And anyone who whines about Fallout 3 ruining the series history FORGETS Tactics AND BOS.
Tactics – a squad based action game that had little storyline and (as I remember) no multiple endings.
Brotherhood of Steel – I really do not feel I have to explain this one.

Fallout 3 CANNOT be worse then BS, err, BoS. I am so sick of stupid fanboys saying “its going to be terrible”. And yes, while I too am angry about it, I am still going to play the game, and most likely enjoy it. Maybe not as a Fallout, but on its own merits.

As for the true fallout 3, looks like its back to the modsquad…

And with that what are you playing now is mind-junking… Imagine what your kids will play.
Shame on you Bethesda, or make a great best game ever made (or at least not less good then fallout 1/2 )
Cheers

you’d think someone who claimed to be a real fan or whatever would know that the two primary influences on the original fallouts’ artistic direction were art deco and futurism – neither of which survived into the ’40s

if you’re going to try and come off as some sort of font of fallout-related wisdom, you might want to try harder, pal

This game WILL dissapoint a lot of people, people who’ve stood by a game like fallout for so many years and have just been pissed on and have endured countless dissapointments. So excuse these people for being a bit uptight about wanting what they’ve been witing for, excuse them for demanding that when someone buys the license they live up to a minimum of what the game the license is based on made them feel.

Me? I loved fallout 1 & 2, I even preordere tactics, so I have the special box and the nifty little handbag that came with it. I don’t think FO3 will be a bad game, in fact, it looks like it’s going to sell a gazillion copies and looks great. But it’s isn’t fallout. 1st person may be what they call immersive, but that’s not fallout, the vault dweeller was you CHARACTER, he wasn’t you, that’s a very important part of the feel.

But I could keep naming things that made fallout fallout, but that doesn’t change the fact that that’s not what Bethesda wants to do, which they have admitted, this game is not for the pople who liked the gameplay and feel of the orginal series. This is for the new kind of gamer, this is for their own fans and this is for massproduction on consoles.

Now, this doesn’t make it a bad game, but it’s definately not fallout.

I’m not a fanboy per say, I’ve never really been a forum activist and up untill lately I didn’t really follow fallout news since tactics. But I do love fallout, in my eyes it’s the best RPG ever made, it is unique and hasn’t been done before or since in the way it was done. And fallout 3 won’t change that, it will be more like a lot of other games, it will be more generic.

But what can you expect, they kind of game fallout1&2 was won’t cut it for consoles, it was built for mouse and keybaord and a screen where you can actually READ, games today are mostly made for massmarkets, for crossplatform, that’s where the bacon is.

I don’t blame bethesda for thinking their game is coolm I don’t blame them for wanting to make money and sell as monay copies as they possibly can, who wouldn’t.

That just doesn’t make this a worthy heir to the fallout license.

Van buren wasn’t even alpha yet, and still it made me cry when I saw what I could’ve gotten, my beloved fallout back.

But I agree, this game won’t dissapoint anyone but the fans of fallout…

Having seen what black isle was going to try and pass off as a third installment – retreading the very same ground, but a decade later, I’m glad some new hands are going to have a go at it. Oblivion (and Gothic 1/2/3) are the games I’ve felt have gotten closest to the spirit of what made the fallout series so great to begin with, and I honestly would be SURPRISED if this new game disappoints anyone but the most rabid thoughtless fanboys.

What Bethesda has done in it’s infinite fear is refuse to stray from the path that they are familiar with and essentially made a mod for Oblivion. They were given a game with superior story and a large fanbase already present and they were still too afraid to try something new to them. So they changed it, warped it till it became familiar, till they weren’t scared, and till it wasn’t Fallout anymore.

They now knew what to do, they’ve done it before, it’s easy! But how often is the easier path the better one? Instead of trying something new, something hard and unknown to them, they tried to stay with what they already know and thus have alienated the fan base.

This game doesn’t appeal to old fans as you can see by going to any of the long lasting fan sites still existing. Who will it appeal to then? Old Elder Scrolls fans. Their old fan base, not Fallout’s. They seek to rejuvenate their own series while tarnishing a better, but older one. The development team claims that they’re all Fallout fans, but that’s clearly been evidenced as just marketing drivel. Why work so hard to say it again and again? Because it’s not true. “Methinks you doth protest too much!” An apt quote for this issue. But you can see further that they do not care about keeping true to fallout in all these screenshots.

