The Official Fallout 3 thread of post-apocalyptic proportions!

Holy crap!!! Fallout 3 on STEAM, YES!!!

I'm going to cancel my EB preorder. I live in Canada, and our dollar recently went to shit, but I'm willing to pay the ~20% premium to get the game on Steam.

My dream of never buying a PC game in stores ever again is finally coming true. Every PC game I've wanted this year has been available over Steam :D
 
Kabuki Waq said:
what was weird about oblivion ps3 was that the open areas looked better on ps3 while caves dungeons and stuff looked worse and had way more framerate problems.
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I finished both version and the PS3 version did not had any framerate problems in the caves or elsewhere, so unless you have any proof stop bullshitting. Secondly the ps3 version's White Knight or what ever the downloadable quest was .. that was terribly unpolished.
 
Graf Nudu said:
Do I understand the story of Fallout3, when I never played a Fallout-game before?
Click to expand...

It's fine, it takes place on the other side of the country, and years after. They know that most people playing it won't know the first 2 games, so they'll make it accessible.
 
Unregistered007 said:
I finished both version and the PS3 version did not had any framerate problems in the caves or elsewhere, so unless you have any proof stop bullshitting. Secondly the ps3 version's White Knight or what ever the downloadable quest was .. that was terribly unpolished.
Click to expand...


wow seems like I touched a nerve there. sorry but when it was released for the ps3 there were various ppl complaining about the framrate for dungeons. But i guess you wouldnt notice unless you were a multiplatform gamer.
 
right, I managed to get hold of the game for £50 tuesday evening and I have been playing solidly.. and i mean solidly for 4 days and here are my impressions, bear in mind i am a HUGE fallout 1+2 fan, and I put 110hours into Oblivion and the expansion, collecting all achievements;

I sat down to this game eagerly excited, but doubtful that the game would be good, after all for all extensive purposes this was a completely bastardised version of a game I adored. In a way it pleasantly surprised me, and in another way it totally let me down.

The game is essentially Oblivion. The view, the conversations, the map, compass, etc. Theres alot here which was instantly familiar. I've put in an insane number of hours in this game for such a short period, taking time to do as many sidequests as possible. It should be noted that all major quests have an achievement, while this may seem fantastic, you soon realise just how few quests there are, especially as the story line consists of many small quests. What is worse is just how many of these quests are the same. The storyline has you on a quest to save the world, or at least give it a kick up the arse on its way to being saved and is much better than the main storyline for Oblivion, and Liam Neesons voice is fantastic and a pleasure to listen to, but the side quests are really quite disappointing. Almost every single quest is a go here, kill everyone in sight, bring item back quest. What is even more annoying, is for the most part you are traveling to the same old places, either burnt out factories or underground metro tunnels, which not only reuse assets over and over, but lack any sort of level design.. they just simply exist room to room. I have not actually finished the main story for one simple reason, the game has no free roam once it is beaten. I am at the very end, with literally a final battle away from seeing the credits roll but I refuse to finish until I have cleared up more quests and explored more. From what I have heard the endings, no matter which you end up with, are massively disappointing, and I have no idea how DLC will work when there is an endgame.

The game is very much a shooter. Unlike previous Fallouts, Melee is COMPLETELY unnecessary, do not waste a single point of your stats on it. IMO all your stats at the start should be put into Speech, Small guns and Lockpick as they give you the best results. In real time, you won't find a worse shooter, and third person mode is quite possibly the worst thing EVER, but VATs gives you a (overpowered) good feel, even if it is quite wasted (I have gotten all the way to the end of the game only targeting the head or torso). You receive more Experience for real time combat, but its only deserved because real time combat feels like Stevie Wonder with a gun, failing to hit a target 5 inches in front of you. There is a huge emphasis on combat, which is unlike Fallout. In Fallout 2 I completed the game killing maybe 100 things, mainly radscorpians. So far in my Fallout 3 game I have killed over 500 things, not including the hundreds my partner has killed. The number of enemies are also very few in number, I must have killed 200 Super Mutants alone, and while the gore is amusing for the most part (especially with bloody mess perk) it can get boring fighting the same old enemies over and over, with only really Mirelurks requiring a strategy to kill.

