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Fallout 3 Launches Amidst Controversy
Earlier this week, Bethesda released Fallout 3 after a long campaign of defending and protecting the game's reputation from claims that it contained inappropriate content. Ads for the game in Washington DC's subway system were pulled after they upset some touchy travelers over the depiction of post-apocalyptic Washington landmarks. Shortly before the game's release, early trailers were removed as well. Earlier this year, the game was banned in Australia for its in-game use of morphine, causing the drug's name to be changed to Med-X. On the issue of sensitive content, Bethesda's Emil Pagliarulo wrote in Edge Magazine about the design decision to disallow the killing of children in the game. Gamasutra ran an opinion piece on the same subject, and the Washington Post discusses the role of Washington DC in Fallout 3. On the DRM front, the game does come with SecuROM, but Bethesda says it's only used for a disc check. Reviews for the game have been overwhelmingly positive so far, despite reports of bugs with the save system and occasional lock-ups.
With all of the controversy surrounding Fallout 3 I'd have to say that Bethesda's doing a good job at keeping the game's reputation alive. I haven't ordered it yet but I'll be getting the deluxe version with the booklet and DVD.
Actually, I'm not doing anything more important so...
I'm a bit disappointed that you can't kill kids in the game but I suspect someone will find a way to patch it so that you can. Either way, it is a must have game for me with or without DRM.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
...and all the guns have been replaced with walkie-talkies!
Nothing gets by you guys, a major game release,,,,,,LAST WEEK. I've been playing the game quite a bit, there's nothing in the game that a mature adult, like, I don't know the M rating suggests, can't handle. I don't know if one could shoot a kid or not, but, if you did, that would have a negative impact on your character's karma, so in-game there would be sanctions against you.
"despite reports of bugs with the save system and occasional lock-ups." Occasional lock-ups my ass! The game must have had next to no QA for many it it crashes as soon as you select new game!* It won't even play if you have some of the most popular codec packs installed!
*Myself included
"The people of our city do not need a daily reminder that Washington is a prime target for an attack," wrote Joseph Anzalone in a letter to the editor of the Post which was noticed by GamePolitics. "We do not need a daily reminder of what our worst fears look like," added Anzalone. "Since any First Amendment objection would be irrelevant (the ads do not present a true viewpoint or political message and would therefore not be protected), there is no reason for these ads to be part of our daily panorama," he continued. "The ads should be removed, and the appropriate office at Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority should be directed to exercise better judgment regarding what can be displayed in our transportation system," concluded the concerned citizen.
As a resident of the Washington DC metropilitan area, I fully support a multiple multimegaton nuclear apocalypse targeting the city.
Whoa whoa whoa, who said the ads were pulled? I was just in Metro Center yesterday and I can assure you, the Red line platform is still decked out with "Vault Life" and pictures of the Capitol and Washington Monument in apocalyptic splendor.
Even the article quoted only references a letter to the editor saying the ads should be pulled, nothing says they were.
I agree there is some controversy, but lets not go too far.
Quick background: in the game, there are several ways to restore hp (sleeping, eating, etc). Most food and drink is, however, contaminated, and will have a tooltip reading something like "+10 hp | +3 rads" indicating that while it will restore hp, it will also slightly irradiate you.
... unorthodox sources is one such solution to basic nutrition.
So, I'm rummaging through a restroom in the first shanty-town outside the safety of my vault. I notice the urinals can be used, and seem to restore health. My thought is "ok, I suppose that makes sense, holding it forever would certainly cause eventual health problems.."
Needing some hp, I hit use. The camera drops halfway to the ground as if my character was crouching. There's a slurping sound. I'm baffled as to what's happening until my horrified fiancee, watching beside me, declares, "Oh my god, you just drank from a urinal."
There's more than one way to solve every puzzle in Fallout 3. Apparently, drinking from
"We do not need a daily reminder of what our worst fears look like," added Anzalone. "Since any First Amendment objection would be irrelevant (the ads do not present a true viewpoint or political message and would therefore not be protected), there is no reason for these ads to be part of our daily panorama," he continued.
Sounds like a lawyer or politician.
"The ads should be removed, and the appropriate office at Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority should be directed to exercise better judgment regarding what can be displayed in our transportation system," concluded the concerned citizen.
Yeah, right. That's just one person's opinion.
