40 replies to this topic

[teflon]

here here.
how else do you explain the average score for a game being... 7... out of 10...
surely 5 would make more sense.

And that is why in almost all cases, Edge is my litmus test. At least they give a game that deserves a poor score a poor score, though I will admit theyve gotten slightly trigger happy with the perfect 10s in the last few years (though in many cases theyre still right)

[t3h_n00b]

Quicksilver, on November 5th 2008, 11:57 AM, said:

I've played it alllll the way through.
Most reviewers are idiots.  If you're plugged into the industry--just grab a couple of podcasts, for starters--you'll find that good reviews of triple-A titles are hard to find.

I'm not about to make a defense of videogame reviewers, but I do feel your statement is more than a little too harsh.  Just because you disagree often with someone does not make them an idiot - taste and preference are not accurate gauges of intelligence.

[Quicksilver]

And you wouldn't call the 100% (A) 1UP gave Fallout 3 idiotic?  I could create a gigantic list of wildly out-of-control scores like this, but the evidence is out there if you want to check it out.

[Atticus]

I do agree that review sites tend to get caught up in the hype and frequently overrate games, especially as seen with a lot of recent AAA titles (Far Cry 2, Spore, etc). I'll leave the "why?" to the conspiracy theorists. :-)

I'm about ten hours into F3, and so far have been enjoying it. Obviously, it's not a game for everyone. If you hated Oblivion, you'll hate F3 for all the same reasons. If you're in love with the first Fallout games...you'll probably hate F3. I can see the similarities between F3 and Oblivion (also played that one), and admit that sometimes I can't shake the feeling I'm also just playing a massive Oblivion mod. But the game world is engrossing enough that those thoughts don't stick around long. I didn't play Fallout 1 or 2 or whatever so I guess I'm a special case (in a short bus kind of way) in that I approached F3 without preconceived notions about the gameplay, or the IP in general.

I also understand that the Fallout games are one of those beloved series that inflame hatred from the entrenched fan base when the IP is taken in a different direction (see also: KOTOR MMO). But I also can't help but think that if F3 had been made very similar to the previous games, we would've heard a lot of whining about how F3 was not new enough, didn't take enough chances, same old crap with fancier graphics, blah, blah, blah

In other words, you can't please everyone, so as a dev/publisher, you make hard decisions about how you can piss off the least amount of people while still making a profit while watching 10 million torrents suck away potential sales. Good times! You couldn't pay me to be a video game developer. It's a stressful, hard, thankless job with a client base that is probably the most demanding, vocal, and picky of any industry (except maybe the military and/or government). See also: Diablo III, art direction, petitions.

Atticus
Who wants to know if we can also discuss abortion, Obama, religion, Hitler, Holocaust, and the Battle Cat

[charmin]

ohai, is this where I bitch about Diablo?

No?

Oh.

Well Fallout 3 is pretty good. I don't think I'd have liked it like I love Fallout 2 regardless of how good it was, because I remember Fallout 2 from a time when life was simpler and I had more free time to explore games. Now I just snatch moments of Fallout-y goodness when I can, which isn't often.

I've not played it past a dozen hours (but I play slowly and to completion) yet, (oo, how badly placed were those brackets?) so I'm disappointed to hear that the ending sucks, but Fallout was always more about the game than the end. Super mutants are a real pain to kill, especially if you're protecting someone. Doesn't help that I didn't tag a weapon skill.

Also, the perks aren't as appealing as those in Fallout 2. I've taken only a couple of perks, but with several levels (more experience, and extra SPECIAL points).

Still, from what I've played, it's a much better game than most of the shallow tripe being released these days.

[Dark_Archon]

Quicksilver, on November 5th 2008, 03:33 PM, said:

And you wouldn't call the 100% (A) 1UP gave Fallout 3 idiotic?  I could create a gigantic list of wildly out-of-control scores like this, but the evidence is out there if you want to check it out.

