Bethsoft's Fallout Critics' Almanac

[Tricky]

Attitudes.

While we are not responsible for one another's claims, they do make make up the base of our collective attitude or opinion toward games before they are released. Since we're supposed to be critics and all that, I wanted to see what that's actually founded on. I've raked together every claim we've made about Fallout 3. Once this game has been released we can see how righteous or presumptuous we really are, as a community.

If we are right about most things, more power to us.
If we are wrong, would we owe Bethsoft some kind of apology?

Oh and I'm not going to be the one to 'finish' this thread, as I won't be buying the game. Maybe I will if it turns out we were wrong about most of this stuff (and if it runs really well on my old Ubuntu rig).

Tschüs!





1. F3 has shown an altogether different take on the IP, as they bought the license and refused cooperation with any former BlackIsle employee.

2. F3 is an Action RPG. S.P.E.C.I.A.L. mainly serves V.A.T.S. and actual roleplay elements in quests or dialogue affected by it is found to be as superfluous as in Oblivion.

3. People who are looking for a fast Shoot-Em-Up experience are disappointed due to the weak AI. People who are looking for a GURPS experience are disappointed per definition, as this game isn't aimed at them. So what's left? This game might appeal to a smaller audience than you might expect.

4. Since the dialogue is spoken again, the sentences again have to fit inside one window. This favors simplistic Oblivion-style dialogue over well written Morrowind-ish text.

5. Gameplay Devolution. Morrowind didn't improve over Daggerfall. Oblivion didn't improve over Morrowind. F3 is again something along these lines.

6. F3 characters continue to look awkward as we further explore the Uncanny Valley and leave less room for our atrophied sense of imagination ( -> grandpa Tricky complaining)

7. F3 adds little in the way of new popculture references, other than the ones Bethsoft chose to revive from the old games. And honestly, who has both grown up in the past decade, seen A Boy And His Dog and remembers Mel Gibson for being an incredibly awesome Australian?


Additions, 9-29

8. There seems to be a fear in the industry both from mainstream developers and consumers that difficulty and complexity are now suddenly bad things. For all its claims of depth, Fallout 3 is no departure from this trend.

9. Like Oblivion there are about six music tracks total which play non-stop. There is no breathing space, or scarce situational use of it.

10. Fans will likely have to improve the gameplay themselves again. Don't count on the patches fixing anything everybody is complaining about.

11. Among the heap of licensed software, Bethsoft made this tiny thing called radiant-ai themselves, advertised it, but it wasn't much to speak of. Not much of a track record, but VATS has more or less been marketed the same way.

12. There is the odd NPC's that will follow you and join you in combat, but contrary to the old fallouts you can't control their VATS or switch to their inventory screen.

13. There are many lore inconsistencies. Some of them have already been made clear by the premise of the game.

14. The collective press response will be by in large stupendous.

15. The AI isn't likely to be impressive, what with Bethsoft's track record. But then, it wasn't for the original Fallouts either. However, they did choose to delve into the FPS genre and the game is already being held high amongst titles like Fear and Stalker.

16. The amount of endings isn't something they should boast, especially since they faithfully adopted this style from the earlier Fallouts. You have a dozen locations with 2-3 endings each, that's 24-36 endings for both those games. But if you count each combination as a unique ending, the number increases exponentially. It remains to be seen whether these endings will be as reactive to player choice as they were in the previous games.

17. The cinematic kill-effects (next to VATS bullettime) likely cannot be disabled, just like you can't disable fast travel or the spoiler compass, or radiant AI etc. You will like it. It's Bethsoft, *****!

18. Strong AI or intricate combat isn't something that Bethsoft is known for. Difficulty in combat is measured by the amount of enemies you face at a single time, not by the tactics that you and your enemies employ.