Some people just have too much time on their hands and just like to bitch. Well, it is DC and there's a bunch of Federal workers, that explains the people with too much free time on their hands.
I'm sure they were the first ones to bitch when Janet Jackson's nipple was shown on TV. Oh, the horror!
Dick heads
Well, we know what Australia is like about censoring free speech. And Med-X, why is it not called 'Jet'?
This is going to destroy the fun of re-enacting dead baby jokes. Also, killing children in games stops me wanting to throttle the little, screaming brats in real life. If I murder a child in the near-future I will blame it upon this design decision, just to piss off all those thinkofthechildren-ites.
But does it run on Linux (under Wine)? I ain't buying it if it don't run under Linux. Windows is too bloated to run games correctly these days, using a cut-down Linux desktop like Fluxbox is much better.
Oh no! Virtual children in video games are dying! There are fake people taking fake drugs in a fake reality! Let's commence with worldwide outrage!
The Washington Post - isn't that the same newspaper that supported the Iraq war, which has killed and displaced tens of thousand of real children, and is still forcing young girls to sell their bodies so their families can eat?
I swear to God. The entire world lives in a fantasy land of anecdotes and paranoia. How about some news stories about things that actually matter, especially the ones that exist in reality...
(not directed at video game media, but the Post? Christ almighty)
Oh yeah, that makes PERFECT sense. You can kill ANY other living creature in the game, EXCEPT kids.
ESRB: Ohhh, you can't release a game that shows killing kids. After all, if someone sees it done in a game, SURELY that must mean that they will follow up with going on a child-slaughtering rampage through the countryside.
Give me a fucking break! If I decide I want to play the game by killing every last person and become the sole survivor, with this new rule, I get to be the sole adult survivor... but of course surrounded by CHILDREN! Oh yeah, that's not FAR creepier than decimating everything.
It's an adult game for adults! If parents do their jobs, then kids won't SEE in-game kids getting killed. Or anyone getting killed.
And TFA's comments about their decision for that. What does killing children add? Oh, I don't know... freedom to do whatever I want in an imaginary universe in which death, decay, and destruction are among the MAIN SUBJECTS!
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
You spend half your in Farcry 2 injecting morphine into your wrist!
You don't understand journalism at all do you?
It's a better story if the ads are censored. So they are. The fact that all the ads still appear in the same places with the same content is just a distraction.
Reviews for the game have been overwhelmingly positive so far, despite reports of bugs with the save system and occasional lock-ups.
Since when did we, as game consumers, start giving software development companies a pass for releasing buggy software? Let me car analogy it for you guys:
Reviews for the car have been overwhelmingly positive so far, despite reports of bugs with the braking system and occasional engine lock-ups.
Sure, a failing game won't put your life at risk, but problems with the saved game system? Have saved game systems fundementally changed over the last two decades?
a. Open File
b. Store Data
c. Close File
And as far as random crashes, If it's hardware related... I can give them a pass. If it's simply poor programming, I think it is inexcusable.
Reading the summary, the only thing I kept thinking the whole time was "man, this game is AWESOME!"
All this controversy is just going to make the game more exciting, but people seemingly fail to realize that, time after time.
I just hope my computer can handle it.
On the DRM front, the game does come with SecuROM, but Bethesda says it's only used for a disc check.
On the raping front, the game does come with a rusty pipe, but Bethesda says it's only going to be used to beat you repeatedly.
What, I'm supposed to feel glad they weren't also going to ram it up my ass?
You seem to be missing the point. "Only a disc check" still means I'm going to be cracking it as soon as it's out of the box, so I don't have to go find a fucking CD every time I want to play the game.
And if I have to crack a game to play it, I won't buy it. Treat me like a criminal, fine, I'll be one. Pirate bay it is...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
How is that a bug with the save system? A bug to me is something such as deleting your saves... this "bug" is just that if you save at a certain point near the end of the game you can no longer explore the open areas in the game from that particular save as you're locked into that room. That's not really a bug...
I know the parent is borderline troll, but I'll respond anyways.
I think it's the state of affairs today, when it comes to PC gaming. You can't write code that works on all systems, because there are so ludicrously many configurations to consider. And there is only so many systems you can beta test on, especially in this sort of game that really doesn't lend itself well to public beta testing (95% of the fun is the explorations, spoilers leaking would be devastating.) Furthermore, many of the issues seem to stem from misconfigured systems: I had troubles playing that were related to codec problems that the developers clearly could not have predicted.
