Fallout 3 sucks. There I said it.

piscian18

piscian18

[H]F Junkie
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Jul 26, 2005
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No I'm not trolling, I spent the weekend trying to finish this stupid game and god I can not wait for it to end.

On top of all this I'm gonna be an even bigger asshole and say Stalker:SOC is the exact same game only better in every respect.

*spoilers*

The thing that strikes me as the most frustrating aspect of this game is that you're stuck spending all your time traveling around this big wasteland and for the majority of the game it's shockingly empty and samey. The wasteland all looks the same and the metro is even worse. I mean you will literally see the same square acre repeated ad nauseum across almost the entire map. The metro is the same I'm certain I could show you a picture of the same wrecked train barrier in at least 20 different areas.

Theres maybe 5 enemies in the game and you're going to fight the same super mutant minimum 100,000 times with the same skin.

The perks and skills are meaningless when the only thing you're ever going to put skills into is small guns, science and lockpick. If you don't youre fucking yourself. Worse the shooting feels entirely random even when you have all your points up you'll still miss for no reason.

The story and questing. I'm not sure how to approach this. Maybe its different for everyone but I just never felt like there was any progression and very rarely does anything you do feel like it has an effect on the story. I just wandered around the whole game asking people where my dad was and even finding him was anti-climactic and it doesn't end, you have to do more shit. Thinking back on it the majority of the story is revealed in the last couple hours. You literally learn nothing until you talk to a doctor and find all your dads journals in 1 spot at the end of the game minutes before you meet him.

Too often getting from point A to B feels artificially lengthened. I'm tired and not because "war never changes" but because I'm tired of walking around in samey brown areas and just want this to be over with. At least 5 times I was directed to go somewhere simple but instead I have "find a way around" and it was never a secret passage it was always just the long way around a mountain or some rubble.

I know I'm supposed to forgive this game because it came out 6 years ago, but Stalker came out 8 years ago. Stalker didn't have levels that I can recall. Everything about you and your story was built around exploring "the zone" which looks amazing, god forbid you enable the conversion mod that introduces "Zone storms". Shooting felt good, FPS like. All your skills came from caches of crazy shit you were constantly rewarded with for doing quests or exploring crazy dungeon like fallout shelters. The story and concept were so amazing and off the rails. Fallout 3 it's just kind of "wasteland, raiders, dad, water thing."

Speaking of better, is it just me or were Dialog trees and character interaction more interesting and better in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines?(thats 2004 btw) Theres got to be someone involved from that Dev team because the trees look almost identical but boring. More often than not theres nothing personal in the Dialog trees, am I talking to a person or logged into a terminal? I can't tell.

After everything I'd heard I was really expecting to be blown away and engrossed in the story or the environment, but mostly I just found the residents annoying and story lackluster.

The reason I'm bringing up all these points is that after this for Backlog reasons obviously, I have to move on to Fallout: New Vegas.

Are there major differences this time around? A more Linearly progressive story? Characters? More things to look at than the same goddamn tunnel with the goddamn ghoul for 10 hours? More unique weapons would be a plus. Now I got frustrated with exploration turning up nothing but the same can goods, but the only unique weapon Ive found is Lincolns repeater.

I hate writing off games, if feels like cheating myself, but I am not going through this again with Fallout:Vegas and Fallout 4. I'm hoping someone's gonna tell me they're better games and not just graphically, anyone who knows me around here knows I still play goddamn Wizardry 8. I could give a fuck about graphics if the story is good.

Fallout 3 does not get a score. Fuck this game.

*I'm aware Stalker was broken on launch, I only consider Stalker:Complete to be the definitive game. Fallout 3 was also played with gameplay fix and graphical enhancement mods*
 
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I'd say New Vegas is definitely an improvement-wise over Fallout 3 in terms of story and gameplay. It's much more faction-based and your companions are definitely more interesting. Those radioactive wasps suck, though, I hates them.

I thought Fallout 3 was decent (for its time) and mods only made that game better. Not sure how I'd feel about it if I were to play it for the first time as the open world genre has improved tremendously since its release.
 
