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Gamers Of The Apocalypse
The Escapist's theme this week is 'retro-style games', and Russ Pitts (one of the gents behind Gamers With Jobs) has a piece on post-apocalyptic gaming. Entitled 'Duck and Cover', it touches on games with that fallout flavour. From the article: "The desolate imagery and desperate sense of hopelessness in the face of unimaginable tragedy make Fallout a difficult game to finish (especially for a Day After Kid), but it is precisely the ending of this game that makes every moment of pain and frustration worthwhile. Watching the Fallout's ending cut-scene rendered me utterly speechless. I literally could not summon the words or thoughts to describe my emotions."
The news that Interplay cancelled Fallout 3 left me utterly speechless and literally unable to summon the words or thoughts to describe my emotions. Talk about sheer idiocy.
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Wait 10 years, and then go outside. It'll be real, though, not a game.
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Auto Assault. http://www.autoassault.com/index.html
Enjoy!
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Didn't think those type of games had an ending.
I completely forgot about how cool the Fallout endings are. You just inspired me to go play it again. Made me shiver.
1) Wasteland is the godfather of all post-apocalyptic RPGs. If you haven't played it, try giving it a few hours.
2) Burntime is another people might enjoy, it's a challenging mix of post-apocalyptic RPG and RTS.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Fallout 2 was one of, if not the, best open ended RPGs out there. I never did finish it though. The farthest I got with with a pugilist (I poured points into Hand to Hand), which while requiring a good deal of reloads when combat didn't go quite right, was in fact the funnest and funniest rpg I ever played. For all the streetfighter II, there was nothing quite like critically kicking an alien in the eyeball, blinding it, knocking it back 100 meters, and ultimately killing it in one cruel blow.
Somehow, with all it's 3d skill/stat/level/3cd/2expansion, Morrowind never could hold a candle to this rpg. I'm now itchin to reinstall it:)
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Check out Fallen Earth. More foot-based than Auto Assault.
Whoa, looks sweet.
Why does every game like that have to be riddled with scantily clad females? Sheesh. You'd think if you lived in a place with sandstorms and hostile chemicals, you would wear at least a t-shirt that didn't have holes all through it.
Other than that, looks like a good game!
I would like to see games based on either of these two excellent storylines. Stay away from the MMORPG formats please.
Sorry, but WTF is a "Day after kid"?
Fnord.
OK you bastards, you've gone on about it enough, I'll try this Fallout game. It'd better be bloody good. And available on my local abandonware site
one of the really annoying things about Fallout 2 is it allways seemed to crash more towards the end of the game, kinda like it didnt want me to beat it, maybe thats just bad karma for all that reloading from different saves to get critical hits...
You mean 9 years according to John Titor ;-p
We have had a discussion in the forums about the shirt and no one really knows why. We were informed that it wasn't the marketing department that mandated the shirt though. Of course there have been a few "improvements" performed on the humans too. Nothing to the extent of the biomeks and mutants but not pure homo sapiens either. We mostely figure that the resources available have been dedicated to maintaining the vehicles and decent clothing is a luxery.
Oh and yes the game is a lot of fun. (semi open beta events on the weekends, preorder and get instant access to the midweek and weekend beta events)
Okay, will someone explain to me why the parent was slammed as a "troll"? As I replied, the author of the Escapist article is most likely referring to himself in reference to a 1983 movie -- that's 23 years ago, folks -- from a U.S. network. Okay, he could have asked with a bit less attitiude, but there should be no surprise that people would not understand the reference.
Not everyone on Slashdot is from the U.S., and not everyone on Slashdot is old enough to remember some of the events in 1983 that would have such an impact on the TV psyche like "The Day After" did for a lot of people.
I'm from the U.S. and I remember when "The Day After" was shown on ABC. But at least I can give Slashdot users the benefit of the doubt that they're not all American thirty-somethings. Hopefully, metamoderation will slam that knucklehead appropriately.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Why does every game like that have to be riddled with scantily clad females?
Personally, I like my females scantily clad, or not clad at all. Assuming they are good looking, of course. Margaret Thatcher has my permission to remain fully clothed at all times, thank you very much.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
May you all have mercy upon our poor server.