The tech support forums are also a typically bad place to gather crash statistics on, since people generally won't go there if they don't have troubles with the game.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I'm just not buying this until mod tools are released.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
What I fail to understand is why Bethesda felt the need to censor their game. They're not aiming for a teen or pre-teen demographic, this game is squarely targeted at a mature audience. They should do whatever the hell they want. It's not that I have a burning desire to kill children (ok, actually I do), but having an artificial restriction in an otherwise free-for-all death-fest is all sorts of wrong, especially considering Fallout 1 and 2 had no such limitations.
I find it absolutely pathetic that these supposed artists and entertainers have absolutely no backbone. To hell with the ESRB! I would proudly stamp on the game's box: "This game is strictly for mature and somewhat jaded audiences" and end it right there. There's my rating. If some dumb passive-aggressive NIMBY feminazi buys it for her developmentally-challenged teenager and he grows up to become President of the USA, bitch better not blame me!
Well I suppose it's off-topic but I'm still a little angry about it: I put down $5 at a video game store in EARLY OCTOBER for the PC version of Fallout 3. The guy called it a "pre-order". The term suggests I'm "ordering it" BEFORE it is released. As in I'll have a copy when I come in to pick it up. Isn't that the point? So I go in on the 31st to pick it up and they say it's sold out...what is that like four days? Nobody said anything about getting it within four days. So I'm trying to figure out what the point of pre-ordering is if you don't actually get a copy. What did I pay for?! I think I'll stop going to that particular place for anything game-related. Gamecrazy.
"UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie
Those ads weren't pulled, at least as far as I'm aware. They were still plastered all over Metro Center (the central stop, and the busiest stop, in the system) as of Friday evening on the way home from work.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
to promote publicity.
Those hundreds of people on the forums are a minority. The majority of PC users don't have any problems with the game and so don't go complaining about it on forums. You can't make a PC game that doesn't have problems on some kind of computer configuration because you can't test all of the possible configurations.
Mada mada dane.
More like frequent crashes to the desktop, to an extent where the game is essentially unplayable, and censorship on the Bethesda forums.
1. As a Fallout geek, I don't even understand the fuss. The drugs in Fallout 1 and 2 were already called stuff like Buffout, Jet, etc. So, lore-wise, it's a change for the better.
I mean, sure, I could live with a name like "Morphine" too, but I see no reason to run amok about their respecting the canon either. It's Fallout, people. Getting upset that the drugs in the Fallout universe have Fallout names, is a bit as silly as getting upset that a LOTR game has mithril. Sure, you could call it "titanium" instead of "mithril", but it won't actually make the game better. It's the canon for that world, silly.
2. If I were to bitch about a name change there, I'd rather bitch about the weapon names. Fallout always had real weapon names, like the G11 or AK-47 or FN-FAL or whatnot. Now suddenly we have non-descript stuff like "chinese pistol" and "chinese assault-rifle." WTF?
3. In fact, I wonder if the whole "let's name the drugs RL names" thing was just a PR stunt to cause a lot of talk.
I mean, if you look at the whole thing, it is schizophrenic to the extreme. The weapons get changed to non-RL names, the canon be damned, _but_ at the same time they supposedly really wanted to change canon-correct drug names to stuff like "Morphine". It makes no sense. There is no coherent plan in there.
My guess is that they never actually planned to release it with RL drug names, and just pulled a PR coup to get a lot of talk about their game. I.e., that this isn't as much a censorship story, but really a story about PR bullshit.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
As an impressionable teenager, I loved the gritty reality of Fallout 2. I was always amazed at what they were able to sneak under the radar.
It's a blessing and a curse: as gaming has become mainstream the production values and profits have increased, but the increased scrutiny leads to this nonsense. It's a fucking game people! Get over it!
should be, why didn't they finish the game?
For an RPG it has huge immersion breaking holes in it. You can shoot someone's bodyguard right in front of their eyes, strip their store of everything not nailed down, and they'll still greet you with "Oh, hi, you're the new guy! So nice to meet you!" less than a second later.
Save a guy's life? He'll be eternally grateful during the scripted conversation afterwards. Talk to him again immediately after the event ends and he might go "Speak punk, before I put a bullet in you".
