By Alec Meer on October 28th, 2008 at 8:54 am.
Today is embargo-lifting day, which means a whole mess of write-ups on Bethesda’s latest RPG have spilled onto the web. The scores, unsurprisingly, are extraordinarily high.
Which probably means I’m going to get my arse kicked for not loving it quite as much as everyone else.
It’s a review I’ll admit I struggled with, finding myself caught between the rock of real excitement at all the options the game offers and the hard place of extreme annoyance at some of the decisions Bethesda made – many of which are direct hangovers from Oblivion and are a bit more galling second time around. Particularly, I’m hyper-sensitive to not-quite-there characterisation in RPGs, and tend to feel that if you can’t make the acting absolutely spot-on, you’re better off with subtitles. (On that note, I enjoyed the Witcher EE quite a bit more with the still-awful English dialogue turned off in favour of subtitled Polish.) While it’s the 360 version I reviewed, I wrote and scored with the PC version (and this ol’ platform’s vast RPG heritage) in mind, which is possibly one reason I’m a little less super-enthusiastic than consolefolk, for whom this’ll be a bit more of a diamond in the rough.
I’ll talk more about it here later I’m sure, but short answer – a fabulous world and certainly not the mindless action game the more vocal anti-Bethesda lobby had pegged it has, but some of the lousy production values and the absolute necessity for ultra-violence keep me from truly loving it. A unquestionable must-play (even, I think, for the most rabid anti-Oblivion AIM) and a gift to explorers, but God, what a bit more slap’n'polish could have done for it. I absolutely cannot wait to see what the mod community manages to do with such a great world design, though.
28/10/2008 at 09:02 Dreamhacker says:
The Fallout-cult is locked and loaded for the flamefest!
28/10/2008 at 09:12 Pavel says:
Did you give it 9.6, 8.8 or 9.5 ? Its confusing,regarding what you just wrote here and the big score in that article : /.
28/10/2008 at 09:12 Pavel says:
(Not that I care about scores…but still). Why can’t I edit my posts? : (
28/10/2008 at 09:15 Alec Meer says:
Weirdly, IGN show the US score in big numbers regardless of which locale’s review you’re reading from. I’m the UK one.
(For the thousandth millionth time, the edit plugin is broken as an unintended side-effect of adding the forum. We’re casting about for a fix but haven’t found one yet.)
28/10/2008 at 09:17 Pavel says:
Thank you for clarification, I thought you were the UK one, but had to be sure. Thanks for making the time to answer edit question for a millionth time as well : ).
28/10/2008 at 09:22 Tei says:
How long is the game?, It feels like a console game or a PC title?
28/10/2008 at 09:25 Ian says:
The IGNite AIM are giving Alec’s review quite a slating…
28/10/2008 at 09:26 Diogo Ribeiro says:
To name but a few: friendly NPCs that run directly in front of your bullets (even in the slo-mo VATS mode);
“Right guys, Fallout’s turn-based combat was so piss poor because of AI! Realtime is definitely going to fix that!”
28/10/2008 at 09:26 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Oblivion with guns? Oblivion with bugs, more like.
28/10/2008 at 09:30 Diogo Ribeiro says:
I’m reading the bits of negative criticism and thinking – was the high score in any way influenced by it? Seems like while there were serious issues there, somehow, they didn’t count towards the score.
28/10/2008 at 09:31 aldo says:
Weirdly, IGN show the US score in big numbers regardless of which locale’s review you’re reading from.
That’s a political metaphor right there, that is.
28/10/2008 at 09:36 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Oh man, this bit is great. Look at the final table after the closing comments:
“8.0 Sound
The soundtrack’s brilliant, plumping for period jazz and uber-patriotic brass bands. The acting leaves a lot to be desired, but when you’re roaming the wasteland you won’t hear too much of it.
9.0 Gameplay
The soundtrack’s brilliant, plumping for period jazz and uber-patriotic brass bands. The acting leaves a lot to be desired, but when you’re roaming the wasteland you won’t hear too much of it. ”
:lol:
I’m still wondering if it was worth a 9.
28/10/2008 at 09:37 MonkeyMonster says:
Excellent review I feel – not having played the game of course but now more raring to try it out and practice headshots… and you are darn tooting with that key line in your review – robot butlers are just fun! If only I could have one at work…
28/10/2008 at 09:38 subedii says:
Am I the only one confused by how 8.8 is somehow a low score? Or at least so low as to warrant disdain for being out of line with the rest?
28/10/2008 at 09:39 Alec Meer says:
Diogo – that bit’s a mess-up by internal IGN, not me. But according to the angry readers, it makes me a “douche”, apparently.
Should have read “There’s a ton to do and see, and when it lets you achieve stuff by talking and sleuthing rather than simply shooting, it’s magnificent. It’s a shame it undermines its brains by making the combat animations so puerile”, incidentally.
Subedii – no, you’re not the only one. Most people will only see the first 8 and ignore the .8, I suspect.
28/10/2008 at 09:39 Pavel says:
I wonder why doesn’t Bethesda hire better animators? Or is it engine limitation (doubt it)? Because this is really weird..not that Fallout game is about animations, but still.
28/10/2008 at 09:41 Tei says:
If you have never played Oblivium and you like guns, this is your game.
In other news:
Here is Morrowind with infinite view mod:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=t-cAI-iIFrY
28/10/2008 at 09:42 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Alec – I know the mess wasn’t your fault, I just found it potentially funny :) “The gameplay? Well, there’s sound and stuff…” :lol:
28/10/2008 at 09:47 Alec Meer says:
Tei – man, that’s pretty. Now I need to go play Morrowind again.
28/10/2008 at 09:47 danielcardigan says:
“I absolutely cannot wait to see what the mod community manages to do with such a great world design, though.”
Is there any word on official modder support?
28/10/2008 at 09:49 nabeel says:
Can’t wait to play the game. Interesting take on reviewing, most reviewers have glossed over those minor niggles; do you think it comes from being a PC gamer who’s used to good UI and patchable rough edges?
nabeel
28/10/2008 at 09:51 Korgan says:
At last, a review with some vestige of sanity. Also, the ratings inflation is maddening. 8.8 is “above average” or something these days? Why do reviewers need a 0-10 scale when no POS ever gets less then 5 anyway?
28/10/2008 at 09:53 Feet says:
I think I’ll wait till my PC upgrade in the new year before I buy this, by then some of the issues Alec outlined may have been fixed. Having read Alecs review and the EG review, I think PC is the best choice purely for the mod community support.
28/10/2008 at 09:54 Alec Meer says:
While I’m guessing here, I don’t think the higher scores are glossing over stuff so much as trying to ensure a more interesting game does stand out amidst an endless sea of Christmas action titles. You need to be a buyer’s guide as well as a critique. Similar concerns did occur to me, but I reasoned it wasn’t like this would have a shortage of massive scores.
28/10/2008 at 09:55 subedii says:
Alec, even an 8.0 is a very high score. I honestly can’t see room for complaint on low scoring here. Unless you’re referring to the “my favourite game must be 10!” crowd.
28/10/2008 at 09:59 NeonWraith says:
Ok, so what if I’ve played Oblivion and wasn’t really impressed? Should I still try this?
Also, seriously, since when is 8 a low score? I mean, on a 1-10 scale, 8 is pretty gorram high..