The gameplay in New Vegas is effectively the same, the story and environment are a little more interesting - but still within the same realm. Given your response to FO:3 you should probably avoid.

Fallout 4 is going to hit a lot of the same notes. Like most Bethesda games the main plot isn't particularly interesting, but there are usually a lot of fun sidequests. The skill system is completely reworked (skills are gone, just perks every level with many more to choose from based on SPECIAL). The atmosphere is still grim, but more dynamic - less all brown (although there is still lots of dead vegetation and general rust/debris). It's not a beautiful game, but it does have a more definite art style this go round.

You'll still want to look over the full perk chart before building your character, as non gun dominant play-styles are entirely possible but you'll need to allocate your SPECIAL points accordingly (there is one perk for each attribute at every rating from 1-10, some have multiple tiers).

The dialog trees are now 'Mass Effect' style, where you chose the gist but don't see the full text (your character has voice now).

Mostly the enemy types are the same as previous fallouts, there is a little more variety and legendaries as well. They've all be upgraded from a gameplay mechanic... the ghouls are now like 28 days later zombies, they'll crawl out from under cars and run up on you (often from behind), or ambush you through a hole in a ceiling. But you'll still be encountering lots of raiders, lots of rad-things....etc.
 
Shantarr.Dalrae said:
...what year is it!?
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Right? I thought for sure that was a type-o and he was talking about FO4.

I do agree though. Didn't care for FO3 that much. I endured it 'till the end as quickly as I could, got a really crappy ending and didn't care enough to replay and get a better ending.

I've tried starting New Vegas a couple times and just couldn't get into it at all. And these days the graphics just look so outdated, I couldn't go back and play it after finishing Witcher 3, etc. I'm too spoiled by modern graphics.

I think it's just the mundane setting of the world of the new Fallout games. I'm used to open world games with tons of stuff to do. Unlike Elder Scrolls games where there's tons of really interesting terrain and a village every quarter mile with new people to meet, fallout just feels like one big desert with nothing to see and nothing to do.

And to top it off, I think movement speed is a stat you have to level over the course of the game, and you start off walking really slow. So I'm going to start this game just crawling across a desert at a snails pace trying to get to the next objective. I just couldn't bring myself to stick with it.

I also don't like the shooting mechanics either - don't remember what it's called but I couldn't stand that system where you pause, pick what you're going to shoot, then it does everything automatically. Just felt really weird. Thanks, but I'll just stick to other open world shooters that are actually fun to play.
 
Different strokes for different folks ... put me in the camp of the few who liked FO3 ... I actually thought the story with the father was good (especially the original ending before they changed it in the BoS DLC) ... I enjoyed many of the side quests and had somewhere over 100 hours into the game scouring the wasteland for loot ... I enjoyed the Karma interactions in the game and loved the Dogmeat companion ... I would agree with the repetitive nature of the subway locations (but that is common in the dungeon settings of most Bethesda games) ... I think this highlights why it is hard to find accurate reviews (one man's feast is another man's famine ... not because of any malicious or unethical process but because people like different stuff sometimes)
 
I stopped reading when the OP said STALKER:SOC and FO3 were basically the same game .... just saying.
 
Fallout after Brian Fargo and Interplay is just miserable. FO3 upon launch should have legitimately never been called a Fallout title. Really the IP is being wasted on developers that don't truly know what made Fallout, Fallout; why it was charming or interesting.

To this day, I still tell people that the best RPGs ever made on any platform is Fallout 1 and 2. Which I think really shows and expresses my disappointment in Fallout from 3 up to the current 'iteration'.
 
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I really enjoyed Stalker SoC.

It was something new, even though it was just another FPS. A whole new story and good story with some light elements of rpg (ok, not really), but more depth than a regular FPS.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
Fallout after Brian Fargo and Interplay is just miserable. FO3 upon launch should have legitimately never been called a Fallout title. Really the IP is being wasted on developers that don't truly what made Fallout, Fallout; why it was charming or interesting.

