I loved Fallout 1 and 2 but for some reason was never able to get into Fallout 3. Leave it to Bethesda to suck the life out of a great franchise.
I’d strongly recommend New Vegas. I hated Fallout3, but NV is one of my favorite games of all time. The story even picks up where Van Buren would’ve left off.
Thanks, that’s awesome, I need to try it!
They could have really done a better job backfilling some of that story though. It seemed like I had to find out half of what happened from the VB dev diaries, rather than from the actual game.
I second this. Hated FO3, loved NV.
I loved them both, who knew it could happen!
Whoa. Three-Dog was Luther Mahoney? Mind blown.
1 & 2 were good games, but so was 3 and NV. I think maybe you would be in the minority believing that they did “suck the life out” of the franchise.
All 4 games are absolutely worth playing. NV has the strongest mechanics, FO2 the best writing, FO1 the best story. IMO, YMMV, obviously.
Compared to the numerous choices of how one can end NV it doesn’t really compare. In NV I can murder every single Important Person in the world. In Fallout3 I MUST join the Brotherhood and do what they want. There isn’t even a “screw these guys I’m going Conclave” option. It was pretty much on the rails, as most Bethesda games are. Do what Story NPC X says to do, then proceed to step 2.
Yeah, that’s the issue. In Fallout 3, you are one of the Very Important people, for a reason. You’re from the Vault. Your father ran Project Purity.
In NV, you’re just some anonymous courier who gets shot in the head and after he comes to, decides to involve himself in this power struggle over the Dam for some reason. Nothing better to do? Honestly I don’t think the people who came up with the amnesiac courier beginning of the plot had any contact with the people who wrote the “drifter who picks the winner of the battle” end of the plot, because it’s not like there’s any ever payoff to either the amnesia or the courier plots(caveat: I think one of the DLCs may have expanded that? IDK I didn’t play any of them). That whole thing was just to get to you New Vegas. Yo, Obsidian, Planescape:Torment came out over a decade ago. Amnesia is no longer an acceptable generic plot starting device to justify the laziness of not creating a backstory.
And yeah, you get a choice. A choice of which ending slideshow to watch. Nothing in the game changes based on your decision, because the game ends with that decision. The ending battle is even pretty similar for each choice. It reminded me of Fable 1’s ending, where all that “good/evil” stuff ended up meaning nothing because of a single decision you make at the end of the game which let you pick your end cutscene.
The devs justified the lack of a backstory as being from a desire to let players create one and not feel railroaded into playing a certain type of character. It wasn’t supposed to be amnesia, though. Ironically, the last DLC totally ignores that and forces a bunch of stuff onto the player’s history. Nevertheless, the idea was that the player would naturally be motivated to get revenge/figure out why someone tried to kill them over what they were carrying on their last courier mission.
It’s got nothing to do with laziness - it’s an “everyman” approach, which many people prefer.
In FO3 I cared about the main quest. I could identify with trying to find my father. For part of the game it even made sense to wander the wasteland (searching for Dad yes but also spending time coming to grips with a father who isn’t who you originally thought).
NV gave me a revenge quest that didn’t make sense. Its a classic Western theme but in a Western you know that the protagonist feels the backstory. The revenge has depth. NV didn’t succeed in making me feel that way. They tried to make it personal but it still felt like it was the coin that was important not me (note that I haven’t played the DLC) and I didn’t want to play a UPS guy getting revenge on the people who hijacked his truck.
Really, one of these open world games needs to have the option of stopping. Become thane of one town in Skyrim and rule it, make yourself sheriff of Prim and rebuild the casino and town while holding off the Legion and NCR, I guess its my age but the story of the wanderer finding/building a home is more compelling than another wanderer doing good deeds as he move thought the world without connection.
Which is the way the older Elder Scrolls game went and it generally leads to a pretty blah start of the game.
But not Fallout. Your character in Fallout 2 was literally called The Chosen One. Fallout 3’s opening was a masterful combination of building the character in both the RPG and the story, leading up to the big reveal of the first moment outside the Vault. That’s one of the most memorable visuals of this generation.
NV you just ended up plopped in a wasteland.
Man all this talk is making me want to reinstall Fallout 3, add some mods as I never modded it back when it came out, and play through again.
