Originally posted by: Eeezee
Denial much? I can think of maybe... 3 things wrong with Fallout 3, and one of them is not enough plot. And the comparisons to Deus Ex 2 are ridiculous at best.
And they did reinvent the series, but it's almost nothing like Oblivion. The only thing it has in common is an optional first person perspective and fast travel.
Yea, I'm in denial. Thing is, I've written about 3 pages worth of complaints about Fallout 3 but I've deleted it all before because it just turns into ranting and raving. And at this point in time, I honestly don't remember many of my complaints because I've gone on to play other games. Fallout 3 was not a classic in my book, when I look back on my favorites, it won't be in the list the way Fallout 1 is. That's the fact of the matter. It never wandered into bad game territory, but it never came close to amazing game territory either. In fact, I played Dead Space after it and found that a MUCH more complete game.
Complaints:
1. A terrible combat system. Bethesda couldn't make a combat system if they teamed with Capcom and they did all the work. In this game they've stepped away from bad sword combat and somehow managed to make bad gun combat. What's wrong with it? Well that's hard to pinpoint, some of it comes down to the retarded AI, some of it falls on a crosshair that seems to want to force you into VATS, some of it falls on VATS, some of it falls on the attempt to shoe-horn RPG style stats onto an FPS. It's a recipe for weapons that never ever feel right and combat that, like Oblivion, you either win or lose by a large margin. And when you're winning it basically comes down to running up to them and blowing their face off 3 inches away because all of the "ranged" combat is incredibly distance handicapped.
2. An awful main plot. Congrats Bethesda, you've done it again. Not only is it short, it's total crap. From the forced capture and destruction of the main enemies base in under 15 minutes to the suicide by radiation while a super mutant named Fawkes was standing right next to me.
3. Itemization is shitty. Itemization in Fallout 3 comes down to a massive number of common weapons and a ridiculous amount of repair, which turns weapons almost into some sort of expendable resource like rations. (I've got 14 chineese assault rifles and 12 rocket launchers, I should be good). Now the decay doesn't annoy me that much more that it feels like they stuffed the decay into the game so that you wouldn't notice how little variety there actually is. There is roughly only 1 unique weapon per weapon class and many of these aren't even satisfying. There is about 2 pistols in the game worth using and the best one is missed if you are even remotely nice to a 90 year old woman. The other is gotten like 2 seconds before the end of the game. This means that most dungeons you explore do not have shit in them except a bobblehead. No bosses (more on that later), most have crappy stories, and usually a sense of unfulfillment as you complete them. Then there is armor, most power armor is garbage, the best armor you get comes from a single quest about Reily's Rangers. This same armor can be worn for roughly 100 hours in the game since nothing competes with it. At the end of the game, you are finally made an honorary member of the lyon's pride, yet you are given basic no name power armor, absolute shit at that point in the game. Something that came as a complete insult considering I was about to follow a massive tower of pain throughout the city and only able to shoot my weapon a good 12 times after that point. All of this reeks of poor itemization.
4. Let's talk more about crappy dungeons. There is a tower in the SW corner of the map, can't recall the name anymore but it has a very Lovecraftian style to it. There are messages about a son coming back to find out what happened to his Dad and some "book". The messages keep getting more and more interesting until..... *drumroll* you pop out near the top of the dungeon with nothing left to do. You never find the book, you never find any creatures from the abyss and you never find any sort of monster that could be considered a boss. It's incredibly disappointing, you end up walking out of the dungeon going "well, at least I got a bobblehead". I ended up collecting all of the Bobbleheads, mainly because of an excessive case of completionism. They could have done so much with all of the dungeons, allowed you to find old relics of the pre-nuke era, stuff to put in your house, stuff to sell for money, new weapons and armor, crazy powerful monsters, etc. But they decided not to do any of that.
5. Then there are the quests. This was supposed to be the saving grace of Fallout 3. Ah yes, they were going to have "that guy who did those brotherhood quests" doing everything this time around.
Yet, none of the side quests even matched the Fighters guild much less the Brotherhood. What happened? The quest they hyped to kingdom come was the bomb in Megaton, an atomic bomb that takes an explosives skill of 15 to disarm (uuhhh, what?) so basically every person stepping foot in the new world can disarm the bitch without a problem. There are so many holes in this quest it isn't even funny, why did the religion even let me get close enough to the bomb to disarm it? In Fallout 1/2 that cult would have attacked if I stepped within range of the bomb, forcing me to figure out an intricate strategy if I wanted to disarm it, and it probably would have required 75 explosives, meaning the bomb would have remained active for a larger portion of the game, instead of 15 minutes. And when we get done tearing that quest a new one, we realize none of the other side quests even live up to that one. "The Family" was a slightly interesting quest, unfortunately it's potential was completely lost because once you've solved it there isn't much you can do with The Family. A smarter game would have allowed you to run a dozen or so quests for The Family, building up your reputation, unlocking possible new abilities and getting unique armor/weapons from them. However, I think the only way you can get anything unique from The Family is for robbing the leader, yea great. Then we have quests like the Oasis, one of the more unique areas of the zone however from finding it to leaving it is about 20 minutes. The quest given is incredibly obvious, with the correct answer basically shouted in your face. I guess it could be considered a complex psychological test in just doing what you are told.
6. Another of my problems with Fallout 3 is that some of the more unique locations don't make sense. For instance, we have 3dog who is supposed to be living in one of the more secure buildings in DC yet the place is garbage. They've got basically no defenses except a few sandbags and the area that 3dog and the paladins live in is more akin to what feral ghouls live in. By comparison, we have Lamp Light, which has more style and defenses then basically any other location in the game. Something that may be considered a joke on the developers part but really sticks out as odd. LampLight is
something I'd consider adults everywhere would be doing. Building make shift defenses out of whatever is available - Mad Max style fortifications.
7. Just a note, I'm not going to list all of these little complaints, however hacking turrets was basically useless. It came down to the fact that all you could do once you hacked them is wipe their targeting data, which still made them target you. Basically useless. Even though I had 100 hacking, I'd usually end up blowing them up anyways.
Now, this isn't all my complaints. And honestly, it makes the game look worse than I thought it was. I never thought it was a bad game, however, I felt it was mediocre given the potential. So what did I like...
A quick list of likes, Lamp Light obviously, Fawkes and her quest was pretty neat, Reily's Rangers, the beginning, all of the radio stations and radio station related quests, and the general landscape.