28/10/2008 at 10:04 Alec Meer says:
subedii – Yeah, exactly those folk. Doesn’t help that there /are/ a few 10s out there. And those do baffle me. I could quite easily have justified a 9, but there’s some cock-ups the game just slaps you around the face with.
28/10/2008 at 10:04 Dante says:
@ Diogo
Surely you mean Oblivion with MORE bugs.
28/10/2008 at 10:04 Denis says:
I’m finding the reviews interesting, and noting how they seem to range in their opinions of what does and does not work (some of which I shrug against and realize it comes down to preference), but that the scores rarely fall below an 8 even if the game does somehow have these issues.
It seems this is a title that even if annoying in parts is attracting attention, but not one that is completely being glossed over as with GTA and MGS 4. The litmus test will be whether we’re still talking about it in appreciable terms many months down the road; much as we do with Bioshock, even if we didn’t like how the game turned, it made us passionate because the glimmers of what we saw.
28/10/2008 at 10:07 Alec Meer says:
if it makes things any easier than all this head-scratching over very precise numbers, here’s an instant-o-RPS verdict.
28/10/2008 at 10:14 Feet says:
One thing all reviews seem to agree with is that the VACS system is ingenious and awesome way to gear the combat toward RPG while still playing in an FPS stylee. If it’s genuinely that good, I hope other RPG\FPS games rip it off.
I think, without that I wouldn’t even think of buying it. I’m just a bit of a TBS whore, and the TBS combat is something I think I’d enjoy so long as I could scale back the gratuitous deaths as well.
What’s with the infantile death sequences anyway? This and the new BiA game both have this terrible “feature” in.
28/10/2008 at 10:14 Bobsy says:
As much as Optimus Thumb is awesome, it’s getting a little dated now, shurely? New thumbs are needed!
28/10/2008 at 10:14 aldo_14 says:
Oh well, guess this is on the Xmas list then (Mrs Aldo won’t let me spend any more money myself :( )
28/10/2008 at 10:19 Nallen says:
Following Farcry 2 and Warhead both being purchased on the strength of reviews, I’m saying B*****KS TO REVIEWS, YOU LOT ARE FULL OF IT.
28/10/2008 at 10:20 Voidman says:
Have they kept all the “wacky” features in? Exploding car wrecks? Exploding bodies? Life-un-like animations? Intelligence-insulting quests? Strong emphasis on combat? Mind-blowing AI? How about those 100+ possible endings?
I dread to visit one of the nefarious fanboy domains, the vitriol is likely to seep through the screen glass and melt my face.
By the way, 8.8? Most generous, though inconsistent, I feel, with the content of the review. You must have had some spiffy time sir, no?
28/10/2008 at 10:21 MonkeyMonster says:
How dare thee sir, mock or deride the thumb of power!
28/10/2008 at 10:21 Ben Abraham says:
I much prefer the RPS verdict system. So much simpler, and yet also clearer.
28/10/2008 at 10:37 Dinger says:
I think it’s one of those incomprehensible podcasts where Alec and Kieron are in a shower stall with a dictaphone, and one of them mentions a game review. The other asks, “Oh yeah? What’d they give it?”
I believe numbers are useful. What’s the difference between 7, 8, 9 and 10? A seven means a fan of the genre will be willing to overlook the weak spots. An eight claims that those with a passing interest in the genre will enjoy it. A nine puts all gamers on notice that they will like this game. A ten means even those who don’t own the platform in question should at least buy the game, if not a platform to run it on.
By this set of definitions, the more hardcore the gamer, the lower-score games s/he’ll put up with. There’s no solution to the AIM issue, but based on this, one possible way to mitigate the numeric score police is to have a “hardcore gamma” running the opposite direction, from 0 (Spoiled rich kid) to 10 (table-top troglodyte). That way, you can claim that _because_ Fallout 3 has a hardcore gamma of 2-7, it only gets an 8.8. If it had a hardcore gamma of 1-6, it would have made 9.2, easy, but then the game, not the review, would have pissed off the AIM.
But that’s why I pity the reviewer and the numeric system. And he knows, he just can’t win. If he refuses, someone else will put the figures for him.
28/10/2008 at 10:44 Thirith says:
Thing is, though, I don’t think there are many games that will be enjoyed by people who don’t like the genre. I’ve never found a RTS that I finished, simply because I don’t enjoy the gameplay mechanics. I’ve never found the “9/10 means any gamer will enjoy this” very applicable. It’s just that some genres (e.g. FPS) are more popular than others.
28/10/2008 at 10:48 AbyssUK says:
Can we have a PC review? Has anybody played the PC version? Have you noticed the 360 and ps3 discs are 40 quid while the pc discs are just 24.99 at play.com.. awesome.
28/10/2008 at 10:49 Alec Meer says:
Kieron and I do take a lot of showers together.
28/10/2008 at 10:49 Thiefsie says:
Ordered this yesterday, and with the flood of reviews all read I’m quite happy I did.
Being that Fallout is up there in my top 5 games of all time I just had to at least give it a shot.
I feel a little sad for Pacifism not being an option, and the desexualisation, and no kid killing, and probably an overall lack of detail from the originals. But hey, I get to return to the amazing Fallout world… and that alone makes it sound worthwhile.
28/10/2008 at 10:51 Alec Meer says:
I did complete one quest by repeatedly punching a child in the face.
There are some truly great moments, honest. I just can’t share ‘em without going all spoileriffic. It’s sort of like Vampire Bloodlines, in that there’s some superb setpieces and quests stacked alongside a fair bit of treading so-so combat-centric water.
28/10/2008 at 10:53 Nallen says:
Slightly more interested now…
28/10/2008 at 10:54 Voidman says:
Yes, but did it explode?
28/10/2008 at 10:55 AbyssUK says:
I’d like to point out that most places seem to be 5 quid cheaper than steam.. how does that work…
28/10/2008 at 10:55 AndrewC says:
It would have broken the 9 barrier if there was sexualised kid killing.
28/10/2008 at 10:55 Shadow Aspect says:
I suspect there may not be a proper editor this time around. Reasoning: It’s a GfWL title, and as such, using mods might make Achievements easier. This being the case perhaps Microsoft had some say in it?
28/10/2008 at 10:58 Cataclysm says:
Maybe they’re working on a 10-1 scale, where 1 is awesome and 10 is extremely poor. In only them circumstances could 8.8 be counted as a “low score”.
28/10/2008 at 11:06 Thiefsie says:
I was just curious, you seem to be saying the ending is craptacular, as have some others, but also I read one review (can’t remember now as I’ve read them all) that was saying the end was phenomenal, yet did of course say it ends there without the option to roam afterwards… (I don’t want to guess why…. )
Any reason why the ending is bad? The ending images with 100s of permutations sound a little lame but good enough I suppose? Does the story wrap up in a nice way.. and can be solved in a few ways – a la the original Fallout?
28/10/2008 at 11:06 Kieron Gillen says:
You Douche.
KG
28/10/2008 at 11:11 Thiefsie says:
Oh another quick question.. no ones seems to have really mentioned whether situations/characters/events etc are mentioned from the other Fallout games? Are there not so obvious references in their for us to find and gleefully think that we’re the only people that realise they reference something?
