http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031022/dew005_1.html
Don’t remember seeing anything about it over the last few days, thought I would at least give it a mention. Fallout fans often have strong feelings about this game. I’m looking forward to it and will give it a shot. Just picked up Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance last week for the XBox. Never played it before. Hopefully it’s as fun as people say… and that that will carry over to the Fallout game.
If you enjoy Dark Alliance, pick up Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes. It’s much improved over BGDA.
The game looks almost nothing like Fallout. The only things I recognised from all the screenies that have been released were stimpaks and the metal armour design.
Fallout fans can’t really win with this one - if it bombs, the suits will think it’s a lack of interest in the Fallout franchise, and if it succeeds they’ll think that people are only interested in a vaguely Fallout themed shooter.
I’m not completely writing it off, because it’s tangentially related to a title I love, but it’ll definitely be one to rent, not buy.
Really? That’s good to hear, I kept seeing lukewarm reviews stating Heroes was only worth it in multiplayer (and while my fiancee will happily accept my dorkiness, she probably wouldn’t be caught dead playing a D&D video game).
Is Dark Alliance worth playing solo or is it much better with someone else?
edit: this was in respose to the first reply obviously.
To respond to the second reply, I have a feeling that even though this game shares the Fallout name, I have a feeling that this is really its own seperate entitely that doesn’t have much to do with the hardcore Fallout fans. I don’t think Dark Alliance was geared to tap the PC Baldur’s Gate crowd, same here. I think what helped BGDA be successful was that people thought it was a fun game to play. If Fallout manages that, gets a ton of rentals, I think it would be considered a success. I think the Fallout fans won’t win or lose with this title, I feel they have very little to do with it.
Hmm, I thought this game had been delayed until next year like BG:DA2?
Nope, they swear that both games are being released as planned - Interplay was insisting they would publish the games themselves if need be, then Vivendi or whomever assured everyone that there was no delay involved. That story was pretty confusing.
Anyway, I’m hopeful about Fallout:BoS because:
A - BG:DA is a great foundation upon which to build an action RPG,
B - I’m vindictive and desperately want to see the Fallout fansite lunatics eat their words if it’s successful, but most importantly,
C - what better way to help ensure the creation of the two secret projects Interplay is rumored to be working on (supposedly Fallout 3 and a new D&D title) than for BoS to be make Interplay lots of cash money?
Maybe the rumors are overstating the case, but they imply that the success of BoS will dictate more than just if the suits think that there’s no interest in Fallout. It may devastate Interplay in general. Assuming that’s true, then the naive and idealistic little voice in my head is telling me that surely Interplay would try to ensure that BoS is about as good as BG:DA, which IMO was rightly well-received.
Concerning BG:DA and Heroes: I thought BG:DA was fine as a solo game, but the secret difficulty setting is clearly intended for multiplayer because it’s ridiculously tough. You can beat it on solo, but it’s not a fun experience - imagine trying to beat Diablo 2 on Hell difficulty with a character who has few or no resistance bonuses. Incredibly frustrating. In the meantime, the other settings are maybe a bit too easy. If I had to complain about the game, I’d say that the boss monsters were generally a disappointment - I think umber hulks are the toughest enemies in the entire game and they aren’t bosses - and the difficulty never quite strikes a perfect balance.
Meanwhile, I haven’t gotten to play Heroes and really want to, but frankly Quatoria’s mini-review here is the most positive thing I’ve ever heard regarding it - the few I know who played it tend to think it really does nothing to stand out from BG:DA, and it’s not as pretty. The reviews tend to say the same thing. So when I get an Xbox I’m definitely going to borrow it first.
This is different somehow from the Fallout tactics PC game that came out, uh last year or so? Is this more than just a Playstation port of that game?
I recall that the game for the PC was actually pretty good, surprising considering Interplay’s sad state at the time. It was quite recognizable to me as a Fallout world, with even a touch of Fallout-style humor mixed in with the random kill-everything-that-moves missions. The gameplay itself wasn’t much like Fallout, but it wasn’t bad. Not great, but not bad.
How so?
