Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

[Vympel]

F.O. 3 hands down - that's not even nitpicking the point that STALKER (who can be bothered with all those periods?) isn't really post-apocalyptic, since the world goes on and just the Zone is weird.

[Oskuro]

Yesterday I had the game box in my hands, and noticed the Microsoft Live tag in it, but couldn't find more info about it (not on the box, on wikipedia or on the official website).

So, what gives? Is the Live thingie there just for achievements or something like that? After the awful time I had installing Gears of War and struggling with Live, I'm not to keen on repeating the experience. Is it obtrusive? Or do you get a "hall no, don't use Live" option so you don't get to see it?

[Zixinus]

F.O. 3 hands down - that's not even nitpicking the point that STALKER (who can be bothered with all those periods?) isn't really post-apocalyptic, since the world goes on and just the Zone is weird.

Actually, I woudln't really call the Zone post apocaliptic either. It's more of a collection of lose shantytowns, filled with drunk, gun-totting treasure hunters that parley with eachother trough bullets, while having a very, very, very serious pest control issue. The amount of guns, food and people in the game makes it clear that there is indeed money in the Zone and no one's starving.

[White Haven]

Actually, the Stealth Boy in Minefield, if memory serves, is in a safe in one of the houses. I seem to recall it was behind a bookshelf that was slid away from the wall a bit. Also: Got two suits of Outcast armour sitting in my house in Megaton, just waiting for training...

[The Grim Squeaker]

Thoughts so far: Stability is crap. Needs a faster walking pace and/or more quick locations (I miss the old classic overworld map, "immersiveness" be damned!).
Graphics are awesome. Environments and overall design is fantastic (Especially the tests in the vault, although it felt too small and not shiny enough). I hate wandering around for minutes trying to guess which burnt out shack has anything in it. VATs is awesome.(Oh, and I need more radio stations ASAP)
I love this game so far, if it would only stop crashing every 15-40 minutes..

[Vympel]

Yeah, the stability is definitely wanting. Luckily the game autosaves itself often, so you're unlikely to lose a lot of progress, but it's still very frustrating. My game crashes ("has encountered a problem and needs to close") on average every oh 40-50 minutes.

[White Haven]

Wierd, I can run it flat-out all day with not a single blip, surprised to hear multiple people complaining about crashes. Odd.

[Jaevric]

Mine crashed on exiting the game for some reason, but my computer is having issues in general right now so I'm not sure if it is the game or the computer.

[Vympel]

I may be overstating the case somewhat - I just played for over 2 hours straight and exited out without crashing. I just did Minefield - a Sneak Critical hit on Arkansas' arm from long range killed him by complete fluke. I had managed to get a Sniper Rifle, in poor condition, from a guy called "Sam Warwick" (IIRC) who attacked me for no reason outside of Megaton - (who the hell was that guy?) - without that getting close to him would've been difficult.

The awesome atmosphere of the houses in Minefield (if your Lockpick sucks, get the key off of Arkansas when you kill him) is worth it alone.

[Ghost Rider]

Andale is both very fucked and weird...group of houses. It's marked as a town but it's three houses. And yeah when the explaination hits you along with the resolution? Sorry, I wanted to just put one in everyone there, just to go "Fuck all you goddamn motherfucking psycho fucks!".

[Mr Bean]

On my way to the Washington Monument per Three Dogs request.
Hit Rivet City up last night , ammo issue are resolved! Shrapnal and Flak the gun sellers there have a ton of ammo on hand for sale. Now I have enough ammo to fight my way through to the lawn.

FYI, be careful of your shots in Washington or you WILL get blow sky high.
Also the first time I died(Outside of drowning) was because me and poor Dogmeat were taking cover behind what I thought was rubble but turned out to be a tanker full of hydrogen.

Yeah... bullets+hydrogen=Kaboom!

[Ohma]

What the shit? Okay, so I just tried doing the whole "inform sherif Simms about Burke trying to set off the nuke" thing, my timing with the VATS targeting thing was impeccable, but I missed all three shots with my rifle (each was 95% chance to hit) and then because Simms is apparently not scripted to do anything other than walk out of the door Burke turns towards the ceiling and fires up, I kill Burke in short order, but when I walk out I find Simms dead right in front of the door. FUCKING BULLSHIT!