28/10/2008 at 11:12 Alec Meer says:
There was a paragraph about that kind of stuff I had in the review, but axed it cos I was way over the word count. Yeah, there’s some pretty heavy referencing at some points, mostly to explain apparent inconsistencies between the games. Specifically, about the Super-Mutants, the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave.
28/10/2008 at 11:15 Thiefsie says:
Thanks, now I’ve got to wait for my posty for a little while. Oh well Far Cry 2 should arrive in the next day or two to keep me busy. All this thinking about Fallout is really making me itch to start going through 1 & 2 again, but with the rush of games at the moment – not enough time! ahhhhhhhhhh
28/10/2008 at 11:15 Man Raised By Puffins says:
Heh, I like how some of the IGN commenters have arrived at the bizarre conclusion that you rated the game lower as some sort of retribution against the, rather favourable, IGN US Fable 2 review. It’s such an odd conspiracy theory that it took me a second to even fathom where the hell they were even coming from with that one.
28/10/2008 at 11:22 Thirith says:
Since I can’t check out review sites from work (nasty internet filtersss, we hatesss them): what’s the word on stealth? Is it feasible? Is it fun?
28/10/2008 at 11:36 VFIG says:
Bobsy is right: new thumbs needed. I suggest you use the L4D thumb that’s missing from all its ads…
Also, Fallout 3 from play.com for £24.99 beats it from steam at £37.something! Steam, I loved you when you were younger, but now you’re getting old and flabby.
28/10/2008 at 11:37 Hypocee says:
Well, given that mod tools are ‘not even on their schedule’, holding your breath for all the awesome mods might not be wise…
You know folks, MOST sites never even let you edit comments in the first place!
28/10/2008 at 11:38 Kast says:
“It’s sort of like Vampire Bloodlines” – If I hadn’t already pre-ordered it, this would close the deal for me.
28/10/2008 at 11:40 Alec Meer says:
Thirith – stealth isn’t great, especially as it’s fairly rare to encounter just the one enemy: the jig’s generally up as soon as you fire a shot. The damage bonuses are big if you pull it off, though, so it’s worth doing if you’ve a low-HP character.
28/10/2008 at 11:40 kedaha says:
Oh dear, EG gave it 10/10 and heaped praise on Oblivion :(
I dont want to be jaded, but I was wetting my pants looking forward to Oblivion, read the EG review and was over the moon only to find a broken mess of a game with absolutely no heart and soul. Fallout 3 sounds much better, but I’m still wary of slavering reviews to be honest.
Might do Fable 2/Far Cry 2 before I get this!
28/10/2008 at 11:40 Richard Beer says:
There can’t be many professions where you’re so open to the opinionated, childish comments of fanboys and haters. Makes me glad I never really pursued the games side of writing to be honest.
That aside, great review Alec, I really enjoyed reading it. Balanced, informative and I’m sure a lot more revealing that most of the reviews falling over themselves to excrete as much spooge as humany possible over the game. Nice to see the UK is still the home of honest, independent games journalism.
28/10/2008 at 11:41 ChaosSmurf says:
@VFIG: Steam’s only cheaper when it’s behind the times and the dollar is getting weaker or the pound is getting stronger.
@Kast: So long as the end wasn’t “on release”. Delicious bugs.
28/10/2008 at 11:48 MonkeyMonster says:
Last time I looked it was 50 dollah on steam which was 31 squids… Does having to keep the disks safe for all time match 6 pounds worth now? I was gonna get the uber package with bobble head, novella et al (for 36 I think from hamazon) then realised there is really bugger all point in them things and ordered via steam. No discs needed is such a bonus.
28/10/2008 at 11:48 ChaosSmurf says:
Alec – I can’t view your review where I am but your post here suggests you didn’t like the VATS combat system. Is that the case and if so, why?
28/10/2008 at 11:52 maxmcg says:
Funny, I thought Dead Space had some of the best voice acting I’ve heard in a game. Surprised its not up to scratch here.
28/10/2008 at 11:52 Thirith says:
Alec: Thanks for the info. Shame, but I’ll still see how far stealth gets me. I tend to play these games as a sneaker/sniper/thief with a heart of gold-type character. Here’s hoping that there’ll be mods to improve the stealth experience, as with Oblivion (although the absence of a CS might make this impossible).
28/10/2008 at 11:54 Alec Meer says:
Maxmcg – I’d imagine at least some of the problem is the sheer amount of dialogue they’ve had to record (unlike, I’m guessing, the reasonably limited amount of it in Dead Space), and that the randomised/choice-based nature of conversations means they couldn’t really record actual, natural conversations, so there’s this disjointedness. The acting really isn’t terrible, just that quite a few characters are pretty wooden, and on top of the animation problems it upsets the mood.
Chaos – VATS itself is a great system, but all the slo-mo limb ‘splodes that result from it are tiresome, clumsy and juvenile.
And now, I must go quiet for now. Too much other work today to field any more questions, I’m afraid.
28/10/2008 at 11:57 Thirith says:
Alec: Thanks for all the Q&A that you’ve already done. Now go, before we pull VATS on you and reduce your overloaded cranium into a puddle of red goo.
28/10/2008 at 12:07 subedii says:
Alec:
Oh man, I just read the comments section for your IGN review. All of a sudden your concerns about the review score make sense.
I have to ask, do you actually pay attention to those braniacs? I mean, does it get you down when people slate your review because you didn’t score it as highly as some other people did?
28/10/2008 at 12:12 Alec Meer says:
I dunno. It’s hardly superhappytime, but I’d be a fool to let it get to me. When someone’s got a valid point – like pointing out a factual error or an earnest expression of how much they liked/disliked feature x – it’s worth reading and even responding to. When it’s just screaming abuse and conspiracy theories, you just have to silently shrug it off. This is, after all, the internet. And the internet is angry.
28/10/2008 at 12:27 subedii says:
It would be funny if you went off on a Derek Smart-esque rampage through the comments section or something. Gain yourself a notorious reputation. :P
28/10/2008 at 12:29 Joe says:
I hear you, Alec. I’m of pretty much the same opinion, to the point that I’ve delayed our review by a day in order to try and phrase my thoughts better. It’s good, but there’s just something that stops me loving it as much as everyone else.
28/10/2008 at 12:31 Xagarath says:
Have to say, Alec, your review was exactly what I was looking for after the torrent of unbalanced gushing from the normally reliable Eurogamer.
Pity that the dialogue standard in this game doesn’t sound too high, overall. That’s generally the make-or-break factor for RPGs, with me.
28/10/2008 at 12:38 The Sombrero Kid says:
that was an absolutely scathing review with a high score plopped on the end was it not? compared with the other review I’ve read today, it sounds like you’re being very harsh on Bethesda because you’ve been spoiled by bioware, or is it truly the case that the dialogue is more woefully inappropriate and nuts than the witcher EE!?!?
28/10/2008 at 12:41 Alec Meer says:
Joe: yeah – I pretty much settled on it being the iffy characterisation. But still – Tranquility Lane, eh?
Sombrero – absolutely scathing? Hmm. And what have Bioware got to do with anything?
Suspect my criticism of the dialogue comes off as harsher than intended – I meant more that the total package of that, the acting and the animation all being a bit so-so takes the shine off the world.
28/10/2008 at 12:48 Surgeon says:
Personally, I think you should just create an alternative user name and troll the forums.