There are so many pretty pictures. Distractingly pretty. Historically why have most games overemphisized graphics during previews? Cause the gameplay sucks. But more than that, what else have they done with their graphics? Oh my, they’ve changed things. This game takes place just a few years after Fallout 2, but, for example, the super mutants have warped into Hell Knights from Doom 3. Are the Ghouls now looking like something ripped from Resident Evil? Bethesda keeps telling us to look at the gorgeous scenery while dodging questions about betraying he Fallout style with a quick recitement of “We’re fallout fans, so do not question us!!”. The original Fallout games and even the newer Fallout: Tactics didn’t rely on shiny things to distract us, they just went and gave us good gameplay and story. This is why they’re still so revered and continually played to this day, despite being a decade old.

Gameplay… gamplay never changes. Or does it? Bethesda thought that the tried and true style of TBS(Turn-Based Strategy) was archiac and useless, when all it needed was a little polish. So they decided to fall back on their own, Bethesda’s prefered style of FPS(First-Person Shooter). Great, take away one of the biggest ties to the original games. Further alienation of the real fans. What’s next? Take away the depraivity so that you won’t have Jack Thompson crying to you? Whatever is easiest, right? Whatever doesn’t force you to work harder. This gameplay style was great, especially with Fallout Tactics giving you the choice of RTS or TBS. Why couldn’t they stick with this? With some simple polishing up of the AI it would remove any clunky or slow feelings they claim to have. Personally I just say Bethesda is filled with twitch gamers wanting another shooter, but hey, I’m just one guy, so who listens to me?

Going back to graphics for a moment, I’d like to point out the poor integration of Fallout elements into Fallout 3. Interplay was always very careful about making it seem more lifelike and not mixing up the cartoonish elements with the realistic ones. For example, there was a image in Game Informer that showed an ad for the vault, which mixed normal humans with the famous PipBoy. This wouldn’t happen before. PipBoy was around a lot, but it wasn’t mushed in with other things. This is a good example of how they knew to keep things seperate because it wasn’t proper. But that’s tossed away now. Also, Fallout has a very 50s inspired appearance, which I think most people are aware of by now. But this extends to many facets of the world. Archetecture, vehicles, decorum, etc. Bethesda hasn’t put enough effort in and many parts come off as being generic and without definition of a proper era. Many things look like they were from the 90s even. A far cry from the original. But they’re very well versed in removing things too, not just changing them.

Bethesda has publically announced that they’ve removed the car from their game. Unfamiliar people are probably thinking, “Who cares? It’s just a car.” But for those that have played, they recognize it as a icon of the game. It’s a classic part of the game and is a very good example of the Fallout world. To simply rip it out and say who cares is just one more sign that they really don’t care about turning this into the next proper Fallout game. There are other things too that are very Fallout based, even if not part of the main story. Eye shots and groin shots were also ripped away. Bethesda claims that eye shots were removed because they want the head to explode anyway. Would it not be suiting that the target’s eye disappear and blood gushes from it, thus causing the target to clutch their face in pain, effectively disabling them? Oh wait, but that’s more work, something Bethesda fears. But fine, let this one go, why no groin shots? You can’t just claim that it’s too similar to another shot, because it’s definately a unique target. So why then? Dumbing it down and making it less edgy? More risque things like drug use and groin shots are far less acceptable by today’s paranoid and ignorant public than just simple blood and gore, right? Taking the easy path again. So will we be seeing drugs, alcohol, sex, child death, and other destinctively Fallout aspects gone with the groin shot? Time will tell. Perhaps they can get that E rating they’re shooting for by October ‘08.

So overall we have a game that is overemphisizing graphics, changing the traditional gameplay style to their own, failing to comprehend the true Fallout spirit and slapping together what they poorly perceive as Fallout symbols, removing aspects of the original game that made it unique, and generally just pandering to their own wants while neglecting the fans. Congrats Bethesda, I’m sure you’ll love playing your own game. If you have the time, perhaps making a version for us, the fans.