A major annoyance in Oblivion was the 3 voice actors they used, over and over. Fallout 3 has alot more voice actors, and they are alot better (Although the guy from Oblivion still voices a few minor characters in the same voice). Like I said, Liam Neesons voice is great and its very rare you find two characters who sound the same, apart from the Ghouls who it seems all use the same voice actor. This is especially noticeable in the Ghoul town, where everyone you speak to sounds the same.

The game is still filled with little bugs and glitches; if you pick up an item off a table all the other items will shake around, just like Oblivion, and one of my quests is completely broken and is unable to be completed, which is a real pain in the arse. My partner often gets completely stuck in motion, or lost and hits a 400x speed sprint to catch me up (incidentally my partner is not Dogmeat, I went the entire game without finding him). General things like loading are fine and not at all over the top, and provide you with information as you load like number of Stimpacks used, Locks picked, etc.

The game is based very heavily on Karma. Most major quests will give you good or bad options, for one example
a woman asks you to do 9 quests for her to fill in a book. You can do every quest for experience and good karma, or you can, using a high speech skill, tell her shes an idiot and shouldnt waste time on a book
losing you karma but saving you from doing 9 fetch quests and unlocking an achievement for you instantly. Essentially for most quests though, the Karma doesnt really have enough consequences other than earning you more money for doing the bad thing.

The map is huge, at first it looks tiny on your Pip Boy, but when you actually go walkabout you realise how big it is. Sadly, as big as it is, it is massively empty and disappointing. There are very, very few numbers of towns with unique NPCs and huge numbers of useless areas that offer very little except scenery you have already seen over and over. The entire game seems, from number of enemies, to similar assets and plain wasteland, to be too big for its boots. The game would have been alot better if the map was half the size with less filler and more things to do.

Theres so much to talk about, and I really feel like im on Fallout overload from playing so much (I have Dead Space sitting here begging to be played), but ultimately this is a good game but by no means GOTY probably because it feels so similar to Oblivion, although this is just my opinion. Is it a worthy Fallout game? No, I dont think it even comes close to the charm, grittiness or atmosphere of the original Fallouts, but if you take it as an Oblivion expansion then you realise it is a great game, worthy of being in your collection.

Phew.

edit: just regarding the system, I played on the 360, the frame rate was very smooth throughout, apart from two areas but I think it was chugging because i had too many saves. The game froze on me 3 times, but only once required a reboot of the console. If you are worried about the 360 version, don't be.
 
Thanks painey, I've decided to cancel my preorder now, the game is sounding less and less like something I would enjoy playing.
 
If anyone is in the DC area, the Best Buy in Rockville, MD is doing a midnight launch with giveaways and members of the team will be there.

The Fallout 3 team's hometown Best Buy in Rockville, Md. will serve as the flagship location of the midnight events, with special festivities including game kiosks, giveaways, contests, and a live broadcast from the event with DC 101 FM. Game director Todd Howard will be on-hand along with other key members of the development team to sign copies of the game and chat with fans. In addition to the Rockville event, 11 Best Buy stores across the country will be hosting special midnight sales events.
Click to expand...

More here:
http://www.bethsoft.com/eng/news/pressrelease_102408.html
 
Thanks for the thorough impressions, painey. I'm still very much looking forward to playing this, but I'm lowering my expectations a bit.
 
Great writeup painey. You summarized most of the fears I've had with the game.

Will wait it out then and let the price drop a bit. (and the patches arrive)
 
After reading Painey's post, I am now unsure if I should purchase, especially with so many games already in my backlog.

I was not a huge fan of Oblivion but I did enjoy it for quite a while. I never really understood what the love affair with Fallout is -- obviously, clever writing and good turn-based strat. combat and character growth tree is appealing but I dunno, the original series never grabbed me like so many of you here.
 
wow, wait.. this is coming out on steam? fuck, there goes another 60 bucks. that was seriously my last issue with buying the damned thing.

never losing/scratching discs and or key codes FTW.
 
