Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

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Ohma
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Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Ohma »

So I got the PC version for my birthday.

It seems to run fine on the family computer. The only areas where there seems to be significant slowdown for me seem to be areas where there are a lot of physics enabled objects (you wouldn't think a bunk of bottles whose only reaction to any amount simulated force is "fly across the fucking room!" would take all that much processing power but whatever), and the only real glitches I've come across in my admittedly short play time is that the Pipboy radio music (though not the announcers oddly enough) will be alternately scratchy and skippy, and also I get a redundant little error message from Vista when I exit the game telling me that "Fallout3.exe has stopped working" :lol: .

Other than those (and a few other even more minor things) so far I'm impressed and satisfied. VATS combat has so far been less like bullet time with percentages attached and more like a way to make sure that you're actually attacking the thing you're trying to attack (and the animations haven't seemed overly long to me, though the pixel shaders used in it make this computer cry for a couple seconds before they load, which is a bit annoying). The interface is mostly pretty good...though using tab to enter my menu/inventory instead of esc or i will take a bit of getting used too. And so far it seems like Bethesda grokked what made the first couple games charming and have (again, so far since I'm barely past the tutorial) kept from going too far either into "ZOMG GRIMDARK SO REAL!!!111" territory or total farcicalness.

(also, holy shit, this spellchecker recognizes "grokked" as a real word WTS?!)
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Bounty »

(also, holy shit, this spellchecker recognizes "grokked" as a real word WTS?!)
It's in the OED, so it's a real word. What's the problem?
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by SylasGaunt »

You know I might have had some moral issues about making Megaton into a parking lot.

Then I met the future author of the wasteland survival guide and in short order she had me fight my way through a supermarket full of raiders for food and medicine she didn't really need, asked me if I'd kindly go get radiation poisoning and ended up mutating me slightly, and then as the final straw asked me to trek through the wasteland and walk through a minefield while under sniper fire at the end.

After that I figured the rest of the town deserved it for not drowning her in that pool of water next to the bomb, and I even waited until it was dark so I'd have a better view of the kaboom.
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Ghost Rider »

SylasGaunt wrote:You know I might have had some moral issues about making Megaton into a parking lot.

Then I met the future author of the wasteland survival guide and in short order she had me fight my way through a supermarket full of raiders for food and medicine she didn't really need, asked me if I'd kindly go get radiation poisoning and ended up mutating me slightly, and then as the final straw asked me to trek through the wasteland and walk through a minefield while under sniper fire at the end.

After that I figured the rest of the town deserved it for not drowning her in that pool of water next to the bomb, and I even waited until it was dark so I'd have a better view of the kaboom.
BAH! I did that early on enough to insure after getting some valuables that a good firework show was had by all. One game I decided I should salve my evil self and kill the two fuckers, and wear that swanky robe.
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Mr Bean »

It's not Grimdark, it's just fucked up most of the time. I'll tell you that now, after playing with my Good charater now for seven and a half hours... it's just messed up 50% of the time.

Also Fedex quests? While common it's almost never what your REALLY doing.

Spoiler text

Example, simple request, take a message from a sister in megaton to her brother and parents in a far away settlement. Except on arriving there the brother is gone, the parents have been ripped limb from limb and the entire settlement is under siege by a gang know as the Family. Investigating the family turns up a pair of Ghoul who've set up shop in an minor abandon subway station. They you to collect Sugar pops(A cereal) so they can make a drug know as Hyper-jet and will pay well for you to track that stuff down. The Family? Oh yeah they are set up someplace east of there, there's a direct underground route in the subway station or you can hike it there and try and find the other entrance. Taking the underground route leads you right into a nest of Mirelurks which you must fight/sneak through and once your through it seems the Family decided it would be easier to booby trap/mine all the entrances rather than clear out the nest, so you must now navigate down old subway tunnels with trap after trap hidden around and let me tell you they are %#$% DEVIOUS about placement of traps. In one spot if you try to step around a obviously placed trap you step right onto the real trap... and land mine set specifically for people trying to step around the obvious tripwire. Now your done with the trap area what do you find? Why the Family is a gang of Vampires or rather they are cannibals who only kill people to drink their blood because eating the flesh is subhuman. And it gets better from there


Bottom line, while the initial quests have sounded like Fed-ex affairs, they rarely are.

Also Dogmeat? Not found him yet.

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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by SylasGaunt »

Ghost Rider wrote:
BAH! I did that early on enough to insure after getting some valuables that a good firework show was had by all. One game I decided I should salve my evil self and kill the two fuckers, and wear that swanky robe.
You know if she wasn't so damn cheerful about it I might have dealt better. Then she made a joke about hot potatoes in regards to the mines and I decided 'fuck it, all these people need to die right now."
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Chardok »

I tend to go total boyscout in games like this, but when

Burke asked me to detonate the bomb, I went straight to the sheriff and I was so dismayed when he shot the sheriff, I immediately headshotted him - alot, which was my first instinct, anyway, but I get the feeling I may have stopped some other quest from happening by doing it.

