I've never played any games in the Fallout series. Could someone tell me what makes the series good?
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Fallout 3 and New Vegas take place in post-apocolyptic United States after the year 2200. The setting is "retro-futuristic." Meaning, the style is in 1940s and 1950s US style and similar technologies. Examples include the old school monochrome Cathode Ray Tube monitors and cars. The locales in the game are real places in the US. The world virtually destroyed itself in a nuclear holocaust in 2077. There is AI, robots, mutants, and Ghouls (mutated and ugly looking "zombie-looking" humans that survived the Great War), to name a few types of humanoids.
Typical RPG system: stat points, strategic conversations, skill checks in conversations, skill checks to open stuff, etc.
It plays more like a table top RPG system. Real "dice rolls" to pass a check. And the great thing about it is you can just reload your save if you do not get the desired dice roll (which is why I prefer single player RPGs and not MMOs: I can't just reload my save).
It has equipment management systems, too. It has currency. It has crafting. It has recipes. it has open world exploration (genuine open world: not watered down or fake open world). It has many side quests. Some side quests are huge/expansive.
It has the typical "if you did x, y, and z, your end is 1" type of system.
And your endings are actually hugely significant at the end of the game. Like...entire nations crumble if you kill Person J, or Person K.
For me, it is kind of like Skyrim but better in every way. I loved Skyrim. Skyrim has a better potions/equipment system, obviously (but I thought it was too much. There is a such thing as too many features). But New Vegas is a better RPG and...guns n'shit, yo.
I love playing a sniper. VATS , in slow-mo, with a good sniper rifle, feels soooooo very delicious.
Edit - BTW, I typed this all up because I love you. You had better damn well appreciate the effort I put into this post.
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Last edited by dadudemon on Jun 3rd, 2015 at 08:57 PM
Looks good and all, but I think it's time Bethesda make a whole new engine. They're using a modified version of the same engine they've been using since Morrowind and it's really starting to show its age.
If you can get past how dated the graphics are on console, definitely get it (and they even looked bad back then). If not, download it on PC, get some visual overhaul mods, and whatever other mods tickle your pickle. It's an amazing experience on both console and PC, but PC is the definitive experience IMO
I'll echo this- it looks pretty ragged, and as part of Fallout 3's impact was its immersive modelling of the post-nuclear environment, F4 has issues if it can't replicate that by modern day standards.
Beyond that, I'd be looking to see what actually distinguishes this from F3 to make it a sequel rather than a New Vegas style spin-off.
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Watching the breakdown of the trailer makes me want to play F3 again.....even though I shouldn't because when Fallout 4 gets released, I will be totally involved with it because I haven't played the series in awhile....
But again, I really want to play it and I haven't touched any DLC.......tough choice!
Because that's old and well-trodden and they already did a ton of DLC for it and that's all played out- and it was already looking a bit dated back then. Vegas was already the 'more of the same' sequel. It would be poor to do that again.
Fallout 3 made a name for itself with a successful re-invention of the franchise, in the sense that the original Fallout 3 plan almost certainly would not have worked out as well with.
Not that Fallout 4 can really expect to be as different as 2 to 3 was, but if it is going to be a true sequel- after so long, with so much time to consider for conceptual change and with the gaming market shifting as well- it needs to have something beyond a gimmick to distinguish itself.
As it is, that re-use of an increasingly tired engine is not a good sign. What is this going to do that the others did not already do? It had better not still have the clunky skill system issues still.
I was always hoping a new Fallout would apply the immersive world view to a more Fallout 1/2 sense of scale- but no, it seems like we're just going to get 'vaguely around Boston'; this scale issue is something I've been wanting Bethesda to deal with since Morrowind.
All I am really seeing in that trailer is a slightly shinier (literally) version of what I already played.
Even a plot innovation would have been welcome- how about making it a prequel? Set it just before and just after the bombs drop. Plenty of story to find there. But I suspect we'll have, basically, the same damn story again.