Wow I didn't mean to put so many off :lol The first 20 hours or so were so addicting, but soon I felt like I had seen most of what was on offer and I think I played on just to justify what I paid. Its not a bad game at all, just not that fresh after sinking so much into Oblivion. The biggest disappointment for me however is just how little so much seems to matter, for instance I did one quest that cost me alot of caps (in game currency) which I figured would earn me access into a town, after jumping through hoops and finally earning enough caps to finish the quest, I got to the town and found out that because I had picked a certain perk, I was guaranteed entry, not to mention that I could have got in using my high Speech skill, and my medium intelligence. In previous Fallouts I would have had to have earnt my way in, but here I felt like I put in alot of effort for nothing. The stats, other than Speech (which raises the % chance of you convincing someone, Lockpick (which lets you attempt a lockpick minigame) and Science (which lets you use a hacking minigame) seem all a bit useless. If I had never played Oblivion it would be a 10/10, but seeing as I had, its 9/10.
 
Let me just ask, is the story really good?

The gameplay sounds kind of iffy at best (for my tastes) but I think I could bear it if the story was really compelling.
 
painey said:
The stats, other than Speech (which raises the % chance of you convincing someone, Lockpick (which lets you attempt a lockpick minigame) and Science (which lets you use a hacking minigame) seem all a bit useless. If I had never played Oblivion it would be a 10/10, but seeing as I had, its 9/10.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the head's up on the skills from this and your previous post. I'm about to dive in shortly.
 
okay, those were pretty depressing impressions painey :(

I loved Fallout 1 and 2 and Oblivion also, and just...... wah. :(

still buying it
 
Blader5489 said:
Let me just ask, is the story really good?

The gameplay sounds kind of iffy at best (for my tastes) but I think I could bear it if the story was really compelling.
Click to expand...

Well no, the story isnt great but its more than acceptable. There are two really stand out bits though (the start in the vault, and later on in a "fantasy" which I wont ruin but it was great fun).

straydog1980 said:
this gives me hope. This says to me that there are multiple ways to handle every situation, which is always an awesome feature for a game to have.
Click to expand...

There are, absolutely. I just found from my playthrough that there were too many ways, and they were too easy. With a high speech skill (or even with a low skill and heavy use of save/reload) theres pretty much nothing you cant do, gain entry, get more money from jobs, get passwords, complete quests without doing what was asked, etc. It just felt a little too shallow to me, at least for a Fallout game.
 
painey said:
Wow I didn't mean to put so many off :lol The first 20 hours or so were so addicting, but soon I felt like I had seen most of what was on offer and I think I played on just to justify what I paid. Its not a bad game at all, just not that fresh after sinking so much into Oblivion. The biggest disappointment for me however is just how little so much seems to matter, for instance I did one quest that cost me alot of caps (in game currency) which I figured would earn me access into a town, after jumping through hoops and finally earning enough caps to finish the quest, I got to the town and found out that because I had picked a certain perk, I was guaranteed entry, not to mention that I could have got in using my high Speech skill, and my medium intelligence. In previous Fallouts I would have had to have earnt my way in, but here I felt like I put in alot of effort for nothing. The stats, other than Speech (which raises the % chance of you convincing someone, Lockpick (which lets you attempt a lockpick minigame) and Science (which lets you use a hacking minigame) seem all a bit useless. If I had never played Oblivion it would be a 10/10, but seeing as I had, its 9/10.
Click to expand...

this gives me hope. This says to me that there are multiple ways to handle every situation, which is always an awesome feature for a game to have.
 
painey said:
If I had never played Oblivion it would be a 10/10, but seeing as I had, its 9/10.
Click to expand...

When i read your remarks i deduced at 6 or 7 out of 10. But i see where you are coming from.
 
After not enjoying a second of Oblivion I think I'm definitely out after reading those impressions. I already cancelled my pre-order but I was holding out some hope after seeing the vids at the start of this thread.

=/

Will have another look when the modders have got their hands on it.
 
I despised Oblivion and I only played a little bit of Fallout 1 (thought it was pretty dated). Will I dislike Fallout 3?
 