Unless we all just do it for you :)
I’m glad the the VACS system is good, as it’s the reason i’ve decided to get this for the PS3.
I forget who did the PCG review, but did you find the end disappointing as well Alec?
They basically said, play for as long as possible without completing it, as it’s gash.
28/10/2008 at 12:55 The Sombrero Kid says:
@Alec Meer
cause the dialogue in mass effect was brilltastic of course!
I’m just jealous cause I’m desperate to play it and you’ve already finished it
28/10/2008 at 13:10 MetalCircus says:
Because fallout 1 and 2 were TOTALLY BUG FREE!
Guys, Alec isn’t saying it’s a bad game. Hell, i’m glad it’s like the originals in at least a few ways. Haw haw.
Silly internet people.
28/10/2008 at 13:15 Feet says:
The dialogue in Mass Effect might well have been brilltastic but it had little to zero effect on the outcome of a lot of conversations, your choices never seemed to effect anything, so I might as well just read a good book.
Alec: I will say you seemed to devote as much if not more words to where the game fell short or disappointed you as you did with the words on what was great, and as such when reading it seems like the number at the end doesn’t correspond with that. I mean really if you give a game 8.8 you should spend 88% of your words bigging the game up and just 12% highlighting the flaws. ;)
28/10/2008 at 13:17 Feet says:
Also, I read yours directly after reading the EG review, so your criticisms were even more highlighted as I’d already read about the awesome stuff.
28/10/2008 at 13:21 much2much says:
Yeah too harsh about the voice acting. Witcher subtitles sounds okay because you still are hearing voice. Do you watch TV drama shows and complain about the bad acting all the time? Review a bit too gaming as high art elite.
28/10/2008 at 13:27 sigma83 says:
Mass Effect’s dialogue writing was not always blow-me-away good but it was generally solid and the facial animation is absolutely the high water mark for any game ever.
28/10/2008 at 13:28 Nallen says:
The voice acting and technology in Oblivion was jaw droppingly bad in places, makes you wonder if there is literally no better way of doing it. I suspect until we have realistic computer generated speech this is the bar we’ll have to put up with.
28/10/2008 at 13:33 Tarn says:
Hmm. Looks like the good stuff is genuinely great, but it also looks like my main problems with Oblivion (ie, the writing and acting) are still present.
Bad writing in a pure action game is bad enough, but in an RPG that is absolutely filled with dialogue and story it’s just inexcusable. I could live with the combat in Fallout 3 being sub-standard, but not the writing, alas.
I wonder why Bethesda don’t address the areas in which they so clearly have deficiencies? ie, writing and animating. Hire a few people that know what they’re doing and their games would take a quantum leap forwards.
28/10/2008 at 13:42 Nimic says:
Honestly, I’m a bit tired of reviews which make you think “average”, or in this case “above average”, and then slap something like 8.8 at you. I’m not so stupid that I think that anything which gets an 8 or more (or even a 10) is a game I would enjoy, but I do think this score inflation has gone a little far.
I don’t expect it to be a “true” 1-10 scale, where games regularly get lower than 5, though. I guess I could equate it to the Football Manager player ratings. 6 is average, 7 is a bit above average, 8 is good, 9 (as in, 8.8) is great, and 10 is silly good. Anything below 6 is poor, and the number pretty much depends on how mean you want to be to an already poor game.
On the other hand, for all I know you really could think it’s a very good game. Your comments here certainly suggest it’s something to definitely try out, so I will!
28/10/2008 at 13:46 nabeel says:
For the RPS verdict on this you should do a podcast. Like, with everyone this time.
nabeel
28/10/2008 at 13:53 Heliocentric says:
Anyone who only understands the numbers as judgement deserved everything they get. The numbers are useless because of the publisher being so able to hurt the media outlet if they find the reviews to be hurting them. And these games get no demo, so users need the media.
We are the stepchild in the abusive relationship between the publisher and the media. I’m glad rps took the angle they did,
1up went to letters to try and escape the psychology of numbers. I find that makes a c average and it still lands at the feet of average games.
But 1up are hype whores who give all halo kitty games ten out of ten.
28/10/2008 at 13:53 Dinger says:
#1 way to improve the voice acting in a video game: turn off the subtitles. With the subtitles, you notice more quickly that the actors are reading lines. Try it some time with any Joss Whedon show — pop on the English subtitles and watch the magic evaporate.
28/10/2008 at 14:00 Butler` says:
Looking foward to it, though probably on PS3.
28/10/2008 at 14:05 Thiefsie says:
@heliocentric – yet GameRankings and Metacritic both assign numerical values to I1up’s letter rating, essentially defeating the purpose
28/10/2008 at 14:05 Alec Meer says:
Dinger – don’t agree, actually. Been playing GTA 4 last couple of days, which has subs on by default, and the acting still comes off as great (if generally exaggerated for comic effect).
Again though – Fallout’s writing/acting isn’t generally especially bad, and is definitely better than Oblivion. At times, it’s flat-out great, and the writing does shine in some of the log entries you find on old computers. At other times, it’s pretty lousy, especially for more incidental characters. It’s just that the intermittent fallings-down on that front are exacerbated by the poor animation, so characters don’t make the impact they should. I really wish I’d made it clearer in the review that it’s the overall characterisation package, rather than the individual elements of it, that doesn’t click. There’s absolutely no-one in the game I found myself caring about because of it. Even when you get a Follower, you don’t communicate with him/her/it beyond assigning tactics (which there’s no call to change anyway). A companion for potentially hours, but it’s like being followed around by a murderous shop dummy.
28/10/2008 at 14:14 thefanciestofpants says:
As a man who procures his livelihood from 3d animation(characters, in particular), I fully endorse Meer’s opinion on bethesda’s frankly bafflingly awful animation.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of TES and have FO3 on pre-order(stupid australia), but their animations just flat-out suck. It’s really hard to fathom that this is STILL the case(which it clearly is, from the videos I’ve seen) with such obscene amounts of money flying around.
I can’t help but assume that Bethsoft’s lead animator is Pete Hines’ nephew or some shit. I mean really. Can’t wait till I can mod for this and put in my own animations.
28/10/2008 at 14:23 cyrenic says:
Looks like my concerns about the writing from watching the trailers are confirmed.
Excellent review Alec, I’m getting tired of reviews getting caught up in the hype and slapping a 10 on any game they like.
28/10/2008 at 14:25 Benjamin Finkel says:
Dinger – I’ve watched Firefly and Serenity with subtitles many times. Still magical.
Ben
28/10/2008 at 14:29 Yargh says:
More games should have murderous shop dummies in them (come to think of it there were some, sort of, in Rapture)…
As for the review, it looks like many people only concentrate on what they don’t want to see (such as any kind of criticism). They seem totally oblivious to the many many times Alec says the game is great when they complain about his score and the review not being in harmony.
28/10/2008 at 14:34 Bobsy says:
@Alec:
“At times”…
At times the acting in Oblivion was great. Specifically, the times when Sean Bean and Patrick Stewart were talking. I first raised a worried eyebrow at Fallout 3 when I read in PCG that Liam Neeson was doing the voice of Emperor Septim or whoever. I think it’s a cynical and irresponsible waste of funds to throw a VA budget at one or two big names and let the rest go to waste.