Review sites NEED to give games good reviews or publishers stop sending them early copies to review. I recall there was a big deal when an AAA game got a low score in one of the review sites recently. I don't remember the game though.

Edit: It was Kane & Lynch on Gamespot and Jeff Gerstmann, an editor from Gamespot got fired because Gamespot was threatened with the loss of advertising money because of the bad review

What matters in the review is what is written, and people seem to think it is Oblivion with guns.

[charmin]

You guys just hate thread titles, don't you?

[teflon]

another example of this kind of crazy reviewer manipulation is with MGS4, where Konami said that you could only review it if you didnt talk about the install times and install size. Which is pretty crazy to say the least, specially when for many people it really didnt matter as watching Snake have a cig was pretty funny.

[the Battle Cat]

charmin, on November 5th 2008, 11:45 PM, said:

You guys just hate thread titles, don't you?

You know, I started to split out the reviewer bashing posts into their own thread but the comments are mostly all orbiting around F3.  So instead, I'll just say "bring it back home guys, Fallout 3, remember?"

[Atticus]

the Battle Cat, on November 6th 2008, 10:23 AM, said:

You know, I started to split out the reviewer bashing posts into their own thread but the comments are mostly all orbiting around F3.  So instead, I'll just say "bring it back home guys, Fallout 3, remember?"

OK, tBC.

I'll bring it back--ZOMGGGGGGGGGG I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE F3 IT SUCKS I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE DIE DIE DIE DIE HATE DIE HATE DIE DIE HATE BETHESDA DIE HATE HATE OBLIVION SUCKS DIE HATE BETHESDA HATE DIE HATE HATE SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS HATE SUCKS DIE DIE HATE SUCKS DIE HATE HATE HATE

Atticus

[Janichsan]

Hardly anything to add.

[Dark_Archon]

I'm weak.

I couldn't resist, so I purchased Fallout 3 on Steam and it is downloading now. I'll approach it with an open mind and try to judge it based on what it is, not what its predecessors are. I'm sure I'll have something to say about it by the end of the weekend. Hopefully something positive.

VMWare Fusion is awesome by the way. I don't have to be in Windows while Fallout 3 downloads and installs.    The Boot Camp partition support is awesome.

[charmin]

Just finished it, finally. Damn work getting in the way.

It's still better than most of the crap being released these days, but it's still not Fallout 2. Ending snuck up on me a bit, which I didn't like. Would have appreciated the point of no return being made a little clearer so I could have finished all the sidequests.

Within all of 10 seconds of starting a new game, I got to go "ooo, didn't notice that the first time round" thanks to plot points I'm already aware of. Scandalous.

Still a few minor things I'm wondering, possibly revealed in sidequests I missed:

Spoiler

What's the deal with some of the crazier vaults? I never got to find out what was going on. Specifically, hallucinations and clones.

Why no ammo for my cool alien pistol? Massive damage rating, but never got to use it

Shame that the three best weapons I found were basically useless: alien weapon had no ammo, Autumn's pistol is followed by 0 enemies, and the gatling laser can be used for all of 10 minutes

Where are the other bobbleheads?

I'll probably end up trawling GameFaqs before playing the game again so I know I'm not missing anything.

[Dark_Archon]

I'm level 8 now, and so far I'm not too impress. They tried to do the allow you to go anywhere thing, but some of the terrain doesn't act the way it looks. If you go jumping around off the edge of Rivet City where the boat is broken, after you get down a few stories, there are problems with falling through the ground. Another time, I blasted a Radscorpion through the ceiling in VATS mode with my combat shotgun, where it got stuck... still alive. There is no evidence of any sort of agriculture or farming of any kind other than some hints in dialogue which makes the world seem very superficial. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but it makes the world seem like it isn't actually functioning and sort of kills the immersion. It was one of those things that was bothering me for a few hours before I was able to figure out what it exactly was.

The wasteland looks good, but everything about the game seems very shallow, from NPCs to dialogue, to quests. If I manage to finish it (which I plan to), it will probably be the worst game I will have ever worked all the way through (for an idea of scale, the second worst game I ever played all the way through would probably be KOTOR).