Awesome impressions painey!

Edit: Being a HUGE Fallout fan your impressions made me more than worried though. Also i find it a bit strange that you missed the dog. At times they pimped the dog almost as hard as they did in Fable II. Maybe they stealth-canned him?
 
No...free...roam?

That's kinda depressing...I mean, what's the point of having such a huge map if you can't wander around after you finish the main quest?
 
painey said:
right, I managed to get hold of the game for £50 tuesday evening and I have been playing solidly.. and i mean solidly for 4 days and here are my impressions, bear in mind i am a HUGE fallout 1+2 fan, and I put 110hours into Oblivion and the expansion, collecting all achievements;

I sat down to this game eagerly excited, but doubtful that the game would be good, after all for all extensive purposes this was a completely bastardised version of a game I adored. In a way it pleasantly surprised me, and in another way it totally let me down.

The game is essentially Oblivion. The view, the conversations, the map, compass, etc. Theres alot here which was instantly familiar. I've put in an insane number of hours in this game for such a short period, taking time to do as many sidequests as possible. It should be noted that all major quests have an achievement, while this may seem fantastic, you soon realise just how few quests there are, especially as the story line consists of many small quests. What is worse is just how many of these quests are the same. The storyline has you on a quest to save the world, or at least give it a kick up the arse on its way to being saved and is much better than the main storyline for Oblivion, and Liam Neesons voice is fantastic and a pleasure to listen to, but the side quests are really quite disappointing. Almost every single quest is a go here, kill everyone in sight, bring item back quest. What is even more annoying, is for the most part you are traveling to the same old places, either burnt out factories or underground metro tunnels, which not only reuse assets over and over, but lack any sort of level design.. they just simply exist room to room. I have not actually finished the main story for one simple reason, the game has no free roam once it is beaten. I am at the very end, with literally a final battle away from seeing the credits roll but I refuse to finish until I have cleared up more quests and explored more. From what I have heard the endings, no matter which you end up with, are massively disappointing, and I have no idea how DLC will work when there is an endgame.

The game is very much a shooter. Unlike previous Fallouts, Melee is COMPLETELY unnecessary, do not waste a single point of your stats on it. IMO all your stats at the start should be put into Speech, Small guns and Lockpick as they give you the best results. In real time, you won't find a worse shooter, and third person mode is quite possibly the worst thing EVER, but VATs gives you a (overpowered) good feel, even if it is quite wasted (I have gotten all the way to the end of the game only targeting the head or torso). You receive more Experience for real time combat, but its only deserved because real time combat feels like Stevie Wonder with a gun, failing to hit a target 5 inches in front of you. There is a huge emphasis on combat, which is unlike Fallout. In Fallout 2 I completed the game killing maybe 100 things, mainly radscorpians. So far in my Fallout 3 game I have killed over 500 things, not including the hundreds my partner has killed. The number of enemies are also very few in number, I must have killed 200 Super Mutants alone, and while the gore is amusing for the most part (especially with bloody mess perk) it can get boring fighting the same old enemies over and over, with only really Mirelurks requiring a strategy to kill.

A major annoyance in Oblivion was the 3 voice actors they used, over and over. Fallout 3 has alot more voice actors, and they are alot better (Although the guy from Oblivion still voices a few minor characters in the same voice). Like I said, Liam Neesons voice is great and its very rare you find two characters who sound the same, apart from the Ghouls who it seems all use the same voice actor. This is especially noticeable in the Ghoul town, where everyone you speak to sounds the same.

The game is still filled with little bugs and glitches; if you pick up an item off a table all the other items will shake around, just like Oblivion, and one of my quests is completely broken and is unable to be completed, which is a real pain in the arse. My partner often gets completely stuck in motion, or lost and hits a 400x speed sprint to catch me up (incidentally my partner is not Dogmeat, I went the entire game without finding him). General things like loading are fine and not at all over the top, and provide you with information as you load like number of Stimpacks used, Locks picked, etc.