19. Facegen adds beards. The nature of Facegen (watch the product demo at facegen.com) however doesn't (yet) easily make a 'fixed' beard or a moustache look good on *any* head, which is probably why they were nothing more than textures in Oblivion. They are seen on pre-designed NPCs, but the player likely can't add anything other than some stubble to his (or her?) face.

20. There may be some re-uses of Oblivion animation sequences (though likely not the models themselves). This isn't based on released gameplay footage, but only on screenshots that show some creatures (zombies etc) kinda take after their Oblivion counterparts.

21. As always you become too powerful, too fast. When done wrongly, level scaling doesn't take into account levelling non-combat skills. I levelled non-combat skills in Oblivion and all of the sudden I actually couldn't move forward in the game because I was "high" level, yet couldn't do enough damage to the increasingly stronger enemies before they could kill me. Even if there are ways to get out of some encounters without the use of violence, the game as a whole isn't geared toward that kind of gameplay.

22. Every indoor location in Oblivion, no matter how small is loaded separately from the outdoor world. Yet in Fallout there's a lot of continuity going on between houses, fights spilling out on the street, people sniping at you through windows, etc. While enemies can follow you through loading zones, it's not quite the same. We have seen nothing to suggest F3 will improve over Oblivion in this matter.

(Note: in some instances I quoted people directly. If something seems familiar, you probably wrote it yourself.)

[DesR85]

Let's see, what about the dog Bethseda introduced in response to Fable 2's dog companion? What's his name again? Meatloaf?

Hope I'm on topic here.

[Tricky]

Dogmeat, but I like Meatloaf better. What about it?

[Xandax]

Sticking this thread for now, as long as people keep it clean and respect Tricky's purpose
Could be a fun thread come release .....

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[DesR85]

Dogmeat, but I like Meatloaf better. What about it?

Well, aside from being a snap response from Bethseda, it was mentioned in numerous previews that this Dogmeat can search for hidden treasure and point in the direction of enemies, something Fable 2's dog companion can also do as well. Not to mention that both can also fight in battles as well.

The differences are when Dogmeat is dead, he's dead for good, whereas there wasn't any mention of Fable 2's dog dying, except being wounded. As for changes, Dogmeat don't change or do anything outrageous, whereas the Fable 2's dog does depending on alignment.

[Tricky]

So.. the point here is that Dogmeat might have become too much like the Fable Dog? To the point that it's silly? I remember reading or responding to something like that. I suppose more information has come available. Do you know for sure who came first with the idea of letting it fetch items? Dogmeat was there in the older Fallouts after all.

[Brother None]

I'm not sure I'm catching the purpose of this thread, but some notes.

V.A.T.S. gets tiresome after awhile, as the cinematics are repetitive and not skippable.

I have seen no mention of it not being skippable. Even though it's a common fear, I think most people assume Bethesda is not that dumb.

The Fatman doesn't irradiate you, which is sort of seen in one of the demo movies.

I think it does. I mean, it didn't show up in the demo I saw at GC last year, but I'm pretty sure Bethesda has confirmed that it does.

I mean, the car does, so why wouldn't the Fatman?

F3 added no new popculture references, other than the ones Bethsoft chose to revive. And honestly, who has both grown up in the past decade, seen A Boy And His Dog and remembers Mel Gibson for being an incredibly awesome Australian?

They promised not to, but there are some on-the-sly easter eggs in quest names and stuff. Like "Big Trouble in Big Town".

[DesR85]

So.. the point here is that Dogmeat might have become too much like the Fable Dog? To the point that it's silly?

What I'm saying is that this Dogmeat is a copycat of Fable 2's dog. Very unoriginal and yet they never even mentioned that Fable 2's dog was their inspiration or what not.

I have seen no mention of it not being skippable. Even though it's a common fear, I think most people assume Bethesda is not that dumb.

Yet, no one complained about this? I find it really strange because when Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway featured cinematics when you shoot someone in the head, people did bring up this issue and the devs allayed those fears by showing the option to turn it off in the main menu.