I mean, at times the acting in Freelancer’s utterly sublime (marry me, Jennifer Hale. Just so I can hear you read the vows), but then all the bit players are apparently voiced by whoever was passing the studio at the time.
28/10/2008 at 14:39 thefanciestofpants says:
The More I think about it, it seem’s that Bethsoft’s overwhelming tendancy to stick with the same people(Animators, writers and voice-actors specifically) is what trashes their otherwise fairly high production values.
Alec is totally on the money though, they totally choke when it comes to details.
I’m still buying FO3 but I’m looking forward to Borderlands more(thanks in large part to drop-in persistant co-op, but still!).
28/10/2008 at 14:40 dhex says:
There can’t be many professions where you’re so open to the opinionated, childish comments of fanboys and haters.
professional sports?
28/10/2008 at 14:41 Fede says:
@Feet: Maybe, as many others are just spending words praising it, it’s probably better to concentrate on what’s wrong with it, and let the score tell how much you liked the rest.
28/10/2008 at 14:54 Cooper42 says:
I was wondering and worrying about the gore form the off. I’ve said this many times, but, anyway; the gore in Fallout worked because it was animated. It was comedic and often hilarious because of that. All of the preview footage I’ve seen of Fallout3 has none of that. Sure, lots of gore, but it came across as crass and gratuitous.
I just hoped that maybe that’s because I was watching, not playing. But to read the comments about how purile it is saddens me… The animation, as blurry as it was, was one of the finest points of the original…
28/10/2008 at 14:56 Morph says:
Hang on, so the internet no longer thinks Bethesda are going to ruin Fallout? It’s now the perfectest game of all time? I wish the internet would make up its mind.
28/10/2008 at 15:01 The Sombrero Kid says:
i think it’s worth pointing out that I and I assume everyone else has no idea how much Liam Neesons voice cost I expect like Patrick Stewart he had about 4 lines so I’d guess not a hell of a lot, it’s the volume of spoken words that costs them compared to other companies I’d guess.
28/10/2008 at 15:03 Ian says:
@ Morph: I think people are defending Alec’s review rather than the game itself as I don’t believe it’s been released yet, has it? Not where I or most other RPSers are anyway, I think.
28/10/2008 at 15:03 Alec Meer says:
Neeson has a lot of dialogue in this, actually. Probably the most of any one character, in fact.
28/10/2008 at 15:11 ChampionHyena says:
EIGHT POINT EIGHT!? BREAK OUT THE TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS
28/10/2008 at 15:11 The Sombrero Kid says:
there goes that theory then, i still think actors are crawling over themselves to be in games and wont be charging too much cause they can see the revenue being sapped away from their primary medium and their kids tell them how awesome it’d be.
28/10/2008 at 15:19 Malagate says:
@thefanciestofpants, if you do slap on your own custom animations, do share please! Even if it’s only a video, I’d be very interested to see the difference. I would find it hilarious if you managed to get a job from Bethseda out of it!
28/10/2008 at 15:26 Feet says:
@Fede: Hehe, yes I was actually just kidding when I said that. ;) I’d much rather the text actually critique the game, as well as lauding what it gets right, via text and score. No game is genuinely perfect anyway. Except Solitaire. Can’t get me enough of that sol.
28/10/2008 at 15:37 Shawn says:
I have to admit, I love the over the top violence..maybe it’s just the American in me, but it’s very pleasing
28/10/2008 at 15:47 Turin Turambar says:
Fallout never had a great plot/dialogue. It was excellent in what it makes a RPG a Role Playing Game. It’s not the quality in the plot or the Oscar worthy dialogue, but how you can choose the dialogue and how you can affect the plot/quests. I will repeat it:
ROLE PLAYING GAME => To play a role. Videogames aren’t still like a pen&paper rpg, so you have to role play your character with the options given by the game developers. Things like dialogue options, ways to solve a quest, if you prefer combat or stealth, if you screw the mafia boss’s daughter and wife in New Reno, if you give a good quest item or keep it for yourself, etc.
That’s where the old Fallouts shine.
28/10/2008 at 15:49 Turin Turambar says:
…. And where i hope Fallout 3 will be a good game, also.
Any comments in that regard, Alec or Kieron?
28/10/2008 at 15:52 kwyjibo says:
That you’re having to justify giving a game 8.8 because you think you’re going to be flamed shows that something is seriously fucking wrong with the games press.
I hope your perception of online reaction didn’t lead you to skew the score higher than you believed it deserved. Although given your post here, I’m assuming that it did.
28/10/2008 at 15:57 Alec Meer says:
It didn’t, Captain Presumpto. I don’t care about being flamed – merely stated that I would be flamed.
(Though I’ll say that that kind of tinfoil hattery is pretty close to flaming itself).
28/10/2008 at 15:57 smorg says:
The thing with AIM is they are basically sheep jumping on a bandwagon. Whether a game is heavily criticized or gets 10/10 they go with the popular opinion. Someone poor reviewer expresses a slightly more negative or positive opinion its pitchforks and flames. And most angry commenters have probably not even played the game yet.
28/10/2008 at 16:00 Pijama says:
Alec, be not influenced by those silly AIM. I believe your review was spot-on (could have used more cynicism and sarcasm for a true “fallout effect” – OH I AM WITTY HUH). But for true internet funnies, you should have talked with the NMA guys before doing the review.
It would be insta-ROFLMAO.
28/10/2008 at 16:03 Hélder Pinto says:
“I absolutely cannot wait to see what the mod community manages to do with such a great world design, though. ”
You can’t make mods for F3.
28/10/2008 at 16:10 Thirith says:
HP: There won’t be a CP (most likely) – which is not the same as saying that there won’t be any mods. You’d be amazed at the games out there that have highly intricate mods even though there was never a CP or mod kit of any kind.
28/10/2008 at 16:20 The Sombrero Kid says:
i thought they hadn’t ruled it out for later on?
28/10/2008 at 16:25 Mark Stephenson says:
@Alec or anyone who can answer definitively
Can VATS be used without the slowmo effect afterwards?
28/10/2008 at 16:28 Alec Meer says:
No
28/10/2008 at 16:30 SPEEDCORE says:
HAHAHHAHA. C’mon I can’t believe you guys fall for the console review BS with every game! Every major title gets a 9+ rating but rarely are they 9+ games.
Official XBOX mag gave it 10/10 you expect that but eurogamer? Actually visiting their site it looks like a huge ad for fallout 3… hmm not surprised by the review score now.
28/10/2008 at 16:32 Cooper42 says:
Like Clear Sky, I’ve chalked this one up as;
‘To come back to in six months and see what the modding community has done with it’.
28/10/2008 at 16:34 Mark Stephenson says:
Cheers for the quick reply :(
28/10/2008 at 16:50 clovus says:
I can’t read reviews right now, and I don’t think this would be mentioned anyway.
Does anyone know if this game autoscaling? I really hated that in Oblivion. I’m hoping the nature of Fallout 3 would make that an obviously stupid thing to include.
28/10/2008 at 16:53 Jimmay says:
I have heard that the scaling is gone. If you visit downtown DC in your first 5 minutes, you’re asking to be stomped by a very large Super-Mutant. I don’t know if that’s the final version, though… Alec?
28/10/2008 at 16:55 Vinraith says:
I’ll pick it up when and if they release mod tools, and not a moment before.