The game is based very heavily on Karma. Most major quests will give you good or bad options, for one example
a woman asks you to do 9 quests for her to fill in a book. You can do every quest for experience and good karma, or you can, using a high speech skill, tell her shes an idiot and shouldnt waste time on a book
losing you karma but saving you from doing 9 fetch quests and unlocking an achievement for you instantly. Essentially for most quests though, the Karma doesnt really have enough consequences other than earning you more money for doing the bad thing.

The map is huge, at first it looks tiny on your Pip Boy, but when you actually go walkabout you realise how big it is. Sadly, as big as it is, it is massively empty and disappointing. There are very, very few numbers of towns with unique NPCs and huge numbers of useless areas that offer very little except scenery you have already seen over and over. The entire game seems, from number of enemies, to similar assets and plain wasteland, to be too big for its boots. The game would have been alot better if the map was half the size with less filler and more things to do.

Theres so much to talk about, and I really feel like im on Fallout overload from playing so much (I have Dead Space sitting here begging to be played), but ultimately this is a good game but by no means GOTY probably because it feels so similar to Oblivion, although this is just my opinion. Is it a worthy Fallout game? No, I dont think it even comes close to the charm, grittiness or atmosphere of the original Fallouts, but if you take it as an Oblivion expansion then you realise it is a great game, worthy of being in your collection.

Phew.

edit: just regarding the system, I played on the 360, the frame rate was very smooth throughout, apart from two areas but I think it was chugging because i had too many saves. The game froze on me 3 times, but only once required a reboot of the console. If you are worried about the 360 version, don't be.
Click to expand...

Picture removed from official thread OP (you know the one).
 
Apparently the main game design is solid, but aspects like combat and roaming about are gimped. Hopefully they will be able to fix it through...mods!

Thank goodness they improved the main story over Oblivion.
 
Death_Born said:
Apparently the main game design is solid, but aspects like combat and roaming about are gimped. Hopefully they will be able to fix it through...mods!
Click to expand...

I hear that. Modders assemble, it's time to polish Fallout 3.
 
Thanks for the indepth impressions/review painey. I love/loved Oblivion (logged 200+ hours) and I'm glad that it is very similar. I believe I'll really enjoy this game.
 
Got mine today! Woo!

1224894482205-1.jpg

1224895227470.jpg
 
Can someone explain or show pictures of what's in the special edition lunchbox?

I bought the Gears of War special edition but the metal tin was flimsy, and there wasn't a good way to put the game on my shelf; same with Prey special edition. Since then I haven't bought any SE's, but I want the Fallout 3 one for the documentary. Is the game disk just in a sleeve inside the lunchbox? Or does it have its own case that I can put on my shelf? Thanks.
 
O nice, there's the pics. Question then, was the game box just inside the lunchbox like that? Is it the normal game box just inside the lunchbox? If so, I will get it for sure.
 
Damn that Limited Edition looks really neat, but isn't it $79.99? Too much for me. I think if it was just $69.99 I'd get it. It's just that theres so many other games I need to buy and spending $85 (counting tax) on 1 is way too much.
 
TheRayJ said:
O nice, there's the pics. Question then, was the game box just inside the lunchbox like that? Is it the normal game box just inside the lunchbox? If so, I will get it for sure.
Click to expand...

Game disk is in a regular 360 box; the documentary is in a sleeve.

The art book is fucking phenomenal.
 
Trombone Zombie said:
If anyone is in the DC area, the Best Buy in Rockville, MD is doing a midnight launch with giveaways and members of the team will be there.



More here:
http://www.bethsoft.com/eng/news/pressrelease_102408.html
Click to expand...

The Best Buy on Rockville Pike? :lol Only 10 minutes away from me, and I'm always going up and down the Pike. Shame it's not for a game I care about. Painey, along with other impressions, have virtually confirmed all of my fears and expectations.
 
To those who've played the game a decent amount: Do the mutant creatures actually look as nasty as they did on that preview flash site? Also are there a decent amount of different weapons within the same classes? Like different pistols, different rifles, etc.
 
So, did they completely change the lunchbox design to look exactly like the cover of the game?

ce_items05-small1.jpg


This is definitely the superior design.
 
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