[Tricky]

I have seen no mention of it not being skippable. Even though it's a common fear, I think most people assume Bethesda is not that dumb.

It's all assumption of course. Then again, in Oblivion I can teleport anywhere I want with the press of a button, plus the quest marker made it next to impossible to get lost in the immersion. I had to delve into the mod community to fix all that, and I think many people would have turned off Radiant AI if they could have. Are you sure most people think Bethsoft isn't that dumb? If you are after reading that, then yes, I will remove it until someone else comes up with better conjecture or facts.

I think it does. I mean, it didn't show up in the demo I saw at GC last year, but I'm pretty sure Bethesda has confirmed that it does.

Ok, removed.

They promised not to, but there are some on-the-sly easter eggs in quest names and stuff. Like "Big Trouble in Big Town".

Hm. That does count a little. And it wasn't like as though the pop culture was in your face all the time in the old Fallouts. I'm leaving it up for now, but it will be the first to go if we read about more.

What I'm saying is that this Dogmeat is a copycat of Fable 2's dog. Very unoriginal and yet they never even mentioned that Fable 2's dog was their inspiration or what not.

Hm. Well I get what you're saying. However, for it to be included in the Almanac there has to be a measure of it we still have to predict and be right or wrong about. It may yet be very different from Fable 2's canine.

[Brother None]

It's all assumption of course. Then again, in Oblivion I can teleport anywhere I want with the press of a button, plus the quest marker made it next to impossible to get lost in the immersion. I had to delve into the mod community to fix all that, and I think many people would have turned off Radiant AI if they could have. Are you sure most people think Bethsoft isn't that dumb? If you are after reading that, then yes, I will remove it until someone else comes up with better conjecture or facts.

Hmmm, too true. I'm too used to hearing the blabbing at NMA, and anti-Fallout 3 as they may be, I think on average too many of them have little-to-no experience with Oblivion and thus do not see how many blatant errors that game has. The kind of "how could anyone think this was a good idea"-error? Heck, for that matter neither do I, I never played enough Oblivion to get a great handle on the game.

Anyway, back on topic. I'm personally not so hung up on the viewpoint (bird's eye view is just natural to turn-based combat, but it is no longer requisite if you drop the TB combat if you ask me. I prefer adaptable cameras like in the Realms of Arkania games, really), but one thing I'd like to add is setting.

* What Bethesda is doing makes no sense: they set the game 200 years after the war and then plant in wooden houses and ruins that should have crumbled already. Why set it 200 years after the war? Then they move the game to the east coast, only to move a number of the major factions/creature types that were west coast-specific in the originals cross-coast (Enclave, Brotherhood of Steel, Super-Mutants, Centaurs). If you're going to keep all the factions, why move coast to coast? Also, Bethesda's background story of the Brotherhood kind of misses their xenophobic techno-centric nature and turns them into good guys "protecting innocents" instead, which points to some possible major mistreatment of lore.

[Tricky]

They promised not to

I'm taking a step back there, sorry. I think I missed something. You say Bethsoft actually promised there weren't going to be any new and preferably recent popculture references? Why would they actually make a promise to not include something? It seems out of character for them.

Also, if they've made it known there won't be anything like that in the game (save the odd quest name), there won't be any point in adding it to the Almanac either. The same thing kinda goes for Dogmeat, it's our best guess that's matters for this.

[Brother None]

I'm taking a step back there, sorry. I think I missed something. You say Bethsoft actually promised there weren't going to be any new and preferably recent popculture references? Why would they actually make a promise to not include something? It seems out of character for them.

Promise was the wrong choice of words. They have stated they intend to keep Fallout 3 closer to Fallout 1 thematically, and have shown disdain for easter eggs in general. But they did not promise anything.