Since we’re obviously long past caring about spoilers in this thread …
Fallout 3 had a better start.
New Vegas had better everything else. It was not a simple revenge quest: as a small part of the game, you did have the option of tracking down the guy who left you for dead and killing him then and there, but it wasn’t the only way to play it out. You could get bribed and tricked by him, and then had to follow him, as part of the larger story, to a whole other area where you now had several options all related to the guy. You could kill him as part of your initiation into The Legion, after talking to him for some time. You could still kill him out of personal revenge. Or, you could make him tell you the whole story of the plan he tried to weave … and let him go. You could freaking rescue the person who (ineffectively) tried to murder you, and give him a chance to live. Not to mention that Benny is a pretty cool character, as far as RPGs go.
And this was a pretty tiny part of a complex story where you did in fact have a huge effect on the region, far more so than in Fallout 3. That is of course if one understands the massive differences between Roman Empire 2.0, now with more barbarity (Legion), the complete unknown of the rebooted Yes Man (Skynet?), the “Have Rocket Will Travel” technocratic future (House) and the “we’re really trying to rebuild the United States” future (NCR).
How did those “massive differences” manifest themselves? A slideshow. A slightly different slideshow. That’s like saying Fallout 3 had an enormously meaningful ending choice because you got to pick if you cleaned or poisoned the wasteland. Talk about a massive difference!
(Broken Steel actually made that choice even less significant by letting you play in the immediate aftermath and discovering that Project Purity’s most significant consequence was wandering water merchants).
And this was a pretty tiny part of a complex story where you did in fact have a huge effect on the region, far more so than in Fallout 3. That is of course if one understands the massive differences between Roman Empire 2.0, now with more barbarity (Legion), the complete unknown of the rebooted Yes Man (Skynet?), the “Have Rocket Will Travel” technocratic future (House) and the “we’re really trying to rebuild the United States” future (NCR).
Bolded was my problem. Man, don’t end up making me choose between being the NCR’s errand boy vs. Mr. Yes’ errand boy, if the competing faction thing is gambit you pick go all the way and try to make me feel important. Bethesda actually managed that with the Dark Brotherhood quests in the TES games, IMO.
I agree. That first reveal was a standing ovation moment. I loved FO3 and NV. I’m still bitter about FO2 patching and breaking my car and losing everything I had in the trunk. Also FAR too many easter eggs in FO2. A few are fun, it seems like every other grid I ran into a comedic reference be it star trek or monty python…
I agree that one thing that Bethesda games need is more “phasing” where your choices make a long term difference to the world around you. I know that they do include a degree of that, but not really enough.
In general, I find that the strength of any of these games comes when you basically ignore the main story after the intro and just live in the world. I’m playing through Oblivion right now, and I’m 50 hours or so in… and I haven’t seen my first Oblivion gate.
Oh sure, cleaning up (or poisoning) the water supply around D.C. totally compares to condemning humanity to a brutal empire built on slavery, a future in the stars, or freaking Skynet (with a smile). You also got to know most of this way before The Slideshow, hell House tells you way in advance his vision for the future and his plans, if you actually ask him.
What are you talking about? Errand boy? It’s in Fallout 3 that you went along for the ride, and only at the very end you were suddenly given a choice. In New Vegas you actively implemented the plan of either player, or your own, and you could walk away and switch gears at almost any time. You chose whether the Brotherhood of Steel got to live under your rule, or you wiped them out. You got to decide which tribes will be part of the future, and which you wanted eliminated. You decided how long to play along with House or Caesar. And so on. You made sure what future lay ahead for humanity, if any.
But you know, at this point it’s like we’re discussing a completely different game, and this is getting boring. So, you’re entitled to your opinion and impression, and I’ll leave it at that.
I don’t agree.
But not Fallout. Your character in Fallout 2 was literally called The Chosen One.
Yes, Fallout. You say “Fallout” and then immediately talk about Fallout 2. Fallout (1) used an everyman approach and was a tighter, better game. Fallout 2 was good because it offered more Fallout, not because of the silly Chosen One opening.
Fallout 3’s opening was a masterful combination […]
Well…obviously people see these things differently. You saw “masterful”, I suffered through the lamest, most robotic birthday party ever imagined before I was finally set free in the wasteland.