To this day, I still tell people that the best RPGs ever made on any platform is Fallout 1 and 2. Which I think really shows and expresses my disappointment in Fallout from 3 up to the current 'iteration'.
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I forgot to note this but brought it up offline, I was thinking I'm crazy but I recall Fallout being pretty ridiculous sort of that Dead Rising humor slant where everything is a bit off. A lot of tongue in cheek. Moira in the beginning of the game has some charm but other than that none of the characters in Fallout 3 seem to have particularly unique or funny traits. They're almost all interchangeable. I think after I finish this tonight I'm gonna go start Wasteland 2, maybe that will cheer me up.
 
Shantarr.Dalrae said:
...what year is it!?
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I will admit I installed FO3 for the first time in a long time and it really did not age well.

First and most important the gun play is way to random, after experiencing New Vegas, and now even more so in FO4 its more apparent then ever how bad it is. Really it never bothered me back when I first started playing but then I played through as a melee character.

The map overall and the art assets are not the best, but then again this game is like 5 years old so we can forgive that.

The story was okay, nothing amazing but nothing terrible.

The biggest issue I have with FO3 is I can't get it to run for more than about 45 minutes without it crashing do desktop.

Does Fallout 3 suck? No.

If Fallout 3 were released today would it suck? Yes.
 
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I enjoyed the game. The map was rather varied. The city, the multitude of overpasses to the upper left of the map, some interesting locations and whatnot. A lot of the side quests were good. The combat did suck. The perks (skills?) were interesting, such as the Mysterious Wandered guy who helped you in VATS. Some areas were truthfully boring. The overall story was decent.

DLCs were hit or miss. Operation Anchorage focused purely on the garbage combat so it was dull, and Mothership Zeta got old quickly. The other DLCs were nice though. I am trying to finish off FO: NV DLC and explore some other areas but after roughly 200 hours between FO3/NV it is getting extremely old.

It was not a perfect game, but I did enjoy both FO3/NV overall. I also like the STALKER series but they are rather different. I sincerely wish a new, more polished STALKER title would come out.
 
NickJames said:
Well they kind of are.
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Yeah, no.

I played Fallout 3 from launch day until God decided to fry my 4400+ rig in a lightning storm about a month later.... It was far from perfect but after having just finished Oblivion, it certainly scratched an itch.

The massive sewer systems sucked but the general physical world (imo) was much more interesting than New Vegas.

I'd definitely say the ORIGINAL Fallout is the still the best.
 
I'm probably the only person in the world to think the Stalker series sucks. I had to force myself to play through the first one and the second I made it about 30 minutes and said fuck this shit.

Between fo3 and NV I have over 500 hours in.
 
I think most people complaint's about Fallout 4 fall into 2 categories- 1) it's too similar to Fallout 3 and feels almost like an expansion (fallout 3.5) 2) the graphics aren't all that amazing for a 2015 game...both are valid in a way but to say the game 'sucks' because of it is over-stating things

EDIT: I see the op is referring to Fallout 3 and not Fallout 4...oops
 
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piscian18 said:
I forgot to note this but brought it up offline, I was thinking I'm crazy but I recall Fallout being pretty ridiculous sort of that Dead Rising humor slant where everything is a bit off. A lot of tongue in cheek. Moira in the beginning of the game has some charm but other than that none of the characters in Fallout 3 seem to have particularly unique or funny traits. They're almost all interchangeable. I think after I finish this tonight I'm gonna go start Wasteland 2, maybe that will cheer me up.
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Well if it makes you feel any better, I'm with you. But I knew upon launch that Fo3 wasn't going to be a true Fallout game. It's first person for goodness-sakes. They completely removed the tactical and strategic element of the game making the RPG elements take a back seat.

The issue with Fallout is that unlike so many other IPs there are so many defining characteristics that are linked together. Breaking any of them dilutes the "formula."