I mean, take what Nephthys says above about the emotional effect of the first time you leave the bunker in FO3. I'd agree that that was a good moment. Looking at the trailer, though, I see the exact same darn effect! That's just not good enough for sequels in my view.
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Jun 4th, 2015 at 02:17 PM
Gamespot did a breakdown on the trailer and they mentioned that it looks like the setting is not as decrepit as Fallout 3 setting. After watching the trailer again, it does look like that is the case so either Boston wasn't as bombed as much as Washington or it takes place in much shorter timeframe as Fallout 3.
Some people like scale and some people like smaller areas to explore. Personally, I rather have 'vaguely around Boston' instead of multiple cities.
Lastly, while you are correct regarding more of the same, I'm hoping to do add something to the formula. As well, games like Fallout 3 and Skyrim are not very plentiful so even if Fallout 4 plays similiar to Skyrim/Fallout 3, I don't think it's much a problem, or at least for me. It's not like it's a yearly release (aka Assassins Creed) or have many clones (aka CoD).
I kinda take that the other way around- Assassin's Creed at least has the excuse of being a formulaic yearly release that barely ever innovates- I'm not expecting any better (unlike the jump from AC1 to 2, which was a good example of a sequel building rather than repeating)- zero interest in buying games made on that basis so it cannot disappoint.
This has no excuse in that regard.
The problem is, they give you small areas but treat them as if geographically large- that's why you end up with a ridiculous number of Vaults within a five minute walking distance of Washington. It didn't feel detailed enough to actually be a big city but the setting was too cramped to be the expansive landscape they seemed to treat it as instead.
I'll wait and see if there are any real ideas behind this- but I'm definitely not going to play just more of the same.
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I'm definitely on board with improved story telling in an RPG: that's always good. I liked what I got from F3 and NV, no doubt. But improving it will not hurt my feelings.
Everything else including the skills system? I loved them. NV had almost the perfect skills and skill point system. Almost. Not quite. But it pretty much did everything I wanted it to.
As far as the "look" and the engine this is built on, I don't want or need innovative graphics on this. Middle of the road is good enough. From what I saw, however, it looked rather good.
What I want is a full-sized expansion, pretty much. I want a whole game that feels like a massive DLC expansion pack for NV with some improved system elements and a new story. If I am lucky, a prettier game, too.
When we are talking about one of my top 3 games of all time, a New Vegas style sequel would tickle my fancy. Any additional improvements are just bonus.
Who cares about graphics. Especially in a Fallout game. That shit is unimportant as hell.
There is a rumor that you're going to play a pre-war soldier that was cryogenically frozen and you'll play going into the vault as the bombs drop and then leaving 200 years later. So that could be cool.
I'd also imagine that it would be pretty hard for Boston to be too similar to the previous games given that Boston is the home of the Commonwealth and the Institute. If you don't recall them, the Institute basically makes Blade Runner Replicants and super advanced technology in their sealed dome while keeping the peasants out in a war-ravened wasteland.
It's gonna be pretty dang hard to have the main character get out of a vault and not have that moment.
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Last edited by Nephthys on Jun 4th, 2015 at 03:09 PM
The Fallout stat system has always been flagrantly broken- Intelligence is massively overpowered and leads to the nerds being the best fighters because they have the most skill points (where giant strong but dumb guys can't beat them in a wrench fight), and meanwhile each game flops around like crazy trying to work out what Charisma does (Wasteland 2*, the recent sequel to the game Fallout was a spinoff from, ended up with the same problem, showing how decades old this issue is).
They need to de-couple stats from skills- it never works. Really, they need to re-think from scratch because the system ends up hosingly exploitable and dull. In fact, no Fallout game has ever worked well in terms of its stats/skills engine- it always needed the rest of the gameplay to obscure the holes.
* If you've not played Wasteland 2 you really should- that was an example of pushing an idea forwards, though they lost the story pacing near the end.
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Jun 4th, 2015 at 03:16 PM
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