28/10/2008 at 16:57 Ian says:
I’m getting a little bit confused about what I read re: scaling. it seems to suggest that areas scale to you when you first visit them, that they then set themselves BUT you can also find areas which don’t scale to you and you’ll get your backside handed to you on a platter.
I’m probably just misunderstanding the scaling system so a little clarification would be welcome here, too. :)
28/10/2008 at 17:09 Iain says:
@Bobsy: Back off. Jennifer Hale’s mine.
28/10/2008 at 17:19 Dorsch says:
@Speedcore: You sound really crazy. I hope you are aware of this.
28/10/2008 at 17:22 Jimmay says:
Well I guess Alec really IS doing work! ;)
I was wondering if I’m alone on this. A good friend of mine is of the opinion that multi-platform games are designed with the console as the primary audience and the PC market as an afterthought. I think the PC market is alive and well and certain games (such as complex RPGs like Fallout) deserve to be played on the PC. His point is that I should just bite the bullet and buy an Xbox or Playstation (which I can afford) instead of saving for a new computer (which I can’t… yet). What do you folks think?
28/10/2008 at 17:24 clovus says:
@ my post above: Me fail english! Unpossible!
@Ian: Great, so now I get a scaling system that I can’t understand instead of one that is annoying but easily gamed. I was hoping for the best kind of scaling: none.
28/10/2008 at 17:29 Butler` says:
Unfortunately, Jimmay, the best (debatable) console on the market is also the least reliable. So, in a word, no.
28/10/2008 at 17:44 Mo says:
The 360 isn’t the unreliable beast it used to be. Indeed, you hear fewer complaints about RRODs today than you did around this time last year. A 360 purchased today has been patched up and is reliable. And in the worst case, if it does get busted, Microsoft will repair it free of charge. Still a noisy beast, mind.
Jimmay, your friend is right … kinda. I wouldn’t say the PC market is an “afterthought”, but a majority of games in development have their lead development platform being one of the consoles.
28/10/2008 at 17:52 Butler` says:
You’re telling someone that is on his fourth unique console and second Elite – with a history of 7 returns over a two year period. ;]
28/10/2008 at 18:14 Calabi says:
If you lose a bet with a Mutant do you have to bunk up with them?
That should be the penalty if you go fighting mutants which are too high level. They dont kill you, you just have to endure, horrific fmv, for 30 minutes as you get passed around like a kebab, after you get thrown into the gutter and, have to walk around like a cowboy for a bit.
28/10/2008 at 18:31 Paul Moloney says:
“His point is that I should just bite the bullet and buy an Xbox or Playstation (which I can afford) instead of saving for a new computer (which I can’t… yet). What do you folks think?”
Unclean, unclean. Blasphemer!
*ahem*
Speaking as someone about to spend €250 on a graphics card, which I could instead spent on an XBox 360, I’d be a PC gamer ’til the end. Why? I guess various reasons. Sure, you spend more on hardware, but you invariably spend a lot less on games themselves. If you buy 2 full-price games a month – not unreasonable – you’d save €40 a month, or €480 a year!
Couple with that, you have an unparalleled back-catalogue of games that you can play with the latest graphical wizardry. Morrowind on a modern PC, with the latest mods, versus Morrowind on an XBox 360? No comparison.
The mouse is still the best peripherial for first-person games.
I’m sure others can add more. But do not turn to the Dark Side, padawan. XBoxes, Wiis, PS3s…. easily they flow, quick to join you.
P.
28/10/2008 at 18:43 sinister agent says:
At times the acting in Oblivion was great. Specifically, the times when Sean Bean and Patrick Stewart were talking.
Was there a special edition with totally rerocrded dialogue or something? Patrick Stewart was so-so and only had about six lines before carking it, and Sean Bean was utterly dismal for the whole of the couple of missions I bothered to put up with him before getting bored and going off to murder peasants.
Anyway. Sounds like they cocked up in many significant, but not devastating ways, precisely as they should have given the billions of times those same cock ups were denounced in Obliv. But I’m glad to hear it’s still a decent game, and I suspect it’ll have more longevity via the mods than Oblivion did, if only because it won’t be 80% lousy lord of the rings/generic fantasy gubbins compiled by people with no imagination whatsoever.
28/10/2008 at 18:46 Tim James says:
I’m curious why you think the reviews are “extraordinarily high.” I don’t think the aggregated numbers are going to be nearly as high as GTA4 or even Bioshock, where for both games I thought the reaction was a bit much (though I haven’t played GTA4).
28/10/2008 at 19:01 Nick says:
Yeah, the reviews for Bioshock and Oblivion were rather stupidly high I thought, they seem to be less based on OMGZHYPE/GRAPHICS for Fallout 3 though, being more conservative it’s good thus 80′s (or 8s..or even 7s) than 99.9 100.
It’ll find logevity via mods only if they actually have time (between releasing shitty premimum downloads) to release an editor.
28/10/2008 at 19:08 Tim James says:
Exactly, and I think Fallout3 is both more niche and far more likely to attract criticism, for the situation surrounding it and because it retains a lot of stuff from Oblivion, where it’s easy to dock points for failure to improve. Take away the first two games, and release this around Oblivion’s era and reviews would be up to absurd levels. :)
28/10/2008 at 19:13 spd from Russia says:
Hi Alec Meer. Your review is very sad :( Thank you for being critical tho.
But you didnt say much about the important parts of the FO3 as an RPG: – charachtrer development, the use of S.P.E.C.I.A.L skills, choices, and quests…
28/10/2008 at 19:16 Jimmay says:
Thanks for the input, guys. I’m always going to be a PC gamer at heart, I got started on a PC with Civilization 2 and the had my heart opened up with Half-Life! It’s just frustrating cause it IS so expensive. I’m running off my old college laptop, which has a great processor and plenty of ram, but I can’t upgrade the video card in it, and I’m stuck at 128MB. I’ve been waiting for Fallout 3 for over a year, and it really sucked to learn I couldn’t play it without buying a new rig.
Here’s hoping for a holiday miracle! :)
28/10/2008 at 19:24 Larington says:
I don’t pay any attention to the review scores to be honest, as a wannabe game designer, I’ll learn far more from examing what mistakes reviewers thought were contained in the game than from some number which gets metacritiqued into pointlessness anyway.
I have a sneaking suspicion lots of journalists occasionally get tempted to write a 5 out of 10 or less review for a game which is garaunteed to get a 10/10 review from several of the less exacting reviewers who forget theres no such thing as a perfect game.
28/10/2008 at 19:24 Frosty840 says:
Any word on how good/bad the map is?
I felt somewhat lied to with the Far Cry 2 map and its annoying “jungle corridors”. It really didn’t have the open feel that I wanted/thought-it-was-going-to-have, and I’m concerned that the corridor’d “open” map will be endemic to this generation of console-originated games.
Any thoughts on that from those who’ve played the game
28/10/2008 at 19:32 Larington says:
I sympathise Jimmay, thing is, PC Gaming is far more likely to attract independent development (Being a decidedly more open platform), so if you regularly try out the indie games that the good folks RPS mention, its worth sticking with PC (Console games are generally more expensive anyway).
If you’re only really interested in block buster games and you have no problems with a gamepad controller, maybe it might be worth considering it, especially since I recently read that some supermarket chains were selling 360′s at £99, prompting certain specialist retailers including game to pop round to their local supermarche and pick up extra stock (No kidding).