I’m curious why you say this because DnD:Heroes scored lower than BG2:DA at almost every website that reviewed it.
I never played it, so I’m not refuting what you said I’m just curious what makes it better than BG:DA in your opinion.
F:BoS is vastly different. It’s an action-RPG that uses the Baldur’s Gate:DA engine. It apparently still uses parts of the Fallout character system - I don’t think it’s based on S.P.E.C.I.A.L. but does include a perk system and the usual action-RPG levelling up and things of that nature. And it’s set in the Fallout world. Aside from that there likely won’t be any real similarities to the first three Fallout titles.
The one thing that I’m betting will disappoint with F:BoS is the humor/story/etc. BG:DA was pretty dull in this regard, and from what I’ve heard F:BoS is going for stupid-sounding toilet humor (and that’s by Fallout’s standards, which weren’t exactly high-brow). Unless my impression is wrong, that’ll be a big step back from Fallout’s 1 & 2, which were pretty intelligently written nonetheless. It doesn’t seem like you’ll much of that here - what will make or break this game is how good the action is.
Also, I’ll bet F:BoS is very linear, assuming it is similar to BG:DA in more ways than just using the same graphics engine. That doesn’t bother me in an action-RPG, but it’s yet another reason why I can kind of (to an extent) understand why a fan of Fallout wouldn’t really get into this game much. (It doesn’t explain the hatred, though.) It’s obviously not even remotely targeted AT traditional Fallout fans, whereas Tactics was to at least a certain extent.
Could Interplay really afford to miss the Christmas market? What else do they have to offer, right now?
Does anyone else find it vaguely disturbing that publishers have decided the Brotherhood of Steel is the most sellable part of the Fallout universe? “Be a member of an explicitly fascist military organization, rooting out the subhuman hordes!”
Yes, I’m kidding, kinda.
You forgot “Unlock teh UB3r P0w3r aRmXorZ”
What’s wrong with fascist military organisations, anyway?
About BG:DA, um… no offense, but Quatoria is the only one I’ve seen yet who didn’t like it, except for people who just don’t like action RPGs no matter what. I thought BG:DA was great. Come on, those jiggly barkeep breasts weren’t that horrible, now were they?
I was disappointed in it, and I like action RPGs just fine. I bought and played it through once, and the contrast between the attempt at a story in Act 1 and the complete lack of it for the rest of the game was very poor. It was no better or worse than Lionheart in this respect, but it’s not nearly of the quality I would expect of a game with the Black Isle logo on it.
The barkeep wasn’t half as much of an atrocity as the “boy-I-wish-we-could-have-made-her-naked” drow priestess boss. I didn’t HATE DA, but I found it boring, with uninspired level design and bland action.
Yeah, that was just idiotic and pandering at its very worst. It was like the developers purposely tried to not make that game immersive. The town is full of the most rundown homeless men you’ve ever seen and then there is that behind the bar?
Paint me fanboy, but I think this game looks like trash, and I don’t like seeing the Fallout world being hocked off like this. Fallout 1 & 2 were the 1st rpg’s (loose term) I ever played, years after they were released I might add, and I loved them to death for thematic richness and immersive world.
Fobos is just… cheap and nasty. And yes, I giggle like a little girl when someone puts the boot into Chuck Cuevas.
People have sent death threats to his family over this game. If anyone deserves the boot its all of you sick fanboys who think you own the game. I would love to see a real fallout 3, but I hope that it never gets made. Why? Because you all do not deserve it.
WTF?
So the people who’ve sent death threats are representing all Fallout fans everywhere, are they? Or perhaps they’re an extremely small minority of fuckwits who would be doing something equally idiotic if not this.
I feel sorry for Chuck if he’s really received threats over FOBOS, but get a grip, Rob. Nobody in their right mind feels like they “deserve” a piece of entertainment software, and I’m sure nobody on this thread feels that way.
Trouble is, Sam, many gamers do feel they deserve a particular game, or feature, or whatever. Maybe not here, but in the wider world of the gaming universe, oh yeah. There’s a huge sense of entitlement that fuels everything from Usenet rants to malicious hacking I’m afraid.