3961

They didn’t spend millions on the IP just to let it sit there, especially since the success of FO3/FONV.

3962

How much did they spend on the IP? I wouldn’t have thought it was worth that much.

3963

If wikipediea is right, $5.75 million, so a significant chunk of money, albeit no where near the largest transactions in games. However, I think the two entities are arguing (in court) over whether or not Bethseda bought the rights to proceeds from Fallout 1 and 2 sales, which would have made the purchase more valuable.

3964

That’s a lorra lorra money.

3965

I’ll repeat the story I’d like to see here. No hero of the world, no savior of the wasteland, just a man caught up the end of the world, separated from his family, trying to survive and rescue them from the aftermath. Just the story of a man and his family, fighting to survive, maybe join up with others to create a life after. More simple, but more personal.

3966

I don’t believe that’s what the legal issues are about. Instead, it’s over whether Interplay can still make a Fallout MMO or not. Initially Interplay licensed Bethesda to make two Fallout single player RPGs. A few months later Bethesda bought the whole franchise, but licensed the MMO rights back to Interplay. However, Interplay was required to find financing and start making the MMO by a certain date or the rights would revert back to Bethesda. Interplay did something by that date, but whether it meets the requirements is what the legal dispute is about. Basically, Bethesda wants the MMO rights back.

3967

I’ve been playing the PS3 version steadily for a week. My 2 cents:

Good

  • relaxing game to play on the couch when my son is sleeping
  • extremely gory death scenes
  • Robots with happy faces and cowboy avatars.

Bad

  • The outdoor lighting looks terrible. They obviously threw in the towel.
  • Models and textures are meh.
  • No tough decisions in quests. All decisions are black and white.
  • Weapons are unimiginative.
  • Monsters are unimiginative. This one really annoys me.
  • Game-stopping bugs and freeze ups. This game should never have shipped in its current state.
  • No poker games in New Vegas? WTF!
  • Just meh overall. A world of meh.

The lame monsters really annoys me. There isn’t a single bizarre mutant in the whole f***ing game. The best the uber-nerds at Obsidian could pull off are giant flies and The Creature From the Black Lagoon (sorry, Lakelurker!). If you can’t think of anything cool, farm it out to some concept artists like Massive Black.

3968

Everything has been perfectly conserved by hard radiation that killed off all the microbes!

3969

Definitely not true. I can think of several.

SPOILERS:

  1. There’s a vault liking radiation causing the crops of NCR sharecroppers to fail. Shut down the reactor, the sharecroppers can now make but, but the vault dwellers, who are trapped in the vault will die.

  2. Help Cass get revenge against the two trading groups that wiped out her caravans will hurt the cause of the NCR.

  3. There’s a vault that’s been taken over by a genetic plant experiment. The researcher who discovered it says it’s too dangerous and should be destroyed, the scientist who sent you to find out what is going on, insists it could hold the key to restoring the wasteland.

  4. The whole decision on who should be sheriff for Primm holds varying solutions and outcomes.

  5. And those are off the top of my head, I’m sure there are others. And of course, there’s the whole “who’s going/should control New Vegas” decision the game is built around. Pretty of gray there.

3970

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I see your point of view, but

  1. Murdering people so crops can grow in a specific location is pretty clearly evil

  2. Helping Cass isn’t really a difficult choice because it will have a minimal impact on the NCR

  3. The genetic mutations had some real possibilities and was close to being a difficult choice.

I chose to give the spores to the scientist, but it would have been interesting to see the consequences of that choice. Maybe the spores escape and somehow my companion slowly changes to a spore creature? Or, Camp McCarran becomes a centre for infection and slowly spreads until I stop the infection and I am held partially responsible. Later, the spores are added to create genetically-modified crops that reduce hunger and I’m redeemed in the eyes of some of the communities but still hated by others.

Keeping the character bouncing from highs to lows would be a lot more interesting than going from mission to mission and collecting better loot.

I realize this would more difficult to script than the standard ABC missions and could be a QA nightmare.

  1. I really don’t care who becomes the sheriff of Primm.

  2. New Vegas is just a small part of the world. The bigger question is will the NCR or the Legion win control of the entire region. NCR does some questionable things but doesn’t crucify petty criminals in public squares.

3971

Black and white doesn’t mean “these decisions have clear moral tendencies”, it means “there is no nuance - every decision is either purely good or purely evil”. And I can’t think of too many situations like that in New Vegas.

3972

Those aren’t the only two options, though. What about Mr. House? Or saying “fuck all y’all” and taking over the Strip yourself?

3973

No, but they have been known to gun criminals down.

3974

True, but logically wouldn’t I get steamrollered by either the NCR or Legion eventually? To survive, I would have to make peace with the NCR because the Legion would slaughter me and burn New Vegas to the ground.

I know I’m overthinking this.

3975

The game provides a convincing rebuttal to your argument should you actually decide to go that route. You should, at least once.

3976

I have to assume you skipped Fallout 3 and went straight to New Vegas, correct? If you think NV has unimaginitive weapons and monsters…

3977

I also disagree with RyanB. Which is not something surprising, because F:NV was my GOTY.

Weapons are unimaginative? They had basically every imaginable weapon. From laser stuff to grenade launchers to lots of melee weapons to pistols to miniguns. I mean, it’s true you could say they were “unimaginative” as they weren’t purely weird and bizarre, but based in established real world weapons or established scifi lore. But only 1 of 50 games have really original weapons.

And the world itself was great. Great sense of place, of an ongoing conflict, of the daily struggle of simple farmers and soldiers.

3978

I think the weapon spread in NV makes sense. I certainly wasn’t going into it expecting weaponry out of Ratchet & Clank.

3979

How can you say this about a game that has a grenade machinegun? Damn, that’s cold.

3980

I did play and finish Fallout 3. It was equally bad for weapons and slightly better for monsters. There was a weird deformed blob thing with a human face that had a Carpenteresque quality to it.

Is that really an excuse for Obsidian being uncreative. No, it isn’t.