Retro-futurism. Post Apocalyptic. Turn based strategy. Full RPG backend. Lasting consequences. Weird sense of humor. Pop culture references. Anachronisms.
 
i hated FO3 and NV, but I love FO4. Couldnt even tell you why the change.
 
I agree with the OP and I'll take it a step further. I can't stand any of the Fallout games. I don't even like any of the Bethesda style games at all. The only ones even like them I've ever really enjoyed were the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games.
 
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*sigh....

Now I'm thinking about Stalker....

Reinstalling Call of Pripyat :cool:

(never gave CoP a fair shake after SoC & Clear Sky, even though I've heard CoP is the best in the series)
 
nvgrim said:
Other than being open world FPS's....not really.
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Post apocalyptic survival FPS RPG with open world elements. Fallout 3 was broken up into a few zones. STALKER SHOC had about 10 major zones. Both had interactive NPCs which gave you quests, you could kill the main story NPC if you wanted. In essence they're very similar games.

horrorshow said:
Yeah, no.

I played Fallout 3 from launch day until God decided to fry my 4400+ rig in a lightning storm about a month later.... It was far from perfect but after having just finished Oblivion, it certainly scratched an itch.

The massive sewer systems sucked but the general physical world (imo) was much more interesting than New Vegas.

I'd definitely say the ORIGINAL Fallout is the still the best.
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What does that have to do with the games being similar? I loved both Fallout 3 and STALKER.
 
I liked sporting around megaton in the naughty nightwear


ooh, and bittercup
 
horrorshow said:
*sigh....

Now I'm thinking about Stalker....

Reinstalling Call of Pripyat :cool:

(never gave CoP a fair shake after SoC & Clear Sky, even though I've heard CoP is the best in the series)
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Nah, SoC is the best. Clear Sky is the first half of a game that could have been great but the entire second half is missing which is a real shame. CoP is good; it's an epilogue to the epic SoC, and worth the time.

Fallout's 1950s American dystopia is so very different from Stalker's 1980s Russian dystopia that I can enjoy both flavors. I just think Stalker brought so much more interesting things to the table. Fallout has nothing like Stalker's anomalies, nothing like the blowouts.
 
The fully updated STALKER Lost Alpha is the experience I'd recommend to anyone who has played SoC Complete for 1000 hours.

FO3 really didn't give me joy, especially when everything looked the same & crappy FPS gameplay failed like trying to walk after being shot with horse tranquilizer. FO:NV gave me a good amount of joy, which lead me to my current good time with FO4.

TL;DR version - STALKER Lost Alpha & FO4 are quite enjoyable IMHO
 
New Vegas is a lot better than FO3. The story has several branches it can take that is morally ambiguous. Your choices actually have an effect on the outcome of the story. Instead of physically locking you out of certain locations with only one path available, the regions of the New Vegas map are more or less sectioned off by the level of the enemies in the area (looking back on it I think they used Cazidores and Deathclaws as virtual walls...). Just overall, the writing and progression of the game is much more satisfying and alive than the dryness of FO3. The gameplay itself is still the same, though, with better gunplay using a spread factor based on skill rather than the chance-to-hit mechanic from FO3.

I say give New Vegas a shot. Just be aware that the game takes awhile to get moving. It wants to introduce you to the various factions in the world at first so you can make the decision on who you want to support.
 
In my opinion the world/environment is vastly improved in 4. Not just graphically, but far more interesting. Like.... A lot more. I got bored with the map in 3 as well but with my 25 hours into 4 so far I've been nothing short of impressed, intrigued and extremely interested in the world the entire time so far.
 
Climber said:
I'm probably the only person in the world to think the Stalker series sucks. I had to force myself to play through the first one and the second I made it about 30 minutes and said fuck this shit.

Between fo3 and NV I have over 500 hours in.
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You're definitely not the only one. I couldn't get past the first 30 minutes of stalker. That game reeked unpolished and alpha. I wanted to love it but it felt like a nineties game stuck inside a 21st century game.

