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Again with the strawman. It's not even funny anymore. You don't need to write any essays. Simply make your arguments... well, arguments instead of hammering us over the head over and over with the same blatantly unsupported or outright false claims in the vein of "Unlike Torment, FO3 smells very bad indeed!". You know, the way I've been doing? The way Gizmo does? Otherwise, you're not here to debate or exchange opinions with others, no sirree. Your intent is to pontificate. You are on an ideological crusade to convert us poor misguided fools to your very own blend of truth. And trust me bub, I've seen far better than you try. Really now? And I'm the "argumentative, offensive elitist", you say? Grow up, sonny. edit: I'm thinking... what's wrong with being a total beginner? I mean, sure, not all of us can be RPGmasters, but really, everyone needs to start somewhere, aye?

Yeah. You tell that to Alexander or Scipio Africanus, though.

KGB!

Well, some honesty at last. You simply dislike FO3 for whatever reasons, but can't be arsed to make actual arguments with concrete comparisons and examples outside of "FO3 fails unlike game x" and "Game z is actually much better than FO3 at doing y". Further, you are apparently utterly lost in the fundamental difference between opinion and fact. And here I am wasting my time with you. Wake me up when you are willing to do your own thinking instead of being a broken record for others.

No, it wasn't sarcasm. It was a fallacy around which your arguments are built. The only game in your little list whose plot was clearly much better is Torment... so much better in fact that the game is a cult title. The rest are simply adequate McGuffins that set the stage for the player do his thing ("oh yeah sure my village is about to die, but it's ok if I waste a bit of time pursuing a career as a pron star" or "yeah okay my soul was just ripped from me, but it's fine if I just go kill me some random dragons for loot"). Finally, one bit of criticism that has merit. That took a while. Yes, you don't see people farming. Or farms, for that matter. But just like you imagined that people went to work, took lunch breaks, and went take a dump in all those games you mentioned, why don't you imagine that as well for FO3 and suspend your disbelief just as easily? I haven't been arguing that FO3 is the ultimate anything, or even the best of the series. I don't particularly like it myself. But look at your trolling just a few posts ago (NO story! NO characters!), and look at you now, struggling to find an actual, concrete flaw in the game that is so much worse in FO3 than in, well, just about any other game. Rhetorics are nice, but you need a li'l bit of substance, too.

Yeah. Only, they didn't have "a bunch". They had a grand total of 6 nukes in 1945. And conventional carpet bombing caused far more damage, anyway...

Ah, so we go from "a 5th grader could do better" to "that's not a plot worthy of Shakespeare!". It's quite plain, you don't have a leg to stand on unless you exaggerate rather obscenely. Pray tell, how many games feature a plot and characters worthy of praise, if you use the classics of literature as your standard? Really, tell me just one that compares favourably to, say (to use your own rhetoric) Henry VIII. Bethesda's writing is pretty meh, but as far as video games go, it's not remarkable either way. Certainly not nearly as bad as you'd have us believe with your strawmen. The rest of your arguments are unfair (FO1/2 characters didn't even sleep, much less work for a living) or simply feeble - we don't know the % of the population that was killed in the war, and more than a hundred years have passed. Also, people don't run out of ammo because they actually reused and produced it.

Yeah, oversimplification makes everything so much easier. "Uh, I'm looking for a water chip/holy GECK, have you seen one?" See, I can do it too! Hmm. Apparently you missed President Eden, for one. I don't know about 5th graders, but if your own arguments are anything to go by, I doubt YOU could have written anything better. Just sayin'. What are you talking about? That's not the atmosphere. That's the character progression and rewards design. Atmosphere are things such as being jumped by a Deathclaw while exploring an automated distress signal you picked on the radio, or an Enclave Vertibird ambushing you while you stroll happily through the ruined National Mall. Seriously man. I'm supposed to be the resident elitist jerk. Don't steal my thunder, m'kay?

I don't think that's the proper technical term, either. From what I've read, his paranoid mindset was strained to the breaking point by a combination of emotional tension, often-contradicting medications prescribed by his personal physician, and an overwhelming workload. This, coupled with his messiah complex made him increasingly unmovable by logic as the war dragged on, leaving only the possibility of a coup. Not exactly the kind of guy you'd want running the war effort, that's for sure.

Did you? Then what are these lies about the game not having a story, an atmosphere or characters? If you are going to be a troll, at least be a little subtle about it.