Also

When you first go to the supermarket, how much fun was it to get in reaaaaal close to the raiders and liberate their head with the combat shotty you get outside?! LOL.

MY first impressions -

I LOVED the growing up part. Especially when you're a baby, (How many of you pressed A while you were in the playpen? It's ADORABLE.) So far I've found the graphics to be awesome, with the exception of the ground textures, which are horrible. I will say, however, that, while I like it as a standalone game, for me, it's just not quite fallout. I find myself using VATS constantly simply because console FPS's are horrible horrible horrible, I end up wasting LOADS of ammo by free-handing it. (Plus, it's fun to shoot weapons out of enemy's hands.) VATS adds a certain Fallout-ness to it, but it just doesn't feel the same. It doesn't necessarily detract from the game, it's just...well, it's different, is all.

All in all, so far - I think this is a game that even Stark will find something to like in.

As to the skippiness of the radio broadcasts - I have not noticed that on any of the stations except for Enclave radio, which I think is intended because it's on a loop. Even if it's not intended, I easily explain it away in my mind with "It's the radiation" Plus, your pipboy is old old old, so, you could also rationalize the skipping with that, as well.

Speaking of the pipboy - I really like it. I don't have to hit start and wait for frigging menus to load for ten damned minutes just to access my inventory (I'm looking at you, Fable II) and everything is centralized. I'm having a little trouble with the less-used aspects of it, however (Like, I still can't figure out how to use stimpaks to cure crippled limbs)

AND SPEAKING OF CRIPPLED LIMBS -

Awesome. I love this aspect of Fallout III. cripple your enemy's arm? No weapon. Legs? No walky! Fun! Although....I'm having a hard time figuring out how a "Crippled head" works...I've gotten crippling shots on heads where the enemy doesn't die, which is perplexing. Any thoughts?
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Mr Bean »

Crippled head refers to them being hurt bad but not dead. Mostly their accuracy goes to utter shit and I once hit a raider, got crippled head and he fell down, then go back up and started shooting at nothing.

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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by White Haven »

Is anyone else getting the feeling that heads are REALLY durable in this game. Without critical hits, I've found that it often takes 3-4 pistol shots to the face to drop an helmetless human. Rather odd. That said, I was pleasantly surprised when the Overseer failed to be lolinvincible when I snuck up behind him and unloaded half a clip into the back of his skull. Shame about Amata's clothes, blood and bone-chips aren't really stylish in the Vault.

My other O.o reaction so far relates to Australia: They had a shit-fit about the use of Morphine in the game, to the point that it was rolled back to Stimpaks (I prefer that anyway, more Fallouty)...and...uh...walking through a bombed-out elementary school full of people who've been dismembered, sprayed blood all over the walls, impaled on meat-hooks, starved to death in cells and left to rot, hung from the ceiling on MORE meat-hooks on TOP of cells filled with the dead... Yeah. Morphine is bad for a 15-rated game, but imagery that gruesome is just fine for Johnny Freshman to wade through? Your game classification board is even wierder than I thought. As an aside, I went way, way out of my way to ensure that that entire bandit crew was fully purged. In several cases, with fire.
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Ohma »

Bounty wrote: It's in the OED, so it's a real word. What's the problem?
Oh, I didn't realize it was, shiny.
White Haven wrote:Is anyone else getting the feeling that heads are REALLY durable in this game. Without critical hits, I've found that it often takes 3-4 pistol shots to the face to drop an helmetless human. Rather odd.
Man that's just how Fallout rolls, well, and most cRPGs where you can make called shots. "Bang bang bang! Called shot to the Raider King's head! Rot in hell bastard!" "Nuh uh! I've got like, 65 hit points and metal armor...on my torso...and your pistol only does liek, 12 damage at most lol!"
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Chardok »

Still better than MDC....where a pistol can kill an M1 Abrams in one lucky shot.
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

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PS - Can someone find me a transcript of the opening monologues for FOII and FOIII? (War never changes)
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Ohma »

So I just tried running all the way to the washington monument, but I think I got turned around somewhere because I ended up on the edge of the map facing the wrong direction. The way that Bethesda handled the map edge is kinda' awkward though, there's like, obviously insurmountable mountains of rubble blocking your way (at least in the part I found), but the actual edge of the map is around a few meters in front of them and you get a fairly vague "You cannot proceed in that direction" message, It' took me a few minutes of running up against an invisible barrier to realize that I couldn't go that way because the world ended there, and not because Bethesda had put a really clumsy roadblock in my way.