[Kipi]

* What Bethesda is doing makes no sense: they set the game 200 years after the war and then plant in wooden houses and ruins that should have crumbled already. Why set it 200 years after the war? Then they move the game to the east coast, only to move a number of the major factions/creature types that were west coast-specific in the originals cross-coast (Enclave, Brotherhood of Steel, Super-Mutants, Centaurs). If you're going to keep all the factions, why move coast to coast? Also, Bethesda's background story of the Brotherhood kind of misses their xenophobic techno-centric nature and turns them into good guys "protecting innocents" instead, which points to some possible major mistreatment of lore.

Enclaves were the (at least spiritual) ancestors of leaders of US and the army. So it's no wonder they would have spread out to the other coast as well. Also, if we accept Fallout: Tactics as a part of the Fallout canon, then the appearance of BoS also can be explained. (My memories are a bit foggy about Tactics, bu basically they begun to expand their sphere of influence to all over to US).
About the lore of BoS, and the wooden houses, I definately agree with you.

[GawainBS]

According to a preview posted on NMA, there'll be checkpoints.

MTV Multiplayer 90 Minutes With ‘Fallout 3′ - Robot Butler Included

Probably was in the news section already, seeing who posted it on NMA.

[Tricky]

According to a preview posted on NMA, there'll be checkpoints.

MTV Multiplayer 90 Minutes With ‘Fallout 3′ - Robot Butler Included

Probably was in the news section already, seeing who posted it on NMA.

That's sad, but again that is fact. No use for us, unless we also want to make a 'things we hate about F3 in advance' list. There will be little point in finding out if we're right about things that are already known.

Edit: If you can give me a solid reason why checkpoints won't work out in this game, it's a different matter. Then we can 'predict' another entry.

[Tricky]

Still working on it. I'm reading about five pages of search results (of single threads) every day. I've waded through a bit of a lull today (mid/late 2007), but I know the discussion will flare up again the 2008 threads, when more information was released. I think I'll need another 2-4 days to finish it. But here are some interesting things I found out so far.

First person to raise questions about F3 was Monolith. Up until 2007 Xandax has been the biggest contributor of useful material. It's also interesting to see how Bethsoft's Fallout is generating a lot dialogue about the unfortunate state of gaming journalism. I'd say thus far about a quarter of the threads have been about that. I doubt Bethsoft is the only culprit here, but is seems like a major contributor to that unrelenting sense of complacency in gaming journalism. Again Xandax put it best when he stated that everyone is starting to become too scared to think out of the box. Everyone who already is in a position to make a lot of money through the advertising or production of games anyway.

I'm not sure if I'm going to find the time to also go through all the Bethsoft interviews for that truthiness rating before F3 is released. I'll get to it eventually though. It might be better to wait out the initial review frenzy anyway.

And I'm going to rethink the format of the almanac. I thought it'd be catchy, but 'cute' is more like it. I'm going to think of something a little more practical and easy to understand. I think definitely the latter is something I've overlooked.

So, ta.

[Tricky]

Phew! Well, I'm done. Finally. I'm sorry if this particular post is a little badly written, it's just that I'm kind of in a daze from all the time I invested in it.

Anyway, I want to precede this by saying I feel a little.. disappointed. There's good stuff in there, sure, but I'm feeling quite disgusted by our meandering retort. It isn't because it's flawed or anything, most of it holds up pretty well. It's just that there was so much of it. Had I gone through all of the search results in one sitting, I'd have no doubt be feeling pretty sick by now. There was so much redundancy that I'm seriously wondering if the traditional forum style is the best way to have 'the very best' discussion. If only there was some kind of advanced forum solution where could easily keep in touch with everything we've written and point that out instead of writing it again and again. It's no bother if you don't wish to review the past every single post, but it is an interesting thought. It would change the nature of our dialogue quite a bit. Would stop being so flatout one-dimensional. I'll stop now before I start spouting out some Ghost in the Shell crap about external memory.