It's almost as if Bethesda never made one of these games before. Or never thought of a concept like a state machine for the conversation/reaction trees. I find it quite baffling.
This thing is begging for an enhanced edition like Witcher got. I bet it won't get it though :(
The game "Prey" for 360 made you kill children to advance.
They were ghosts though but you still were shooting at kids.
TFA says,
"We do not need a daily reminder of what our worst fears look like," added Anzalone.
Uh, yes, we do. Maybe then people would realize what is at stake when they vote, instead of living in their insulated little world where their greatest concern is what time "Heroes" in on.
Of course, if a person is already riding the DC metro system, I guess they have some reason to already be having PTSD.
Just another example of 'old people' thinking.
What if this were a book, or a movie, or a TV show, instead of a videogame?
There are thousands of books in which children are killed, drugs are used, that have post-apocalyptic imagery based on real places on the covers, and in the books themselves.
Movies too, number in the thousands that show the killing of children, the use of drugs, and the destruction of public property.
And Television shows, again, there are many where children are killed, drugs are used, and property is destroyed.
So why, then, the hysteria of a videogame portraying the same?
I think I've suggested an answer to that in the subject of my post.
"Ads for the game in Washington DC's subway system were pulled after they upset some touchy travelers over the depiction of post-apocalyptic Washington landmarks"
What? They hadn't seen "Independence Day", "Deep Impact" or the various "Planet of the Apes" movies?
Get a grip, people!
I told my sister not to buy spore because it has DRM and limited number of installs. I stood on the high horse and told her I would be boycotting it as well. True is I was never interested in that game. Now comes Fallout 3. Gone are the cute animals and bright colors and replaced with GUNS... Motherf*ing GUNS! And mutants... and drinking from a urinal! I want this game now, but AHH, DRM! Should I be a hypocrite and eat my words and buy the game and support DRM? Should I eat my words and buy this game?
1. Well, yes, every _other_ weapon in Fallout 2 was fictional, but only every other.
So it's somewhat inexact to say that it "everything was "10mm pistol", "assault rifle", "sniper rifle" and so on."
2. Fallout Tactics was from Interplay too, so it is just as canon. Much as I understand why many fans of 1 and 2 like to ignore that it existed. There it went even heavier into RL weapon names.
3. Well, it's not like I'm going to lead a mob with torches and pitchforks over that issue, but it seems to me that between
A) naming the drugs according to Fallout canon, and
B) debatably breaking the canon with regard to guns,
the latter is more worthy of bithching. Or rather, the former is _less_ worthy of bitching. I'm not going to lose much sleep over the latter either, but the former... I don't even understand what the fuss is about. So they named the drugs like in Fallout 1 and 2. Wtf is there to protest about that? It's like protesting that Oblivion has daedric equipment.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Oddly enough, this has been my experience with PC gaming in general for the past 15 years. Why blame FO3 or Far Cry 2 for a problem that has existed since the invention of Microsoft Windows 95?
I just ran down next to the nuke, and then went and made a sandwich.
So I saved about 30 extra button-presses, and I got a sammich.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
In 1 & 2, radscorpions were early level monsters that could be killed, with a bit of effort, by a character just starting the game. They were just barely above the rats.
But in 3, they've got more health than a Centaur or a basic Super Mutant.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I think this is an important lesson. China can make great rifles, but terrible pistols.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Since this was marked as Troll, I'll clarify. It really wasn't meant to troll, but was rather a commentary on what users have come to expect from computers.
The majority of computer users are used to bugs and problems with software and hardware. They've come to expect it, as OS after OS is rolled out with major flaws and issues. And yet users still pay for this. They just assume the bugginess and crashes are the norm in the computer world, and developers rarely seem to provide them with any different viewpoint.
When the OS they're using is shipped with known bugs and security holes, and the develper acts as though it's a customer service to fix their own flaws in patches. it becomes the norm. Other developers, of all types of products, follow suit. Unless users stop buying such products, or pressing the market for release dates before a product is ready, then it will continue. This is standard form, not an exception. in any type of software.
It's up to the consumer to demand better, to not pay for the privilege of being a beta tester on release. If a company can't develop a decent product, then don't buy it.
