Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

[Vympel]

I have a friend who I eat with the most. She calls me Sulo. Figure it out.

[CaptHawkeye]

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.

The damage system is pretty cool this time around. Unlike Oblivion, F3's combat doesn't come down to "slap guy over and over until deader than you" health bar spam I despise. I mean, the game is already leaps and bounds ahead of Oblivion simply by removal of the Bethesda's disastrous NPC scaling. As I get used to the game's controls I thankfully find myself needing to use VATS less and less.

While I actually liked Oblivion, it was wholy for the exploration aspect of it. Stark knows i'm a whore for explore-em-ups. Even they have piss gameplay, broken balancing, half assed social interaction, blocky animations, non-existent plot, etc.

Now you're thinking, "Was Hawkeye just talking about Oblivion?" Nope. "Was he talking about Flashpoint?" Nah. Specifically, I was referring to every open world game ever.

[Pulp Hero]

FO 3.

Honestly, Fallout is much less buggy, and the various skill trees add a lot of depth.

[Vympel]

The damage system is pretty cool this time around. Unlike Oblivion, F3's combat doesn't come down to "slap guy over and over until deader than you" health bar spam I despise. I mean, the game is already leaps and bounds ahead of Oblivion simply by removal of the Bethesda's disastrous NPC scaling. As I get used to the game's controls I thankfully find myself needing to use VATS less and less.

I use VATS even when I don't have to. I don't know, I just really really like it.

[Karza]

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.

After about 10 hours of play I'm carrying 30+ stims, about 5 of which were bought and rest found. They aren't all that rare, though my playstyle (sneak/sniper) means I probably take less than average damage. Ammo remains a bit of a problem though, .308 rounds are next to non-existent, and .32 isn't too common either. Clearing out the damn Fire Ants in Grayditch really fucked over my ammo supply. Haven't explored any towns (well, towns with alive inhabitants anyway ) apart from Arefu and Megaton yet, so I haven't really seen a decent ammo vendor either.

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.

Only technical problem I've seen so far was Vista's sidebar occasionally blinking "through" the game graphics, but that was fixed by just disabling the sidebar. Also, sometimes on exit I get the "Fallout 3 has stopped working" message, but that doesn't affect gameplay at all.

[charlemagne]

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).

Well, there IS some Oblivion-crap left, for example the lockpicking-minigame. It was stupid and it is here, this is a fucking RPG, picking locks should be rolled against my lockpicking-skill, not the player's ability and patience to learn a stupid minigame.

I also always hated how in Oblivion and now also in FO3 there's these stupid caps on things like lockpicking. What I mean is, your skill is 24, and there's a lock needing a skill of 25 or you can't even try to pick it. That's stupid. You should be able to try and pick EVERY lock, it just should be really hard and quite impossible to successfully pick a hard lock with a skill of 10.

The AI is pretty much the same as in Oblivion, too, which is bad in some situations. Like the doc trying to un-mutate the fire ants, he didn't want me to kill the ant queen, so I didn't, and then he ran away from the room with his equipment because the queen spat stuff at him. He just doesn't want to do his thing and destroy the fire ants. I think I'll have to kill him or pickpocket his password so I can do it for him.

Oh, or in Megaton at the very beginning - I told the Sheriff about Burke's plan to destroy Megaton, so Burke shot the Sheriff when he tried to arrest him. But Burke isn't flagged "enemy" after that, so when I tried to shoot him, because I really liked the Sheriff somehow, the whole town started to beat the crap out of me. That sucked. There also seems to be no way to "yield" to NPCs, so when the scavenger in front of the super-duper market attacked me for no apparent reason I had to kill him and lost Kharma over that.

So, because I always hated stock Oblivion and thought it was only a wonderful game once the really broken stuff (level scaling) was modded out, I've been trying to find the same stuff in FO3, but there's none really as it seems. Things like the lockpick thing are minor nitpicks that don't spoil the fun of exploring, using VATS and questing at all. I like the quests so far, there's not too many, but they're long and things like "take this letter to my brother" don't stop there, of course.

[Vympel]

Well, there IS some Oblivion-crap left, for example the lockpicking-minigame. It was stupid and it is here, this is a fucking RPG, picking locks should be rolled against my lockpicking-skill, not the player's ability and patience to learn a stupid minigame.

Your ability to succeed in the mini-game is directly related to your lockpicking skill, so it's hardly a big deal. It's virtually impossible to lockpick a Very Hard lock in Oblivion with a shit lockpicking skill and an infinite number of lockpicks. Fallout 3's lockpicking game is better, since it's not nearly as fiddly but at the same time flat out bars you from trying to do a very hard lock if you don't have the skill - that seems stat-based to me.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

The damage system is pretty cool this time around. Unlike Oblivion, F3's combat doesn't come down to "slap guy over and over until deader than you" health bar spam I despise. I mean, the game is already leaps and bounds ahead of Oblivion simply by removal of the Bethesda's disastrous NPC scaling. As I get used to the game's controls I thankfully find myself needing to use VATS less and less.