Oh, also there are raiders with flamethrowers and lasers, so yeah.
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by CaptHawkeye »

I'm having a fairly good time with it. I like how the game actually makes use of all the inventory items and keeps things rationed enough to where you're never running around with 1000+ rifle bullets. The meds are actually usefull now and not cripplingly lame like Oblivion's 30+ potions of uselessness. They even prevent med spam with things like addictions and Rads.

VATS makes me sick though, especially because the real-time FPS controls are clunky and you're essentially shoe-horned into using it.
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Ghost Rider »

SylasGaunt wrote:
Ghost Rider wrote:
BAH! I did that early on enough to insure after getting some valuables that a good firework show was had by all. One game I decided I should salve my evil self and kill the two fuckers, and wear that swanky robe.
You know if she wasn't so damn cheerful about it I might have dealt better. Then she made a joke about hot potatoes in regards to the mines and I decided 'fuck it, all these people need to die right now."
She was a reason, but when that guy went "I shit bigger things then you.", it was the last straw. Fucker AND the whole town were a pothole.

There's this and many other events that have made me love this game. My only question is where is that damn mutt!
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Chardok »

Wow...who said they crapped bigger than you? Everyone has been really nice to me. Everyone I talk to kind of starts out "I don't know why, but I like you" and "I can tell I can trust you"
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Ghost Rider »

Chardok wrote:Wow...who said they crapped bigger than you? Everyone has been really nice to me. Everyone I talk to kind of starts out "I don't know why, but I like you" and "I can tell I can trust you"
Sadly, I am trying to see if I can find him again. He was some guy in Megaton, I think Jericho? Meh, When I nuked the place, he saw indeed who can doing the biggest shit slinging around :P .

As for my real game, I've been decent. Honestly my answers have been many snarky, but not "I'm an angel!!!!". Though more then a few of the asshole ones are awesome.
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by charlemagne »

I'm starting to get excited. It's still a couple of days until I can play this, since I avoided getting the German version - they did an exceptionally bad job on dubbing Oblivion, and I took the oath back then that I won't go through bad translations and emotionless voice-overs ever again.

Just a quick question for any pc users out there playing FO3: is it as moddable as Oblivion or Morrowind?

Edit: Just read on the Beth forums that there's no construction set until now, well hopefully it won't be long.
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by TC Pilot »

So it's buckets of fun and worth getting? Better than Fable II or Far Cry 2? (which are the two other games I'm considering)?
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by CaptHawkeye »

It depends entirely on what you're in the mood for TC. If you feel like playing a paced game with a lot of characters, social interaction, and RPG-isms, go with Fallout 3. If you're in the mood for fast action game with great balancing then go with Far Cry 2. They'll both give you plenty of exploration and a shit ton of lengthy gameplay.
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Pablo Sanchez »

How does it perform on a computer with near the minimum specs? I'm happy to turn some settings down, but if it looks like crap and still runs bad, I'll pass for now.
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Mr Bean »

Pablo Sanchez wrote:How does it perform on a computer with near the minimum specs? I'm happy to turn some settings down, but if it looks like crap and still runs bad, I'll pass for now.
Memory leaks ahoy! On all medium settings with Shadows turned on my AMD 4600+ CPU with a Nvidia 9600 video card and two gigs of ram(All of which today would be about 200$ at most) run the game just fine. But there is a half our memory leak issue. Your playing and playing and then suddenly it does a weird herky jerky thing your going 30 FPS but the screen lags terribly. According to the forum it's a combination of sound issues with a memory leak. However saving and loading that save clears the issue up instantly so I'm not worried about it that much.

On another note, found Dogmeat(No option to pet him! Aww good Dogmeat), proceeding from there. He seems very durable so far. I had a super-mutant unload a full clip of AK-74 bullets into him and he was not even limping. Also very fun to watch him ripping Raider throats out. Finally the Call of Duty 4 dogs on MY side.

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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Oskuro »

Dogmeat! Woot! Wonder who else might show up. I'm kind of hoping to see Skynet.
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Pulp Hero »

I don't know what everyone is getting their hate on against the author of the wasteland survival guide.

Yeah, she asks you to irradiate yourself (I drank a ton of water from next to the atom bomb), but you end up with an environmental suit, some caps, and a mutation that automatically heals crippled limbs if you get irradiated again.

I didn't even have to walk through the minefield, I just lied to her.

Sure the supermarket was full of raiders- but it was also full of 5.56mm magazines and grenades.

Plus she's just so damn cheerful.

Hell, I suppose I'm the only person here that owns a house in Megaton?
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Re: Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

Post by Andrew_Fireborn »

I own a house there too... and she does provide ya with a good deal of stuff.

Including two to three stealth-boys for one of the chapter two quests.
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