Me? I can’t stand the gamepad controller method, except for racing games, though Goldeneye did have an aiming system that made the gamepad system bearable for me. I do have a Wii, but, curiously that seldom gets used (Partly because of access to a TV that might be being watched at the time).
28/10/2008 at 19:46 suibhne says:
Why is everyone assuming mod tools will actually be forthcoming? I don’t doubt the clever PC modders might be able to fix some issues or add some content even without an SDK or toolset, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Beth took a very long time to deliver tools…if ever.
28/10/2008 at 20:08 futage says:
“had pegged? it has!” is my new favourite turn of phrase.
28/10/2008 at 20:28 Mo says:
Jimmay, it may be a good idea to buy a 360 now, and getting a mid-end PC later. The wonderful thing about consoles is that they’re no-fuss (when they work: see Butler ‘s post :) ). Buy a 360 now, and you won’t have to worry about upgrading for many years. Save up money for a mid-end PC, and don’t get another laptop. Laptops are useful (I love mine for doing game development on the go) but they aren’t a great idea for PC gamers on a budget. Play the big blockbuster games on Xbox, and play indie, modable and multiplayer games on PC.
28/10/2008 at 21:01 Deadpan says:
All I need to know is at what point do we get the option for Bloody Mess?
28/10/2008 at 21:02 Deadpan says:
I’m sorry. I forgot to mention ALL games need a Bloody Mess perk.
28/10/2008 at 21:32 D says:
@Deadpan. I guess it might be at character creation? Although they’ve switched the original Fallout system around, so you might be able to pick it up later aswell. I dunno. But did you completely miss the paragraphs about the overtly displayed gore gets very tired after a while? Fallout had great Bloody Messes because it was humorous, this next gen gore sounds like fail to me.
Anyways, great review to Alec, man that internet thing sucks (RPS commenters excluded), and I’ll probably be getting this. In a couple of years.
28/10/2008 at 21:40 Deadpan says:
Yes. But I also saw the X-Play segment where they used Teddy Bears (!!!) as a projectile munition.
VAT to the Head + Teddy Bears + Bloody Mess = Awesomenuts.
The gore probably does get tired. I hope BM is optional at the start of character generation. Of course, I also wished I could use my PipBoy as a backup melee weapon.
Beth said they would work on Mod support for F3 later along the line, right?
28/10/2008 at 22:00 Mitza says:
My God… this is so so bad. And the worst part is, I think they did OK on the atmosphere, but God, the basic game mechanics just plain suck. I played for the last hour or so and it was painful.
I know I have to play more than just 1h to judge it better but, come on… 10/10? I just lost my respect for Eurogamer :(
28/10/2008 at 22:13 Down Rodeo says:
What I would like to know is if it was 8.75 or 8.84 out of ten, or was it somewhere in between? I feel you’re not going into enough detail here.
Of course, I kid, but since I don’t have a lot of interest in this game (lacking many of the things needed to play it, such as time and a decent PC) I’ll stay away from the review and its seemingly toxic comments. Personally I find your reviews to be of a high standard anyway that I’d trust whate’er you had said about it. And I’d like to think that I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the score – buying second-hand games with lower scores when first they came out has hopefully robbed me of those prejudices, reducing “never play” to “play later”. Maybe.
28/10/2008 at 22:18 Calabi says:
Beths games have no atmosphere, except for morrowind and in that your reminded that its a game as soon as you speak to an npc.
Oblivion was a game made by accountants. Fallout 3 looks like its accountants with guns.
28/10/2008 at 22:36 Little Green Man says:
If anyone wants to see a good example of what people can do with no SDK or Construction Set, just a can-do attitude and a lot of spare time, look at Stalker. That game had brilliant mods made by people fiddling around in the game files.
28/10/2008 at 22:37 Willem says:
“Fallout 3 looks like its accountants with guns.”
Frankly, that would be awesome.
28/10/2008 at 22:40 Deadpan says:
Not as fun as Nuns with Guns on the Run from a Crucifixion.
*drums fingers waiting for work to end so he can raid Fry’s for a copy of F3*
28/10/2008 at 22:52 Larington says:
Or maybe accountant pirates with guns?
Sailing on the wide accountant-sea/accountancy (Kudos if you worked out where thats from).
28/10/2008 at 22:58 Andrew F says:
It’s 2008.
You don’t. Get kudos. For Python.
28/10/2008 at 23:20 Leeks! says:
I think all your critiques are sound, Meer, though I do disagree on one point: The All Important Violence. The violence in the first two Fallouts was silly and overblown as well, so I don’t think the irony of the hyper-gore is lost on Betheseda. That said, the hilariously bad walking/running animations certainly aren’t intentional, and probably don’t do much to bolster my argument here.
28/10/2008 at 23:24 ack says:
Good review Alec!
The VATS slo-mo ultra-violence part really turned me off, it always seemed it would be like playing the originals with the “Bloody Mess” perk, which got tired after about 20 minutes.
What made the violence in fallout 1&2 humourous (phew spelling?) was the shock effect from scoring a critical, not just the animations. It’s a way of communicating “wow now you got lucky” to the player. I’m not surprised that the big B missed the “subtle” points regarding that particular part though after reading the developer interviews.
And like spd from russia; What about character development? Is S.P.E.C.I.A.L alive and kicking?
29/10/2008 at 01:31 x25killa says:
I don’t give a crap for ratings/ranks/decimal points/raging fanboys.
All I want to know is this: Good game or not? And no, I have not played oblivion and is it worth paying that extra bit of money for the exclusive collector items?
29/10/2008 at 02:34 N says:
Oki dok, playing it as we speak, barely got out of the vault… It seems somewhat promising for now, I just finished far cry 2 and man was that one helluva’ frustrating game… these release dates are killing us…
The animations are indeed drowning in a pool of god damned uncanny, if you watch your character run from 3rd person view it’s like gazing upon a retarded proto-neanderthal shambling his way around… not to mention npc’s seem to *slide* along instead of actually stepping on the ground they tread.
Dialogue is meh for the most of it; at first everything seems pretty decent in the vault, with your father and most characters being voiced quite well… but then you go to megaton, and mista’ chucklat norris says howdy pardna’…
29/10/2008 at 03:05 Hoernchen says:
Leaving vault 101 and killing a minigun-wielding super mutant with my lame ass gun just five minutes later – maybe not a bad game, but come on, that’s not fallout !
29/10/2008 at 07:35 ScornfulPanda says:
“a relief to anyone who’s spent the last two years hearing Brother Jauffre’s omnipresent waffle in their nightmares”
Reason nr1 why I never finished Oblivion.
29/10/2008 at 07:48 Metronome says:
I think they need to change how they rate the game. Lately I have seen a lot of game with a lot of rating. Seriously, so MANY games with super good rating(9 to even 10 over 10 rating) that you can not even differ them anymore, while may be the only reason why the game got that high rating is because it is popular…
But anyway, I have played fallout 1 and fallout 2, so playing this game is kinda a must.
29/10/2008 at 09:02 Voidman says:
Quote:
“… come on, that’s not fallout !” (you mean Fallout surely)
Still, that’s pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?
29/10/2008 at 09:46 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Vince D. Weller over at IronTower Studios is having a go at it.