[charlemagne]

Been playing for a couple of hours now, too, just decided to not get the dish and boost Three Dog's radio just yet, but went back to Megatron to do some side quests first.

I like the game, the humor is great, the language is nicely foul, great atmosphere overall.

It looks and feels a lot like Oblivion (which of course was to be expected), in terms of graphics and overall gameplay. But no really visible level scaling, which is very good. Although I remembered Oblivion to look a lot nicer than FO3 does... I'm propably just spoiled by Farcry 2 at the moment, but FO3 looks a bit bland and boring, I mean graphics are ok and not bad per se, just a bit antiquated looking I guess. Ground textures are a mess, objects pretty clunky. Maybe this engine just works better with pretty landscapes instead of nuked shitty ones But I love the art style. Oh, and it's a shame that the radio stations are on such a short loop. I grew tired of the Enclave station very quickly.

No crashes for me either. Game runs very smoothly and stable. Maybe it's some hardware/driver-combination FO3 doesn't like, and I'm just lucky.

[Nephtys]

FO3 impressions. As a gigantic fan of the original Fallout and FO2 (and even FOT, I liked it), I was pretty wary.

Still, I got the Lunchbox Collector's edition, and am so glad I did. The game's start is so atmospheric, and I really liked the growing up part. It was both a good introduction and had a good deal of humor in it. i loved taking the GOAT as well

So far, things seem really promising. I have a minimumish system (3.4ghz, 2gb ram, nVidia 6800GT) but it runs just fine, with pretty good graphics to boot. It's satisfying to shoot the gun out of someone's hand, pop their knee and then head in VATS mode The rest of it seems pretty much better than expected. It's Fallout, but modernized to appeal to the modern audience, which I understand. Yet, they seem to have kept a lot of what made it great. I liked Berke's little sidequest, and the aesthetics, sound, etc are very inspired. Stuff like the Enclave Radio address is great as well, and really helps give you something lacking in most games these days: Immersion.

[Chardok]

Journal entry #2 -

Ahhh, another productive day in the Capital Wasteland.

I heard through a grapevine. a giant, mutant sentient grapevine, that a mythical device called a "Stealth boy" was located in Minefield about 5 miles to the north. I did not relish the thought of going back to that horrible place, but it seems to me that something called "Stealth Boy" would come in handy for doing things like, oh, I dunno, sneaking around a mirelurk nest. (Mental note - kick self for agreeing to help the supply girl write her book.) I couldn't decide which weapons to take with me, which would normally be a tertiary consideration but I had a feeling this was going to be a strange trip - so I took them all. My trusty 10mm pistol, my assault rifle, combat shotgun (Note: Fix shotgun ASAP - the trigger assembly fell off last night and I had to use a cotter pin from my robot butler - he is not very happy about it, either. I really wish I had the parts...), my .32 boot gun, and, of course, a baseball bat.

09/27/77

Minefield -

9:30AM

Not very many mines left now. But a buddy of mine back in Megaton told me that they were ridiculously easy to disarm. There's a certain way you have to approach them and you have to be FAST. Last time I was here I got my leg nearly blown off by one of those evil things. But, I took a hit of Med-X, a deep breath, and charged one. Before it hit the second beep I used a bobby pin to temporarily jump the connections on the motion sensor. with a slight spark, the proximity light went dark and I was able to recover the mine and disable it in a more permanent (And safe) fashion. It's still usable; it just won't blow up until I want it to now. It ought to bring in a few caps, too.

1:27 PM

I just finished sweeping this place clean. There's nothing here but skeletons and 200 year-old boxes of Cram. I was apparently pretty thorough the first time. There's still the safe in the Williams' house, but that is locked up tight. Maybe there is a key somewhere.

7:54 PM

I gave in to my whim to explore instead of heading back to Megaton and headed west…ish from Minefield, early evening, I stumbled across a couple of idiot super-mutants. What is it with these things? They seem reasonably intelligent, yet they insist on rushing into gunfights with nailboards! The amount of jibs from shooting a super mutant in the head is really astounding, too. After eliminating the dipstick duo, I found some sort of crudely fortified building. The sign out front indicated that it was the Germantown police headquarters. After going through a sort of maze of sandbags and corrugated steel fencing in the front of the structure, I found another Super Mutant standing outside a crude tent. I don’t even think he knew he’d been shot at before he died.