[bobbob]

charmin, on November 15th 2008, 08:07 AM, said:

Spoiler

What's the deal with some of the crazier vaults?

Seriously?

[charmin]

I know the overall "point" of the Vaults, but specifically when I walk into a Vault and

Spoiler

everything goes blue and I start hallucinating

, I'd appreciate some more explanation. Likewise with the

Spoiler

Gary clones

. I suspect that the first case might have a description on the Overseer's terminal, but my science skill sucked pretty much the whole way through the game.

[Malt-Pipefishes]

Yahtzee just posted his review of Fallout 3, and as we all know, his opinion is the only one that matters.

[Frost]

I'm one of those rare people that loved Fallout 1 and 2, hated Oblivion, but is still enjoying Fallout 3.

It's definitely got faults, but I'm still having a lot of fun. Animations could be better, corpses getting stuck in floors and doors is stupid, and why do weapons designed in the 2070s only function for about 50-200 rounds when in the 1980s weapons were already being designed that could blow through 30,000 rounds before failure of any major parts? C'mon...

I can understand repairing armor and melee weapons as they take damage, but repairing firearms is just stupid. Guns haven't needed as much TLC as the Fallout guns do since the 1600s, if ever.

And yes, the world does feel very "small" compared to the enormity of the original games. You can complete the whole thing in 2 or 3 weeks of game time; Fallout 1 and 2 could take the better part of a year, or more, as you wandered all over a shattered California.

For example, in Fallout 1, going from the Lost Hills Bunker to the Glow took over a month round trip, was fraught with danger, and if you didn't bring enough supplies and think ahead, you could be FOOKED on the way there or back. It felt like you were going a LONG way to a very dangerous place, and you tried to avoid making trips like that too often if you could. Fallout 3, say I want to run from Rivet City to Girdershade... eh, no problem.

I think Bethesda would do better to split the world into 4+ major segments that you use an original-style map to travel between, and then have little outlying settlements off the four major segments that you can travel further to. That would be cool, and I think bring back the sense of scale that the original games had, where there can be major settlements, but they're so far apart they may not have ever even heard of each other.

All that said, I'm still enjoying the game, and I'm glad Bethesda's confirmed they're gonna do more Fallouts. I hope they address the complaints seen in Fallout 3, because I see the potential to be a flat out awesome game, but it just needs better direction and more polish.

[surge1]

I just got done playing Dues ex 2 and I liked the game.

Is Fall out 3 some what like this? They say Fallout 3 is FPS, but whats this about "pausing the action" to target body parts?

I like FPS games, but I was wondering if this was just a FP game with RPG on it?

[Dark_Archon]

If you get it expecting a FPS, you probably aren't going to like it. Movement sort of feels like your character is skating on ice, and the aiming and shooting don't have the smooth feel like they do in real shooters. V.A.T.S does allow you to pause combat to use "action points" to make targeted shots. It seems like sort of a concession to people who don't like twitch gaming, and it feels pretty tacked on. In my opinion, they tried to make a game that appealed to everybody, and they were left with a game that fails in all the main categories for each of the genres it is trying to fit in. Too much of an RPG and too clumsy to be a good shooter while lacking the story/dialogue depth with too heavy a reliance on twitch gameplay for RPG people. I think a company that set out to make a shooter or a company that set out to make an RPG could have made a better game.

Like all Bethesda games, it seems to lack direction and an overall creative vision. I get a "design by committee" vibe from it.

On the other hand, you did like Deus Ex 2, so maybe your standards are low enough that you'd enjoy this one.

Edit: In the past month, I've gained 2 more levels (level 10). It isn't looking like I'm going to be able to finish this one. I do want to like it, and I feel bad for paying $50 for it, but it just doesn't seem to have any redeeming qualities. I do enjoy the graphics, but it seems like the pretty world is used as an excuse to skimp out on everything else.