it has some good things, but for the most part it's slow and repetitive and depends far too much on luck (especially for my companions, why don't I have any control?). Most of the skill is forcing the others around corners. It also puzzles me that the guns aren't ranged weapons, they're melee weapons with a little reach until you get very good at them. (If they wanted to limit their use and keep melee useful, they could have made ammunition realistically scarce). And random encounters early on can be trivial to impossible. (I was for quite a while carried by Ian in combat.)

So, it's good, but the gameplay has really not aged well.

Fallout 1's story would fit better in Fallout 3/New Vegas' engine than most of its hardline fans from NMA and elsewhere would admit to. The filesize for the game would be pretty big if all the areas from it were included in the engine, but so what? Most gamers have massive hard-drives now, and traditional HDD-platter based drives are getting cheaper all the time.

Having the combat done in the 3D era engine would remove all the limited movement stuff and make the game far more dynamic.

Considering modders are redoing Morrowind and Oblivion inside Skyrim's engine, I somehow think it'd be possible with some serious study to redo Fallouts 1 and 2 in New Vegas's engine. The serious study would be figuring out how everything looks in fully immersive 3D instead of from above.

All the voiceovers can be ported over, and I'm sure someone with an eye for detail could redo the faces so they're the same but updated.

Yeah, Fallout 1's combat...

I enjoy it, but I can understand why most people seem not to. And the game really was very bad at guiding you where to go.

There is a team working on remaking Fallout 1 using New Vegas' engine. I have no idea when/if they'll be finished.

http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/48095/?

So this clip made me think of a Fallout: Jerusalem concept.

Given the way Fallout messes with religions and cults and savagery vs. civilization, this would have the potential to be a very darkly funny game.

Fantastic. Just puts the ridiculousness of the idea of "It's my right!".

Looks interesting. Seems they've done a fair bit already, in terms of starting area and so forth. But I'd argue that part of F1 and F2's charm cam from the isometric visuals. First person can change more than just the viewpoint, but also how scenes play out, what the player experiences and so forth.

To be honest, I just want them to say what's going to happen with Fallout 4. Where could they go? I know that after NV, some people dispute the "cannonicity" of F3 but I enjoyed both games. And whilst I know that Fallout is tied intrinsically to the concept of "Americana", it could be interesting to see other parts of the world. But quite how you could do that I'm not sure.

I mean, the Fallout universe plays off the idea of Mccarthyistic America. Which is Jingoistic - would other nations be as easily caricatured? Would there be much point? Whilst I'd love "Fallout London", it'd potentially just be Fallout 3 with more imperialistic buildings and no Super Mutants.

But a Fallout where the Resurgent French are trying to invade the UK in some twisted recreation of the Norman conquest? Yeah, similar to the Legion, but still. But arguably you could do that in a game without the Fallout license.

Or if they stick with America, perhaps the chance to be IN Legion controlled territory. If they wanted to keep that idea of a dark, depressing environment (Which Chris Avellone has said outright he approves of - he hates the idea of the Fallout universe "recovering" as it doesn't sit with the theme of decay... can't remember the interview where he said that...)

Thoughts?

Well, you folks should know by now my reaction to Avellone wanting to make the world of Fallout even MORE grimdark and depressing - fuck that guy. Him wanting to mallet the Reset Button on all the progress that the former America has made since the period of the first game with a nuclear missile shaped hammer is a berserk button issue of mine.

He would have completely ruined New Vegas as a game that most of us enjoyed if Joshua Sawyer hadn't grabbed him by the short hairs and told him to cut that shit out.

Yeah, it just screams GRIM FOR THE GRIM GOD. Rather than actual worldbuilding and showing change and exploring human experience and adaptability.

Which shows that Avellone, despite being a bloody good writer, writes in terms of snapshots and a set "stage" and not in terms of building a growing, organic world. Vignettes, you might say.

I like the idea of the NCR, of the Legion, of the Brotherhood splintering and not being this "we are all entirely of the same mind" attitude. I loved the Boomers, very "Book of Dave" in their culture.

I am looking forward to the day we get a Fallout with a more dynamic world, where clearing an area of bandits meys cleared; where helping a town means you see it grow, or if you go all "Master Blaster" on them, then it falls to pieces; where you can JOIN the raiders.

But eh, pipe dreams.

Fallout:Berlin, at the very heart of the cold war. The town is practically made of bunkers. And there would be French music, because Germans were very fond of it:

(and you could have an english version for the US Zone).

I don't think Paris makes for a good Fallout city; upper classes are just too fond of it, she tends to stay untouched.

Now, Rome, on the other hand, there would Caesar's Legion have been fun. I expect conflicted feelings.

edited 15th Jul '14 6:04:32 AM by TheHandle

I'm loving how the Fallout series is progressing and Avellone definitely shouldn't be allowed to blow it all to hell for the sake of "grimdark". The Fallout world still has heaps of stories to tell and the "GRR GRIMDARK AND DEPRESSING" crap definitely would kill that. Also kind of kills the whole "War never changes" theme of Fallout and turns it into "Blowing everyone up because one guy wants that."

And honestly I would have enjoyed Fallout 1's combat system if it wasn't so luck based. I can't tell you how many times my Vault Dweller has gone from full HP in Brotherhood Power Armour at level 13+ to dead in one turn due to Super Mutants/Nightkin. Another thing I like about Fallout 1's visual style is that it is creepy as hell. Just traveling the world map is creepy due to the music and general atmosphere.

edited 15th Jul '14 6:06:00 AM by DamascaRamza

Didn't Lonesome Road have an ending where you could nuke the shit out of the Mojave and fuck everything up forever?

I thought it was to nuke the main road/s that the NCR and Legion use to access the Mojave or something like that. Or can you actually nuke the Mojave as well?

They could have you play as a small-town ranger who is "anchored" to a community that you see growing as a result of your work. You go far afield to secure the borders and scavenge, then return to keep order and rise among the leadership. Then the NCR and other factions approach, and you choose which way the town will go, you can stay independent or become their provincial governor. Even better if the factions all have genuine merits, and are divided more by ideology than anyone's wish for power. It would be different from the other games (more restrictive, to start) but would fit fine with the setting.

Here's teh wikia page on the endings for Lonesome Road:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Lonesome_Road_endings

from the very beginning fallout was a post-post apoc series. its always been about the rebuilding of civilization after and in spite of nuclear fallout, and avelones insistance on nuking everything back to a blank slate is...baffling.

Really. Even Fallout 1 had a pretty decently thriving civilization.

In some ways, it feels more like a bungled colonisation enterprise on a newly terraformed planet.

Oh, it's not baffling why Avellone wants to make things Grimdark. That's the way he loves his worlds. Look at the shit he put the Star Wars universe through, making the light "gray" like that.

I liked how shocking Fallout 3 was. That feeling of horror and awe was something I missed in the Mojave. I know it goes against old-school fallout, but I enjoyed it.

On the other hands, I find the values that inform the writing of New Vegas to be rather weak, even as the characterization is strong. There's a lot of Conservatism and Objectivism assumptions-on-how-the-world-works between the lines.

I loved how depressing and bleak Fallout 3 was, it added so much to the series. That's why it was my favourite Fallout game beyond being the first Fallout game I played.

Fallout 3 is literally Satan.