A little wandering around the tent city outside the police station yielded a little information as to its origins. I found a working computer terminal with a log of the person who was in charge of this area just before and just after the bombs hit. A policewoman named Nancy something-or-other along with a rag-tag group of soldiers known as the “National Guard” tried to maintain order and a semblance of survival before their anti-radiation medication ran out. The soldiers left to find more, but never returned. The final entry showed that Nancy herself was succumbing to radiation sickness and that she hoped her sisters were faring better. What a horrifying way to die. Things are bad out here now, but the transition to this horror from what must’ve been a veritable paradise just before the bombs must’ve been truly terrifying.

After poking around the old camp for a bit, I figured there was no sense in putting it off anymore – I’d previously gone to a place called “Big Town” who asked me to rescue some of their compatriots from the clutches of the filthy mutants and they said that the mutant attacks were originating from this police station. I’d already killed the three sentries outside, so how hard could it be?

The ground floor door was locked and beyond my ability comprehend, so there was no sneaking in. an upstairs door was unlocked and I snuck in to find two super mutants discussing “Dinner Plans” (I.e. they were going to eat the two people they’d dragged back from Big Town.) in the ensuing battle, I was shot in the leg, but it was a small price to pay for removing two more of those hideous beasts from the world. Again, the shotgun was proving it’s worth – I was running dangerously low on ammo, however, so I decided it was time to switch to my assault rifle (Which was in much better shape, anyway.)

If, at the time, I’d known how awful the police station would be, I’d never have gone inside. Those bastards had netted bag filled with bloody, stinking body parts all over the place. Bodies hung from the ceiling, skinned and still dripping blood by meat hooks. This place just crawled. What in the hell is wrong with these…things? There were landmines all over the place, too. Luckily, my newfound skill at disarming the buggers quickly swelled my backpack’s bulk with the little jewels, which I would later find a very good use for.

Super Mutants are stupid. I went down into the jail level; the place was crawling with Radroaches. Surprisingly, I’ve developed a taste for the meat. It’s not half bad. It’s somewhat crunchy with an almond-like aftertaste. At any rate, I decided after my last encounter with the muties, I’d try and avoid direct contact as much as possible. The stimpaks take the edge off the pain, but the blood loss was taking it’s toll. I laid out an entire hallway with the previously disarmed land mines, and prayed the mutants wouldn’t notice. After setting the trap, I took a potshot at one of the two mutants near the jail area, and, as expected, they gave chase, the idiots. I hightailed it back to the stairwell, and ducked behind a desk, as a rapid succession of screams and explosions echoed through the empty halls. One of the Super Mutants actually made it through the gauntlet of death and limped into the foyer where I was hiding. He was in no shape to continue fighting, however. I might’ve shown mercy any other time, but after seeing the horror of this place, and what these monsters were capable of, I think I must’ve been running on adrenaline – He never even finished rounding the corner before I blew his filthy head off.

Blew it off.

The rest of the time in this hellhole I spent poking around old book cases and desks, scavving anything I could. A few bullets here, a book or two there. I freed a nice lady named “Red” and her friend “Shorty” from the jail and kitchen area, respectively, and escorted them back to Big Town, where everyone was glad to have them back. However, I discovered that we were followed by a group of Super Mutants who were none too happy about having their dinners liberated.

Oh, yeah, and I killed all their friends, too.

Instead of simply killing the mutants myself, I showed the villagers how to defend themselves against the mutants. Since I knew my way around guns really well, I taught them how to aim, shot, and maintain their weapons, proper tactics, and where to shoot the muties so it REALLY hurt ‘em.

When the mutants came, it was a slaughter. The whole town rushed in like crazed fiends, cutting down the mutants before they could even make it through the gate. Pappy and Shorty didn’t make it, their injuries sustained when a grenade exploded very near to them proved too severe for red or I to treat.