FO3 had many flaws, but the world itself was still interesting enough for me. The environment felt realistic rather than boring. For comparison FO4 seems too jammed, there is too little distance between points of interest. It feels like exploring a model railroad, where everything is cramped in a small space. I wish it had more empty areas in between for the sake of realism. Virtually every landmark is a stone throw away from the last one. It's still a better game in every other aspect, but this really lessens the immersion for me.
 
M76 said:
For comparison FO4 seems too jammed, there is too little distance between points of interest. It feels like exploring a model railroad, where everything is cramped in a small space. I wish it had more empty areas in between for the sake of realism. Virtually every landmark is a stone throw away from the last one. It's still a better game in every other aspect, but this really lessens the immersion for me.
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I have to completely agree with this. From the 8 or so hours I've actually been able to put into the game my most frequent thought has been how there is a camp, a place to loot, or some type of something to check out across every road or over every hill. It just doesn't have the feel of a 200 year old wasteland that scavengers have been subsisting off of and that definitely breaks the immersion for me. I'm definitely enjoying the game but it just seems like everything is jammed into too small of a space.
 
So...I tried playing a FO3 when it came out and frankly never could get into it. I've thought about starting New Vegas as a prelude to see if I should nab 4....would anyone else recommend a better "starting point" for the series? I want to believe it's a lot of fun given the number of people who love it, but maybe it would be different if I'd picked up on it earlier.
 
Oldie said:
So...I tried playing a FO3 when it came out and frankly never could get into it. I've thought about starting New Vegas as a prelude to see if I should nab 4....would anyone else recommend a better "starting point" for the series? I want to believe it's a lot of fun given the number of people who love it, but maybe it would be different if I'd picked up on it earlier.
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Fallout 3 and New Vegas gameplay-wise are very, very similar.

If you didn't like Fallout 3 even enough to "get into it", chances are your experience will be the same with New Vegas....
 
Fallout 3 is one of my favorite games of all time. At first I didn't like it. I found playing it frustrating. Then I went back years later and gave it another try. Once I started using things like vats and fast travel everything started to make sense and I got hooked and couldn't stop playing.
 
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I'm right there with you. I tried Fallout 3 years ago and just couldn't get into it but with FO4's release I tried to play it again last week. I was able to get through quite a bit more if it this time but it's just not that interesting or rewarding. I decided to give FO4 a purchase and so far I've enjoyed it a bit more, but it's still not that great. Playing either of them makes me want to play Skyrim or Oblivion instead but I've put so much time in both of them that I'm reluctant to do so.

It's hard for me to get into any FPS where the gun play feels bad (part of why I also don't enjoy Borderlands). I understand and generally enjoy the roll of the dice RPG game but at the same time I don't enjoy it when I'm shooting a pistol at 10 feet and hit nothing but air.
 
sheesh at least you all can play it. I have it with all the dlc's and it crashes left and right and nothing I have done allows me to play for more than oh 10minutes. Im not using any mods either :(
which is all a shame cause I really enjoyed FO3
 
I only liked Fallout 1. Fallout 2 wasn't as interesting as 1 and I couldn't get into it. Fallout 3 had a great intro but... the writing and storyboard was childish ( Big Town was laughable ).
 
Oldie said:
So...I tried playing a FO3 when it came out and frankly never could get into it. I've thought about starting New Vegas as a prelude to see if I should nab 4....would anyone else recommend a better "starting point" for the series? I want to believe it's a lot of fun given the number of people who love it, but maybe it would be different if I'd picked up on it earlier.
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I think NV is a much better game than FO3. Yes gameplay wise it's almost the same, but they fixed the most ridiculous gameplay problems of FO3 in it. Plus it has a better story, better map to explore, more factions, actually important decisions to make, and just a hell of a lot more immersive, especially with hardcore mode turned on where you have to eat, drink, and sleep regularly otherwise you get stat deductions, and eventually die. It just raises immersion by a mile because you always thinking in the back of your head, that you have to find a safe place to sleep each day. And also do you drink dirty water, or wait until you can get your hands on purified.
 
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