“I run into two armed guards in combat gear. The guards manage to reduce my health from 200 to 141, but die easily. Then I kill more guards. Then I kill the overseer. Then I kill some more guards, leaving a dead vault behind. At lvl 1. Unskilled. Wearing nothing but my vault pajamas.”
29/10/2008 at 12:38 kwyjibo says:
I’d be more convinced with your flame retardantness had the tone of your post not been so apologetic. About how you tried so hard to love it but couldn’t, and then still give it 8.8.
You could plant the text of your review somewhere else and give it a 7 and it wouldn’t look out of place. But then again, it’s IGN, congruence between scores and text aren’t relevant. All that matters is that it appears near the top at Metacritic.
29/10/2008 at 12:55 Ian says:
I don’t see the problem finding a consistency from Alec’s review to the final score. If he’d reeled off a huge list of faults and things he couldn’t be doing with and then rated it highly with hardly a positive comment that’d be one thing. As it is, he elaborates on a few issues, some of which are related (a few different friendly NPC issues from the acting to their behaviour), while also taking time to praise aspects such as the basic way that VATs works, the setting and most importantly the game as a whole package.
It’s not a reviewer’s fault if you choose to only absorb the poor comments and then whine about the final score. I wasn’t struck by that review as it being “I don’t like it but I’ll grudgingly mark it up” so much as “I really like this game and wish these things didn’t stop it being one of my favourites.”
29/10/2008 at 13:30 pedestrian says:
I’m in acronym hell right now. What the devil does AIM stand for?! Antisocial Internet Masses? Someone put me out of my misery.
29/10/2008 at 13:43 Kieron Gillen says:
“Angry Internet Men”
KG
29/10/2008 at 14:07 Ian says:
What worries me about the “Angry Internet Men” acronym is that it might have only been the start of this thread where I saw it for the first time, and I’m already using it as though it’s the norm.
Stupid internet. >:(
29/10/2008 at 14:14 suibhne says:
The example of STALKER modding isn’t a good one, because those devs did a magnificent job of leaving their game data lying around where anyone could fiddle and faddle with it. (And yes, I mean that as praise. Heck, I was able to mod my own STALKER client’s respawn values with only a 2-minute learning curve.) At least in my cursory glances through FO3′s game files, I haven’t seen any similarly open, fiddle-able/faddle-able data. Yes, user communities have significantly modded games that were probably much less friendly than this one…but I still wouldn’t expect to see user mods anytime soon with mod tools or an SDK.
For me, Bethesda’s typical level of polish is exemplified at the very beginning of FO3, when the Overseer presents you with your PipBoy – and rather than you reaching out and accepting it, the PipBoy simply vanishes into thin air. HL2 and even earlier games “solved” this “problem” years ago, and it seems particularly outdated in the age of first-person animation like that in Far Cry 2. Bethesda is such a weird mix of clunky old-school amateurishness and top-dollar mainstream pretension, with a good dollop of Hollywood shallowness thrown in.
29/10/2008 at 14:20 Nick says:
AOL Instant Messenger =(
Actually quite apt.
29/10/2008 at 14:22 Deadpan says:
Well. I picked up the collector’s edition last night. Pretty much for the bobblehead, which is proudly serving as flair for my cubicle as I write this.
Installation was a snap. I didn’t even have to give it a serial, which I found odd. And I never got bugged about WFGL at all.
I managed to not kill the Overseer. And managed to get a little questing in before I turned in.
Sadly, Bloody Mess wasn’t available at the first couple of levels. But I did manage to cheat (a leetle bit) and build the Rock-It Launcher (woot!).
A few minor issues I’ve found…
- I didn’t see an option to adjust resolution, but all the pretties were turned to 11 on my machine and ran just fine.
- Like in Oblivion, it’s really easy to accidentally ‘steal’ something and get the snot beaten out of you when trying to sit down.
But it’s been fun so far.
29/10/2008 at 17:22 Okami says:
Look Mom! I’ve found some flamebait! Can I keep it? Please, mom? Pretty please?
29/10/2008 at 17:25 Ian says:
That scathing assault on Alec’s writing was both hilarious and on the money. Bravo!
“stick in with your English lessons”. Classic!
30/10/2008 at 12:16 Paul Moloney says:
Does anyone know if or when play.com is shipping the game? I won’t receive a notification email myself as I’m getting it as a present, but was just getting impatient (Far Cry 2 is keeping me thoroughly engrossed for the meantime; blowing up multiple vehicles never gets old).
P.
30/10/2008 at 12:19 Dan Milburn says:
I ordered from play.com on Tuesday, it shipped same day and arrived this morning.
30/10/2008 at 12:54 AbyssUK says:
@Dan and Paul
I got mine today also.
31/10/2008 at 23:55 Simon Jones says:
Received this as a birthday present and finally got round to trying it out tonight. Only just stepped out of the Vault, so can’t speak for the world outside at all.
However, the entire Vault section was a little embarassingly lame. Sluggish combat, although VATS is fun (but also a bit random when playing from a first person perspective). Their attempts to do a proper FPS right-click-zoom thing are rather sad due to the weapons failing to go to proper ‘iron-sights’ – what exactly is the point otherwise? It just becomes a strange zoom lens. Voice acting so far is adequate – Neeson is good – but the animation and behaviour of characters is staggeringly awful. The crazy zoom/pan thing on dialogue actually seems more intrusive than it was in Oblivion. Graphics don’t seem to have moved on since Oblivion either, so seem rather limited compared to, say, Bioshock (which had a generally similar setting to the Vault), Call of Duty 4 (which had great animation) or Half Life 2 (which had mostly convincing characters).
The entire Vault section feels like a first draft. There are great ideas in there, and structurally it’s very clever. But there’s absolutely zero polish – this is the kind of state it should be in early in development. That it’s been released and is still this clunky really confuses me – it’s not like Bethesda have a lack of cash.
Odd.
02/11/2008 at 17:38 jeremy says:
Seems to me like the PC will be the definitive version to get as I suspect the modding community will fix alot of these problems fairly quickly. I expect there will be a mod to remove the vats slowmo gore hijinks very soon.
04/11/2008 at 13:56 MacQ says:
I think this is the first RPG that was boring to me from the early start. I was jawning all the way to Megaton. There it became a little more interesting, but I still can’t shake the Oblivionish feeling about it all. It just throws me off the Fallout feeling and I can’t really immerse (used a popular term here :P).
Hope it will get better soon.
04/11/2008 at 15:48 Calabi says:
Their games always seem to lack immersion. I think anyone can notice the difference between Oblivion and The Witcher.
The Witcher has immersion it has context, you may be doing boring quests collecting animal parts. But it has a good reason, everything in the world fits together. Monsters dont just pop up out of nowhere to attack the player because the designers think it might be fun to have an encounter every 1.03 minutes.
You can easily avoid monsters if wish and you can easily find ones that you might want because they have a reality and a behaviour which causes carrion monsters to be found near corpses, etc.
Building a world takes more than just plonking down randomnly towns, creatures, and items.
Even the older RPGs had the conceit to pretend to be something more than a game by keeping things as contexual and consistent as possible, and by always obeying their own internal rules.
With Oblivion and Morrowind I always knew it was a game when I tried certain things, which is ok, but thats not really what RPGs are about.