Mutant Freaks of Nature: "Frighteningly Addictive"
Why does the headline make me want to invade a LAN party with helecopters, blasting "Ride of the Valkyries" at 120 dB?
Fallout series had alot going for it. I personally thought it was a great game series even though i played Fallout 2 first then went back to 1 several years later. It was more "real" than Half life. You could pimp yourself out, or your wife out for money. The game was dark, they didn't hold back too much on their apocalyptic vision. excellent story, just that turn based combat got really annoying, really. We need more dark visionaries in that Half life, Fallout style. Someone to put reality in our face and let us live the dark side of life that's usually kept hidden from our views. Forgetting the past, or ignoring the possible future is no way to solve problems. Remembering, and living them, even through a "game" is one way to share other realities and expand our lives.
As a game developer, the community following that Fallout and Fallout 2 have sustained to this day totally amazes me. Of course when I've encountered some of the ex-Black Isle guys, I had my moments of being reduced to a fanboy as well. No offence guys :-)
Anyway, the user community has slowly but surely reverse engineered most of the Fallout games with the intent of making mods and fixing bugs in the games. The release of the Fallout 2 Mapper (thanks to many of the former team, especially Chris A) help accelerate the process.
One of the great things that came out of their effort has been a few mods that fix most of the gameplay bugs in Fallout 2. Fixed Items, Quests, Dialog options, NPC's, missing encounters, and so on. I personally replayed the game last fall with Seraph's Fallout 2 patch, and _WOW_, what an improvement.
My recommendation: If this article made you think you would like to replay Fallout or Fallout 2, head on over to http://www.nma-fallout.com/ and dig up one the latest patches and play the game as the designers had intended it to be.
I've played in a couple of Auto Assault weekend beta events.
*WARNING* I don't play any MMORPG's. I do play Planetside. A bunch. So my opinions might be tainted...
The game is pretty. The landscapes are cool. Its obvious that the designers put a ton of work into it. I couldn't get too far on the beta weekends; I think I got one toon to level 9 (I have a family that keeps interfering with my online life...). I made it out of the tutorial and the n00b zone, and was exploring the slightly-less-n00bish zone when I went to sleep.
It got boring very, very fast. It starts off like road warrior/mad-max, but as you progress the enemies get inexplicably tougher. I mean, they are both humans, but one dude gets squished as soon as I drive over him, but this other guy damages my car instead AND keeps on shooting me as I drive by. I just had a hard time grokking that. I kinda understand that most(all?) MMORPGs are like that. My fault, I 'spose. Once the enemies got too hard to kill (and its a very short gradient from easy -> minor challenge -> nyah! nyah! you can't hit me!) I gave up running missions and just tried to see as much of the zone as I could before the beta window was over.
I never saw anyone doing PvP, but I know this weekend was supposed ot be the big "beat the dev's" weekend, so I assume the PvP was taking place somewhere.
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So who is the Solrain of this new Netdevil game, i.e. what faction do the dev's play? I don't want to miss out on being on the team with best stuff.
.. What are the chances they will stick with the turn-based formula? I know it's out of vogue (in favor of the real-time Neverwinter Nights style of play) but I greatly prefer it, as combat feels much more like a calculated game of chess instead of a mad fumble to click the right boxes at the right time.
We need a Fallout game that throws in a lot of Xcom (UFO: Enemy Unknown), a little DotC (Defender of the Crown), and some Roadwar 2000. We need to capture and research weapons and technology, build or capture bases to increase your gang's land holding, gather or connect resources to your bustling empire, and varying missions (ala Defender of the Crown). Lay siege to someone else's base, make a stealth loot-run, go exploring in ruins (The Glow), and return to research and develop everything that was gained. A few sidequests that involve tracking down a key scientist, or tech, or gang member.
The best thing to do would be to make it part FPS, and part RTS. Have your guy go to a base console to operate the strategic section of the game (base management, research and development, personnel. Then have him personally lead an assault squad/team on the missions, outfitting your team with the newly aquired/researched weapons and equipment.
There's one in development, http://www.conflictomega.com/. Progress appears slow though.
Dude, that's an image I really didn't need during my lunchbreak...