I remember PC gaming being a LOT worse back in the DOS days. Back then, I'd have to create special boot disks optimized for specific games. Just getting your sound card to work was an adventure. One wrong IRQ setting, and your system hard-locked. DirectX, despite a lot of its early crappiness, vastly improved PC gaming.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
So, since I got Fallout on the 28th, I've been doing damn-near nothing but playing it. There are a lot of criticisms I have for it - many of which have been brought up in the comments - and even more praise, but there's one thing that I really, really love about this game.
You're a scavenger. Nothing more, nothing less. My character is currently level 15 (out of 20), and I still scavenge everything. Guns, tin cans, nuka-cola, everything! Why? The steady degradation of weaponry/armor (and not just in a broke/not broke way, the guns get less accurate/do less damage), along with the scarcity of resources (not only in the world, but at the shops, too!) really prevent you from getting a gun and saying "hey, I'm set!". Bethesda made an absolutely brilliant decision when they decided to force you to use similar equipment to repair one piece of equipment. It forces you to loot everything, and constantly puts the player in a state of apprehension ("shit, I really need to find a shotgun, or I'm gonna be up a creek soon").
This isn't Oblivion, where by level 50, you're the biggest, baddest mofo in town, and you're rollin' in dough (and presumably bitches). You're a bottom-feeder, and that really creates almost a sense of urgency, even when you're not fighting. Fallout isn't just about fighting Super Mutants - you're fighting the environment. You're a vulture, and I'll be damned if that doesn't make this game one of my favorite games of all time.
Will there be a playuable demo? I never got into previous Fallout games due to turn-based. This one looks interesting, but I don't know if I will enjoy it. I do like FPS'.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Fallout 2, in addition to the Good/Bad Karma scale, also had character 'titles' which were earned by specific actions. 'Child-Killer' was a huge pain in the ass - no matter how many good things you did, you couldn't ever get rid of everybody in post-nuclear San Fransisco knowing about that one 12-year-old pickpocket you shot in the second town. And it had some serious impact - certain quests would just never be available.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
You can hold down the "use" key on a drinking fountain, toilet, or urinal, and you'll constantly drink from it. It only takes a few seconds at one of those "5 HP | 24 rad" urinals to get that quest taken care of--and there's a bathroom within a stone's throw of Moira's.
But the bugs in Fallout 3's case are of course just to be true to it predecessor.
You're probably thinking of the New York Post. The Washington Post is the one that broke Watergate, and as far as I know it has been reasonably skeptical of the government (as all media should be).
The game is tons of fun, but you can't continue to play after you finish the main quest!
Regardless of the decision you make (no spoiler here).
on the upside, now Terrorists will know that all you need to do to tap into the deepest fears of ignorant Americans is to put up Fallout 3 posters in subway stations.
Actually, tbh I found it a lot less console-y than Oblivion.
In Oblivion, my main problem with the console interface was magic. It just didn't work. To do any kind of spell switching -- and you had to do that all the time, e.g., between attack spells, shielding yourself, and healing spells -- you had to switch to the menu, scroll through an ever growing list of spells (IIRC there was no way to delete old ones), "equip" the other spell, switch back, cast it, etc. More pain in the rear than it's worth. The key combos to do any of the special attacks or defenses (e.g., dodge was jump then block), also felt a lot more like a hack and slash platformer than a proper RPG.
I find that by contrast the Fallout 3 interface just works. It's maybe not perfect, but it's perfectly palatable as a FPS/RPG interface, and doesn't break immersion all the time.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Well, I know about the usual modding capabilities, but it's not moddable yet. I have to wonder how long it will take. It's entirely possible to get the CS in January, if someone from marketing doesn't want their game re-rated AO because of mods before christmas. (AO = no shelf space at Wall-Mart.) It remains to be seen.
Well, if I want to be pessimistic, I'd say that I thought the same about Mass Effect too. I mean, it's from the guys who made Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2! Surely it's just a matter of time until they let us mod it. Turns out it wasn't just lacking modding tools, but was also saddled with a DRM that craps out if you touch any of the resource files at all. I.e., it was even less moddable than KOTOR, which at least could be modded with some modified NWN tools. Fuckers.
At any rate, as long as that's not yet available, well, I'll judge the game by how it is now, not by how it might be at some undefined time in the future :P
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I don't get it. What's it about killing kids being so massively more objectionable then killing adults? Wasn't the crap about innoncent youth abandoned a century or so ago?