As I write this, I am sitting on a rock, watching the sun set over the Capital Wasteland. It casts shadows and partially blinds me in such a way that I can almost see what this place was like before the war. At least it blurs the brown, breaks up the outline of the skeletons of roads and burned out buildings, wrecked cars and rotting corpses hanging from ropes. It’s a welcome moment of peace in yet another day I wish I could forget.


I hope I find Dad soon. I’ve been out here all of two weeks now, and there’s more blood on my hands than in my entire body. So many people need help, need hope, and I feel I have to try to help them all, but I don’t know how; how one person is supposed to do it. I feel like a child again, stumbling around here, oblivious to the dangers that await me, yet certain they are there. It’ll be dark soon, and I’ll be moving on back to Megaton. I need to sleep before I head out.

[TheMuffinKing]

I rented this game earlier this week. I was really impressed with the depth and scope of it all. It seems overwhelming at first, what with being able to go anywhere! Considering all this, I didn't enjoy it that much, which is a shame. I guess I had a little touch of the ole' ADHD and had to get my BF Bad company fix online! Like I said, I like this game a lot, I'm just too impatient to finish it!

[Psychic_Sandwich]

Heh, just done the fire ant questline. Is this a visitor from FO2 mentioned?

[Stark]

I'm just interested to see what people say when their fanboy orgasms have faded; Oblivion was fun for a few hours too, before the crippling boredom and massive mechanical problems became apparent. Useless 'impressions' like 'is good' and 'omg I did a thing' are far less interesting than things like the bugs and memory leaks.

I'm glad two games have come out in a matter of weeks that out STALKER STALKER, however.

[Flash]

A few more hours play, and i'm still enjoying it. Combat (at least in my experience) with more than a couple of enemies is a very risky proposition, and I like that. Still, i'm at the beginning of the game, so it will be interesting to see if that persists once I get gear that doesn't suck ass.

I like the amount of scavenging I have to do - I am constantly searching for stimpacks and ammo, and IMO this is as it should be. I'm currently scavenging all the food I can find, because stimpacks aren't flowing like water, as they did in FO1 and 2. FO2 in particular was bad for this - I routinely carried over 100 of the things. Now i'm happy if I have more than a couple. Again, this may change further into the game, but I like the situation as it is.

I have the PC version, and it's running like a dream. It also looks the business, at least in my opinion. I haven't noticed any bugs, and the only time it has crashed is when I wanted to quit to the desktop anyway.

[Vympel]

I'm just interested to see what people say when their fanboy orgasms have faded; Oblivion was fun for a few hours too, before the crippling boredom and massive mechanical problems became apparent. Useless 'impressions' like 'is good' and 'omg I did a thing' are far less interesting than things like the bugs and memory leaks.

I was never bored with Oblivion (played it three times all the way through) and didn't encounter any massive mechanical problems.

I've played the game for about 12 hours or so now. It's still awesome.

[Stark]

Thanks for demonstrating your worthlessness as a commentator, I guess? Now go take xyz to the abc for 9 gold! Whoops Mehrunes Dagon was level 1 and you punched him to death! 'It's awesome' is utterly useless as any kind of informative statement beyond 'I think it's good', it contains no other information (except arguably 'my standards are here' )

Particularly on SDN, I've noticed almost nothing anyone says about a new game or show is worth listening to for weeks at a time; the fannishness is just too powerful. Particularly with something as fail-catalysing as Fallout, which appears to turn people into idiots effortlessly. I'll probably play it in the next few days, but I'll be very surprised if it lives up to any of the self-congratulatory back-slapping present here. Amusingly from a fan-mockery perspective, many of the things intelligent people lambasted Oblivion for have been very obviously fixed or removed, so no-standards people who claimed they were never a problem are even dumber than Bethesda, a remarkable achievement.

Going back and reading what people said about a hugely-hyped game when it came out is almost as funny as reading what crazy right-wing morons said about political shit (nothing really beats 'democracy in France collapsed in 2004'). This drop-off of commentary is just more proof of it's subjectivity and uselessness.

