WriteGuard

My favorite internet username is probably Natalie Portmanteau. That's classic. I know someone whose tag was Daniel Plainviewsonic. Not quite as pithy. But Natalie Portman is hilarious. I still love the rap video she made on SNL where she told everyone to "Shut the **** up, suck my ****!" Coming from her, it sounded like gossamar song from angels.

First of all, congrats on portmanteau. So people articulate their knowledge of Portmanteaus. Very Jeopardy savvy of you. Love that word. Second, I want to see FO4 or any subsequent FO proginy be more of a brilliantly conceived multipurpose tool, a la Gerber or Leatherman. That'd sumtin'!

I played doom last night. 15 years later, and entertaining.

Are you guys going to have the same "War...war never ends...." voice actor? That seems to be a continuous phenomena over the course of the fallouts.

Agreed. But that's not what I was addressing. I was addressing the overall view of the game and the colored commentary. Factual, specific complaints about parts of the game are both valid and elucidating. @Oner: I see your point. I enjoyed some aspects of FO3 and hated others, regardless of my overall opinion of the game. Though, I disagree with your view of the ending. If we're looking at this game mimetically (through a scope of how close it is to the morals, values and reality of "real life") then the ending works. We are so often put into situations in life that we have no choice in, and regardless of what we do, we are judged, often harshly and negatively. This is a Catch-22. FO1&2 did do this better, though. It shouldn't matter how many soda bottles you collect for some crazy b!tch who lives under a freeway; that should be how you're remembered.

Sorry, I don't, at least in F3's case. It had the chance to impress me, but failed. You precisely made my point. By being unimpressed by FO3, you imbue a natural bias into the conversation. We're not necessarily talking about extremes (I LOVE it or HATE it), we're talking about a subtle bias that sways your overall perspective. I'm touching on something that's much larger than Fallout. Bias is something we all have. Whether it is intentional or not, our brains structure works on creating pattern recognition through descrimination.

I think this may represent the crux of the argument. If, like RPGMaster you had a generally bad first impression and experience with FO3, you are more apt to dismiss it and find fault. If you had a generally favorable first impression of FO3, or at least had "Fun" playing it, you're more apt to defend it, or at minimum, find value in some of it (more like me, and some other's represented here.) We all bring prejudices, consciously or unconsciously, into a situation. These prejudices color our view of FO3. Regardless of this, we all agree, at some basic level, with the following statement: Fallout 3 could've been a much better game and we hope FO4, FO:NLV are better games.

I established this specific strand to discuss the writing in Fallout 3. And, by and large, the discussion went well. Some good points were bandied on both sides of the proverbial trenches (i.e. support for some aspects of FO3 Vs. Complete dismissal of FO3's writing as crap middle schoolers could best). at some point it reverted to an all out smiting of Fallout 3. Oh well. But at the end of the day, this is a FO3 specific message board topic. We will lament of FO3 and it's flaws as long as this is the topic. criticism of that fact is misplaced.

I'm going to call it a day, and scour the Internet for people with Fallout tattoos and chuckle insoucently.

That's the whole point - F3 isn't a sequel, it just happens to share the same name and has a 3 by it. Its nothing like Fallout. I suggest you read the NMA review of it. Its fair, precise and quite witty. http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=47347 I did, and very compelling. It's a good article that brings up fair criticism. "Compared to the first two Fallout games, Fallout 3 is a pale imitation that may anger many fans of the original games. However, comparing Fallout 3 to similar games like Morrowind, Oblivion, Gothic, Two Worlds, Assassins Creed, etc presents a much more favourable reaction. I think that it

Absolutely... FO3 is geared towards the console generation. I've played both and it's much more geared to the console rather than computer. That does irritate me, the fact that Fallout was always a computer game, and FO3 does seem console biased. But that's not enough for me to dismiss the game entirely.

Because most of the dialogues in fallout 1&2 were text-on-screen only anyway. I see no connection between quality of text and amount of voiceover, sorry. Unless it's the actors that write the text. It's simple. Imagine any of your favorite books that have been translated to screen. Much of the writing on the page that is memorable is lost in translation. While FO1/2's text base dialogue is witty and appealing, I imagine some of that is lost when you have producers, and sound men and actors all trying to recreate what one good writer originally intended. Or, it may simply be that the writers for Beth are worse than those in BIS or Interplay (Feel free to release simultaneous "No Sh!ts" at will for this point). in the end, I think some of the text-based humor gets lost in translation to a full-blown voice produced game. I still love the cafe of broken dreams from FO2. I think that's the zeitgeist of what was lost from FO1/2 to FO 3.

I agree with most of the points you make, and I believe your sense of loathing for both FO3 and Bethesda comes out of your perceived failure of their efforts to create a great Fallout game. This ergo comes from your love of the fallout series in general. For that, I both commend you for your commitment to the saga, as well as join you in considering FO a worthy game to give adulation to. But I think your complete dismissal of the writing is a bit total. -Yes I agree the writing is bad. Worse than FO 1 or 2 -They lack depth of storyline and dialogue That said, FO3 is a passable alternative to no sequel, or a sequel in an antiquated format. Maybe over time I have become inured to the bad writing in favor of enjoyable game play and the beautifully rendered environment. Maybe I more readily look for cogent and cohesive writing in the literature I read, not the games I play. This, though, is no excuse. My hopes are that sincere critics of the game are vociferous enough to sway the heavy handed writer's at Bethesda and I hope Obsidian learns a lesson from the sundry failures of FO3.

Yeah. By bringing in novice voice talent for some characters, you can more clearly differentiate characters. While what you said is cool (about the guy having a conversation with himself in threft), I'm sure there are thousands of decent voice actors who will work for nothing to be a part of a major production. I really want FO4 and possibly FO:NLV to have some half indecipherable regional dialects. Language would fall apart in the waste land. It would be cool trying to interact with post-apocalyptic sand people who just shout a lot. Bring back the whole tribal aspect of FO2. That was interesting.

Give me an example of an inspired interface please. Ease of use that maximizes the game's features while not detracting from the overall playability of the game. Examples: FO3 Pip Boy over F1/2 Underdeveloped PB FO3 Inventory selection over FO1/2 laborious item selection screens Not to be nit-picky, but clicking on those little red selector's in FO1/2 was downright annoying. To be fair, FO2 vastly improved game play over 1. Logistical issues like random encounters and combat were improved, and I can admit that BIS's FO3/VB Might have gone even further in improving interface. One thing that troubles me is the lack of interface between FO2 and Broth. of Steel. Game over game, I was unimpressed by the interface improvement (Except from 1 to 2).