Anyway, I wanted to leave it for a few days and finish it during the weekend, but I've received two commissions for music pieces. One of which comes from family which I can't worm myself out of. Suffice to say it won't be done this weekend, since I also have work and university at my heels. Now, I've said before that I would like this to be a cooperative venture-thing of sorts (for one thing, I won't be buying F3 when it comes out, so I can't really put any of this to the test). Moreover, I want this to be something made by 'us', the forum peoples who claim to know so much. It will be in a sense be as much a work of criticism to Bethsoft as it will be to ourselves. If anyone wants to read this raw text file that I have created and compile it into something readable, be my guest. If nobody responds it'll be Tuesday or Wednesday before I can get to it myself. The deadline is still F3's release date.

[Tricky]

I've updated the list and changed the overall tone of the post. The dramatics bored me, so I made it a bit more serious. I'm going to update it again about a week before the release.

In addition, the other feature I wanted to write (but has since dwarfed me due to the crazy amount of reading material) has sort of been done before with Oblivion: The Codex Forums :: View topic - Which Oblivion Dev Lied The Most?

It's been posted in the news section, so you may have read it before. I thought it would be an interesting read, so close to the release of Fallout. Food for thought.

[Tricky]

So, um.. can I trust that someone with a copy will go over the list at least once?

Xandax, if you want to unsticky this thread feel free to do so. It hasn't at all sparked any kind of discussion. I'm feeling a bit foolish actually.

[Kipi]

2. F3 is an Action RPG. S.P.E.C.I.A.L. mainly serves V.A.T.S. and actual roleplay elements in quests or dialogue affected by it is found to be as superfluous as in Oblivion.

So far not as big Action RPG as I feared. More like Adventure RPG.

3. People who are looking for a fast Shoot-Em-Up experience are disappointed due to the weak AI. People who are looking for a GURPS experience are disappointed per definition, as this game isn't aimed at them. So what's left? This game might appeal to a smaller audience than you might expect.

Perhaps the game was aimed to people who like to adventure in post apocalyptic world? But the comment is right, it's not Shoot-Em-Up game, which definately is a good thing.

4. Since the dialogue is spoken again, the sentences again have to fit inside one window. This favors simplistic Oblivion-style dialogue over well written Morrowind-ish text.

Actually, the dialogue ended up quite similiar to old Fallouts. The longest responses has been divided in several part, which made it possible to voice act each reply. So far I'm satisfied to dialogue system, far better than in oblivion.

5. Gameplay Devolution. Morrowind didn't improve over Daggerfall. Oblivion didn't improve over Morrowind. F3 is again something along these lines.

Actually, IMO that's not true. I think it goes more like Daggerfall > Morrowind > Oblivion << Fallout 3. Fallout 3 is improvement from Oblivion, perhaps even better than Morrowind.

6. F3 characters continue to look awkward as we further explore the Uncanny Valley and leave less room for our atrophied sense of imagination ( -> grandpa Tricky complaining)

Well, I'm not such person who requires that game must have top-end graphics. In Fallout 3, the graphics look good, they do their job and thus they are good. Not top-end, but definately good enough.

7. F3 adds little in the way of new popculture references, other than the ones Bethsoft chose to revive from the old games. And honestly, who has both grown up in the past decade, seen A Boy And His Dog and remembers Mel Gibson for being an incredibly awesome Australian?

Not true. So far I have noticed reference to Conan: The Barbarian. Most probably there is more, haven't paid too much attention to those yet.

8. There seems to be a fear in the industry both from mainstream developers and consumers that difficulty and complexity are now suddenly bad things. For all its claims of depth, Fallout 3 is no departure from this trend.

As I see it, Fallout doesn't with to that. It's complex enough, and it's difficult game. I've been playing it on normal difficulty, and I have noticed that one point that makes the game difficult is finding ammo to your weapons. No ammos means almost sure death in the wasteland. Also, as we are talking about difficulty, I haven't seen that much level scaling in Fallout 3 yet. So, if you wander to the territory of Super Mutants too early, you can only pray that you come alive from there.