[Mr Bean]

Reposted from elsewhere

Oblivion with guns? Tell that to the Super mutant who's screaming because both his legs are broken when the grenade I just tossed trashed his rifle, took his legs and leaves him on his back screaming in pain.
Combat is just a tad different from Oblivion

The .44 round I put in the back of his head would have been sweet relief but wanting to save ammo I let Dogmeat rip out his throat. (Oh thank you Call of Duty 4 for teaching me how ******* dangerous a vicious dog can be)

Also tell that to the poor me in a former save who died to trio of landmines and a grenade trap when I went to investigate why F U was written over a sink, not noting the trip wire hidden by the broken rubble. (Found this horrible trap in a snipers nest in the middle of up-town DC)

Lets investigate what Oblivion is shall we?
A wide open do what ever the heck you feel like game which had magic, melee and ranged combat. It features enhancements, and a lot of potion mixing. You level by doing things over and over again. It was possible to become unkillable through only one skill(Alchemy) There were dozens on dozens of empty pointless duegons all over the place and in Vanillia the enemies level with you, so no matter how strong you get, they are just as strong. The main quest was OK, nothing ground-breaking but decent. Meanwhile the DB quests were much better and most of the time fun! But otherwise Oblivion was much like a nicely presented but rather bland meal. Nothing you did(Sans murdering entire towns) really affected things.

Lets compared to Fallout 3
It's a post nuclear senario game. It unlike Oblivion has multiple game endings(Wat to put a bullet in dear old dads head? Fine by the game). Leveling is based on XP, quests and killing give it to you, quests giving far more than killing which is looked on as bonus XP rather than the main line. Since you can become addicted to any sort of enhancement it's rather hard to simply try to buff your way through the game without getting addicted and suffering bad side affects. There is no enemy leveling. Raiders put up hard fights to push-overs depending on their loadout. Supermutants are a pain to very deadly(If you run into Bezerker) and Talon Company is a danger if your caught off-guard. Feral Ghouls are just targets to be mowed down by comparison. But Underground Ghoul squads can be just as dangerous as any Talon company. And of course the Brotherhood(Who default to friendly) are damn dangerous combing heavy armor with large weapons.

It is VERY possible to affect things in Fallout 3, everything from nuking Megaton to saving and rebuilding Big-town. And things such as restoring Galaxy Radio, completing Project Purity. Restoring the Arc Defenses. Lots of quests have big affects in the world and change things. And trust me, pissing off the Enclave is a rather short and violent way to die(With fireworks!)

This was mentioned by Bit-tech's review of Fallout 3 This game is going to be split between people who think it's great and people who think it's "Oblivion with guns"

[Stark]

Yeah, what Flash has told me about the damage stuff sounds really interesting, along with some of the tradeoffs with mutations/rads etc. Much less simplistic, harder and interesting than Oblivion.

[Vympel]

Yeah, what Flash has told me about the damage stuff sounds really interesting, along with some of the tradeoffs with mutations/rads etc. Much less simplistic, harder and interesting than Oblivion.

Why anyone should be comparing it to Oblivion at all is beyond me. The thought that it would be "Oblivion with guns" was always bullshit, and now the game is out its clear its most definitely not. What Elder Scrolls does would not work with Fallout. At all. They're nothing alike except for the engine (and some sub-standard animation).

Thanks for demonstrating your worthlessness as a commentator, I guess? Now go take xyz to the abc for 9 gold! Whoops Mehrunes Dagon was level 1 and you punched him to death! 'It's awesome' is utterly useless as any kind of informative statement beyond 'I think it's good', it contains no other information (except arguably 'my standards are here' )

Eh. I know what I like. I've almost never soured on a game that gave me a good first impression.

[Stark]

Why anyone should be comparing it to Oblivion at all is beyond me. The thought that it would be "Oblivion with guns" was always bullshit, and now the game is out its clear its most definitely not. What Elder Scrolls does would not work with Fallout. At all. They're nothing alike except for the engine (and some sub-standard animation).

I'd agree, except they share a developer, and Bethesda hasn't had an original idea in a decade. They're just lucky they were smart enough to adopt many interesting ideas from F1 (which doubtless all the NMA idiots quietly pat themselves on the back for), which tend to resolve some of the laughably simple problems with Oblivion. Why don't you scroll down YOUR 500-item list to find the exact slight stat variation on your potion?

Eh. I know what I like. I've almost never soured on a game that gave me a good first impression.

Man, the bad-taste quotes just keep coming.