I use VATS even when I don't have to. I don't know, I just really really like it.

Same here. I love the VATS system. I use it in practically every fight with the only exceptions being times when I'm out of AP and need to finish off an enemy.
Having played about 12 hours now, I'm pondering what to do next. Try and find the Family, or eliminate a Raider Base inside a mountain. Or something else...hmm.

[Pulp Hero]

Stark: FO3 is the WORST GAME ever. Simply touching the disc gave me boils and every time I try to save, my screen spews angry bees at me. There, are you happy. ARE YOU?!

[White Haven]

Wow, jumping ahead of the story quest not only is possible, but doesn't break the game. I just found my father in a vault under a service station without ever even entering the DC Metro area, and it just gives you the exp for what you skipped (I think, know I levelled IMMEDIATELY), counted that quest as done, and picked me up at the new point. Surprising robust system for an RPG, and very welcome.

[charlemagne]

Surprising robust system for an RPG, and very welcome.

Oh yeah, this is good news. It's been easy to break quests in Oblivion, good to see that they've improved on that.


One real point to add to the shit-list of FO3: inventory and map, they both suck, because they're way too small in screen-size. The whole pip-boy design thing is nice and all, but they should've given more space to the important stuff instead of useless textures and/or used smaller font sizes.

[Nephtys]

Let's see. There's nothing really wrong with the map, IMO. I do find it annoying there's no quick-change for your weapons, as you don't have a 'second active' weapon like in FO1/2, so you can't quickly break out an SMG or melee weapon when things get too close for your sniper rifle.

VATS has the annoying issue of you firing into a brick wall if you're taking partial cover. That sucks. But I do like the variety in slow motion deaths of my foes. The angles look pretty nice usually, and it's satisfying watching a bullet fly across a half mile to poke out a Mutie's eye.

Exploring is super-fun. I entered the sewer network a little south of the Super Mart, and was surprised at the length and breadth of it as I came out in Mutie Country. I find myself also scavenging loads of crap, with a much more immersive post-apoc feel than I expected.

I don't understand how hacking works quite yet. I've botched two 'very easy' terminals. But hey, playing around with a Hex Dump is a lot more realistic than what I've seen in other games... like plumbing. Or 3d shooting minigames....

Also, I love the weapon scaling system. It's not that annoying 'Welp, you're level 3, so you only get Rusty Inferior Orcish Daggers. I like how I can get assault rifles, rocket launchers, etc at LEVEL ONE. Just they won't be very good quality ones I'd like to keep.

Enclave Radio rules. President Aden loves children, and so should you.

[Mr Bean]

Let's see. There's nothing really wrong with the map, IMO. I do find it annoying there's no quick-change for your weapons, as you don't have a 'second active' weapon like in FO1/2, so you can't quickly break out an SMG or melee weapon when things get too close for your sniper rifle.

You can or at least on the PC, if you bring up you Pip-Boy then go to the weapon screen press and hold down the "1" key on your keyboard, viola you can now instantly map the 1-9 keys to any weapon you'd like. VATS ignores change times so if you have you rifle out, hit the 1 Key which your pistol or SMG is bound too if you quickly hit VATS it does the super slow mo showing you putting your rifle away, yanking out your SMG and unloading. Very artsy looking.

VATS has the annoying issue of you firing into a brick wall if you're taking partial cover. That sucks. But I do like the variety in slow motion deaths of my foes. The angles look pretty nice usually, and it's satisfying watching a bullet fly across a half mile to poke out a Mutie's eye.

Agreed, worse you cue up three attacks on a Super-mutant Master only to see all of them go right into a brick wall. Also bad grenades.

I don't understand how hacking works quite yet. I've botched two 'very easy' terminals. But hey, playing around with a Hex Dump is a lot more realistic than what I've seen in other games... like plumbing. Or 3d shooting minigames....

There is a password hidden on the list of words and random characters, you have to guess it by guess the letters. The passwords are random for the most part. Good first picks are words ending in "ing" if you see 4 of X right then it's a good bet to stick with words ending in "Ing". After three tries you get a final four try to hack and if you fail the computer locks up. But if you exit after the third guess it resets the password to something else and gives you back all four tries agian.

If your dedicated you can hack any terminal aside from the 25, 50 and 75 cut-off's. Speaking of, more hack less words on the screen.

Enclave Radio rules. President Aden loves children, and so should you.

"This is Three Dogg!! Coming to you live from the Capital City Wasteland, Remember Ghouls are people too, except for the one's that aren't and feel free to get all Evil Dead on their ass, whatever that means"

[Panzer Grenadier]

Switching weapons is not a problem at all as you can assign your top weapons to hotkeys on the d-pad works fine.