Could have they won? Well, sure. If somehow the Allied powers and the Soviet Union had made catastrophic blunders time and time again, the Axis may have had a chance. The first part of Barbarossa went pretty well... but Soviet morale didn't fail as Hitler had expected - I remember reading somewhere that everything was decided in the battle for Moscow, that Stalin refused to evacuate, that being the communications hub it was it would have given Germany control over pretty much all western Russia while denying the same to the Soviets. But even so, the Soviets had moved their industrial base and were receiving Lend & Lease from the US like crazy. Despite the very, very hairy situation England was in 1940-41, everything seems to have hinged on Hitler's hope for an early Soviet surrender, which is further supported by the fact that Germany was not prepared for a long war neither industrially nor psychologically. They didn't realize until far too late the mess they had gotten themselves into, apparently. Nice topic, btw. There are some serious History buffs around here so this should be interesting.

You got it backwards. FIRST you play the game, THEN you pan the game. Not the other way around.

Me, a child? Heh, I wish. The old timers remark I meant as in long-time fans of the franchise. The whole "kids today can't appreciate how we did things back in the day" talk may hold true for some, but it doesn't account for everyone. There's plenty of examples right here of people who were fans of the originals and actually enjoyed FO3. If some kid from the Halo generation can't get over the "ugly" graphics of Fallout, well then, it's his loss. Well, sure. That may be your philosophy and I could agree with you... but it also probably means we'll never sell anything by the millions.

Lol, what? Did you actually fund the development cycle of FO3 when I wasn't looking? Because it sure sounds like you feel you've been cheated out of something. If you've been let down on your expectations, well. Bethy can't very well control that. And no, I'm pretty sure that neither FO3 was designed as it was to spite you old timers, nor those that do enjoy the game do so for that reason. Oh, and the point is, quite obviously, to make money. That, if nothing else, they did get right.

Yeah. I wouldn't trust Whittaker Chambers even if that was a recipe for tomato sauce, though. Anyway, what are we discussing, Objectivism or Rand's ability as a writer? After reading O'Neil's text, I came to the conclusion that his only argument against Objectivism's "objectiveness" (and his venue for introducing the is-ought problem) is the hypothetical that somebody can make the conscious choice to act against their nature. To deny the place of life as the ultimate value, and act in accordance. Understandably, the problem of the rationality of such a choice arises, but the problem comes from the author's hypotheses, not Rand's view. That's not a choice that Rand considers valid - no choice that results in non-being can come from being rational. It all seems to hinge on that, and Rand realized that ("Man is the only living species that has the potential to act as its own destroyer"); it's strongly implied that immorality equals irrationality for her. For her it's not so much "be good" as "be rational" (and therefore live qua man). You may disagree with her views, but it's hard to claim there's a contradiction. Please professor, do elaborate!

Spider-Man disagrees.

Hahaha. Leader/minister epithets are awesome. Have you seen any new ones?

I'm part, alright. I'm not out there fighting the good fight with LoF, after all.

Lol. What game is that?

*sigh* I'm arguing that good art direction and modern technical thingamajigs aren't necessarily linked. I thought it should be clear from my first post in this thread: As a general statement, this is simply false. Art direction predates polycount. AoD's engine looks plain ugly, though. I'm not so sure now, though. Did that somehow come out in swahili and I can't see it or what?

It has 2D sprites you can turn on/ff. And anyway, does that mean the game has bad or no "art direction"? That's why I started my original rebuttal with "as a general statement". Shouldn't be too hard to understand? Okay now. How about...? Or Pokemon? Or any other game that doesn't do 3D? Contrary to this widespread myth, those do exist.

...err, was that comic supposed to be very funny, just mildly so, or...? On the other hand...

Folks used to play games on the Zone back in the 90's man. FULL games, I mean. You just gotta know what you're doing... and be a micromanagement GOD.

Oh, my. Morgy is confused and can't find something to say, so it's hissy fit time for him. Apparently, it's you who can't read, asswipe. Much less follow an argument through multiple posts without looking like a headless chicken: This is patently false, as evidenced by the example you kindly provided yourself, but which, somehow, you didn't quite stop to think through: Games have been achieving lighting effects by means of hand-made scenarios LONG before crap like polycount was even an issue. And, of course, lighting isn't even a factor in some games: But I guess that if a game doesn't require Quad SLI, then it either has NO art direction, or it sucks anyway, right? Either that, or it's (yet) another instance of Morgy not knowing what the **** he's talking about. Go back to benchmarking, assclown.