No, seriously. Kill a kid or kill an adult. Where, really, is the difference? I'll grant that there is probably some kind of ancient protection instinct hard-wired inside our skulls, which simply isn't appropriate anymore. It makes sense when the threats you might encounter would kill or main a kid, but could be taken care of by an adult. Assault rifles and grenades don't fall into that category.
I'm tired of the whole "think of the chiiiildren" meme. Can we please kill it? As I see it, killing a kid is actually less of a problem. A kid is faster to replace than an adult (say, 10 years instead of 30).
But I guess you can't even discuss that argument seriously without being shouted down.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
.
Fallout 1 and 2 did not ship with mod tools.
There is much to be said for playing the game - exploring the world - before you even think about building a mod.
It will be trivially easy, I suspect, to make a kid a punching-bag or a target dummy - as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
But weaving a kid into your storyline, making him or her a significant NPC, is going to take a lot more thought and imagination.
Role-playing a kid in the Fallout universe would demand even more.
"You can shoot someone's bodyguard right in front of their eyes, strip their store of everything not nailed down, and they'll still greet you with "Oh, hi, you're the new guy! So nice to meet you!" less than a second later."
Ok! Ok, I'll return Taco's stereo.
But why are they using paying PC customers as beta testers?
If you look at the forums, there are hundreds of people that can't play because of crashes, installation issues and other nasty problems.
Ummm... when's the last time you looked at a Bethesda game? O can only speak from experience of the Elder Scrolls series, but each of them has been patched extensively, often with quite game-breaking bugs present in the shipped version. FWIW, my copy crashes at startup ~50% of the time and has a few random crashes on top of that. But, given what I've seen of their products and patching ability over the years, I would say that the vast majority of bugs will be gone before too long, at least for PC users.
i've been playing games since atari 2600...
fallout 3 is the best i've ever played.
its my new crack.
"the design decision to disallow the killing of children in the game."
I would prefer it if it would let you eat the dead babies after killing them, even better if you could... blend... them...
I'll not buy anymore a game with a DRM. End of story.
People are *complaining* that you *can't* kill kids in the game?
What sort of sick fucks are they?
And spare me the moral decisions and choice in games and "Fallout 2 allowed it" pile of pig shit. At the end of the day it's still just a video game, and the complainers are still sick fucks.
And anyone who mods me troll is a sick fuck enabler.
The rest of the world is worrying about the election and the economic crisis and war and whatnot.
The gaming community is in a tizzy because you can't kill children in Fallout 3.
And people wonder why I keep the fact of my gaming hobby to myself.
I bought Fallout 3, but I'm playing Fable 2 at the moment.
Hey... You can't kill the kids in Fable 2, either! Oh no! I've been ripped off! (eye roll)
But I'm liking FO3 better than 1 or 2.
In 1, I very quickly went from sheltered vault dweller to wastelands-striding death machine with virtually unlimited resources because the game pretty much piled on resources for you if you were willing to take a little time to search for things. 2 was even "worse" from this standpoint - absurd quantities of guns and ammo were quickly available, and skill-points racked up quickly enough in the relevant skills that the only challenge of the game was figuring out puzzles. They were great games, but they became really easy really quickly.
With FO3, I don't feel like I'm in an abundant land. Oh, I've got *plenty* of guns. But I have to really hoard my ammo and be careful how I use it. In one mission, the desperate feel of the struggle came through incredibly clearly - I was down in a series of tunnels searching for a nest of creatures to put an end to an infestation. My primary weapon - a Chinese Assault Rifle - would make really short work of the critters, but I ran out of ammo early on. My back-up weapon - 10mm sub-machine-gun - was less effective, and used ammo like it was free. As I kept on going down deeper into the tunnels, I had to keep on using less and less effective weapons, finally falling back onto a laser pistol I didn't know how to use very well, and I actually cheered when I found a room that had 20 rounds for my 10mm! By the time I got all the way to the last of the creatures, I was literally beating them to death with a tire-iron since I had *no* ammo for anything left. I'd run in, beat the crap out of one (while it was trying to set me on fire), then run out (usually crippled because it would burn me), drag myself back to a safe-room and sleep to heal, and then go back and fight again.