Also hacking is simply just based on guess work. You choose a word and the game tells you how many letters are in the correct space. The higher the better the hacker you are the more guesses i assume.

I also was able to skip ahead in the main quest. Basically I got my assignment from three dog and then decided to go explore rivet city, and found a lady who knew my father and directed me to go check out the jefferson memorial. Very cool.

I have never played oblivion, but I am enjoying this game every bit as much as I did morrowind which was my favorite RPG of all time. (playing this on 360).

[Ghost Rider]

Still haven't done any of the main mission except learning my dad is somewhere in DC. One of the nicer parts is that exploration of weird shit will yield either neat junk(like other gun caches) or evil shit(like Talon hideouts complete with guys armed with rifles and laser weaponry!). The outside is nicely large and filled.

And yeah, hotkey to the keypad for people playing on consoles does the same thing as hotkey 1-9.

And really, Enclave radio needs music. Hearing Malcom McDowell drone on gets tiring .

[The Grim Squeaker]

Just finished the game. My reaction: "You're shitting me, that's IT?!?".
Almost no consequences shown, nothing about towns, NPCs, or almost every other event that you did, only your morality and the shoehorned last choice. (Yeah, let's ignore the massive Super-mutant standing right next to me and offer only 2 dialog options).
And the parts before that were so damn good relative to the rest of the game (I prefer Hortigan, President Richards or the Master to Eden, but it's still fun ), especially the fucking awesomeness of Liberty-Bot - Iron Giant vs Communists!.
I miss the scripts and dialogue of Black Isle and oldschool Bioware . (But i'll still be buying the sequel in 2011 ).

Also - where the fuck do you find Dogmeat?

[Decue]

Also - where the fuck do you find Dogmeat?

In a junkyard south of Minefield. Not that he is that awesome, but he can find find some stuff for you if you ask him.

[SylasGaunt]

So lets see I've played some more..

Dammit a super-villainess chainsawed off my dog's head. That bitch.

Second I really want that damn brotherhood power armor.

Thirdly... god-dammit when I try and kill someone with a nuke they should be dead, not afflicted with a really horrible skin condition.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I got it, and it plays pretty well on my PC while still looking pretty okay, so that's nice. The only problem is some annoying stability issues; just in the few hours I've played, the game has hung up a couple times loading areas, and I had a crash somehow associated with the "Blow up Megaton" quest. The first time I turned Burke in, I had my gun on him and as soon as he pulled his I put five bullets in his head with VATS, which crashed the game. The autosave from when I entered Moriarty's on that occasion also crashed the game next time I loaded it, but it was no big deal and only cost me a couple of minutes. Still annoying.

[charlemagne]

Yeah, the autosave feature was prone to corrupt savegames back in Oblivion, too, so never rely solely on it. If it crashes on loading a lot, turning off autosave might help.

Did you re-try to kill Burke before he shoots the Sheriff? Maybe the game doesn't want that to happen and that's why it crashes?

Still no major crashes here... I had one lock-up that forced me to push the reset button, and once it just exited to desktop without any windows message. Other than that it runs just fine.

I'm slowly building up more ammo reserves, which is nice. Saved the people of Bigtown earlier, and now I'm hiking to some town on the far end of the map to hopefully get richly rewarded for devilering some sexy underwear (Note to self: roll female char next to try it on)

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Did you re-try to kill Burke before he shoots the Sheriff? Maybe the game doesn't want that to happen and that's why it crashes?

My friend ended up killing Burke and saving the Sheriff without the game crashing, so I don't think that's the actual cause. Maybe that exact timing might mess it up, but the action itself doesn't.

[CaptHawkeye]

Yeah, I decided my first play through would be "angel" and such. So I saved Megaton from being set us up the bomb and capped Mr. Burke. Only to go to TenPenny Tower and find that Tens doesn't even care that I killed his right hand man. He'll still chat with me casually.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Did you re-try to kill Burke before he shoots the Sheriff? Maybe the game doesn't want that to happen and that's why it crashes?

Yeah, I bagged him. Five shots to the head at point blank range in VATS. I like the damage rendering; I took off his whole head area.

[White Haven]

I Black Widow-seduced Burke in leaving town, then calmly walked into Tenpenny Towers, talked my way into the penthouse, walked onto the balcony, and slipped a frag mine into Mister Tenpenny's pocket. Somehow I felt it...fitting that in his last moments alive, he was struggling to disable a bomb in his own clothing.

Oh, and then I threw the pieces of his corpse off the balcony before walking back out past all the clueless guards. And gained karma.

[Pulp Hero]

Where do you get this "Vampire" misssion everyone loves?