9. Like Oblivion there are about six music tracks total which play non-stop. There is no breathing space, or scarce situational use of it.

There is no actual music tracks. There are radio stations. So far, I have found three stations, but have listened only one. There comes music from the radio as well as talking. So, perhaps not many different tracks are playing, but at least the talks of dj makes some change to it. Also, if the signal of radio station is lost, there nothing playing.

10. Fans will likely have to improve the gameplay themselves again. Don't count on the patches fixing anything everybody is complaining about.

Well, I'm playing on XBox, but so far I haven't find anything that should be fixed. Yeah, couple of minor annoyances, but I can live and enjoy the game even with those.

11. Among the heap of licensed software, Bethsoft made this tiny thing called radiant-ai themselves, advertised it, but it wasn't much to speak of. Not much of a track record, but VATS has more or less been marketed the same way.

Haven't payed that much attention to AI, but so far haven't noticed anything bad in it. It works well enough, at least in my opinion. And VATS works as it was meant and marketed. No complains there, it works and fits to the game.

12. There is the odd NPC's that will follow you and join you in combat, but contrary to the old fallouts you can't control their VATS or switch to their inventory screen.

So far I haven't got any NPCs to join my group. The has been one possibility, but my karma was too high. But then again, I can't remember that were able to control your party NPCs in old Fallouts either. You got to their inventory in for bartering purpose, and was able to determine in some extend what weapons and armors they use, and could change the general behaviour type, but you couldn't actually control them. Perhaps you are thinking Fallout: Tactics in this matter?

13. There are many lore inconsistencies. Some of them have already been made clear by the premise of the game.

So far haven't found any. But I'll return to this when I finish the game.

17. The cinematic kill-effects (next to VATS bullettime) likely cannot be disabled, just like you can't disable fast travel or the spoiler compass, or radiant AI etc. You will like it. It's Bethsoft, *****!

Haven't find any way to disable them. Minus point to Bethesda about this, though it's not that big deal as I feared beforehand.

18. Strong AI or intricate combat isn't something that Bethsoft is known for. Difficulty in combat is measured by the amount of enemies you face at a single time, not by the tactics that you and your enemies employ.

Well, in some extend that's not true. There hasn't been that big groups of enemies yet. Most of the difficulty comes from what weapons to use, and how much ammo you have left in each weapon. Also, you have been forced to decide when to use VATS, do you try your luck and try to kill the enemy in distance, or do you get closer, take more damage but on the other hand be sure that you hit the enemy in head.

19. Facegen adds beards. The nature of Facegen (watch the product demo at facegen.com) however doesn't (yet) easily make a 'fixed' beard or a moustache look good on *any* head, which is probably why they were nothing more than textures in Oblivion. They are seen on pre-designed NPCs, but the player likely can't add anything other than some stubble to his (or her?) face.

Matter of opinion. IMO the face generator works well, and makes the faces look good. Enough said.

21. As always you become too powerful, too fast. When done wrongly, level scaling doesn't take into account levelling non-combat skills. I levelled non-combat skills in Oblivion and all of the sudden I actually couldn't move forward in the game because I was "high" level, yet couldn't do enough damage to the increasingly stronger enemies before they could kill me. Even if there are ways to get out of some encounters without the use of violence, the game as a whole isn't geared toward that kind of gameplay.

Haven't experienced any such problem in the game. Actually, the game even engourages you to develop few non-combat skills, like lockpicking. Also, haven't seen that much level scaling yet.

22. Every indoor location in Oblivion, no matter how small is loaded separately from the outdoor world. Yet in Fallout there's a lot of continuity going on between houses, fights spilling out on the street, people sniping at you through windows, etc. While enemies can follow you through loading zones, it's not quite the same. We have seen nothing to suggest F3 will improve over Oblivion in this matter.

This is true. Every indoor location is it's own world, fights can't be spilling to everywhere. That's small negative side, though haven't missed it that much yet in Fallout 3.