It *feels* like a struggle. Because I don't have the option of going back to any of 19 different huge caches of ammo and equipment, because I felt like I *HAD* to take these things out ASAP, I really am getting the post-apocalyptic vibe.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
I find the "children slaying ban" especially odd after visiting the ruins of the Springvale primary school in Fallout 3: there you can find a make-shift detention cell containing the burnt remains of tiny skeletons, amidst the very obvious traces of local raiders' torture practices around every other corner.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
1. Well, it was on the PC, so it was mouse and keyboard.
2. Now if only someone could have invented... I don't know... some kind of a row of icons on the screen to remind me which number is assigned to which spell. Oh, wait, it's called a toolbar and pretty much all games _except_ Oblivion have one.
And what if it wouldn't need me to lift my hand off the movement keys -- since I play with the numeric gamepad, not WASD -- and move them all the way across the keyboard to hit those numbers and then back. It actually was less of a pain to do the sequence I described.
Seriously, I didn't like the Oblivion interface at all.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Interesting that you brought up this view. I was reading a book the other day called 'Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution' by Robert Sussmann and Donna Hart. They argue against the two reigning cultural and sociobiological views of man in primal states: (1) man as a predatory hunter and; (2) man as an egalitarian noble primitive.
They use a number of sources from primatology to paleontology that come to the conclusion that man was a scavenger in the day time and hunted as prey at night. I wonder if this game kicks this primal scavenging neural-wiring back in as you play it?
This is the big problem I have with indestrucible NPCs of any sort - at least once in the game, it'll detract from the immersion. I understand that having a "NPC A just died, load/quit?" dialog is irritating, and the Fallout 2 solution (If certain NPC dies, you have to wander around until you stumble upon the right place to pick up the main questline) would also draw complaints... well, it seems like the Bethesda solution is the worst of the three for game realism.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Man, if lockups were my only issues with the game.
Fallout3 is the buggiest game I've played in some time. It's crashed repeatedly, and I've broken the game no less than at four times. By broken, I mean the scripting for events didn't expect me to do this or that, and thereby the game stopped responding. Specifically, nobody would interract with me, and in one instance I was stuck in a room with no way out, and had to reload an earlier save.
Regardless, I plowed through the game on friday/sunday, did a few of the sidequests but not everything. Ending is totally crappy and non-satisfying, at least with the route I chose, I'll have to go back and try being evil :)
The Med-X gives you a damage resistance bonus. The Aussie censors had a problem with associating morphine with a bonus. You actually get something similar in the UK, drinks companies aren't allowed to associate alcohol with success or benefit in their advertisements.
Nick
dwarves weren't magic, they were smelty motha fuckas! (Prince is sort of a dwarf)
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
The PC version should have obviously been delayed and tested, now more than 50% (judging by the forums) of people can't even play the game.
Selection fallacy. Those who don't have problems are playing the game. I'm only not playing because I'm watching Massa pit.
This is following the disaster that is Far Cry 2 for the exact same reasons.
Which also works fine on my system. I have a plain Windows installation with the latest drivers I use only for games and I have so few problems in general. Sure, I guess developers should test with common software configuration but I don't really have much sympathy when people have problems when they install loads of crud on their computer.
Nick
On the internet nobody knows you're a dog.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
Hahahah ... more like completely random and gauanteed to occur within a 2 hour period.
And why does VATS casue lag afterwards? So bad that the only way to fix it is to exit the game
and start again.
for those of you experiencing lockups ... just press ctrl alt delete and end the task.
ctrl shift esc does not work.
Ah well other then that i love the game so far. It's a pity the censors are so uptight as usual.
Don't forget the Pancor Jackhammer, an awesome real life prototype shotgun that never saw production. :)
Instead, we're stuck with stupider and stupider "plot devices" to make the series extend past "Then Pete blows up the bad guys, travels in time to set everything right, and has sex with the cheerleader."
P.s. I know stupider isn't havening a word
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
The game is great - right until you get to the end and then.... it just sucks. :/
You're stopped like 0 degrees Kelvin and game over. No more exploration, no more quests, no anything except a slide show for an ending.
i want it and i want it to run on wine. What's the problem with americans, everythings bigger and better, they act like they're the saviours of all mankind, meddling in EVERY affair of state across the whole dam globe, but when it comes to entertainment they are such pussies ... i must be stupid but i don't get that
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)